Victors Justice

The klieg-lighted Tokyo Trial began on May 3, 1946, and ended on November 4, 1948, a majority of the eleven judges from the victorious Allies finding the twenty-five surviving defendants, Japanese military and state leaders, guilty of most, if not all, of the charges. As at Nuremberg, the charges included for the first time "crimes against peace" and "crimes against humanity," as well as conventional war crimes. In a polemical account, Richard Minear reviews the background, proceedings, and judgment of the Tokyo Trial from its Charter and simultaneous Nuremberg "precedent" to its effects today. Mr. Minear looks at the Trial from the aspects of international law, of legal process, and of history. With compelling force, he discusses the motives of the Nuremberg and Tokyo proponents, the Trial's prejudged course—its choice of judges, procedures, decisions, and omissions—General MacArthur's review of the verdict, the criticisms of the three dissenting judges, and the dangers inherent in such an international, political trial. His systematic, partisan treatment pulls together evidence American lawyers and liberals have long suspected, feared, and dismissed from their minds. Contents: Preface. I. Introduction. II. The Tokyo Trial. III. Problems of International Law. IV. Problems of Legal Process. V. Problems of History. VI. After the Trial. Appendices. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The aim of this new collection of essays is to engage in analysis beyond the familiar victor’s justice critiques. The editors have drawn on authors from across the world — including Australia, Japan, China, France, Korea, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — with expertise in the fields of international humanitarian law, international criminal law, Japanese studies, modern Japanese history, and the use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The diverse backgrounds of the individual authors allow the editors to present essays which provide detailed and original analyses of the Tokyo Trial from legal, philosophical and historical perspectives.

Victors' Justice is a potent and articulate polemic against the manipulation of international penal law by the West, combining historical detail, juridical precision and philosophical analysis. Zolo's key thesis is that contemporary international law functions as a two-track system: a made-to-measure law for the hegemons and their allies, on the one hand, and a punitive regime for the losers and the disadvantaged, on the other. Though it constantly advertised its impartiality and universalism, international law served to bolster and legitimize, ever since the Tokyo and Nuremberg trials, a fundamentally unilateral and unequal international order.

Nothing is to be gained after a war by the punishment of the vanquished by the victors, even if the vanquished have been to blame for the war itself. It now seems more probable than ever that for victors to assert after a war the 'war guilt' of the vanquished serves but to disguise the real sources of international disturbance. Possibly it is because the western victors in 1919 did not recognize the moral basis of international relations that war returned to Europe and to the world in 1939. Possibly it is because the western victors again in 1945 did not recognize the moral basis of those relations that the world was treated to the spectacle of victors' justice, a.k.a. 'the Nuremberg Trial', and one more great war had ended without leading men's feet into the way of peace.

"This book assesses the historical significance of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE)—commonly called the Tokyo trial—established as the eastern counterpart of the Nuremberg trial in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Through extensive research in Japanese, American, Australian, and Indian archives, Yuma Totani taps into a large body of previously underexamined sources to explore some of the central misunderstandings and historiographical distortions that have persisted to the present day. Foregrounding these voluminous records, Totani disputes the notion that the trial was an exercise in “victors’ justice” in which the legal process was egregiously compromised for political and ideological reasons; rather, the author details the achievements of the Allied prosecution teams in documenting war crimes and establishing the responsibility of the accused parties to show how the IMTFE represented a sound application of the legal principles established at Nuremberg. This study deepens our knowledge of the historical intricacies surrounding the Tokyo trial and advances our understanding of the Japanese conduct of war and occupation during World War II, the range of postwar debates on war guilt, and the relevance of the IMTFE to the continuing development of international humanitarian law."

Over the last quarter of a century a new system of global criminal justice has emerged. But how successful has it been? Are we witnessing a new era of cosmopolitan justice or are the old principles of victors’ justice still in play? In this book, Daniele Archibugi and Alice Pease offer a vibrant and thoughtful analysis of the successes and shortcomings of the global justice system from 1945 to the present day. Part I traces the evolution of this system and the cosmopolitan vision enshrined within it. Part II looks at how it has worked in practice, focusing on the trials of some of the world’s most notorious war criminals, including Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karad ić, Saddam Hussein and Omar al-Bashir, to assess the efficacy of the new dynamics of international punishment and the extent to which they can operate independently, without the interference of powerful governments and their representatives. Looking to the future, Part III asks how the system’s failings can be addressed. What actions are required for cosmopolitan values to become increasingly embedded in the global justice system in years to come?

As international criminal courts and tribunals have proliferated and international criminal law is increasingly seen as a key tool for bringing the world's worst perpetrators to account, the controversies surrounding the international trials of war criminals have grown. War crimes tribunals have to deal with accusations of victors' justice, bad prosecutorial policy and case management, and of jeopardizing fragile peace in post-conflict situations. In this exceptional book, one of the leading writers in the field of international criminal law explores these controversial issues in a manner that is accessible both to lawyers and to general readers. Professor William Schabas begins by considering the discipline of international criminal law, outlining the differing approaches to the description of international crimes and examining the frequent claims relating to the retroactive application of these crimes. The book then discusses the relationship between genocide and crimes against humanity, studying the fascination with what Schabas calls the 'genocide mystique'. International criminal tribunals have often been stigmatized as an exercise in victors' justice. This book traces how this critique developed and the difficulty it poses to the identification of situations for prosecution by the International Criminal Court. The claim that amnesty for international crimes is prohibited by international law is challenged, with a more nuanced approach to the relationship between justice and peace being proposed. Throughout the book there is a strong historical perspective, with constant reference to the early experiments in international justice at Nuremberg and Tokyo. The work also analyses the growing pains of the International Criminal Court as it enters its second decade.