Victor's justice

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The label "victor's justice" (in German, Siegerjustiz) is applied by advocates to a situation in which they believe that a victorious nation is applying different rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the (former) enemy. Advocates generally charge that the difference in rules amounts to hypocrisy and leads to injustice. Targets of the label may consider it derogatory.

Closely related is "Vae Victis behaviour", where victor unilaterally changes the agreed treaties or their interpretations and is seen as a form of victor's justice.

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[edit] Why should victors be just?

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The concept that a victor should be just appears to be a recent idea, possibly being part of the just war doctrine. In previous times, victors did as they liked with their defeated enemies, killing, torturing, raping, mutilating, plundering and enslaving their populations. This was accepted as the way the world was.

For example, Viriathus was assassinated by traitors on Roman orders. When the traitors tried to get their pay, a Roman general ordered their execution allegedly saying: "Rome does not pay traitors".

However, the world subsequently aspired to higher ethical standards, and in the 19th century the Geneva conventions set up laws of war that proscribed extreme behavior, and created the concept of war crimes.

The unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers at the end of World War II was unusual (although World War II was itself markedly different from earlier conflicts). Prior to World War II, most international wars ended in a conditional surrender and/or armistice followed by a peace treaty. When wars ended with a peace treaty, if there were any prosecutions for war crimes then they were usually carried out under the jurisdiction of the alleged criminal's own justice system or by an international court such as the International Criminal Court, staffed by nationals other than those party to the conflict.

[edit] Allegations of victor's justice

At the Nuremberg Criminal Court for war crimes and other subsidiary courts like the Dachau International Military Tribunal, only Axis nationals or those who had collaborated with the Axis Powers were prosecuted. However it is usual that the armed forces of a civilised country [1] issue their forces with detailed guidance on what is and is not permitted under their military code. These are drafted to include any international treaty obligations and the customary laws of war. For example at the trial of Otto Skorzeny his defence was in part based on the Field Manual published by the War Department of the United States Army, on 1 October 1940, and the American Soldiers' Handbook [2] . If a member of the armed forces breaks their own military code they can expect to face a court martial. When members of the Allied armed forces broke their military codes they could be tried, as for example the Dachau massacre or the Biscari Massacre trials. The unconditional surrender of the Axis powers was unusual and led directly to the formation of the international tribunals. Usually international wars end conditionally and the treatment of suspected war criminals makes up part of the peace treaty. In most cases those who are not prisoners of war are tried under their own judicial system if they are suspected of committing war crimes – as happened the end of the concurrent Continuation War where Allied Control Commission provided a list of occurrences of war crimes and crimes against peace, and the investigation and judgement of these cases were left to Finnish courts according to Finnish law. However, in that case an ex post facto law had to be stated, as the Finnish Criminal Act didn't contain a concept of being responsible of politics resulting in a war. In restricting the international tribunal to trying suspected Axis war crimes, the Allies were acting within normal international law.

[edit] Attempts to ensure the fairness of war crimes prosecutions

Since World War II, the accusation of victor's justice has arisen in every subsequent conflict where war crimes prosecutions have been made. Examples of include the wars in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and Afghanistan.

The International Criminal Court was set up in 2003 as a treaty arrangement between member states in an attempt to provide a neutral international court that avoids the accusation of "victor's justice", and that would prosecute all alleged war crimes, on either side of any conflict. The United States has currently refused to join the ICC, and critics of this decision sometimes claim that this comes out of a desire for victor's justice.[citation needed] See the article on the court for more detail on US and other objections to it.

[edit] Current allegations of victor's justice

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  • The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), organized by the United Nations has jurisdiction over all acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes within the territory of former Yugoslavia. However, so far the Tribunal has prosecuted only citizens from the Balkan states. Most defendants have been Serb politicians, soldiers and paramilitaries but Croats, Bosnians and ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas have also been tried. However, the Tribunal has declined to investigate allegations made by Western academics and Serb politicians, who accused NATO officials of war crimes during the 1999 bombing of Serbia (the Kosovo War), including the deliberate bombing of a Serb TV station killing journalists, and the lethal bombing (possibly reckless) of a railway bridge whilst a civilian train was passing over it.

Two further recent conflicts in which the U.S. have been involved have led to allegations of victor's justice:

  • After the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. administration set up detention camps such as Camp X-Ray where they asserted that as these detainees are Illegal enemy combatants in an ongoing war, and as such can be denied protection under the Geneva Conventions. It is by no means clear that this is the correct legal interpretation of the detainees legal rights under United States and International law. Although judicial review of this position is currently under way in the United States it is in no way certain a final legal ruling will be made since the Bush administration has argued that habeas corpus no longer applies to these detainees.
  • There has been concern that the new regime in Iraq may not have the legal skills or inclination to try war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by the former Iraqi Ba'ath regime fairly and that this represents a desire for victor's justice through show trials. Commentators on international humanitarian law have argued that it has to be done this way because, the ICC cannot prosecute crimes committed prior to its creation and the U.S. administration claims that there is not the international will to set up another ad hoc ICTFY style court. However, ex-Baath party members could have been tried by a US or British court martial or Nuremberg-style tribunal--however this may have led to even more accusations of victor's justice, even if it had led to more orderly or fairer trials.

The Coalition Provisional Authority passed a law making occupation forces and contractors employed by them immune from Iraqi prosecution, so they can presently only be tried by court martial or their domestic courts. So far several countries have tried some of the military personnel for committing war crimes, for example both the United States and the United Kingdom have tried soldiers for physically abusing prisoners in Iraq.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Judgement : The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity contained in the Avalon Project archive at Yale Law School. "but by 1939 these rules laid down in the [Hague] Convention [of 1907] were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war"
  2. ^ Trial of Otto Skorzeny and Others, General Military Government Court of the U.S. Zone of Germany, 18 August to 9 September 1947.
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