War Crimes, Genocide, and the Law: A Guide to the Issues

by Arnold Krammer

Overview

This timely handbook offers an examination of man's history of war crimes and the parallel development of rules of war to prevent them in the future.

Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Auschwitz. War crimes have occurred in regions around the world and continue to this day. Although atrocities are as old as war itself, they did not become punishable crimes until the law evolved to define them as such. War Crimes, Genocide, and the Law: A Guide to the Issues examines the types of war crimes and the motivations behind them, as well as the laws that seek to control and abolish these heinous acts.

Within the handbook, centuries of war crimes and genocides are analyzed and catalogued. At the same time, the author offers a history of the development of the rules of war, enabling readers to grasp the importance of such precedent-setting events as the 1946 Nuremberg Trials, and to see the gradual evolution of the laws intended to punish perpetrators and prevent future barbarism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313359378
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/09/2010
Series:	Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Arnold Krammer is professor of history at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 War Crimes in History
Chapter 2 Searching for the Law
Chapter 3 The Worst War Crime of All
Chapter 4 Punishment, at Last
Chapter 5 The Rules Are Changing
Appendix—Primary Documents
Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV), October 18, 1907
International Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, July 27, 1929
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, 1948
Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, August 12, 1949 (Geneva Convention III)
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), Geneva, July 1977
United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1984
Memorandum for John A. Rizzo, Acting General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency, from Office of the Assistant Attorney General, August 1, 2002
Bibliography
Index