In wartime, presidents are always tempted to expand their authority. But in doing so, they often reach beyond their constitutional mandate.

Although the use of military tribunals can be necessary and even effective in times of war, Louis Fisher contends that these courts present a grave danger to open government and the separation of powers. Citing the constitutional provision vesting Congress with the authority to create tribunals, Fisher addresses the threats posed by the dramatic expansion of presidential power in time of war-and the meek efforts of Congress and the judiciary to curb it.

"Military Tribunals and Presidential Power" is the only book to offer detailed and comprehensive coverage of these extra-legal courts, taking in the sweep of American history from colonial times to today's headlines. Focusing on those periods when the Constitution and civil liberties have been most severely tested by threats to national security, Fisher critiques tribunals called during the presidencies of Washington, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Truman. He also examines other presidential actions that present military justifications to augment political power, such as suspending the writ of habeas corpus, invoking martial law, and using courts-martial to try U.S. citizens.

Fisher also analyzes how the Bush administration relied heavily on precedents set in World War II-notably the Supreme Court's opinion regarding Nazi saboteurs, Ex parte Quirin, a case shown in recent times to have been a rush to judgment. He scrutinizes the much-publicized cases of John Walker Lindh, Yaser Esam Hamdi, Jose Padilla, Zacarias Moussaoui, and the Guantanamo detainees to reveal how the executive branch has gone far beyond the bounds of even Quirin, and he suggests that it is short-sighted to believe that what was only tolerable half a century ago should be accepted as a given today.

Fisher's primary concern is to show that the breadth of presidential power in time of war comes at the cost of legislative and judicial control-and that military tribunals represent a concentration of power in the executive branch that the United States would be quick to condemn in other countries. His book cuts to the bone of today's controversies and sounds an alarm for maintaining the checks and balances we value as a nation.

The Nazi looting machine was notoriously efficient during the Second World War. In the Netherlands, 8.5 million citizens suffered losses estimated at 3.6 billion guilders. Approximately one-third of these losses were borne by Jews, who comprised only 1.6% of the total population. In todays terms, the German occupiers stripped the Jewish population of assets worth $7 billion.Nazi Looting offers a comprehensive history of the Dutch experience and demonstrates how reputable indigenous institutions acted as willing collaborators. Beginning with a survey of international law and various definitions of 'looting', the author shows how the Germans systematically robbed Dutch Jewry through a variety of means that gave the outward appearance of honest trading. Forced to sell under duress and at unreasonably low prices, few dared refuse the German on the doorstep when threatened with prison or incarceration in a camp.The plundering was total and systematic. In May 1940, a team of highly trained art historians, linguists, musicologists and literary experts arrived immediately behind the victorious German troops to catalogue the vast collections for Hitler. From 1941, Jews were compelled to deposit all their money into a bank called Lippmann, Rosenthal Co. The name of the bank itself was a cynical ploy since it was taken from a respected, Jewish-owned Amsterdam bank and presented as a new branch. This bank, however, simply channelled money into the Third Reich with the help of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, insurance brokers and other well-established Dutch banks. Once the Jews were deported, their houses were emptied and the contents used to re-furnish bombed out areas of the Reich. In common with many other formerly Nazi-occupied countries in Europe, the Netherlands has been unable to retrieve many of its pre-war assets. More than fifty years after the wars end, 20% of its most important pre-war museum exhibits and approximately 80% of the less important works remain untrace

'A chilling glimpse into the minds of Hitler's chief lieutenants' 
J. G. Ballard, New Statesman, Books of the Year

How can we ever understand why those in the Third Reich acted the way they did? What could have led them to commit such atrocities in the name of the Führer?

In 1945, as the Nazi regime collapsed, its remaining leaders were imprisoned and interrogated for months before the Nuremberg Trials. In this searing work Richard Overy reveals the original transcripts of these little-known interviews with key Nazis: the brutal and unrepentant Goering, the selective amnesiac Hess, the deliberately evasive Ribbentrop, the courteous Speer and the suicidal Ley. For the first time, they were forced to examine their actions and speak about the unspeakable. The result is an unprecedented and shocking insight into Hitler's henchmen.

Though a generation has passed since the massacre of civilians at My Lai, the legacy of this tragedy continues to reverberate throughout Vietnam and the rest of the world. This engrossing study considers how Vietnamese villagers in My Lai and Ha My - a village where South Korean troops committed an equally appalling, though less well-known, massacre of unarmed civilians - assimilate the catastrophe of these mass deaths into their everyday ritual life. Based on a detailed study of local history and moral practices, "After the Massacre" focuses on the particular context of domestic life in which the Vietnamese villagers interact with their ancestors on one hand and the ghosts of tragic death on the other. Heonik Kwon explains what intimate ritual actions can tell us about the history of mass violence and the global bipolar politics that caused it. He highlights the aesthetics of Vietnamese commemorative rituals and the morality of their practical actions to liberate the spirits from their grievous history of death. The author brings these important practices into a critical dialogue with dominant sociological theories of death and symbolic transformation.

Uncovering the secrets behind the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, this is "a brutal, cautionary tale that serves as a painful reminder of the worst that can happen in war."—Chicago Tribune.

On August 1, 1984, a group of Polish Carmelite nuns, with the approval of both church and government authorities, but apparently without any dialogue with members of the Polish or international Jewish community, moved into a building at the site of Auschwitz I. This establishment of a Roman Catholic convent in what was once a storehouse for the poisonous Zyklon B used in the gas chambers of the Nazi extermination center has sparked intense controversy between Jews and Christians. Memory Offended is as definitive a survey of the Auschwitz convent controversy as could be hoped for. But even more important than its thorough chronological record of events pertinent to the dispute, is the book's use of this particular controversy as a departure for reflection on fundamental issues for Jews and Christians and their relationships with each other. Essays by fourteen distinguished international scholars who represent diverse viewpoints within their Jewish and Christian traditions identify, analyze, and comment on the long-range issues, questions, and implications at the heart of the controversy. A recent interview with the internationally renowned Holocaust authority and survivor, Elie Wiesel, makes an important contribution to the ongoing discussion. The volume merits careful reading by all who seek to learn the lessons this controversy can teach both Christians and Jews.

In their introduction, editors Carol Rittner and John K. Roth define the meaning of the word covenant in both the Jewish and Christian religious traditions. They develop a compelling argument for the notion that the Christian concept of a new covenant between God and humanity, which supposedly superseded JudaisM's old covenant, formed the basis for the centuries-old anti-Jewish contempt that led to Auschwitz--the Nazi death camp where 1.6 million human beings, mostly Jews, were exterminated. The editors contend that the existence of a convent at this site offended memory. The vital issue of what constitutes a fitting Auschwitz memorial is addressed throughout the volume's three major divisions in which important thinkers, including Robert McAfee Brown and Richard L. Rubenstein, among others, investigate The History and Politics of Memory, The Psychology of Memory, and The Theology of Memory. Important tools for researchers are a chronology of events pertinent to the Auschwitz convent controversy, 1933-1990 and an appendix that contains many key documents relating to the controversy. Memory Offended will be an important resource in university and public libraries as well as in Holocaust courses, classes on Jewish Studies, twentieth-century history, and those that focus on interreligious issues.

Established as one of the main sources for the study of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, this volume provides an article-by-article analysis of the Statute; the detailed analysis draws upon relevant case law from the Court itself, as well as from other international and national criminal tribunals, academic commentary, and related instruments such as the Elements of Crimes, the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and the Relationship Agreement with the United Nations. Each of the 128 articles is accompanied by an overview of the drafting history as well as a bibliography of academic literature relevant to the provision. Written by a single author, the Commentary avoids duplication and inconsistency, providing a comprehensive presentation to assist those who must understand, interpret, and apply the complex provisions of the Rome Statute.This volume has been well-received in the academic community and has become a trusted reference for those who work at the Court, even judges. The fully updated second edition of The International Criminal Court incorporates new developments in the law, including discussions of recent judicial activity and the amendments to the Rome Statute adopted at the Kampala conference.

La condamnation du Hissein Habre pour crimes contre l'humanite a ete decrite comme "un tournant pour la justice des droits humains en Afrique et au-dela". Pour la premiere fois, un criminel de guerre africain etait condamne sur le sol africain. Pour avoir, des le debut, suivi le proces et interroge de nombreuses personnes impliquees, la journaliste Celeste Hicks raconte la remarquable histoire de la maniere dont Habre a ete traduit en justice. Sa condamnation fait suite a une campagne heroique de 25 ans menee par des militants et des survivants des atrocites de Habre qui a abouti, malgre l'indifference internationale, l'opposition des allies de Habre et plusieurs tentatives infructueuses de le traduire en justice en Europe et ailleurs. Face a de telles difficultes, la condamnation d'un dirigeant, autrefois intouchable, represente un tournant majeur, et a de profondes implications pour la justice africaine et l'avenir de l'activisme pour les droits humains dans le monde.

Keenie Meenie Services - the most powerful mercenary company you've never heard of - was involved in war crimes around the world from Sri Lanka to Nicaragua for which its shadowy directors have never been held accountable. Like its mysterious name, Keenie Meenie Services escaped definition and to this day has evaded sanctions. Now explosive new evidence - only recently declassified - exposes the extent of these war crimes, and the British government's tacit support for the company's operations. Including testimonies from SAS veterans, spy chiefs and diplomats, we hear from key figures battle-hardened by the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the Iranian Embassy siege. Investigative journalist Phil Miller asks, who were these mercenaries: heroes, terrorists, freedom fighters or war criminals? This book presents the first ever comprehensive case against Keenie Meenie Services, providing long overdue evidence on the crimes of the people who make a killing from killing.

What is the appropriate political response to mass atrocity? In Hijacked Justice, Jelena Subotic traces the design, implementation, and political outcomes of institutions established to deal with the legacies of violence in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars. She finds that international efforts to establish accountability for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia have been used to pursue very different local political goals.Responding to international pressures, Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia have implemented various mechanisms of "transitional justice"—the systematic addressing of past crimes after conflicts end. Transitional justice in the three countries, however, was guided by ulterior political motives: to get rid of domestic political opponents, to obtain international financial aid, or to gain admission to the European Union. Subotic argues that when transitional justice becomes "hijacked" for such local political strategies, it fosters domestic backlash, deepens political instability, and even creates alternative, politicized versions of history. That war crimes trials (such as those in The Hague) and truth commissions (as in South Africa) are necessary and desirable has become a staple belief among those concerned with reconstructing societies after conflict. States are now expected to deal with their violent legacies in an institutional setting rather than through blanket amnesty or victor's justice. This new expectation, however, has produced paradoxical results. In order to avoid the pitfalls of hijacked justice, Subotic argues, the international community should focus on broader and deeper social transformation of postconflict societies, instead on emphasizing only arrests of war crimes suspects.

Rape is common during wartime, but even within the context of the same war, some armed groups perpetrate rape on a massive scale while others never do. In Rape during Civil War Dara Kay Cohen examines variation in the severity and perpetrators of rape using an original dataset of reported rape during all major civil wars from 1980 to 2012. Cohen also conducted extensive fieldwork, including interviews with perpetrators of wartime rape, in three postconflict counties, finding that rape was widespread in the civil wars of the Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste but was far less common during El Salvador's civil war.Cohen argues that armed groups that recruit their fighters through the random abduction of strangers use rape-and especially gang rape-to create bonds of loyalty and trust between soldiers. The statistical evidence confirms that armed groups that recruit using abduction are more likely to perpetrate rape than are groups that use voluntary methods, even controlling for other confounding factors. Important findings from the fieldwork-across cases-include that rape, even when it occurs on a massive scale, rarely seems to be directly ordered. Instead, former fighters describe participating in rape as a violent socialization practice that served to cut ties with fighters' past lives and to signal their commitment to their new groups. Results from the book lay the groundwork for the systematic analysis of an understudied form of civilian abuse. The book will also be useful to policymakers and organizations seeking to understand and to mitigate the horrors of wartime rape.

Based on exclusive and unrestricted access to more than 5,000 pages of personal writings and family photos, this definitive biography of German physician and SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Josef Mengele (1911-1979) probes the personality and motivations of Auschwitz's "Angel of Death." From May 1943 through January 1945, Mengele selected who would be gassed immediately, who would be worked to death, and who would serve as involuntary guinea pigs for his spurious and ghastly human experiments (twins were Mengele's particular obsession). With authority and insight, Mengele examines the entire life of the world's most infamous doctor.

Why is it that men and boys have been and still are violated in human conflict, be it in conventional war, insurgencies or periods of civil and ethnic strife? Above all, why, throughout history, have victims, perpetrators and society as a whole refused to acknowledge this violation, and why do episodes of male-on-male rape and sexual abuse feature so rarely in accounts of war, be they official histories, eye-witness ac- counts or popular narratives? Is there more to this elision of memory than simply shame? Is there more to it than the victor's desire to violate the enemy body? Amalendu Misra's startlingly original re- search into male sexual violence explores the meaning and role of the male body prior to its abuse and how it is altered by violation in war- time. He examines the bio-political contexts of conflict in which primarily men and occasion- ally women sexually violate men; he details the inadequate legal safeguards for survivors of such events; and in unearthing and analysing an ignored aspect of war, he inquires whether such violence can ever be deterred.

From events at Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II, to the recent trials of Slobodan Milosević and Saddam Hussein, war crimes trials are an increasingly pervasive feature of the aftermath of conflict. In his new book, Law, War and Crime, Gerry Simpson explores the meaning and effect of such trials, and places them in their broader political and cultural contexts. The book traces the development of the war crimes field from its origins in the outlawing of piracy to its contemporary manifestation in the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Simpson argues that the field of war crimes is constituted by a number of tensions between, for example, politics and law; local justice and cosmopolitan reckoning; collective guilt and individual responsibility; and between the instinct that war, at worst, is an error, and the conviction that war is a crime.

Written in the wake of an extraordinary period in the life of the law, the book asks a number of critical questions. What does it mean to talk about war in the language of the criminal law? What are the consequences of seeking to criminalise the conduct of one's enemies? How did this relatively new phenomenon of putting on trial perpetrators of mass atrocity and defeated enemies come into existence? This book seeks to answer these important questions whilst shedding new light on the complex relationship between law, war and crime.

The law relating to fitness to plead is an increasingly important area of the criminal law. While criminalization may be justified whenever an offender commits a sufficiently serious moral wrong requiring that he or she be called to account, the doctrine of fitness to plead calls this principle into question in the case of a person who lacks the capacity or ability to participate meaningfully in a criminal trial. In light of the emerging focus on capacity-based approaches to decision-making and the international human rights requirement that the law should treat defendants fairly, this volume offers a benchmark for the theory and practice of fitness to plead, providing readers with a unique opportunity to consider differing perspectives and debate on the future development and direction of a doctrine which has up till now been under-discussed and under-researched. The fitness to plead rules stand as an exception to notions of public accountability for criminal wrongdoing yet, despite the doctrine's long-standing function in criminal procedure, it has proven complex to apply in practice and has given rise to many varied legislative models and considerable litigation in different jurisdictions. Particularly troublesome is the question of what is to be done with someone who has been found unfit to stand trial. Here the law is required to balance the need to protect those defendants who are unable to participate effectively in their own trial, whether permanently or for a defined period, and the need to protect the public from people who may have caused serious social harm as a result of their antisocial behaviour. The challenge for law reformers, legislators, and judges, is to create rules that ensure that everyone who can properly be tried is tried, while seeking to preserve confidence in the fairness of the legal system by ensuring that people who cannot properly engage in the criminal trial process are not forced to endure it.

The four Geneva Conventions, adopted in 1949, remain the fundamental basis of contemporary international humanitarian law. They protect the wounded and sick on the battlefield, those wounded, sick or shipwrecked at sea, prisoners of war, and civilians in time of war. However, since they were adopted warfare has changed considerably. In this groundbreaking commentary over sixty international law experts investigate the application of the Geneva Conventions and explain how they should be interpreted today. It places the Conventions in the light of the developing obligations imposed by international law on states, armed groups, and individuals, most notably through international human rights law and international criminal law. The context in which the Conventions are to be applied and interpreted has changed considerably since they were first written. The borderline between international and non-international armed conflicts is not as clear-cut as was once thought, and is complicated further by the use of armed force mandated by the United Nations and the complex mixed and transnational nature of certain non-international armed conflicts. The influence of other developing branches of international law, such as human rights law and refugee law has been considerable. The development of international criminal law has breathed new life into multiple provisions of the Geneva Conventions. This commentary adopts a thematic approach to provide detailed analysis of each key issue dealt with by the Conventions, taking into account both judicial decisions and state practice. Cross-cutting chapters on issues such as transnational conflicts and the geographical scope of the Conventions also give readers a full understanding of the meaning of the Geneva Conventions in their contemporary context. Prepared under the auspices of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, this commentary on four of the most important treaties in international law is unmissable for anyone working in or studying situations of armed conflicts.

Africa has been at the forefront of contemporary global efforts towards ensuring greater accountability for international crimes. But the continent's early embrace of international criminal justice seems to be taking a new turn with the recent resistance from some African states claiming that the emerging system of international criminal law represents a new form of imperialism masquerading as international rule of law. This book analyses the relationship and tensions between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Africa. It traces the origins of the confrontation between African governments, both acting individually and within the framework of the African Union, and the permanent Hague-based ICC. Leading commentators offer valuable insights on the core legal and political issues that have confused the relationship between the two sides and expose the uneasy interaction between international law and international politics. They offer suggestions on how best to continue the fight against impunity, using national, ICC, and regional justice mechanisms, while taking into principled account the views and interests of African States.

Global Predator is a damning account of the atrocities committed by invading US armed forces, from the 1846 war on Mexico to the recent wars on Iraq. In between are chapters on the Spanish and Philippines War, the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam, plus appendices on other incursions. As he marshals the facts for a contrarian view of US history, author Stewart Halsey Ross is angered by a persistent pattern of brutality, jingoism and hypocrisy he finds behind America's mask of "Manifest Destiny" - yet he notes the great reluctance of the American people to enter into five of these eight wars. Ross (d. 2010) was an expert on military affairs. His earlier book published by Progressive Press, Propaganda for War, tells how Woodrow Wilson and the British twisted the truth to get the US into the Great War.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of women become victims of sexual violence in conflict zones around the world; in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, approximately 1,100 rapes are reported each month. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the causes, consequences and responses to sexual violence in contemporary armed conflict. It explores the function and effect of wartime sexual violence and examines the conditions that make women and girls most vulnerable to these acts both before, during and after conflict. To understand the motivations of the men (and occasionally women) who perpetrate this violence, the book analyzes the role played by systemic and situational factors such as patriarchy and militarized masculinity. Difficult questions of accountability are tackled; in particular, the case of child soldiers, who often suffer a double victimization when forced to commit sexual atrocities. The book concludes by looking at strategies of prevention and protection as well as new programs being set up on the ground to support the rehabilitation of survivors and their communities. Sexual violence in war has long been a taboo subject but, as this book shows, new and courageous steps are at last being taken o at both local and international level - to end what has been called the "greatest silence in history."

Is there a point to international justice? Many contend that tribunals deliver not only justice but truth, reconciliation, peace, democratization, and the rule of law. These are the transitional justice ideals frequently invoked in relation to the international hybrid tribunal in Cambodia that is trying senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime for genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the mid-to-late 1970s. In this ground-breaking book, Alexander Hinton argues these claims are a facade masking what is most critical: the ways in which transitional justice is translated, experienced, and understood in everyday life. Rather than reading the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in the language of global justice and human rights, survivors understand the proceedings in their own terms, including Buddhist beliefs and on-going relationships with the spirits of the dead.

As the initial US observer, David Rawson participated in the 1993 Rwandan peace talks at Arusha, Tanzania. Later, he served as US ambassador to Rwanda during the last months of the doomed effort to make them hold. Despite the intervention of concerned states in establishing a peace process and the presence of an international mission, UNAMIR, the promise of the Arusha Peace Accords could not be realized. Instead, the downing of Rwandan president Habyarimana's plane in April 1994 rekindled the civil war and opened the door to genocide. In Prelude to Genocide, Rawson draws on declassified documents and his own experiences to seek out what went wrong. How did the course of political negotiations in Arusha and party wrangling in Kigali, Rwanda, bring to naught a concentrated international effort to establish peace? And what lessons are there for other international humanitarian interventions? The result is a commanding blend of diplomatic history and analysis that is a milestone read on the Rwandan crisis and on what happens when conflict resolution and diplomacy fall short. Published in partnership with the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series.

The Right to a Fair Trial in International Lawbrings together the diverse sources of international law that define the right to a fair trial in the context of criminal (as opposed to civil, administrative or other) proceedings. The book provides a comprehensive explanation of what the right to a fair trial means in practice under international law and focuses on factual scenarios that practitioners and judges may face in court. Each of the book's fourteen chapters examines a component of the right to a fair trial as defined in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and reviews the case law of regional human rights courts, international criminal courts as well as UN human rights bodies. Highlighting both consensus and divisions in the international jurisprudence in this area, this book provides an invaluable resource to practitioners and scholars dealing with breaches of one of the most fundamental human rights.

This book is an outstanding document and account of the International Military Tribunal that took place in Tokyo at the end of World War Two. As in the Nuremberg Trial, the leaders of Japan were accused of crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes.

The war that broke out in the former Yugoslavia at the end of the twentieth century saw unspeakable acts of violence committed against defenceless civilians, including a macabre night of mass murder at Ovcara pig farm in 1991. An international tribunal was set up to try the perpetrators of crimes such as these, and one of the accused was Slavko Dokmanovic, who at the time was the mayor of the local town. Vladimir Dzuro, a criminal detective from Prague, was one of the investigators charged with finding out what happened leading up to and during that horrific night. The story Dzuro presents here, drawn from his daily notes, is hard reading. The incidents are not for the fainthearted. It was a time of torture, random killings and innocent people who had gone missing. But as a detective, it wasn't his job to pass judgment but rather to establish the facts and find those responsible. He provides a gripping account of how he and a handful of other investigators picked up the barest of leads, which eventually led them to locate the gravesite and exhume the bodies. They were even able to track down Dokmanovic, only to find that getting a hold of him was a different story altogether. The politics that led to the war hindered justice once the war was over. But Dzuro and his colleagues had a plan. Without any thoughts of risk to their own personal safety, they were determined to bring Dokmanovic to justice. They knew if they could pull it off, it would only be a matter of time before other accused war criminals were hauled into court as well. The Investigator reads like a thriller and was an instant best seller in the Czech Republic. Now in its second edition, the book was nominated for the Czech national literary prize Magnezia Literia 2018. Translated into English for the first time, this story reveals to the English speaking world the horrors of the Yugoslavic Wars and chronicles a team of brave investigators who stopped at nothing to bring those who were responsible to justice. More information about the author can be found at: https://warcrimeinvestigator.com