Non-Jus, Just Collateral

How the Failure to Properly Prosecute War Crimes After the Second World War Destroyed Global Justice

Abstract

This paper examines the failures of the Allied Powers in their prosecution of the war crimes and atrocities committed during the Second World War and those failures led to a precedent which fundamentally disabled the global community’s ability to punish war crimes in the years following. This paper examines the established laws of war both before and after the war such as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It also highlights specific crimes committed in the past such as the human experimentation of Imperial Japan’s Unit 731 and more recent examples like the Abu Ghraib prison run by Coalition Forces in Iraq. Research reveals that there is a pattern of powerful nations often ignoring or twisting international law to fit their own goals to the detriment of the disenfranchised.