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Cruz Marquez

Mrs. McCann

English 1302.201

2 March 2022

War Crime Trials: Advantages, Disadvantages and the Truth

War crimes were first introduced in 1907 during World War 1. Since then many different

war crimes have been added to the list including the restricting of mustard gas during World War

2 and many others. War crimes are also called crimes against humanity and are characterized as

inhumane as they cause more pain to a person than just killing them. An example of this is

flamethrowers. In WW2, the flamethrower was banned from the battlefield as it would induce

more pain than seemed moral at the time. With this in mind, How are war crimes handled? How

severe should the punishment for the person committing his crime against humanity be? Many

researchers have thought about these questions in the past and have given their thoughts and

reasons on their findings. This research will investigate the fairness of war crime trials by

comparing various sources and trials and determining whether or not punishments and

consequences for war crime criminals are appropriate.

The different articles that will be used in this paper consist of trials such as those that

happened after World War 2 and places such as Guatemala. The articles show different trials in

which the authors talk about trials, what the process is, and some of the punishments that they

get. The main question that will be answered in this essay is whether war criminals get the right

punishments for their actions and if the war crime trials are faril. Although war is known to be

very deadly, there are many rules that need to be followed and things that are prohibited from

war which could be severely inhumane.

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Are War Crime Trials Reliable?

Trials across the world are different in their own ways, however one thing that they have

in common is that they are supposed to be reliable and honest. If the trials are not reliable then

the information given in the trial could be false. There could be some complications as shown in

the article “The Justice We Deserve: War Time Prosecution in Guatemala'' it is stated by the

author that in most cases there will be complications that could interfere with the trial.(Burt 215)

This is again stated in the article “Justice Denied: Making sense of State Noncooperation with

International Prosecutions” where the author makes it clear that it will be difficult to deal with

war crimes in general. (Boccese 195)

The difficulty of handling war crimes depends on how the war crime is first handled. For

instance, in the article “British war crime trials in Europe and Asia, 1945-1949: A comparative

Study” there are different war crime trials that are compared on how they were handled. In some

cases the war criminal was tried a different way than other trials. In some cases the trials were

handled better than others and the punishments given to the war crime criminals were suitable

for the crimes that they committed however in other cases it was the opposite and the war crime

criminals did not get the sentence suitable for the crime that they committed. (Cheah and Mortiz

195)

Do War Crime Trials Provide Justice Deserved?

The debate of whether there is justice being done in the war crime trials is ongoing to this

day. Many believe that justice is made however there are instances where it seems that justice is

not being made. The authors of the articles “Prosecuting sexual violence at the Camnbodian War

Crimes Tribunal: Challenges, limitations, and implications” and “Issuing several pardons,

president Trump intervenes in proceedings of US Troops charged or convicted of acts amounting

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to war crimes” could agree with this statement. In the first article it is stated that in the trial of

Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, who were reported to be war criminals, they were set free.

(Douglas 571) This could raise the question, Is there justice being made in the trials for war

crime criminals? Pardons were given to the US Troops as well which makes the question’s

answer quite clear to some researchers and as stated previously by the authors of the article. “The

Justice We Deserve: War Time Prosecution in Guatemala '' war crime trials could be complicated

to deal with. (Burt 215) With this in mind in some cases as shown with the precious sources

justice is not served.

Do War Crime Trials Cause More Good than Bad?

In many cases, war crime trials could do more bad than good to not only the person who

committed the crime but also anyone who is participating in war. In the article “Stay the hand of

justice? Evaluating that War Crimes Trials Do more harm than good ”, it is stated trials could

encourage the soldiers to continue fighting. If this is the case, then are the effects of war crimes

good or bad? According to the research made by these authors of this article “war crime

prosecutions are legitimate, and sometimes necessary, response to egregious and widespread

violations of the laws of war.” (Martins and Bronsther 96) By making the statement the authors

of the article agree that war crime prosecutions should always be applied and serve a great

purpose and in most cases do more good than bad.

Conclusion

The trials and their results vary from being fair and not being fair. For the most part, from

the different sources used to find the information, the trials were fair and offered the correct

punishment for the crime that was committed. However, there are still flaws in the system that

allow the punishments to be unfair or even nonexistent. The different articles explored different
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points of views as well as different outcomes for the trials which allowed the research to be less

biased and more informative. Throughout the essay it was shown the different ideas of the

authors and how there were differences and similarities. It was shown where the authors agreed

on a point or view and where they disagreed.

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Works Cited

Burt, Jo-Marie. “The Justice We Deserve: War Crimes Prosecution in Guatemala.” Latin

American Research Review 56.1 (2021): 214-232.

Bocchese, Marco. “Justice Denied: Making Sense of State Noncooperation with International

Prosecutions.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 21 (2020): 195-200.

Cheah, W. L. “Dealing with Desertion and Gaps in International Humanitarian Law: Changes of

Allegiance in Singapore War Crimes Trials.” Asian Journal of International Law 8.2

(2018): 250-270

Cheah, Wui Ling, and Mortiz Vormbaum. “British Crimes Trials in Europe and Asia, 1945-1949:

A Comparative Study.” Leiden Journal of International Law 31.3 (2018): 669-698.

Galbraith, Jean. “Issuing several pardons, president Trump intervenes in proceedings of US

Troops charged or convicted of acts amounting to war crimes.” American journal of

International Law 114.2 (2020) 207-312.

Irvin-Erickson, Douglas. “Prosecuting sexual violence at the Camnbodian War Crimes Tribunal:

Challenges, limitations, and implications.” Hum. Rts. Q. 40 (2018): 570.

Jackson, Jonathan, and Ronald Winch. “The complexity of investigating war crimes.” Journal of

Global Faultlines 8.2 (2021): 209-218.

Martins, Mark S., and Jacob Bronsther. “Stay the hand of justice? Evaluating claims that war

crimes trials do more harm than good.” Daedalus 146.1 (2017): 83-99.

Van Sliedregt, Elies. “International outlaws.” Leiden Journal of International Law 33.3 (2020):

535-540
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Wildermuth, David W. ““I am fully aware of my guilt…” Insight for a Soviet Military Tribunal’s

Investigation of the German Army’s 35th Division, 1946-47.” Journal of Military History

83.4 (2019)