war crimes

war crimes,

in international law, violations of the laws of war (see war, laws ofwar, laws of,
in international law, rules and principles regulating an armed conflict between nations. These laws are designed to minimize the destruction of life and property, to proscribe cruel treatment of noncombatants and prisoners of war, and to establish conditions under
..... Click the link for more information. ). Those accused have been tried by their own military and civilian courts, by those of their enemy, and by expressly established international tribunals.

The records of the war crimes trials after World War II provide one of the most comprehensive formulations of the concept of war crimes. During that war the Allies agreed to try Axis war criminals. In Aug., 1945, Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and civilian Axis leaders whose alleged crimes were directed at more than one national group. The trial opened in Nov., 1945. Voluminous evidence was presented to prove the plotting of aggressive warfare, the extermination of civilian populations (especially the Jews), the widespread use of slave labor, the looting of occupied countries, and the maltreatment and murder of prisoners of war. Among those sentenced to death (1946) were Hermann GoeringGoering or Göring, Hermann Wilhelm
, 1893–1946, German National Socialist leader. In World War I he was a hero of the German air force.
..... Click the link for more information. , Joachim von RibbentropRibbentrop, Joachim von
, 1893–1946, German foreign minister (1938–45). After World War I he became a wealthy champagne merchant. He joined the National Socialist party in 1932 and impressed Adolf Hitler with his knowledge of foreign languages and countries; he soon
..... Click the link for more information. , and Julius StreicherStreicher, Julius
, 1885–1946, German National Socialist (Nazi) leader. An early party member, originally a schoolteacher, he aired his sadistic and anti-Semitic mania in his periodical, Der Stürmer.
..... Click the link for more information. . Hjalmar SchachtSchacht, Hjalmar Horace Greeley
, 1877–1970, German financier. He held executive positions in several major German banks before becoming (1923) commissioner of currency. Inflation had reached its height and the paper mark had become worthless.
..... Click the link for more information. and Franz von PapenPapen, Franz von
, 1879–1969, German politician. Appointed (1913) military attaché to the German embassy in Washington, he was implicated in espionage activities that led (1915) the U.S. government to request his recall.
..... Click the link for more information. were acquitted. The court did not convict Nazi organizations or the German general staff. In 1961, Israel captured, tried, and later executed Adolf EichmannEichmann, Adolf
, 1906–62, German National Socialist official. A member of the Austrian Nazi party, he headed the Austrian office for Jewish emigration (1938). His zeal in deporting Jews brought him promotion (1939) to chief of the Gestapo's Jewish section.
..... Click the link for more information. .

A trial of 28 alleged Japanese war criminals was conducted (1946–47) by an 11-nation tribunal in Tokyo. Evidence similar to that presented against the Nazis brought death sentences to Hideki TojoTojo, Hideki
, 1884–1948, Japanese general and statesman. He became prime minister after he forced Konoye's resignation in Oct., 1941. His accession marked the final triumph of the military faction which advocated war with the United States and Great Britain.
..... Click the link for more information. and others. The U.S. Supreme Court refused an appeal that was based on the ground that the international court was unlawful. There were many trials in national civil and military courts, including those of the Japanese generals Tomoyuki YamashitaYamashita, Tomoyuki
, 1888–1946, Japanese general. He studied military science in Germany. He commanded (1941) the Malayan campaign and forced Singapore to surrender (Feb., 1942). He also commanded during the unsuccessful defense (Oct., 1944–Aug.
..... Click the link for more information. and Masaharu Homma.

Critics have questioned the legal basis of some of the charges at the post–World War II trials. Individuals were found guilty of acts considered legal, or even required, by their nation at the time; such findings represent a violation of the concept of sovereigntysovereignty,
supreme authority in a political community. The concept of sovereignty has had a long history of development, and it may be said that every political theorist since Plato has dealt with the notion in some manner, although not always explicitly.
..... Click the link for more information. . The plotting or carrying out of aggressive war had not been previously and explicitly called criminal, and the judges tended to define it very narrowly. A defendant was generally found guilty only if he had been involved in developing the policy, but not if he had simply carried it out.

Critics have also termed the trials an act of vengeance by the victors and questioned their practical use as a precedent. Personal liability for national action is very difficult to prove conclusively, and a nation will be reluctant to try its own leaders. Therefore, effective prosecution may be possible only if a nation is defeated (and then perhaps only if the documents are captured, as they were after World War II).

Both critics and supporters of the U.S. role in the Vietnam War have justified their positions on the basis of the post–World War II trials. Several Americans were tried for war crimes in this war, and Lt. William Calley was found guilty (see My Lai incidentMy Lai incident
, a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War. On Mar. 16, 1968, a unit of the U.S. army's Americal division, led by Lt. William L.
..... Click the link for more information. ) of particularly disturbing acts against civilians that for many became emblematic of the horrors of the Vietnam conflict. In the 1990s, in reaction to war atrocities committed by various parties during the breakup of YugoslaviaYugoslavia
, Serbo-Croatian Jugoslavija, former country of SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula. Belgrade was the capital and by far the largest city. Yugoslavs (i.e.
..... Click the link for more information. , the United Nations established a tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, and attempted to gather evidence for prosecutions; Serbs, Croats, and Muslims have been charged or tried, including top civilian and military Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat leaders. The highest ranking official to be tried was former Yugoslavian president Slobodan MiloševićMilošević, Slobodan
, 1941–2006, Yugoslav and Serbian political leader, president of Serbia (1989–97) and of Yugoslavia (1997–2000), b. Požarevac, Serbia.
..... Click the link for more information. , whose trial began in 2002 and was still underway when he died in 2006. In 2000 the Hague tribunal officially established rape, which was rampant during the Yugoslav civil strife, as a war crime. A UN tribunal was also set up (1997) in Tanzania to try those responsible for Hutu massacres of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 and in Sierra Leone to try persons accused of atrocities in that country's civil war (1991–2001).

Despite increasing international recognition of the need to prosecute war crimes, such offenses are still often unpunished. Although there were many calls for prosecution of former Khmer RougeKhmer Rouge
, name given to native Cambodian Communists. Khmer Rouge soldiers, aided by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, began a large-scale insurgency against government forces in 1970, quickly gaining control over more than two thirds of the country.
..... Click the link for more information. leaders for war crimes, none were tried by Cambodia or internationally until 2009 (due mainly to the length of time it took the Cambodian government to reach an agreement on trials with the United Nations; a mixed Cambodian-international court was finally sworn in 2006). In Indonesia the national courts have tried a number of Indonesian officials and officers for war crimes in East Timor during 1999, but the proceedings ended mainly in acquittals or overturned convictions. In 1998 the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a treaty authorizing a permanent international court for war crimes. The treaty was signed by more than 130 nations (including the United States), and formally came into effect in July, 2002, after 60 nations had ratified the treaty. The judges of the court, called the International Criminal CourtInternational Criminal Court
(ICC), first permanent world court created specifically to try individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity, est. 2002; located at the Hague, Netherlands.
..... Click the link for more information. (ICC) and located at The Hague, were formally sworn in in 2003. The court is empowered to prosecute war crimes, genocide, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity.

Bibliography

See S. Glueck, War Criminals (1944); R. H. Jackson, The Case against the Nazi War Criminals (1946); J. J. Heydecker and J. Leeb, The Nuremberg Trial (tr. 1962); T. Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam (1970); N. E. Tutorow and K. Winnovich, ed., War Crimes, War Criminals, and War Crime Trials (1986); A. Neier, War Crimes (1998); B. N. Schiff, Building the International Criminal Court (2009).

War Crimes

Related to War Crimes: Crimes against humanity

War Crimes

Acts that violate the international laws, treaties, customs, and practices governing military conflict between belligerent states or parties.

War crimes may be committed by a country's regular armed forces, such as its army, navy, or air force, or by irregular armed forces, such as guerrillas and insurgents. Soldiers may be punished for war crimes, as may military and political leaders, members of the judiciary, industrialists, and civilians who are enlisted by a belligerent to contravene the Rules of War.

However, isolated instances of Terrorism and single acts of rebellion are rarely, if ever, treated as war crimes punishable under the international rules of warfare. Instead, they are ordinarily treated as criminal violations punishable under the domestic laws of the country in which they occur.

Most war crimes fall into one of three categories: crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and traditional war crimes. Crimes against peace include the planning, commencement, and waging of aggressive war, or war in violation of international agreements. Aggressive war is broadly defined to include any hostile military act that disregards the territorial boundaries of another country, disrespects the political independence of another regime, or otherwise interferes with the sovereignty of an internationally recognized state. Wars fought in self-defense are not aggressive wars.

Following World War II, for example, the Allies prosecuted a number of leading Nazi officials at the Nuremberg Trials for crimes against peace. During the war, the Nazis had invaded and occupied a series of sovereign states, including France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Austria. Because those invasions were made in an effort to accumulate wealth, power, and territory for the Third Reich, Nazi officials could not claim to be acting in self-defense. Thus, those officials who participated in the planning, initiation, or execution of those invasions were guilty of crimes against peace.

Hermann Göring, chief of the Luftwaffe (the German Air Force), was one Nazi official who was convicted of crimes against peace at the Nuremberg trials. The international military tribunal presiding at Nuremberg, composed of judges selected from the four Allied powers (France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States), found that Göring had helped plan and carry out the invasions of Poland and Austria and had ordered the destruction of Rotterdam, Holland, after the city had effectively surrendered.

Crimes against humanity include the deportation, enslavement, persecution, and extermination of certain peoples based on their race, religion, ethnic origin, or some other identifiable characteristic. This category of war crimes was created almost entirely from the catalog of atrocities committed by the Nazi regime in World War II. Although other regimes have since committed horrors of their own, the Nazis established the standard by which the wartime misconduct of all subsequent regimes is now measured.

As part of the Nazi blitzkrieg, the Germans constructed concentration camps around Europe where they gassed, tortured, and incinerated millions of Jews and other persons they deemed impure or subversive to the Aryan race. Millions of others who escaped this fate were deported to Nazi labor camps in occupied countries where they were compelled at gunpoint to work on behalf of the Third Reich. The Nazi leaders who were responsible for implementing this totalitarian system of terror were guilty of crimes against humanity.

Many Nazi leaders were prosecuted for crimes against humanity during the Nuremberg trials. For example, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Nazi security organization in charge of the gestapo (the German secret police), was convicted and sentenced to death based on evidence that he had authorized the extermination of Jews at concentration camps and ordered the Conscription and deportation of civilians to foreign labor camps.

Traditional war crimes consist of those acts that violate the accepted customs, practices, and laws of warfare that have been followed by civilized nations for centuries. These rules of war prescribe the rights and obligations of belligerent states, prisoners of war, and occupying powers, as well as those of combatants and civilians. They also set restrictions on the types of weapons that belligerents may employ during combat. Soldiers, officers, and members of the high command can all be held responsible for violating the accepted customs and practices of war, regardless of whether they issue an order commanding an illegal act or simply follow such an order.

Soldiers, officers, and the high command can also be held responsible for failing to prevent war crimes. Military personnel in a position of authority have an obligation to instruct their subordinates on the customs and practices of war and a duty to supervise and oversee their conduct on the battlefield. A military commander who neglects this duty can be punished for any war crimes committed by his troops. Following World War II, for example, Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita was prosecuted and sentenced to death by a U.S. military tribunal in the South Pacific for dereliction of duty in "failing to provide effective control" of his troops who had massacred, raped, and pillaged innocent noncombatant civilians and mistreated U.S. prisoners of war in the Philippines (Christenson 1991, 491).

For more than five centuries, the rules of war have been applied to military conflicts between countries. Until the last decade, many observers contended that the rules of war do not govern hostilities between combatants in civil wars that take place wholly within the territorial boundaries of a single state. However, during the 1990s, the United Nations established two international military tribunals to investigate and prosecute war crimes that allegedly took place in the civil wars fought within Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda.

The two tribunals indicted soldiers and other combatants in both countries for committing a litany of war crimes, including the torture of political and military enemies, the programmatic raping of women, and Genocide. Although the litigants questioned the jurisdiction and authority of each tribunal, trials proceeded against certain defendants who had been captured. Thus, the theater in which war crimes can be committed and punished has expanded from international military conflicts to intranational civil wars.

In 1998, the United Nations established the international criminal court (ICC) with the signing of the Rome Treaty. The court, which came into force on July 1, 2002, is the first permanent international criminal tribunal. Many countries over the course of many years expressed the need for such a permanent court, but politics during the Cold War and other factors prevented its creation. The treaty, however, received widespread international support upon its signing. The ICC is empowered to hear three major types of cases, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

The United States originally signed the treaty on December 31, 2000, but did so with reservations. One claim was that the court could be used to prosecute troops based on the political motivations of other nations. The United States introduced an amendment to the treaty that would have given U.N. security council members the right to Veto certain prosecutions, but the amendment was rejected. Even when President bill clinton signed the treaty, members of his cabinet and members of Congress expressed concerns about the court's powers. In May 2002, President george w. bush instructed the U.S. State Department to inform the secretary-general of the United Nations that the United States would not become a party to the treaty.

Cross-references

Tokyo Trial.

单词	war crimes
释义	DictionarySeewar crime war crimes war crimes, in international law, violations of the laws of war (see war, laws ofwar, laws of, in international law, rules and principles regulating an armed conflict between nations. These laws are designed to minimize the destruction of life and property, to proscribe cruel treatment of noncombatants and prisoners of war, and to establish conditions under ..... Click the link for more information. ). Those accused have been tried by their own military and civilian courts, by those of their enemy, and by expressly established international tribunals. The records of the war crimes trials after World War II provide one of the most comprehensive formulations of the concept of war crimes. During that war the Allies agreed to try Axis war criminals. In Aug., 1945, Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and civilian Axis leaders whose alleged crimes were directed at more than one national group. The trial opened in Nov., 1945. Voluminous evidence was presented to prove the plotting of aggressive warfare, the extermination of civilian populations (especially the Jews), the widespread use of slave labor, the looting of occupied countries, and the maltreatment and murder of prisoners of war. Among those sentenced to death (1946) were Hermann GoeringGoering or Göring, Hermann Wilhelm , 1893–1946, German National Socialist leader. In World War I he was a hero of the German air force. ..... Click the link for more information. , Joachim von RibbentropRibbentrop, Joachim von , 1893–1946, German foreign minister (1938–45). After World War I he became a wealthy champagne merchant. He joined the National Socialist party in 1932 and impressed Adolf Hitler with his knowledge of foreign languages and countries; he soon ..... Click the link for more information. , and Julius StreicherStreicher, Julius , 1885–1946, German National Socialist (Nazi) leader. An early party member, originally a schoolteacher, he aired his sadistic and anti-Semitic mania in his periodical, Der Stürmer. ..... Click the link for more information. . Hjalmar SchachtSchacht, Hjalmar Horace Greeley , 1877–1970, German financier. He held executive positions in several major German banks before becoming (1923) commissioner of currency. Inflation had reached its height and the paper mark had become worthless. ..... Click the link for more information. and Franz von PapenPapen, Franz von , 1879–1969, German politician. Appointed (1913) military attaché to the German embassy in Washington, he was implicated in espionage activities that led (1915) the U.S. government to request his recall. ..... Click the link for more information. were acquitted. The court did not convict Nazi organizations or the German general staff. In 1961, Israel captured, tried, and later executed Adolf EichmannEichmann, Adolf , 1906–62, German National Socialist official. A member of the Austrian Nazi party, he headed the Austrian office for Jewish emigration (1938). His zeal in deporting Jews brought him promotion (1939) to chief of the Gestapo's Jewish section. ..... Click the link for more information. . A trial of 28 alleged Japanese war criminals was conducted (1946–47) by an 11-nation tribunal in Tokyo. Evidence similar to that presented against the Nazis brought death sentences to Hideki TojoTojo, Hideki , 1884–1948, Japanese general and statesman. He became prime minister after he forced Konoye's resignation in Oct., 1941. His accession marked the final triumph of the military faction which advocated war with the United States and Great Britain. ..... Click the link for more information. and others. The U.S. Supreme Court refused an appeal that was based on the ground that the international court was unlawful. There were many trials in national civil and military courts, including those of the Japanese generals Tomoyuki YamashitaYamashita, Tomoyuki , 1888–1946, Japanese general. He studied military science in Germany. He commanded (1941) the Malayan campaign and forced Singapore to surrender (Feb., 1942). He also commanded during the unsuccessful defense (Oct., 1944–Aug. ..... Click the link for more information. and Masaharu Homma. Critics have questioned the legal basis of some of the charges at the post–World War II trials. Individuals were found guilty of acts considered legal, or even required, by their nation at the time; such findings represent a violation of the concept of sovereigntysovereignty, supreme authority in a political community. The concept of sovereignty has had a long history of development, and it may be said that every political theorist since Plato has dealt with the notion in some manner, although not always explicitly. ..... Click the link for more information. . The plotting or carrying out of aggressive war had not been previously and explicitly called criminal, and the judges tended to define it very narrowly. A defendant was generally found guilty only if he had been involved in developing the policy, but not if he had simply carried it out. Critics have also termed the trials an act of vengeance by the victors and questioned their practical use as a precedent. Personal liability for national action is very difficult to prove conclusively, and a nation will be reluctant to try its own leaders. Therefore, effective prosecution may be possible only if a nation is defeated (and then perhaps only if the documents are captured, as they were after World War II). Both critics and supporters of the U.S. role in the Vietnam War have justified their positions on the basis of the post–World War II trials. Several Americans were tried for war crimes in this war, and Lt. William Calley was found guilty (see My Lai incidentMy Lai incident , a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War. On Mar. 16, 1968, a unit of the U.S. army's Americal division, led by Lt. William L. ..... Click the link for more information. ) of particularly disturbing acts against civilians that for many became emblematic of the horrors of the Vietnam conflict. In the 1990s, in reaction to war atrocities committed by various parties during the breakup of YugoslaviaYugoslavia , Serbo-Croatian Jugoslavija, former country of SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula. Belgrade was the capital and by far the largest city. Yugoslavs (i.e. ..... Click the link for more information. , the United Nations established a tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, and attempted to gather evidence for prosecutions; Serbs, Croats, and Muslims have been charged or tried, including top civilian and military Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat leaders. The highest ranking official to be tried was former Yugoslavian president Slobodan MiloševićMilošević, Slobodan , 1941–2006, Yugoslav and Serbian political leader, president of Serbia (1989–97) and of Yugoslavia (1997–2000), b. Požarevac, Serbia. ..... Click the link for more information. , whose trial began in 2002 and was still underway when he died in 2006. In 2000 the Hague tribunal officially established rape, which was rampant during the Yugoslav civil strife, as a war crime. A UN tribunal was also set up (1997) in Tanzania to try those responsible for Hutu massacres of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 and in Sierra Leone to try persons accused of atrocities in that country's civil war (1991–2001). Despite increasing international recognition of the need to prosecute war crimes, such offenses are still often unpunished. Although there were many calls for prosecution of former Khmer RougeKhmer Rouge , name given to native Cambodian Communists. Khmer Rouge soldiers, aided by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, began a large-scale insurgency against government forces in 1970, quickly gaining control over more than two thirds of the country. ..... Click the link for more information. leaders for war crimes, none were tried by Cambodia or internationally until 2009 (due mainly to the length of time it took the Cambodian government to reach an agreement on trials with the United Nations; a mixed Cambodian-international court was finally sworn in 2006). In Indonesia the national courts have tried a number of Indonesian officials and officers for war crimes in East Timor during 1999, but the proceedings ended mainly in acquittals or overturned convictions. In 1998 the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a treaty authorizing a permanent international court for war crimes. The treaty was signed by more than 130 nations (including the United States), and formally came into effect in July, 2002, after 60 nations had ratified the treaty. The judges of the court, called the International Criminal CourtInternational Criminal Court (ICC), first permanent world court created specifically to try individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity, est. 2002; located at the Hague, Netherlands. ..... Click the link for more information. (ICC) and located at The Hague, were formally sworn in in 2003. The court is empowered to prosecute war crimes, genocide, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity. Bibliography See S. Glueck, War Criminals (1944); R. H. Jackson, The Case against the Nazi War Criminals (1946); J. J. Heydecker and J. Leeb, The Nuremberg Trial (tr. 1962); T. Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam (1970); N. E. Tutorow and K. Winnovich, ed., War Crimes, War Criminals, and War Crime Trials (1986); A. Neier, War Crimes (1998); B. N. Schiff, Building the International Criminal Court (2009). MedicalSeeWar Crime War Crimes Related to War Crimes: Crimes against humanity War Crimes Acts that violate the international laws, treaties, customs, and practices governing military conflict between belligerent states or parties. War crimes may be committed by a country's regular armed forces, such as its army, navy, or air force, or by irregular armed forces, such as guerrillas and insurgents. Soldiers may be punished for war crimes, as may military and political leaders, members of the judiciary, industrialists, and civilians who are enlisted by a belligerent to contravene the Rules of War. However, isolated instances of Terrorism and single acts of rebellion are rarely, if ever, treated as war crimes punishable under the international rules of warfare. Instead, they are ordinarily treated as criminal violations punishable under the domestic laws of the country in which they occur. Most war crimes fall into one of three categories: crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and traditional war crimes. Crimes against peace include the planning, commencement, and waging of aggressive war, or war in violation of international agreements. Aggressive war is broadly defined to include any hostile military act that disregards the territorial boundaries of another country, disrespects the political independence of another regime, or otherwise interferes with the sovereignty of an internationally recognized state. Wars fought in self-defense are not aggressive wars. Following World War II, for example, the Allies prosecuted a number of leading Nazi officials at the Nuremberg Trials for crimes against peace. During the war, the Nazis had invaded and occupied a series of sovereign states, including France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Austria. Because those invasions were made in an effort to accumulate wealth, power, and territory for the Third Reich, Nazi officials could not claim to be acting in self-defense. Thus, those officials who participated in the planning, initiation, or execution of those invasions were guilty of crimes against peace. Hermann Göring, chief of the Luftwaffe (the German Air Force), was one Nazi official who was convicted of crimes against peace at the Nuremberg trials. The international military tribunal presiding at Nuremberg, composed of judges selected from the four Allied powers (France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States), found that Göring had helped plan and carry out the invasions of Poland and Austria and had ordered the destruction of Rotterdam, Holland, after the city had effectively surrendered. Crimes against humanity include the deportation, enslavement, persecution, and extermination of certain peoples based on their race, religion, ethnic origin, or some other identifiable characteristic. This category of war crimes was created almost entirely from the catalog of atrocities committed by the Nazi regime in World War II. Although other regimes have since committed horrors of their own, the Nazis established the standard by which the wartime misconduct of all subsequent regimes is now measured. As part of the Nazi blitzkrieg, the Germans constructed concentration camps around Europe where they gassed, tortured, and incinerated millions of Jews and other persons they deemed impure or subversive to the Aryan race. Millions of others who escaped this fate were deported to Nazi labor camps in occupied countries where they were compelled at gunpoint to work on behalf of the Third Reich. The Nazi leaders who were responsible for implementing this totalitarian system of terror were guilty of crimes against humanity. Many Nazi leaders were prosecuted for crimes against humanity during the Nuremberg trials. For example, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Nazi security organization in charge of the gestapo (the German secret police), was convicted and sentenced to death based on evidence that he had authorized the extermination of Jews at concentration camps and ordered the Conscription and deportation of civilians to foreign labor camps. Traditional war crimes consist of those acts that violate the accepted customs, practices, and laws of warfare that have been followed by civilized nations for centuries. These rules of war prescribe the rights and obligations of belligerent states, prisoners of war, and occupying powers, as well as those of combatants and civilians. They also set restrictions on the types of weapons that belligerents may employ during combat. Soldiers, officers, and members of the high command can all be held responsible for violating the accepted customs and practices of war, regardless of whether they issue an order commanding an illegal act or simply follow such an order. Soldiers, officers, and the high command can also be held responsible for failing to prevent war crimes. Military personnel in a position of authority have an obligation to instruct their subordinates on the customs and practices of war and a duty to supervise and oversee their conduct on the battlefield. A military commander who neglects this duty can be punished for any war crimes committed by his troops. Following World War II, for example, Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita was prosecuted and sentenced to death by a U.S. military tribunal in the South Pacific for dereliction of duty in "failing to provide effective control" of his troops who had massacred, raped, and pillaged innocent noncombatant civilians and mistreated U.S. prisoners of war in the Philippines (Christenson 1991, 491). For more than five centuries, the rules of war have been applied to military conflicts between countries. Until the last decade, many observers contended that the rules of war do not govern hostilities between combatants in civil wars that take place wholly within the territorial boundaries of a single state. However, during the 1990s, the United Nations established two international military tribunals to investigate and prosecute war crimes that allegedly took place in the civil wars fought within Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda. The two tribunals indicted soldiers and other combatants in both countries for committing a litany of war crimes, including the torture of political and military enemies, the programmatic raping of women, and Genocide. Although the litigants questioned the jurisdiction and authority of each tribunal, trials proceeded against certain defendants who had been captured. Thus, the theater in which war crimes can be committed and punished has expanded from international military conflicts to intranational civil wars. In 1998, the United Nations established the international criminal court (ICC) with the signing of the Rome Treaty. The court, which came into force on July 1, 2002, is the first permanent international criminal tribunal. Many countries over the course of many years expressed the need for such a permanent court, but politics during the Cold War and other factors prevented its creation. The treaty, however, received widespread international support upon its signing. The ICC is empowered to hear three major types of cases, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The United States originally signed the treaty on December 31, 2000, but did so with reservations. One claim was that the court could be used to prosecute troops based on the political motivations of other nations. The United States introduced an amendment to the treaty that would have given U.N. security council members the right to Veto certain prosecutions, but the amendment was rejected. Even when President bill clinton signed the treaty, members of his cabinet and members of Congress expressed concerns about the court's powers. In May 2002, President george w. bush instructed the U.S. State Department to inform the secretary-general of the United Nations that the United States would not become a party to the treaty. Further readings Meron, Theodor. 1998. War Crimes Law Comes of Age: Essays. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Simpson, Gerry, ed. 2004. War Crimes. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate/Dartmouth. Wald, Patricia. 2003. "Trying War Crimes in International Courts." International Journal of Legal Information 31 (summer). Cross-references Tokyo Trial.
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war crimes

war crimes,

Bibliography

War Crimes

War Crimes

Further readings

Cross-references