Justice After War

Justice after War

History – Wars – Writing Task

Wartime is definitely a time of much violence and many things happen during this time, but what about after war…

“The just war tradition is typically evoked when discussing the decision to launch a war (justice of war) and when evaluating the conduct of forces during war (justice in war). But the tradition does not explicitly specify principles for assessing justice after war, nor does it discuss state obligations upon achieving military victory.”

This excerpt was taken from an article by Tony Lang and Mary-Lea Cox. Once victory is earned by one side it must take responsibility to pave the road to peace in that country by building a new political system. This is summarized in Thomas L. Freidman’s view when he says “you break it, you own it”. But maintaining peace in war-trodden country is not easy. There is jealousy from that country, the urge to take revenge; while this is happening the victors have to discuss how to maintain justice. Maintaining the balance between these two is a tedious task. In many conflicts through history the aftermath has been more of a problem to the defeated than the war itself, becoming financially crippled, becoming underdogs of the world, being restricted. These are all problems faced by the dark horse of the battle, after a battle keeping a stability of even-handedness and retribution is a daunting task.

Many trials through time have been subject to comments by critics that have made points that justice had no role in the final judgement. In the Nuremberg Trials, of the 21 defendants that were held in custody 11 were sentenced to death (over 50%), three were acquitted and the rest were subject to heavy jail terms. The Nazi atrocities that they were put on trial for were for good reason, though they had been wishing to give them all a fair trial it is obvious that excessive urges to take revenge caused an imbalance in the balance between revenge and justice.

Those to be prosecuted were done so because of the brutal “war crimes”, “crimes against peace” and “crimes against humanity” they had committed. The prosecutors were dominated by a large percentage of Jews, who at this time, excusably, had a fervent hatred for the Nazis, since the Nazis had also had a fervent hatred for them. But this just shows how hard it would have been for these prosecutors to not have had revenge govern their thoughts throughout the trial.