War crimes by a country

Whats the point of the same people who are involved in the war crimes being responsible for judging the people who commit them? Should the Nuremberg trials have been conducted by the Nazis?

 

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Yes, it was their country was it not? The land you take in war is your land, and as such part of your country, what did they own?

 

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So you think war crimes should be judged by the people who are committing them?

 

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james to be fair (not saying i actually care) the nuremberg trials tried people for crimes which wernt crimes when they were commited which breaches the tenants of the westminster justice system. i know the US doesnt seem to have a problem with this but in australia and i belive the UK too the only laws which can be retrospective are ones which help people and tax laws (which are anounced and put into effect before they are passed by the parliment), criminal law cant be made retrospective EXCEPT to remove a crime or lesson the sentance.

Now charging people with invading poland when it wasnt illegal to invade a country before the end of the war wasnt following this basic principle

the other problems i have was the fact that they were exercuted inspite the fact that as far as i know the british had already abolished the death penelty and the fact that the alies wernt procuted for THERE crimes (like the fire bombing of Dresden)

 

Since there is no "right" and "wrong", war crimes are whatever the winning side decides it is. If the Nazis had won, they could have prosecuted the British and American leaders

 

norsefire thats what the stated aims of the ICC and ICJ are designed to end. Ie you are not procuted for shoting the solders of the guys who invaded you because you were shooting at them IN A WAR. i dont think the US has managed to get that sadly

 

I'm with Norsefire. Whoever has the power decides what is or isn't a crime. And I am loath to hand over such power to some supernational body made up of people who hate the US.

But let me take it a step further. I don't even believe in "war crimes". The concepts of war and the concept of crime just don't go together. As they say, all's fair in love and war". I'm not saying I don't believe that atrocities are commited. Of course they are. But the only thing that holds a nation back from commiting wartime atrocities is (like mutally assured destruction) the fear that the enemy would then do the same. Some bullshit international court sure as hell isn't going to have any effect whatsoever.

Notice that the worst atrocities commited these days are by terrorists. Why? Because their acts of war don't have a return address. They're not held back by fear of reprisal. And they're certainly not held back by some international court.

International courts are just one more example of wasteful bureaucracy.

 

mad you just shot your argument to shit mate by throwing terorists in to the mix, what about dufor? what about burma?
these are countries who oppress there people, slaughter there people.

how about bosnia? sebia?

terriousts dont mean anything to anyone EXCEPT yanks who think they are the center of the world. Im sorry but your statment is an insult to those who are being slaughtered while you just dont care because they arnt US citizans

 

And what would YOU like to do, just tell them to stop abusing people. You dont want military intervention and when people try to help the same groups look to jump all over it and look to get everyone in trouble over it.

Maybe it makes you feel better but then nothing will change.

 

Just because you think the U.S. "doesn't care" about those countries, doesn't mean it's true. The U.S. just got spanked, and keeps getting spanked, by the left-wingers in the "world community" for liberating Iraq from an evil dictator. After all that spanking, can you blame the U.S. for not sending troops to liberate other countries ?

 

You've misunderstood me. I never denied that war time atrocities existed nor indicated that I support them. I just said calling them "crimes" and trying to create some kind of world court is absurd. That is, unless you're going to also create a one world government with the means to enforce it's rulings. And that I would never, ever support.

As for terrorists, the point is that they operate in secret under no flag. They feel free to commit unspeakable atrocities because no one is sure who they are.

Whereas, in a war, the soldiers of one nation know that if they are excessively brutal, the enemy can do the same to them. That is the only thing that really restrains armies from commiting atrocities. Not some debating society, errr, international court.

 

I concur. Crime is a relative term. Terrorism is a crime, yet we still allow Muslim states to participate in the UN.

 

actually mad there is univesal juristiction over crimes like genocide. Interestly enough i was doing some resurch on the ICC and i came across a piece of interesting legislation passed in canada. it was designed to alow ICC juristiction over canada but went much futher, it actually gives compleate retrospective universal juristiction over war crimes, ie if as an example someone in the US was accused of genocide, not being a signitory to the ICC there is nothing they can do unless there is a reference from the SC which the US would of corse veto. HOWEVER if that person ever steped into canada they can be tried under canadian law even if the crime never occured in canada.

really interesting what you find if you dig deep enough

 

Jursidiction, Jurisficton. Law isn't law unless it's recognized and enforced.

 

so?, if bush was indited by the canadian courts and entered canada and was arested there isnt a dam thing that the US could do about it. If he was indited by a country with an extrodition treatie with canada and canada aplied to extrodite him there is sweet fuck all they could do

im not saying this will happen or that it should but the legilsative frame work is there for it to happen, all it needs is a signiture from the DPP and bush is restricted to the US

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So you support one world government.

Personally, I hate beauracracy, and I don't want stupid international courts telling me (assuming I'm a leader) what I can and can't do in MY country

 

You wanna bet? If some country were to arrest the US president for some trumped up charges at the ICC, we'd be there liberating your asses so fast your head would spin.

That kind of crap is bullshit. Who was that dictator that voluntarily stepped down and allowed his country to become a democracy but made himself "senator for life" or something? Spain decides to arrest him for some warcrimes or whatever that didn't take place in Spain. (this is the exact situation you're describing)

Some see that as a good thing, but they're wrong. Here this dictator voluntarily stepped down and freed his people. How does it end up? Some other country arrests him! What does that do to the likelyhood of future dictators EVER stepping down? It decreases the chances to ZERO.

It is wrong. It is stupid. It should not have been done.

 

Actually, ex post facto laws are prohibited by Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, which has been in place since, basically, the beginning of the nation's independence. There is no way around this but by constitutional amendment. The Constitution, however, would not prohibit the prosecution of ex post facto laws on German officials because it has no sovereignty there.

In the United Kingdom, there is no constitution per se, and Parliament has supremacy in all matters of law. So basically whatever they say is the supreme law of the land. Wikipedia (admittedly, not the best source on all things legal) has this to say: "In the United Kingdom, ex post facto laws are strictly frowned upon, but are permitted by virtue of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Historically, all acts of Parliament before 1793 were ex post facto legislation, inasmuch as their date of effect was the first day of the session in which they were passed. This situation was rectified by the Acts of Parliament (Commencement) Act 1793."

As to the fact that the Germans were tried by ex post facto laws, that remains to be proven. The Nuremberg trials tried the accused under the three previous Geneva Conventions (to which the Germans were signatories), the various other treaties signed by Germans since the 19th century (most notably, its surrender after WWI and it's treaties of "peace" since the rise of Hitler). All of the matters of law which were applied to the accused were in place prior to the outbreak of the war. Because of this curious fact, no crimes committed by any official before the outbreak of war were permitted to be entered into evidence during the trial, neither was any internal/civil criminal accusations permitted in the trial; only war crimes which had broken previous international treaty obligations to which the Germans had participated prior to the war. The sovereignty of the tribunals was legitimate in that it was a condition of Germany's unconditional surrender at the end of the war.

Unprovoked war was prohibited by various treaties, not the least of which was Germany's treaty obligations ending the First World War.

This is a joke, right? First off, Google "death penalty" it's really easy. Britain didn't abolish the death penalty until the 60's and France didn't officially abolish it until the 80's (in case you missed the point: WWII ended more than 20 years before the Brits abolished it). Second off, the fire bombing of Dresden wasn't a war crime in that it was the result of a provoked attack by an aggressor nation. In self defense, especially one in which the defenders were fighting for their very survival, fire bombing an invading nation certainly was totally legitimate and legal (though, this may have changed in the years since WWII). Now, if you, on a personal level, have arbitrarily decided that it's a war crime, that's another matter. But we're talking international law not personal opinion on the matter. (Note: by saying that the Allies broke modern international law, you're creating an ex post facto situation)

Indeed. While I think that the laws the Germans were tried for were legitimate enough to conduct the trials, I'm of the opinion that the one's who were obviously guilty should have been executed, out of hand. Trials are in place to assuage doubt and to guarantee fairness. Everybody knew that the main German officials were guilty and what was going to happen to them after the trial. The judges were hand picked for one reason (especially the Soviet judges). The main trials were a charade. Trials for lesser officials were legitimate because of indeterminate information.

I couldn't agree more.

~String

 

I don't think the US would tolerate it.