International Military Tribunal - Essay Example

257577 War Crime Tribunals Introduction On January 26, 1945, the concentration camp called Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops (Zilmer, Harrower, Ritzler, and Archer, 1995, xvii). As the atrocities of World War II began being revealed to the public, world leaders were forced to come together amidst cries for justice against the German Nazis who were responsible for the inhumanities inflicted on men, women, and children in the ghettos and in the German controlled concentration camps. International lawmakers came together to begin the process of creating international laws that could be used to prosecute war criminals. The first criminals prosecuted under an international tribunal were 24 Nazis were indicted by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal as war criminals, and were charged with crimes against humanity (Zimer, Harrower, et al, xviii). Since that time, the international community has come together under the auspices of the International Military Tribunals set up and empowered by the international community to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of crimes against humanity. This paper looks at the legal framework within which war criminals are prosecuted, and the authority behind the prosecutions. Crimes against Humanity An international Military Tribunal, as was conducted in the post World War II Nuremberg trials of Nazis responsible for carrying out Hitler’s genocide against the Jews and the infirmed peoples of Germany and countries occupied by Germany, and has been conducted since that time, begins with the charge of “crimes against humanity.” The scope of crimes which were prosecuted under the “crimes against humanity” statute following World War II was “unprovoked aggression, slave labor, and death camps (Zilmer, Harrower, et al, 13).” The definition has since that time been expanded to include genocide. Since the nature of some of the tortures and murders were of a horrific nature not documented in modern history, there was an effort made to understand the minds of the people who committed the acts, and those people in the community who turned a blind eye to it. No explanation has ever served to justify, or to fully explain what happened in the Nazi concentration camps, except to say that it was pure evil. More Recent War Crimes Perhaps the ability to commit evil and atrocious crimes against one another has to do with control and power over others. Or that there is something in the human makeup that leans towards hate and evil as much as it does towards good and kindness. We have seen people accused of atrocious crimes and they were nonetheless described by others as kind and caring husbands, fathers, and compassionate members of the community. While we might not now, or ever, understands what drives a human to the place where they commit atrocities against the person of another human being, we can hold them accountable for their crimes against humanity. Ratko Mladic Author and historian Rachel Kerr (2004) wrote about the unprecedented steps taken by the United Nations in May, 1993, to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (1). The goal in establishing the tribunal was to investigate citizens of the former Yugoslavia, now political leaders with much more power and support, and who were involved in the dissolution of the former state into the state of Bosnia-Herzogovina. Eight years later, Serbian Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Yugoslavia, was transferred to the custody of the tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity (Kerr, 1). It began a long process that challenged the authority behind establishing the tribunal, and accused the tribunal of being a political tool (Kerr, 1). Bosnian Serb Ratko Mladic, a military leader like Milosevic, was arrested and brought before the tribunal for the mass murder of more than 8,000 Muslims at Srebrencia (Kerr, 35). “On 22 February 1993 the Security Council, expressing alarm at continuing reports of widespread violations of international humanitarian law occurring within the territory of the former Yugoslavia, decided in principle on the establishment of an international tribunal, and requested that the Secretary-General prepare a report, including specific proposals for the effective and expeditious implementation of this decision taking into account suggestions put forward by Member States (Kerr, 36).” The defendants raised valid challenges to the authority of the court, and even valid legal challenges to the evidence (Kerr, 66). Still, the international tribunal stood firm on its authority invested in it by the United Nations, and continued with its prosecution of the defendants (66). “was considered necessary to take the extraordinary and unprecedented step of making concurrent jurisdiction subject to the primacy of the Tribunal because of doubts about the effectiveness and impartiality of national courts; 19 but the intention was not to preclude the exercise of jurisdiction by national courts. Rather, it was to ensure that the Tribunal had the power to command deferral of cases in national courts, if it saw fit, and to permit those cases to go ahead in national courts, where appropriate. Arbour pointed out in 1997 that the exercise of jurisdiction by national courts did not mean that the Tribunal had somehow failed, rather, it demonstrated the fact that the ICTY and national courts had concurrent jurisdiction, and that such cases could properly be prosecuted in either forum (Kerr, 66).” The legitimacy of the international court empowered through the United Nations, was established with the cases of Milosevic and Mladic. Both men were subsequently found guilty of crimes against humanity. Milosevic was executed for his crimes in ordering mass murder of civilians. While Mladic carried out Milosevic’s orders, and was convicted, he remains at large (Kerr, 218). International laws have established the accountability of armed opposition groups (Zegveld, Liesbeth, 2002). A tribunal was also held following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda (Totten, Samuel, 2006, 209). While prosecuting war criminals is a just and right action, the preferable action is intervention, circumventing the opportunity for commitment genocide. In Rwanda, America President Bill Clinton’s administration refused to use the word “genocide” when discussing Rwanda, because they feared that they would then be obligated uphold the 1948 Geneva Convention accords on genocide, which required intervention (Taylor, Christopher, 1999, 4). It begs the question of where liability begins, and ends. It could very well one day be perceived by the countries of the world that to ignore the calls for help by a people being mass murdered is complicit in the actual murder. The pattern of establishing military tribunals has been established to serve as a deterrent to those who would contemplate the abuse of their power and authority. To the extent that it does not deter those individuals, and the powers of the world are aware of what is going on, yet withhold help; are they too negligible in the atrocity? Works Cited Kerr, Rachel. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: An Exercise in Law, Politics, and Diplomacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Questia. 2 Dec. 2008 . Moltmann, Jürgen. Is There Life after Death?. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1998. Questia. 2 Dec. 2008 . Taylor, Christopher C. Sacrifice as Terror : The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 /. New York: Berg, 1999. Questia. 1 Dec. 2008 . Webb, Nancy Boyd, ed. Helping Bereaved Children: A Handbook for Practitioners. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press, 2002. Questia. 2 Dec. 2008 . Zegveld, Liesbeth. Accountability of Armed Opposition Groups in International Law. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Questia. 2 Dec. 2008 . Zillmer, Eric A., Molly Harrower, Barry A. Ritzler, and Robert P. Archer. The Quest for the Nazi Personality: A Psychological Investigation of Nazi War Criminals. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995. Questia. 2 Dec. 2008 . Read More