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, lost or untold histories of war crimes tribunals that occurred beyond the shores of the transatlantic world. 4 In the following chapter, I would like to address why and how twentieth-century Germany became something like a model case and a cautionary tale for international humanitarian law. By discussing selected writings and debates of Anglo-American international lawyers and TJ experts, it will be argued that international humanitarian law was construed discursively by means of a dualistic narrative that distinguished – either synchronically or chronologically
The Arab–Israeli conflict has been at the centre of international affairs for decades. Despite repeated political efforts, the confrontation and casualties continue, especially in fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. This new assessment emphasizes the role that military force plays in blocking a diplomatic resolution. Many Arabs and Israelis believe that the only way to survive or to be secure is through the development, threat, and use of military force and violence. This idea is deeply flawed and results in missed diplomatic opportunities and growing insecurity. Coercion cannot force rivals to sign a peace agreement to end a long-running conflict. Sometimes negotiations and mutual concessions are the key to improving the fate of a country or national movement. Using short historical case studies from the 1950s through to today, the book explores and pushes back against the dominant belief that military force leads to triumph while negotiations and concessions lead to defeat and further unwelcome challenges. In The sword is not enough, we learn both what makes this idea so compelling to Arab and Israeli leaders and how it eventually may get dislodged.
lives by preventing another 9-11/Pearl Harbor, then it is acceptable behaviour. As Slavenka Drakulic expresses it, ‘once the concept of “otherness” takes root, the unimaginable becomes possible’ (Drakulic quoted in Neuffer 2001 :32). The once unimaginable has in fact, become normal in our society and we see it all around: in the failure to demand investigation into documented war crimes and atrocities
not to discuss the definition of the concept, but rather to debate the means to strengthen its implementation and its respect. … France calls on nations, the international community and the United Nations as a whole to meet this challenge so that the world will never again witness such heinous crimes as genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. France will be fully involved in that daily effort. (in UN General Assembly 2009 , 9
Protect , the Commission argued that both states and the international community have a responsibility to protect populations from four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. Three responsibilities were identified: to prevent, to react and to rebuild. It thus concluded that “the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect” (ICISS 2001 , xi). By doing so, the report did not disregard the importance of sovereignty, since this would have sealed the fate of R2P by leading to
explaining that “the widespread, unchecked nature of attacks by ex-Séléka and anti-Balaka militia, as well as by armed civilians associated with them, against civilians on the basis of religion or ethnicity constitute crimes against humanity. If not halted, there is a risk of genocide in this country” ( 2014 , 3). He then added, “we need to uphold our responsibility to protect Central Africans from the risk of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity yesterday” ( 2014 , 4). Through Resolution 2127, which was passed in December 2013, the UN
the Second World War profited from personal relations with Borchard and happily cited his ideas. Transitional justice and the punishment of war crimes are the focus of Chapter 7 , in which Annette Weinke shows how, since the 1990s, a worldwide community of transitional justice (TJ) scholars have taken the case of contemporary German history as a universal model for dealing with perpetrators and victims of state-sponsored violence. She argues that throughout the twentieth century, Germany was at the heart of transatlantic debates about international law
and Old Doctrines of War, London, I.B. Tauris, 2005. 27 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1996. 28 For example: James Gow, Triumph of the Lack of Will, London, Hurst, 1997; Gow’s The Serbian Project and its Adversaries: A Strategy of War Crimes, London, Hurst, 2003; Susan Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, 1996, and; Mark Mazower, ‘The War in Bosnia’, London, Action for Bosnia, 1992; Lene Hansen, ‘Civilizational Politics and the ‘Third Balkan War’, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 37, 2000. 29 Others
cleansing with the 1948 war. But in linking he also legitimates: ‘Massacres and rapes cannot be justified. They are war crimes. But in certain circumstances expulsion is not a war crime. I don’t think that the expulsions of ‘48 were war crimes. You cannot make omelette without breaking eggs. You must dirty your hands’ (Shavit 2004). Ophir critiques Morris’s use of the timeline argument, linking 1948 with the current consequences of the occupation. He argues that Morris constructs an enemy with whom Israel cannot compromise, ‘just as the occupation’s cages construct the
Security Council resolutions and has been the subject of ten annual reports from the UN secretaries general. 5 Put simply, it means that states have a responsibility to protect their own populations – not just their citizens – from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, while the international community has a responsibility to assist them and to react in a “timely and decisive manner” if they fail to do so (see Articles 138–139 in UN General Assembly 2005 ). In order to facilitate its