Law War And Crime

From events at Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II, to the recent trials of Slobodan Milošević 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 laws of war have always been concerned with issues of necessity and proportionality, but how are these principles applied in modern warfare? What are the pressures on practitioners where an increasing emphasis on legality is the norm? Where do such boundaries lie in the contexts, means and methods of contemporary war? What is wrong, or right, in the view of military-political practitioners, in how those concepts relate to today's means and methods of war? These are among the issues addressed by James Gow in his compelling analysis of war and war crimes, which draws upon research conducted over many years with defence professionals from all over the world. Today more than ever, military strategy has to embrace justice and law, with both being deemed essential prerequisites for achieving success on the battlefield. And in a context where legitimacy defines success in warfare, but is a fragile and contested concept, no group has a greater interest in responding to these pressures and changes positively than the military. It is they who have the greatest need and desire to foster legitimacy in war by getting the politics-law-strategy nexus right, as well as developing a clear understanding of the relationship between war and war crimes, and calibrating where war becomes a war crime.

ŠThis comprehensive collection addresses an overlooked area: war crimes and the conduct of hostilities. It uplifts aspects that are particularly under-appreciated, including cultural property, fact-finding, arms transfer, chemical weapons, sexual viole

"Drawing on primary materials from the League of Nations to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, this book makes the case for the revitalization ofa provision of international law which can be fundamental to the prevention of war.

Leading photojournalists, reporters, and legal and military law scholars present a compelling, detailed, and important A-to-Z account of armed conflicts worldwide. Entries range from Acts of War and Enforced Prostitution to Safety Zones and Weapons. Graphic bandw photographs from war zones around the world. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Many feminists grapple with the problem of hyper-incarceration in the United States, and yet commentators on gender crime continue to assert that criminal law is not tough enough. This punitive impulse, prominent legal scholar Aya Gruber argues, is dangerous and counterproductive. In their quest to secure women’s protection from domestic violence and rape, American feminists have become soldiers in the war on crime by emphasizing white female victimhood, expanding the power of police and prosecutors, touting the problem-solving power of incarceration, and diverting resources toward law enforcement and away from marginalized communities. Deploying vivid cases and unflinching analysis, The Feminist War on Crime documents the failure of the state to combat sexual and domestic violence through law and punishment. Zero-tolerance anti-violence law and policy tend to make women less safe and more fragile. Mandatory arrests, no-drop prosecutions, forced separation, and incarceration embroil poor women of color in a criminal justice system that is historically hostile to them. This carceral approach exacerbates social inequalities by diverting more power and resources toward a fundamentally flawed criminal justice system, further harming victims, perpetrators, and communities alike. In order to reverse this troubling course, Gruber contends that we must abandon the conventional feminist wisdom, fight violence against women without reinforcing the American prison state, and use criminalization as a technique of last—not first—resort.

Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia

A gripping behind-the-scenes account of the dramatic legal fight to hold leaders personally responsible for aggressive war On July 17, 2018, starting an unjust war became a prosecutable international crime alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Instead of collective state responsibility, our leaders are now personally subject to indictment for crimes of aggression, from invasions and preemptions to drone strikes and cyberattacks. The Crime of Aggression is Noah Weisbord’s riveting insider’s account of the high-stakes legal fight to enact this historic legislation and hold politicians accountable for the wars they start. Weisbord, a key drafter of the law for the International Criminal Court, takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most consequential legal dramas in modern international diplomacy. Drawing on in-depth interviews and his own invaluable insights, he sheds critical light on the motivations of the prosecutors, diplomats, and military strategists who championed the fledgling prohibition on unjust war—and those who tried to sink it. He untangles the complex history behind the measure, tracing how the crime of aggression was born at the Nuremberg trials only to fall dormant during the Cold War, and he draws lessons from such pivotal events as the collapse of the League of Nations, the rise of the United Nations, September 11, and the war on terror. The power to try leaders for unjust war holds untold promise for the international order, but also great risk. In this incisive and vitally important book, Weisbord explains how judges in such cases can balance the imperatives of justice and peace, and how the fair prosecution of aggression can humanize modern statecraft.