War Crimes Essay Research Paper A war

War Crimes Essay, Research Paper

A war crime is any of various crimes, such as genocide or the mistreatment of prisoners of war, committed during a war and considered in violation of the conventions of warfare. War crimes are constantly being committed during war and something has to be done. There have been too many instances where these sorts of criminals have gotten away. Victims of war have gotten little or no justice at all, we have to come up with a solution so that there will be a way to punish these hanas crimes.

To commit a war crime you have to break one of the two main principles, which are: “The principle of necessity and the principle of humanity.” What the first principle means is that you can kill the enemy only when it is completely necessary. The second principle states that you should cause no unnecessary suffering to your enemy. These two principles are the two fundamental principles and have become highly detailed. The most important laws that have come out of the two main principles are that prisoners of war have rights and should never be executed or wounded after they have surrendered. That you are not allowed to take hostages, and that you can’t starve non-combatants. People who are sick, wounded should be cared for. Innocent civilians property should be spared, and civilians should have nothing stolen from them. You must treat all noncombatants humanely and equally.

These laws seem to be just and should be easily followed, but during times of war these laws are rarely followed. In times of war military soldiers do things that are sickening; they kill innocent people, rape women, torture people because they are of a different race or religion. These crimes are inhumane and something has to be done to make sure these crimes stop. After World War 2 you would have thought that genocide or ethnic cleansing wouldn’t be happening, but it still is. The war in Kosovo has resembled the same things that the Nazi’s did during WW2. We are trying to put a stop to these crimes by starting the United Nations, the making of the International Law Commission and now in the year 2000 we are trying to set up the International Criminal Court.

The most terrifying of all war crimes happened during WW2, where the German soldiers killed millions of innocent Jewish people. What the Nazi’s did had never happened before in war, therefore a new word was used to describe what they were doing, it was called genocide. Genocide is “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of life of different groups… of culture, languages, national feelings, religion and the economical existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.” The Nazis accomplished this terrible act be setting up concentration camps or death camps where they could kill as many Jewish people as possible, with great efficiency. The Nazis goal was to kill as many Jewish people as possible, and to get rid of the entire Jewish population in Europe. The Nazis accomplished this terrible task killing millions upon millions of Jews by means of gas chambers, starvation, beatings, and sexual torture.

After WW2 something had to be done. The Nazi soldiers who did this had to be punished in some way, shape or form. The Nuremberg trails were set up to achieve this. These trials were set up to punish these Nazi soldiers who committed such despicable acts against mankind. Before the trials took place the courts had to distinguish how culpable soldiers were who claimed they were just following orders. The statue said the ” The fact that an accused person acted pursuant to an order of Government or of a superior shall not relieve him of criminal responsibility.” With the establishment of this, the defense by the Nazis that they were following orders was thrown out. This was even backed up further by international law, which states, “a solider has not only the right but the duty to disobey orders, that would cause him to kill, commit torture or rape.”

On October 18, 1945 twenty people and different organizations were charged with four counts of conspiracy, crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The trial combined two elements of the law which were Angl-American and civil. The rules of the trial were quite different than that of the North American system for example Hearsay evidence was allowed, there was no jury, and no right to appeal. This trial caused the hanging of 10 of the 11 defendants who received the death penalties while the eleventh defendant committed suicide before he was hanged. The trial of Nuremberg has been debated throughout the years because some people believe that these Nazi solders and commanders didn’t receive a fair trial.

The Nuremberg trial was only one small step in bringing justice to the many Jewish victims. The Jewish victims have not received justice yet and probably never will because there are still numerous Nazi war criminals that have gotten away, and have become very hard to track down. Recently there is a case in which and alleged Nazi war criminal by the name of Konrad Kalejs is being sought after for his involvement in a Nazi death squad that killed an estimate of 30,000 people who were mostly Jewish during WW2. Mr. Kalejs however will not stand trial because there is not e