![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Other warfare & defence issues > War crimes > General
From 1991 to 1999, Slobodan Milosevic launched and ultimately lost four Balkan wars, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions. He saw himself as a modern day Abe Lincoln, employing force in a valiant effort to hold his crumbling Yugoslavia together. But the ruthless Serb leader's tactics included systematic war crimes and ethnic cleansing, ultimately prompting the U. S. and its NATO allies to launch a controversial military intervention in the spring of 1999 to halt the bloodshed.Now Milosevic is on trial in The Hague before the United Nations-created International War Crimes Tribunal. He is the first former head of state ever to face international justice. The televised trial of Slobodan Milosevic is expected to last for two years and could well prove to be the most watched criminal proceedings since the trial of O. J. Simpson.There is much the public will want to know about this historic and complex trial. Written in a lively, journalistic style by two of the leading experts on the International War Crimes Tribunal, Slobodan Milosevic on Trial: A Companion is designed to inform the reader about what to watch for, who the players are, what the rules are, who has won in the past, and who is likely to win this time. Complete with maps, photos, and a glossary of legal terms, this comprehensive guide to the Milosevic trial will help the public understand the important and complex proceedings taking place in The Hague.
This scholarly legal work focuses on the dilemma of prosecuting gender-based crimes under the statutes of the international criminal tribunals with reference to the principle of fair labelling. In this book Hilmi M. Zawati explains how the abstractness and lack of accurate description of gender-based crimes in the statutory laws of the international criminal tribunals and courts infringe the principle of fair labelling, lead to inconsistent verdicts and punishments, and cause inadequate prosecution of these crimes. This inquiry deals with gender-based crimes as a case study, within the legal principle and theoretical framework of fair labelling. Critical and timely, this study contributes to existing scholarship in many different ways. It is the first legal analysis to focus on the dilemma of prosecuting and punishing wartime gender-based crimes in the statutory laws of the international criminal tribunals and the ICC in the context of fair labelling. Moreover, it emphasizes that applying fair labelling to wartime gender-based crimes would enable the tribunals and the ICC to deliver fair judgments, eliminate inconsistent prosecution, overcome shortcomings in addressing gender-based crimes within their jurisprudence, while breaking the cycle of impunity for these crimes. Consisting of two parts, this work begins by outlining the central focus and theoretical legal framework of the study. It concentrates on fair labelling as an imperative legal principle and a legal framework, and examines its intellectual development, scope and justification, illustrating its applicability to gender-based crimes. The second part addresses the dilemma of prosecuting gender-based crimes in the international criminal tribunals.
What do we know about war crimes and justice? What are the discursive practices through which the dominant images of war crimes, atrocity and justice are understood? In this wide ranging text, Michael J. Shapiro contrasts the justice-related imagery of the war crimes trial (for example the solitary, headphone-wearing defendant at the Hague listening with intent to a catalogue of charges) with ?literary justice?: representations in literature, film, and biographical testimony, raising questions about atrocities and justice that juridical proceedings exclude. By engaging with the ambiguities exposed by the artistic and experiential genres, reading them alongside policy and archival documentation and critical theoretical discourses, Shapiro?s War Crimes, Atrocity, and Justice challenges traditional notions of ?responsibility? in juridical settings. His comparative readings instead encourage a focus on the conditions of possibility for war crimes as they arise from the actions of states, non-state agencies and individuals involved in arms trading, peace keeping, sex trafficking, and law enforcement and adjudication. Theory springs to life as Shapiro draws on examples from legal discourse, literature, media, film, and television, to build a nuanced picture of politics and the problem of justice. It will be of great interest to students of film and media, literature, cultural studies, contemporary philosophy and political science
This book celebrates the scholarship of Richard Baxter, former Judge of the International Court of Justice and former Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School. The volume brings together Professor Baxter's writings on the laws of war, on which he was one of the most influential scholars of the twentieth century. The collection of essays contained in this book once again makes his exceptional writings available to scholars and students in the field. His work remains timely and relevant to today's issues, and offers many analyses which have been borne out in subsequent years. It includes, amongst many wide-ranging topics within the laws of war, Baxter's studies of the Geneva Conventions, human rights in times of war, and the legal problems of international military command. Featuring a new introduction by Professor Detlev Vagts exploring the importance of Baxter's writings, and a Biographical Note by Judge Stephen Schwebel assessing Baxter's life, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of international humanitarian law.
The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the survivors of the Holocaust contended with life after the darkest night in Jewish history. They include the Earl Harrison mission and significant report, the effort to keep Europe's borders open to refugee infiltration, the murder of the first Jew in Germany after V-E Day and its aftermath, and the iconic sculptures of Nathan Rapoport and Poland's landscape of Holocaust memory up to the present day. Joining extensive archival research and a limpid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.
The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the survivors of the Holocaust contended with life after the darkest night in Jewish history. They include the Earl Harrison mission and significant report, the effort to keep Europe's borders open to refugee infiltration, the murder of the first Jew in Germany after V-E Day and its aftermath, and the iconic sculptures of Nathan Rapoport and Poland's landscape of Holocaust memory up to the present day. Joining extensive archival research and a limpid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.
This book provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of the
twelve war crimes trials held in the American zone of occupation
between 1946 and 1949, collectively known as the Nuremberg Military
Tribunals (NMTs). The judgments the NMTs produced have played a
critical role in the development of international criminal law,
particularly in terms of how courts currently understand war
crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. The
trials are also of tremendous historical importance, because they
provide a far more comprehensive picture of Nazi atrocities than
their more famous predecessor, the International Military Tribunal
at Nuremberg (IMT). The IMT focused exclusively on the 'major war
criminals'-the Goerings, the Hesses, the Speers. The NMTs, by
contrast, prosecuted doctors, lawyers, judges, industrialists,
bankers-the private citizens and lower-level functionaries whose
willingness to take part in the destruction of millions of
innocents manifested what Hannah Arendt famously called 'the
banality of evil'.
Most cultural and legal codes agree that the intentional killing of civilians, whether in peacetime or war, is prohibited. This is the norm of civilian immunity, widely considered to be a fundamental moral and legal principle. Yet despite this fact, the deliberate killing of large numbers of civilians remains a persistent feature of global political life. What is more, the perpetrators have often avoided criticism and punishment. Examining dozens of episodes of mass killing perpetrated by states since the French Revolution late eighteenth century, this book attempts to explain this paradox. It studies the role that civilian immunity has played in shaping the behaviour of perpetrators and how international society has responded to mass killing. The book argues that although the world has made impressive progress in legislating against the intentional killing of civilians and in constructing institutions to give meaning to that prohibition, the norm's history in practice suggests that the ascendancy of civilian immunity is both more recent and more fragile than might otherwise be thought. In practice, decisions to violate a norm are shaped by factors relating to the norm and the situation at hand, so too is the manner in which international society and individual states respond to norm violations. Responses to norm violations are not simply matters of normative obligation or calculations of self-interest but are instead guided by a combination of these logics as well as perceptions about the situation at hand, existing relations with the actors involved, and power relations between actors holding different accounts of the situation. Thus, whilst civilian immunity has for the time being prevailed over 'anti-civilian ideologies' which seek to justify mass killing, it remains challenged by these ideologies and its implementation shaped by individual circumstances. As a result, whilst it has become much more difficult for states to get away with mass murder, it is still not entirely impossible for them to do so.
This book offers a radically new and definitive reappraisal of
Allied responses to Nazi human experiments and the origins of
informed consent. It places the victims and Allied medical
intelligence officers at center stage, while providing a full
reconstruction of policies on war crimes and trials related to Nazi
medical atrocities and genocide. The analysis of the Medical Trial
considers the prosecution, defense, judges and observers to present
a rounded picture of the court and its context, and the aftermath
in terms of Cold War politics, compensation and research
ethics.
Providing a novel multi-disciplinary theorization of memory politics, this insightful Handbook brings varied literatures into a focused dialogue on the ways in which the past is remembered and how these influence transnational, interstate, and global politics in the present. With case studies from Africa, East and Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States, the Handbook focuses on the political features of historical memory in international relations. Chapters examine key concepts of memory politics, including accountability, commemoration and memorialization, the Europeanization of memory, and the politics of trauma and victimhood, as well as analyzing different sites of memory, from the human body and memorial sites to media, film, and television. It also answers essential questions such as who and what determines the relevance of the past in the present; how does memory become a political question; and what are the political effects and ethical implications of its mobilization? Exploring the links between the politics of memory, international ethics, law, and diplomacy, this stimulating Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of politics and international relations, cultural studies, history, and transitional justice. Its discussion of notable agents and practices of memory politics will also be beneficial for practitioners working in human rights, politics, and public policy.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) was established in 1993 and is due to complete its trials by
2011. Easily the most credible and prodigious of the international
tribunals established in this period, the ICTY is by far the most
important source of case law on international criminal law. This is
reflected in the citations it receives by other courts and by
learned commentators. Long after its dissolution, the ICTY will
most likely serve as an important frame of reference for the
International Criminal Court and other courts dealing with
international crimes, including national courts.
Written by Chinese Jurist Mei Ju-ao, this significant book considers both the process and the impact of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, otherwise known as the Tokyo Trial, which was convened in 1946 to try political military leaders accused of involvement in war crimes. Offering valuable research material on the establishment of the tribunal, it examines the background to the establishment of the International Military Tribunal and the lessons learned from earlier trials of World War One War Criminals. Written from the perspective of a Chinese prosecutor who was both jurist and witness, this unique text engages with the Tokyo Trial from an interdisciplinary perspective bringing in both international law and international relations, measuring over 7 decades later the significance and ongoing legacy of the Tokyo Trial for contemporary international criminal justice in Asia and beyond..
As the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia
and Rwanda enter the final phase of their work, it is an
appropriate time to reflect on the significant contribution that
these unique institutions have made to the development of
international criminal law. Judgments issued by the ad hoc
Tribunals have served to clarify and elucidate key concepts and
principles of international criminal law. On several occasions,
this practice and jurisprudence has pushed the progressive
development of this dynamic and growing branch of international
law.
War crimes have devastating effects on victims and perpetrators and endanger broader political and military goals. The protection of civilians, one of the most fundamental norms in the laws of war, appears to have weakened despite almost universal international agreement. Using insights from organizational theory, this book seeks to understand the process between military socialization and unit participation in war crimes. How do militaries train their soldiers in the laws of war? How do they enforce compliance with these laws? Drawing on evidence from the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency, and the Canadian peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the author discovers that military efforts to train soldiers about the laws of war are poor and leadership often sent mixed signals about the importance of compliance. However, units that developed subcultures that embraced these laws and had strong leadership were more likely to comply than those with weak discipline or countercultural norms.
This book brings a new focus to the ongoing debate on holding perpetrators of massive humanitarian and human rights violations accountable in countries in transition. It provides a clear-cut and comprehensive legal analysis of the content and nature of a state's obligations to investigate and prosecute as enshrined in the most important humanitarian and human rights treaties; it disentangles the common fallacy that these procedural obligations are naturally rooted and clearly spelled out in the general human rights treaties; and it explains the flaws in an absolutist interpretation. This analysis serves to understand whether such procedural obligations, if narrowly construed, act as impediments to countries emerging from periods of conflict or systematic repression in the face of contingent circumstances and the formidable dilemmas raised by a univocal understanding of justice as retribution. Exploring the latest instances of interpretation and application via an analysis of state practice, the jurisprudence of treaty bodies, international courts and tribunals, soft law instruments, and doctrinal contributions, the book also addresses the complex issue of amnesty, and other transitional justice mechanisms designed to restore peace and facilitate transition traditionally included in national reconciliation programs, and criticizes the contention that amnesty is always prohibited by international law. It also considers these problems from the viewpoint of the International Criminal Court, focusing on the cases of Uganda and Colombia after the 2016 peace agreement. Lastly, the volume offers a detailed analysis of techniques that may neutralize relevant obligations under international law, such as denunciation, derogation, limitation, and the public international law defenses of force majeure and necessity. Drawing attention to the importance of a multidisciplinary and practical approach to these unsettling questions, and endorsing a pluralistic notion of accountability, the book will appeal to legal scholars and transitional justice experts as well as practitioners, human rights advocates, and government officials. Dr Jacopo Roberti di Sarsina is an International Law Expert at the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna School of Law, and a dual-qualified lawyer (Italy and New York). He completed a PhD in public international law, label Doctor Europaeus, at the School of International Studies, University of Trento, holds an LLM from NYU School of Law, and read law at the University of Bologna.
Never before has such damning evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity been revealed in the midst of a conflict. As civil war raged in Syria, we owe the disclosure of this evidence to one man. He goes under the codename of Caesar. This military police photographer was required to document the murder and torture of thousands of Syrian civilians in the custody of the Assad regime. Over the course of two years he used a police computer to copy the photos, and in 2013 he risked his life to smuggle out 53,000 photos and documents that show prisoners tortured, starved and burned to death. In January 2015, in the American magazine Foreign Affairs, President Bashar al-Assad claimed that this military photographer didn't exist. "Who took the pictures? Who is he? Nobody knows. There is no verification of any of this evidence, so it's all allegations without evidence." Caesar exists. The author of this book has spent dozens of hours with him. His testimony is extraordinary, his photos shocking. The uncovering of the workings of the Syrian death machine that underpins his account is a descent into the unspeakable. In 2014 Caesar testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and his testimony provided crucial evidence for a bipartisan bill, the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, that was presented to Congress in 2016. Caesar's photos have also been shown in the United Nations Headquarters in New York and at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. For the first time, this book tells Caesar's story.
*A Telegraph Book of the Year* *Shortlisted for the Parliamentary Book Awards* An astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol. The Russo-Ukrainian War is the most serious geopolitical crisis since the Second World War – and yet at the heart of the conflict is a mystery. Vladimir Putin apparently lurched from a calculating, subtle master of opportunity to a reckless gambler, putting his regime – and Russia itself – at risk of destruction. Why? Drawing on over 25 years’ experience as a correspondent in Moscow, as well as his own family ties to Russia and Ukraine, journalist Owen Matthews takes us through the poisoned historical roots of the conflict, into the Covid bubble where Putin conceived his invasion plans in a fog of paranoia about Western threats, and finally into the inner circle around Ukrainian president and unexpected war hero Volodimir Zelensky. Using the accounts of current and former insiders from the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, the testimony of captured Russian soldiers and on-the-ground reporting from Russia and Ukraine, Overreach tells the story not only of the war’s causes but how the first six months unfolded. With its panoramic view, Overreach is an authoritative, unmissable record of a conflict that shocked Europe to its core.
The Vienna Gestapo headquarters was the largest of its kind in the German Reich and the most important instrument of Nazi terror in Austria, responsible for the persecution of Jews, suppression of resistance and policing of forced labourers. Of the more than fifty thousand people arrested by the Vienna Gestapo, many were subjected to torturous interrogation before being either sent to concentration camps or handed over to the Nazi judiciary for prosecution. This comprehensive survey by three expert historians focuses on these victims of repression and persecution as well as the structure of the Vienna Gestapo and the perpetrators of its crimes.
This book examines expectations for justice in transitional societies and how stakeholder expectations are ignored, marginalized and co-opted by institutions in the wake of conflict. Focusing on institutions that have adopted international criminal trials, the authors encourage us to ask not only whether expectations are appropriate to institutions, but whether institutions are appropriate expectations. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, this volume demonstrates that a profound 'expectation gap' - the gap between anticipated and likely outcomes of justice - exists in transitional justice systems and processes. This 'expectation gap' requires that the justice goals of local communities be managed accordingly. In proposing a perspective of enhanced engagement, the authors argue for greater compromise in the expectations, goals and design of transitional justice. This book will constitute an important and valuable resource for students of scholars of transitional justice as well as practitioners, particularly with regards to the design of transitional justice responses.
Far from the image of an apolitical, "clean" Wehrmacht that persists in popular memory, German soldiers regularly cooperated with organizations like the SS in the abuse and murder of countless individuals during the Second World War. This in-depth study demonstrates that a key factor in the criminalization of the Wehrmacht was the intense political indoctrination imposed on its members. At the instigation of senior leadership, many ordinary German soldiers and officers became ideological warriors who viewed their enemies in racial and political terms-a project that was but one piece of the broader effort to socialize young men during the Nazi era.
A revealing yet accessible examination of the Nuremberg trial, and most crucially all 23 men who stood accused, not just the most infamous-Speer, Hess, and Goering. This account sets the scene by explaining the procedures, the legal context, and the moments of hypocrisy in the Allies' prosecution-ignoring the fact that the Katyn massacre was a Soviet crime and overlooking carpet bombing. Author Andrew Sangster discusses how the word "Holocaust" was not used until long after the trial, probably due to Russian objection as they had lost many more people, and because the Allies generally were not innocent of anti-Semitism themselves, especially Russia and Vichy France. However, the defendants to a person immediately recognised that this was the singular issue which placed them on the steps of the gallows, and their various defences on this charge are therefore crucial to understanding the trial. Sangster also explores how the prisoners related to one another in their approach to defending themselves on the charge of genocide and extermination camps, especially in facing the bully-boy Goering. This new study utilises not only the trial manuscripts, but the pre-trial interrogations, the views of the psychiatrists and psychologists, and the often-overheard conversations between prisoners-who did not know their guards spoke German-to give the fullest exploration of the defendants, their state of mind, and their attitudes towards the Third Reich, Hitler and each other as they faced judgement by the victors of the war.
This book uses in-depth interview data with victims of conflict in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka to offer a new, sociological conceptualization of everyday life peacebuilding. It argues that sociological ideas about the nature of everyday life complement and supplement the concept of everyday life peacebuilding recently theorized within International Relations Studies (IRS). It claims that IRS misunderstands the nature of everyday life by seeing it only as a particular space where mundane, routine and ordinary peacebuilding activities are accomplished. Sociology sees everyday life also as a mode of reasoning. By exploring victims' ways of thinking and understanding, this book argues that we can better locate their accomplishment of peacebuilding as an ordinary activity. The book is based on six years of empirical research in three different conflict zones and reports on a wealth of interview data to support its theoretical arguments. This data serves to give voice to victims who are otherwise neglected and marginalized in peace processes.
Konrad Morgen: The Conscience of a Nazi Judge is a moral biography of Georg Konrad Morgen, who prosecuted crimes committed by members of the SS in Nazi concentration camps and eventually came face-to-face with the system of industrialized murder at Auschwitz. His wartime papers and postwar testimonies yield a study in moral complexity. |
You may like...
Poetic Inquiry For The Human And Social…
Heidi van Rooyen, Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan
Paperback
|