War crimes committed by the United States
Encyclopedia
The United States of America has been accused of committing war crimes at various points throughout its history. Most, but not all contemporary war crimes are defined by the International Criminal Court
(ICC), the Geneva Conventions
, and the associated laws of war
under international law
. War crimes in the United States can be prosecuted through the War Crimes Act of 1996
but the US government does not accept the Jurisdiction of the ICC over its military forces. United States violations of the laws of war
falling under the rubric of jus in bello are discussed in the present article; U.S. violations of jus ad bellum
, such as crimes against peace or wars of aggression under the Nuremberg Principles
are discussed elsewhere.
of the United States Senate
from 1899 to 1921. The committee was established by Senate resolution on December 15, 1899, to oversee administration of the Philippines
, which Spain had ceded to the United States as part of the settlement of the Spanish-American War
. The committee was established by Senate resolution on December 15, 1899, even though the treaty of December 10, 1899, had not yet been ratified.
In 1921, the Committee was terminated and jurisdiction over legislative matters concerning the Philippines was transferred to the newly created Committee on Territories and Insular Possessions.
tried to introduce a resolution to define air raids on civilians as acts of terror, but his motion was rejected.
were the subject of a judicial review
in Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State
. The District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found that "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war." Francisco Gómez points out in an article published in the International Review of the Red Cross
that, with respect to the "anti-city" or "blitz" strategy, that "in examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property." The possibility that attacks like the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings could be considered war crimes is one of the reasons given by John R. Bolton
for the United States not agreeing to be bound by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
while he was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, although they would not be prosecutable due to their having occurred prior to the ratification of the treaty.
In the aftermath of the Malmedy massacre a written order from the HQ of the 328th US Army Infantry Regiment, dated December 21, 1944, stated: No SS troops or paratrooper
s will be taken prisoner but will be shot on sight. Major-General Raymond Hufft (U.S. Army) gave instructions to his troops not to take prisoners when they crossed the Rhine in 1945. "After the war, when he reflected on the war crimes he authorized, he admitted, 'if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them.'" Stephen Ambrose
related: "I've interviewed well over 1000 combat veterans. Only one of them said he shot a prisoner... Perhaps as many as one-third of the veterans...however, related incidents in which they saw other GIs shooting unarmed German prisoners who had their hands up."
Near the French village of Audouville-la-Hubert
30 German Wehrmacht prisoners were massacred by U.S. paratroopers.
Historian Peter Lieb has found that many US and Canadian units were ordered to not take prisoners during the D-Day landings in Normandy. If this view is correct it may explain the fate of 64 German prisoners (out of 130 captured) who did not make it to the POW collecting point on Omaha Beach
on D-Day.
According to an article in Der Spiegel
by Klaus Wiegrefe, many personal memoirs of Allied soldiers have been willfully ignored by historians until now because they were at odds with the "Greatest Generation
" mythology surrounding World War II, but this has recently started to change with books such as "The Day of Battle" by Rick Atkinson
where he describes Allied war crimes in Italy, and "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy," by Anthony Beevor. Beevor's latest work is currently discussed by scholars, and should some of them be proven right that means that Allied war crimes in Normandy were much more extensive "than was previously realized".
American soldiers in the Pacific often deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered. According to Richard Aldrich, who has published a study of the diaries kept by United States and Australia
n soldiers, they sometimes massacred prisoners of war. Dower states that in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to prison compounds." According to Aldrich it was common practice for U.S. troops not to take prisoners. This analysis is supported by British historian Niall Ferguson
, who also says that, in 1943, "a secret [U. S.] intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese."
Ferguson states such practices played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944. That same year, efforts were taken by Allied high commanders to suppress "take no prisoners" attitudes, among their own personnel (as these were affecting intelligence gathering) and to encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. Ferguson adds that measures by Allied commanders to improve the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead, resulted in it reaching 1:7, by mid-1945. Nevertheless, taking no prisoners was still standard practice among U. S. troops at the Battle of Okinawa
, in April–June 1945.
Ulrich Straus, a U.S. Japanologist
, suggests that frontline troops intensely hated Japanese military personnel and were "not easily persuaded" to take or protect prisoners, as they believed that Allied personnel who surrendered, got "no mercy" from the Japanese. Allied soldiers believed that Japanese soldiers were inclined to feign surrender, in order to make surprise attacks. Therefore, according to Straus, "Senior officers opposed the taking of prisoners on the grounds that it needlessly exposed American troops to risks..." When prisoners nevertheless were taken at Gualdacanal, interrogator Army Captain Burden noted that many times these were shot during transport because "it was too much bother to take him in".
Ferguson suggests that "it was not only the fear of disciplinary action or of dishonor that deterred German and Japanese soldiers from surrendering. More important for most soldiers was the perception that prisoners would be killed by the enemy anyway, and so one might as well fight on."
U. S. historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in U.S. POW compounds to two important factors, a Japanese reluctance to surrender and a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were "animals" or "subhuman'" and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to POWs. The latter reason is supported by Ferguson, who says that "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians—as Untermensch
en."
in 1945.
Okinawan historian Oshiro Masayasu (former director of the Okinawa Prefectural Historical Archives) writes based on several years of research:
However, Japanese civilians "were often surprised at the comparatively humane treatment they received from the American enemy." According to Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power by Mark Selden
, the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture
, rape, and murder
of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned."
There were also 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture
after the Japanese surrender.
was an incident refer to the mass killing of large undetermined numbers of South Korean refugees conducted by U.S. Army forces of the 7th Cavalry Regiment between July 26 and July 29, 1950 near the village of No Gun Ri. This incident gained widespread attention when the Associated Press published a series of articles in 1999 that subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.
is a collection of formerly secret documents compiled by Pentagon
investigators in the early 1970s, confirming that atrocities by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War
were more extensive than had been officially acknowledged. The documents are housed by the United States
National Archives and Records Administration
. They detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by United States Army
investigators — not including the 1968 My Lai Massacre
.
was the mass murder
of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, almost entirely civilian
s, most of them women and children, conducted by U.S. Army forces on March 16, 1968. Some of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, or maimed, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai
and My Khe of Sơn Mỹ village during the Vietnam War
. Of the 26 US soldiers initially charged with criminal offences or war-crimes for the actions at My Lai, only William Calley
was convicted. He served four and one-half months of his two-year sentence.
The incident prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre also reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War. Three U.S. Servicemen (Hugh Thompson, Jr.
, Glenn Andreotta
and Lawrence Colburn
) who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were sharply criticized by U.S. Congressmen, received hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on their doorsteps. Thirty years after the event their efforts were honored.
during Operation Ranch Hand
during the Vietnam War
was a violation of laws regarding the use of chemical weapons in the 1907 Hague Convention, the 1927 Geneva Convention, and the 1949 Geneva Convention. In 2005 a suit filed against the United States and several companies who produced Agent Orange was rejected by a United States District Court in Brooklyn. The court found that "No treaty or agreement, express or implied, of the United States, operated to make use of herbicides in Vietnam a violation of the laws of war or any other form of international law until at the earliest April of 1975." In 2007 the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Court in Brooklyn saying that "Agent Orange and similar U.S. herbicides cannot be considered poisons banned under international rules of war" and that the lack of large-scale research made it impossible to show what caused illnesses.
has condemned the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
, which they confirm killed 400 civilians (some sources place this figure at over 1,000) in what it claims were violations of international law and war crimes, due to deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure and indiscriminate attacks, with lack of precautionary measures taken to prevent civilian casualties
Human Rights Watch
documented approximately 500 civilian deaths as a result of the NATO bombing campaign. They reported "no evidence of war crimes" but cited violations of international humanitarian law.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
reviewed these events, including HRW's report, as well as that alleged by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It concluded "either the law is not sufficiently clear or investigations are unlikely to result in the acquisition of sufficient evidence."
the U.S. Government adopted several controversial measures (e.g., invading Iraq
, applying "unlawful combatant
" status to prisoners, conducting "extraordinary rendition
s", and "enhanced interrogation methods").
had claimed in 2005 that the principle of "command responsibility" could make high-ranking officials within the Bush administration guilty of war crimes allegedly committed during the War on Terror
, either with their knowledge or by persons under their control.
A presidential memorandum of September 7, 2002 authorized U.S. interrogators of prisoners captured in Afghanistan to deny the prisoners basic protections required by the Geneva Conventions, and thus according to Jordan J. Paust, professor of law and formerly a member of the faculty of the Judge Advocate General
's School, "necessarily authorized and ordered violations of the Geneva Conventions, which are war crimes." Based on the president's memorandum, U.S. personnel carried out cruel and inhumane treatment on the prisoners, which necessarily means that the president's memorandum was a plan to violate the Geneva Convention, and such a plan constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, according to Professor Paust.
Alberto Gonzales
and others argued that detainees should be considered "unlawful combatant
s" and as such not be protected by the Geneva Conventions
in multiple memoranda regarding these perceived legal gray areas.
Gonzales' statement that denying coverage under the Geneva Conventions "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act
" suggests, to some authors, an awareness by those involved in crafting policies in this area that US officials are involved in acts that could be seen to be war crimes. The US Supreme Court challenged the premise on which this argument is based in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
, in which it ruled that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applies to detainees in Guantanamo Bay and that the Military Tribunals
used to try these suspects were in violation of US and international law.
On April 14, 2006, Human Rights Watch
said that Secretary Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for his alleged involvement in the abuse of Mohammad al-Qahtani. On November 14, 2006, invoking universal jurisdiction
, legal proceedings were started in Germany – for their alleged involvement of prisoner abuse – against Donald Rumsfeld
, Alberto Gonzales
, John Yoo
, George Tenet
and others.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006
is seen by some as an amnesty law
for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act and by abolishing habeas corpus
, effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo has told the Sunday Telegraph he is willing to start an inquiry by the International Criminal Court
(ICC), and possibly a trial, for war crimes committed in Iraq involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair
and American President George W. Bush
. Though under the Rome Statute, the ICC has no jurisdiction over Bush, since the USA is not a State Party to the relevant treaty—unless Bush were accused of crimes inside a State Party, or the UN Security Council (where the USA has a veto) requested an investigation. However Blair does fall under ICC jurisdiction as Britain is a State Party.
Nat Hentoff
wrote on August 28, 2007, that a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross
and the July 2007 report by Human Rights First
and Physicians for Social Responsibility
, titled "Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality", might be used as evidence of American war crimes if there was a Nuremberg-like trial regarding the War on Terror.
Shortly before the end of President Bush's second term, newsmedia in countries other than the U.S. began publishing the views of those who believe that under the United Nations Convention Against Torture the US is obligated to hold those responsible for prisoner abuse to account under criminal law
. One proponent of this view was the United Nations Special Rapporteur
on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Professor Manfred Nowak
) who, on January 20, 2009, remarked on German television that former president George W. Bush had lost his head of state immunity and under international law the U.S. would now be mandated to start criminal proceedings against all those involved in these violations of the UN Convention Against Torture. Law professor Dietmar Herz explained Nowak's comments by saying that under U.S. and international law former President Bush is criminally responsible for adopting torture as interrogation tool.
Michael Ignatieff
, then leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
and former director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
said that the threat of terrorism requires serious and possibly permanent abridgement of civil liberties. He stated that governments are justified in combating terrorism with "lesser evils", ranging from suspension of civil liberties, through secret uses of executive power, to torture of suspects, as well as targeted killing, right up to pre-emptive war to destroy terrorist bases and also to prevent the development or deployment of weapons which may be used by terrorists or states that support terrorist aims.
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
(ICC), the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
, and the associated laws of war
Laws of war
The law of war is a body of law concerning acceptable justifications to engage in war and the limits to acceptable wartime conduct...
under international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
. War crimes in the United States can be prosecuted through the War Crimes Act of 1996
War Crimes Act of 1996
The War Crimes Act of 1996 was passed with overwhelming majorities by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton....
but the US government does not accept the Jurisdiction of the ICC over its military forces. United States violations of the laws of war
Laws of war
The law of war is a body of law concerning acceptable justifications to engage in war and the limits to acceptable wartime conduct...
falling under the rubric of jus in bello are discussed in the present article; U.S. violations of jus ad bellum
Jus ad bellum
Jus ad bellum is a set of criteria that are to be consulted before engaging in war, in order to determine whether entering into war is permissible; that is, whether it is a just war....
, such as crimes against peace or wars of aggression under the Nuremberg Principles
Nuremberg Principles
The Nuremberg principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II.- Principle...
are discussed elsewhere.
Philippine–American War
The Committee on the Philippines was a standing committeeStanding Committee
In the United States Congress, standing committees are permanent legislative panels established by the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate rules. . Because they have legislative jurisdiction, standing committees consider bills and issues and recommend measures for...
of the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
from 1899 to 1921. The committee was established by Senate resolution on December 15, 1899, to oversee administration of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, which Spain had ceded to the United States as part of the settlement of the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
. The committee was established by Senate resolution on December 15, 1899, even though the treaty of December 10, 1899, had not yet been ratified.
In 1921, the Committee was terminated and jurisdiction over legislative matters concerning the Philippines was transferred to the newly created Committee on Territories and Insular Possessions.
Air raids on civilian population
During the Second World War, the Allied aerial forces performed air raids on civilian populations in Europe and over Japan. These actions were retrospectively called crimes by some historians, and were also viewed as such by the leaders of the Axis Powers during the war, despite their own air raids on civilians. At a conference of top Nazi leaders in Klessheim on 6 June 1944, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs Joachim von RibbentropJoachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...
tried to introduce a resolution to define air raids on civilians as acts of terror, but his motion was rejected.
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
In 1963, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and NagasakiAtomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
were the subject of a judicial review
Judicial review
Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. Specific courts with judicial review power must annul the acts of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher authority...
in Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State
Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State
Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State was a case brought before the District Court of Tokyo by a group of five survivors of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who claimed the action was illegal under the laws of war and demanded reparations from the Japanese government on the ground that...
. The District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found that "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war." Francisco Gómez points out in an article published in the International Review of the Red Cross
International Review of the Red Cross
The International Review of the Red Cross is a quarterly academic journal published by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Cambridge University Press. The journal aims to serve as a forum for debate, reflection and critical analysis on international humanitarian law, humanitarian...
that, with respect to the "anti-city" or "blitz" strategy, that "in examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property." The possibility that attacks like the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings could be considered war crimes is one of the reasons given by John R. Bolton
John R. Bolton
John Robert Bolton is an American lawyer and diplomat who has served in several Republican presidential administrations. He served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2005 until December 2006 on a recess appointment...
for the United States not agreeing to be bound by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court . It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of 13 October 2011, 119 states are party to the statute...
while he was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, although they would not be prosecutable due to their having occurred prior to the ratification of the treaty.
Prisoners of war
- Canicattì massacre: killing of Italian civilians by Lieutenant Colonel McCaffrey. A confidential inquiry was made, but McCaffrey was never charged with an offence relating to the incident. He died in 1954. This incident remained virtually unknown until Joseph S. Salemi of New York University, whose father witnessed it, publicised it.
- The Dachau massacreDachau massacreThe Dachau massacre occurred in the area of the Dachau concentration camp, near Dachau, Germany, on April 29, 1945, during World War II. During the camp's liberation, American soldiers from 45th Infantry Division of the U.S. Seventh Army allegedly wounded and killed German prisoners of war...
: killing of German prisoners of war and surrendering SS soldiers at the Dachau concentration camp. - In the Biscari massacreBiscari massacreThe Biscari massacre includes two World War II incidents in which U.S. soldiers were involved in killing 71 unarmed German and Italian prisoners of war at Biscari on 14 July, 1943.-Background:...
, which consist of two instances of mass murders, U.S. troops of the 45th Infantry Division killed roughly 75 prisoners of war, mostly Italian. - Operation TeardropOperation TeardropOperation Teardrop was a United States Navy operation of World War II conducted during April and May 1945 to sink German U-boats that were believed to be approaching the United States east coast armed with V-1 flying bombs. Two large U.S. Navy anti-submarine warfare task forces succeeded in...
: Eight of the surviving, captured crewmen from the sunk German submarine U-546 are tortured by US military personnel. Historian Philip K. Lundeberg has written that the beating and torture of U-546's survivors was a singular atrocity motivated by the interrogators' need to quickly get information on what the US believed were potential missile attacks on the continental US by German submarines.
In the aftermath of the Malmedy massacre a written order from the HQ of the 328th US Army Infantry Regiment, dated December 21, 1944, stated: No SS troops or paratrooper
Paratrooper
Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
s will be taken prisoner but will be shot on sight. Major-General Raymond Hufft (U.S. Army) gave instructions to his troops not to take prisoners when they crossed the Rhine in 1945. "After the war, when he reflected on the war crimes he authorized, he admitted, 'if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them.'" Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Edward Ambrose was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a long time professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history...
related: "I've interviewed well over 1000 combat veterans. Only one of them said he shot a prisoner... Perhaps as many as one-third of the veterans...however, related incidents in which they saw other GIs shooting unarmed German prisoners who had their hands up."
Near the French village of Audouville-la-Hubert
Audouville-la-Hubert
Audouville-la-Hubert is a commune in the Manche department in the Basse-Normandie region in north-western France.-See also:*Communes of the Manche departmentWW2...
30 German Wehrmacht prisoners were massacred by U.S. paratroopers.
Historian Peter Lieb has found that many US and Canadian units were ordered to not take prisoners during the D-Day landings in Normandy. If this view is correct it may explain the fate of 64 German prisoners (out of 130 captured) who did not make it to the POW collecting point on Omaha Beach
Omaha Beach
Omaha Beach is the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during World War II...
on D-Day.
According to an article in Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
by Klaus Wiegrefe, many personal memoirs of Allied soldiers have been willfully ignored by historians until now because they were at odds with the "Greatest Generation
Greatest Generation
"The Greatest Generation" is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the generation who grew up in the United States during the deprivation of the Great Depression, and then went on to fight in World War II, as well as those whose productivity within the war's home front made a decisive...
" mythology surrounding World War II, but this has recently started to change with books such as "The Day of Battle" by Rick Atkinson
Rick Atkinson
Rick Atkinson is an American journalist and author whose contributions led to four Pulitzer Prizes.-Life:Atkinson was born in Munich. His father was an United States Army officer and he grew up at military posts. He earned his bachelor degree from East Carolina University in 1974 and a master of...
where he describes Allied war crimes in Italy, and "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy," by Anthony Beevor. Beevor's latest work is currently discussed by scholars, and should some of them be proven right that means that Allied war crimes in Normandy were much more extensive "than was previously realized".
American soldiers in the Pacific often deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered. According to Richard Aldrich, who has published a study of the diaries kept by United States and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n soldiers, they sometimes massacred prisoners of war. Dower states that in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to prison compounds." According to Aldrich it was common practice for U.S. troops not to take prisoners. This analysis is supported by British historian Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson
Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson is a British historian. His specialty is financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.....
, who also says that, in 1943, "a secret [U. S.] intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese."
Ferguson states such practices played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944. That same year, efforts were taken by Allied high commanders to suppress "take no prisoners" attitudes, among their own personnel (as these were affecting intelligence gathering) and to encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. Ferguson adds that measures by Allied commanders to improve the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead, resulted in it reaching 1:7, by mid-1945. Nevertheless, taking no prisoners was still standard practice among U. S. troops at the Battle of Okinawa
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945...
, in April–June 1945.
Ulrich Straus, a U.S. Japanologist
Japanology
Japanese Studies is a term generally used in Europe to describe the historical and cultural study of Japan; in North America, the academic field is usually referred to as Japanese studies, which includes contemporary social sciences as well as classical humanistic fields.European Japanology is the...
, suggests that frontline troops intensely hated Japanese military personnel and were "not easily persuaded" to take or protect prisoners, as they believed that Allied personnel who surrendered, got "no mercy" from the Japanese. Allied soldiers believed that Japanese soldiers were inclined to feign surrender, in order to make surprise attacks. Therefore, according to Straus, "Senior officers opposed the taking of prisoners on the grounds that it needlessly exposed American troops to risks..." When prisoners nevertheless were taken at Gualdacanal, interrogator Army Captain Burden noted that many times these were shot during transport because "it was too much bother to take him in".
Ferguson suggests that "it was not only the fear of disciplinary action or of dishonor that deterred German and Japanese soldiers from surrendering. More important for most soldiers was the perception that prisoners would be killed by the enemy anyway, and so one might as well fight on."
U. S. historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in U.S. POW compounds to two important factors, a Japanese reluctance to surrender and a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were "animals" or "subhuman'" and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to POWs. The latter reason is supported by Ferguson, who says that "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians—as Untermensch
Untermensch
Untermensch is a term that became infamous when the Nazi racial ideology used it to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Gypsies, Poles along with other Slavic people like the Russians, Serbs, Belarussians and Ukrainians...
en."
Rape
It has been claimed that some U.S. soldiers raped Okinawan women during the Battle of OkinawaBattle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945...
in 1945.
Okinawan historian Oshiro Masayasu (former director of the Okinawa Prefectural Historical Archives) writes based on several years of research:
- Soon after the U.S. Marines landed, all the women of a village on Motobu Peninsula fell into the hands of American soldiers. At the time, there were only women, children and old people in the village, as all the young men had been mobilized for the war. Soon after landing, the Marines "mopped up" the entire village, but found no signs of Japanese forces. Taking advantage of the situation, they started "hunting for women" in broad daylight and those who were hiding in the village or nearby air raid shelters were dragged out one after another.
However, Japanese civilians "were often surprised at the comparatively humane treatment they received from the American enemy." According to Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power by Mark Selden
Mark Selden
Mark Selden is a Coordinator of the open access journal The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, a Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University, and Bartle Professor of History and Sociology at Binghamton University. He graduated from Amherst College with a major in...
, the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, rape, and murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned."
There were also 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture
Kanagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture located in the southern Kantō region of Japan. The capital is Yokohama. Kanagawa is part of the Greater Tokyo Area.-History:The prefecture has some archaeological sites going back to the Jōmon period...
after the Japanese surrender.
No Gun Ri Massacre
The No Gun Ri MassacreNo Gun Ri massacre
No Gun Ri Massacre was an incident during the Korean War in which an undetermined number of South Korean civilians were killed by soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment between July 26 and July 29, 1950 near the village of No Gun Ri...
was an incident refer to the mass killing of large undetermined numbers of South Korean refugees conducted by U.S. Army forces of the 7th Cavalry Regiment between July 26 and July 29, 1950 near the village of No Gun Ri. This incident gained widespread attention when the Associated Press published a series of articles in 1999 that subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group FilesVietnam War Crimes Working Group Files
The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files is a collection of documents compiled by Pentagon in the early 1970s during Army investigations into atrocities by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. They detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by United States Army investigators — not...
is a collection of formerly secret documents compiled by Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
investigators in the early 1970s, confirming that atrocities by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
were more extensive than had been officially acknowledged. The documents are housed by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
National Archives and Records Administration
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...
. They detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
investigators — not including the 1968 My Lai Massacre
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
.
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai MassacreMy Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
was the mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, almost entirely civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
s, most of them women and children, conducted by U.S. Army forces on March 16, 1968. Some of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, or maimed, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai
My Lai, Vietnam
Sơn Tịnh is a district of Quang Ngai province, in the South Central Coast region of Vietnam, situated to the northeast of the town of Quang Ngai...
and My Khe of Sơn Mỹ village during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Of the 26 US soldiers initially charged with criminal offences or war-crimes for the actions at My Lai, only William Calley
William Calley
William Laws Calley is a convicted American war criminal and a former U.S. Army officer found guilty of murder for his role in the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War.-Early life:...
was convicted. He served four and one-half months of his two-year sentence.
The incident prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre also reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War. Three U.S. Servicemen (Hugh Thompson, Jr.
Hugh Thompson, Jr.
Hugh Clowers Thompson, Jr., DFC, BSM, PH, AM was a United States Army helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. He is most well known for his role in stopping the My Lai Massacre, in which a group of US Army soldiers tortured and killed several hundred unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mutilating their...
, Glenn Andreotta
Glenn Andreotta
Glenn Urban Andreotta was an American helicopter crew chief in the Vietnam War noted for being one of three who intervened in the My Lai Massacre, in which at least 300 unarmed children, women and men were murdered....
and Lawrence Colburn
Lawrence Colburn
Lawrence Colburn is a United States Army veteran who, while serving as a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam War, intervened in the March 16, 1968 My Lai Massacre....
) who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were sharply criticized by U.S. Congressmen, received hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on their doorsteps. Thirty years after the event their efforts were honored.
Agent Orange
A panel of legal and political activists calling themselves the International Tribunal of Conscience in Support of the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange formed in France have claimed that the use of Agent OrangeAgent Orange
Agent Orange is the code name for one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth...
during Operation Ranch Hand
Operation Ranch Hand
Operation Ranch Hand was a U.S. Military operation during the Vietnam War, lasting from 1962 until 1971. It was part of the overall herbicidal warfare program during the war called "Operation Trail Dust"...
during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
was a violation of laws regarding the use of chemical weapons in the 1907 Hague Convention, the 1927 Geneva Convention, and the 1949 Geneva Convention. In 2005 a suit filed against the United States and several companies who produced Agent Orange was rejected by a United States District Court in Brooklyn. The court found that "No treaty or agreement, express or implied, of the United States, operated to make use of herbicides in Vietnam a violation of the laws of war or any other form of international law until at the earliest April of 1975." In 2007 the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Court in Brooklyn saying that "Agent Orange and similar U.S. herbicides cannot be considered poisons banned under international rules of war" and that the lack of large-scale research made it impossible to show what caused illnesses.
Yugoslavia
Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
has condemned the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was NATO's military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The strikes lasted from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999...
, which they confirm killed 400 civilians (some sources place this figure at over 1,000) in what it claims were violations of international law and war crimes, due to deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure and indiscriminate attacks, with lack of precautionary measures taken to prevent civilian casualties
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
documented approximately 500 civilian deaths as a result of the NATO bombing campaign. They reported "no evidence of war crimes" but cited violations of international humanitarian law.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
reviewed these events, including HRW's report, as well as that alleged by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It concluded "either the law is not sufficiently clear or investigations are unlikely to result in the acquisition of sufficient evidence."
War on Terror
As a reaction to the September 11, 2001 attacksSeptember 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
the U.S. Government adopted several controversial measures (e.g., invading Iraq
Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
A dispute exists over the "legitimacy" of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The debate centers around the question whether the invasion was an unprovoked assault on an independent country that may have breached international law, or if the United Nations Security Council authorized the invasion A dispute...
, applying "unlawful combatant
Unlawful combatant
An unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war. An unlawful combatant may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action.The Geneva Conventions apply in wars...
" status to prisoners, conducting "extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another. "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States and the United Kingdom have transferred suspected terrorists to other countries in order to torture the...
s", and "enhanced interrogation methods").
Command responsibility
Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
had claimed in 2005 that the principle of "command responsibility" could make high-ranking officials within the Bush administration guilty of war crimes allegedly committed during the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
, either with their knowledge or by persons under their control.
A presidential memorandum of September 7, 2002 authorized U.S. interrogators of prisoners captured in Afghanistan to deny the prisoners basic protections required by the Geneva Conventions, and thus according to Jordan J. Paust, professor of law and formerly a member of the faculty of the Judge Advocate General
Judge Advocate General
In the United Kingdom, the Judge Advocate General and Judge Martial of all the Forces is a judge responsible for the court martial process within the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force.-Qualifications:...
's School, "necessarily authorized and ordered violations of the Geneva Conventions, which are war crimes." Based on the president's memorandum, U.S. personnel carried out cruel and inhumane treatment on the prisoners, which necessarily means that the president's memorandum was a plan to violate the Geneva Convention, and such a plan constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, according to Professor Paust.
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
and others argued that detainees should be considered "unlawful combatant
Unlawful combatant
An unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war. An unlawful combatant may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action.The Geneva Conventions apply in wars...
s" and as such not be protected by the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
in multiple memoranda regarding these perceived legal gray areas.
Gonzales' statement that denying coverage under the Geneva Conventions "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act
War Crimes Act of 1996
The War Crimes Act of 1996 was passed with overwhelming majorities by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton....
" suggests, to some authors, an awareness by those involved in crafting policies in this area that US officials are involved in acts that could be seen to be war crimes. The US Supreme Court challenged the premise on which this argument is based in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 , is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay lack "the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military...
, in which it ruled that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applies to detainees in Guantanamo Bay and that the Military Tribunals
Guantanamo military commission
The Guantanamo military commissions are military tribunals created by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 for prosecuting detainees held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps.- History :...
used to try these suspects were in violation of US and international law.
On April 14, 2006, Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
said that Secretary Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for his alleged involvement in the abuse of Mohammad al-Qahtani. On November 14, 2006, invoking universal jurisdiction
Universal jurisdiction
Universal jurisdiction or universality principle is a principle in public international law whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over persons whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence, or any other...
, legal proceedings were started in Germany – for their alleged involvement of prisoner abuse – against Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
, Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
, John Yoo
John Yoo
John Choon Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W...
, George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
and others.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006
Military Commissions Act of 2006
The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. Drafted in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on Hamdan v...
is seen by some as an amnesty law
Amnesty law
An amnesty law is any law that retroactively exempts a select group of people, usually military leaders and government leaders, from criminal liability for crimes committed.Most allegations involve human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.-History:...
for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act and by abolishing habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
, effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo has told the Sunday Telegraph he is willing to start an inquiry by the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
(ICC), and possibly a trial, for war crimes committed in Iraq involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
and American President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
. Though under the Rome Statute, the ICC has no jurisdiction over Bush, since the USA is not a State Party to the relevant treaty—unless Bush were accused of crimes inside a State Party, or the UN Security Council (where the USA has a veto) requested an investigation. However Blair does fall under ICC jurisdiction as Britain is a State Party.
Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
wrote on August 28, 2007, that a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
and the July 2007 report by Human Rights First
Human Rights First
Human Rights First is a nonprofit, nonpartisan human rights organization based in New York City and Washington, D.C....
and Physicians for Social Responsibility
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Physicians for Social Responsibility is the largest physician-led organization in the USA working to protect the public from the what they consider threats of nuclear proliferation, climate change, and environmental toxins...
, titled "Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality", might be used as evidence of American war crimes if there was a Nuremberg-like trial regarding the War on Terror.
Shortly before the end of President Bush's second term, newsmedia in countries other than the U.S. began publishing the views of those who believe that under the United Nations Convention Against Torture the US is obligated to hold those responsible for prisoner abuse to account under criminal law
Criminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...
. One proponent of this view was the United Nations Special Rapporteur
Special Rapporteur
Special Rapporteur is a title given to individuals working on behalf of the United Nations within the scope of "Special Procedures" mechanisms who bear a specific mandate from the United Nations Human Rights Council....
on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Professor Manfred Nowak
Manfred Nowak
Manfred Nowak is an Austrian human rights lawyer.Nowak was a student of Felix Ermacora, and cooperated with him until Ermacora's death in 1995. They co-founded the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte in 1992...
) who, on January 20, 2009, remarked on German television that former president George W. Bush had lost his head of state immunity and under international law the U.S. would now be mandated to start criminal proceedings against all those involved in these violations of the UN Convention Against Torture. Law professor Dietmar Herz explained Nowak's comments by saying that under U.S. and international law former President Bush is criminally responsible for adopting torture as interrogation tool.
Michael Ignatieff
Michael Ignatieff
Michael Grant Ignatieff is a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011...
, then leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
and former director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy is research center concerned with human rights, and is located at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University....
said that the threat of terrorism requires serious and possibly permanent abridgement of civil liberties. He stated that governments are justified in combating terrorism with "lesser evils", ranging from suspension of civil liberties, through secret uses of executive power, to torture of suspects, as well as targeted killing, right up to pre-emptive war to destroy terrorist bases and also to prevent the development or deployment of weapons which may be used by terrorists or states that support terrorist aims.
See also
- Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuseAbu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuseBeginning in 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to public attention...
- Command responsibilityCommand responsibilityCommand responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes....
- Drop weaponDrop weaponA drop weapon is a weapon carried by a soldier for the purpose of placing on or near a slain individual to make that person appear to be an enemy combatant or insurgent, or alternatively left in the open for the purpose of firing on the individual who picks it up.*Throwaway...
- Human rights in the United StatesHuman rights in the United StatesHuman rights in the United States are legally protected by the Constitution of the United States and amendments, conferred by treaty, and enacted legislatively through Congress, state legislatures, and plebiscites...
- Indian massacre
- Operation Wheeler/Wallowa
- Operation Speedy ExpressOperation Speedy ExpressOperation Speedy Express was a controversial United States military operation of the Vietnam War conducted in the Mekong Delta provinces Kien Hoa and Vinh Binh...
- Operation MenuOperation MenuOperation Menu was the codename of a covert United States Strategic Air Command bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia and Laos from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War...
- Phoenix ProgramPhoenix ProgramThe Phoenix Program |phoenix]]) was a controversial counterinsurgency program designed, coordinated, and executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus during the Vietnam War that operated...
- Russell TribunalRussell TribunalThe Russell Tribunal, also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal or Russell-Sartre Tribunal, was a public body organized by British philosopher Bertrand Russell and hosted by French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre...
- United States and the International Criminal CourtUnited States and the International Criminal CourtThe United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court . The ICC is a permanent international criminal court, founded in 2002 by the Rome Statute to "bring to justice the perpetrators of the worst crimes known to humankind - war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide",...
- Tiger ForceTiger ForceTiger Force was a task force of the United States Army, 1st Battalion , 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade , 101st Airborne Division, which fought in the Vietnam War....
- Torture and the United StatesTorture and the United StatesTorture in the United States includes documented and alleged cases of torture both inside the United States and outside its borders by U.S. government personnel...
- The International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of IraqThe International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of IraqThe Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court reported in February 2006 that he had received 240 communications in connection with the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 which alleged that various war crimes had been committed. The overwhelming majority of these communications came from...
- Vietnam War Crimes Working Group FilesVietnam War Crimes Working Group FilesThe Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files is a collection of documents compiled by Pentagon in the early 1970s during Army investigations into atrocities by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. They detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by United States Army investigators — not...
- American Service-Members' Protection Act
Yugoslavia
- Michael Parenti The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia
- Balkans region archives, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting