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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Other warfare & defence issues > War crimes
The language of international criminal law has considerable
traction in global politics, and much of its legitimacy is embedded
in apparently 'axiomatic' historical truths. This innovative edited
collection brings together some of the world's leading
international lawyers with a very clear mandate in mind: to
re-evaluate ('retry') the dominant historiographical tradition in
the field of international criminal law. Carefully curated, and
with contributions by leading scholars, The New Histories of
International Criminal Law pursues three research objectives: to
bring to the fore the structure and function of contemporary
histories of international criminal law, to take issue with the
consequences of these histories, and to call for their
demystification. The essays discern several registers on which the
received historiographical tradition must be retried: tropology;
inclusions/exclusions; gender; race; representations of the victim
and the perpetrator; history and memory; ideology and master
narratives; international criminal law and hegemonic theories; and
more. This book intervenes critically in the fields of
international criminal law and international legal history by
bringing in new voices and fresh approaches. Taken as a whole, it
provides a rich account of the dilemmas, conundrums, and
possibilities entailed in writing histories of international
criminal law beyond, against, or in the shadow of the master
narrative.
On August 30, 1999, in a United Nations-sponsored ballot, East
Timor voted for independence from Indonesia and for an end to a
brutal military occupation. Upon the announcement of the result,
Indonesian troops and their paramilitary proxies launched a wave of
terror that, over three weeks, resulted in the murder of more than
1,000 people, the rape of untold numbers of women and girls, the
razing of 70 percent of the country's buildings and infrastructure,
and the forcible deportation of 250,000 people. In recounting these
horrible acts and the preceding events, Joseph Nevins shows that
what took place was only the final scene in more than two decades
of atrocities. More than 200,000 people, about a third of the
population, lost their lives due to Indonesia's 1975 invasion and
subsequent occupation, making the East Timorese case
proportionately one of the worst episodes of genocide since World
War II. In A Not-So-Distant Horror, Nevins reveals the
international complicity at the center of the East Timor tragedy.
In his view, much if not all of the horror that plagued East Timor
in 1999 and in the 24 preceding years could have been avoided had
countries like Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and especially
the United States, not provided Indonesia with valuable political,
economic, and military assistance, as well as diplomatic cover. The
author explores issues of accountability for East Timor's plight
and probes the meaning of what took place in terms of international
institutions and law. Examining issues such as violence, the
geography of memory, and social power, Nevins makes clear that the
case of East Timor has much to tell us about the contemporary world
order.
Barry Oshry has a lifetime's experience of working with social and
organizational systems. Here he explains how we can understand -
and avoid - the "catastrophes" that continue to occur when one
culture meets another - when demagogues sell us messages of
superiority or purity in the face of cultural difference. Algeria
Armenia Bosnia Cambodia Congo Darfur East Timor The Holdomor The
Holocaust Myanmar Palestine Rwanda... He explains how the two
conventional solutions to encountering the "other" - Purity and
Tolerance - both exact a terrible cost on the oppressed while
diminishing the humanity of the oppressors. And he offers us a
third possibility, one that requires a fundamental transformation
in how we see and experience one another. This transformation
requires us to understand that the interaction patterns we fall
into shape the way we see and experience one another. Change the
pattern of interaction and our experiences of one another will
change... The possibility of "Power and Love", working together and
tempering one another, will emerge.
According to the United Nations, Myanmar's Rohingyas are one of the
most persecuted minorities in the world. Only now has the media
turned its attention to their plight at the hands of a country led
by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet the signs of
this genocide have been visible for years. For generations, this
Muslim group has suffered routine discrimination, violence,
arbitrary arrest and detention, extortion, and other abuses by the
Buddhist majority. As horrifying massacres have unfolded in 2017,
international human rights groups have accused the regime of
complicity in an ethnic cleansing campaign against them.
Authorities refuse to recognise the Rohingyas as one of Myanmar's
135 'national races', denying them citizenship rights in the
country of their birth and severely restricting many aspects of
ordinary life, from marriage to free movement. In this updated
edition, Azeem Ibrahim chronicles the events leading up to the
current, final cleansing of the Rohingya population, and issues a
clarion call to protect a vulnerable, little known Muslim minority.
He makes a powerful appeal to use the lessons of the twentieth
century to stop this genocide in the twenty-first.
When Hissene Habre, the deposed dictator of Chad, was found guilty
of crimes against humanity in 2016, it was described as 'a
watershed for human rights justice in Africa and beyond'. For the
first time, an African war criminal had been convicted on African
soil. Having followed the trial from the very beginning and
interviewed many of those involved, journalist Celeste Hicks tells
the remarkable story of how Habre was brought to justice. His
conviction followed a heroic 25 year campaign by activists and
survivors of Habre's atrocities, which succeeded despite
international indifference, opposition from Habre's allies, and
several failed attempts to bring him to trial in Europe and
elsewhere. In the face of such overwhelming odds, the conviction of
a once untouchable tyrant represents a major turning point, with
profound implications for African justice and the future of human
rights activism globally.
A philosophical investigation of dealing with guilt and its impact
on democracy, in the case of Austrian NazisDrawing on the work of
Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, this book illustrates the
relevance and applicability of a political discussion of guilt and
democracy. It appropriates psychoanalytic theory to analyse court
documents of Austrian Nazi perpetrators as well as recent public
controversies surrounding Austria's involvement in the Nazi
atrocities and ponders how the former agents of Hitlerite crimes
and contemporary Austrians have dealt with their guilt. Exposing
the defensive mechanisms that have been used to evade facing
involvement in Nazi atrocities, Leeb considers the possibilities of
breaking the cycle of negative consequences that result from the
inability to deal with guilt. Leeb shows us that only by guilt can
individuals and nations take responsibility for their past crimes,
show solidarity with the victims of crimes, and prevent the
emergence of new crimes.
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