How Adequate have War Crimes Trials been in Providing a Legitimate Response to Mass Atrocities, Concentrating on Charges of Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes?

Abstract

This thesis analyses the issues surrounding legitimacy of War Crimes Trials, in relation to the substantive laws applied at the Trials, such as, Genocide, Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes. In addition, this thesis will provide an analysis of the trial processes in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The historical period for this analysis includes the attempted international war crimes trials and Allied Powers debates in the wake of the First World War. Attempts were made to secure punishment of the Axis Powers for waging an aggressive war and war crimes. In addition to this, potential war crimes trials were discussed in relation to the Turkish Government for the Armenian Massacres carried out prior to and during the First World War. Following the timeline, this thesis also seeks to address the International War Crimes Trials held in the aftermath of the Second World War in Nuremberg and Tokyo, developing the body of international criminal law, and addressing the legal issues that were raised during these trials. This enables the analysis to determine whether the War Crimes Trials were legitimate to their aims.

The methodological framework to be deployed throughout this thesis involves taking both a realist and a liberal cosmopolitan approach. Both theories are often opposing, however, can aid further understanding of the creation and development of the substantive laws and the war crimes trials process. By deploying both theories for this analysis, some of the pitfalls of taking an either / or approach can be avoided.
This thesis opens with an introduction that sets out its main aims and objectives. This chapter is followed by the methodology chapter, this sets out the methodology to be applied throughout the thesis.

The thesis then moves onto to its supporting legal developments chapter, in which the relevant legal instruments in existence at the outbreak of the First World War are set out. Further to this, the Leipzig and Constantinople chapters analyses the attempted War Crimes Trials in the aftermath of the First World War, deploying the realist and liberal cosmopolitan framework.

The succeeding chapter goes on to set out the developments in the law relating to War Crimes Trials after the First World War; this allows for the effective analysis of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal and the International Military Tribunal chapters.

This thesis concludes with a critical reflection drawn from the analysis of the applied methodology, highlighting the recent developments in the substantive laws surrounding War Crimes Trials.