Abstract
This chapter begins by noting the legal recognition of the concept of war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly prohibiting targeted attacks against civilians. It then examines efforts to explain compliance with war crimes norms at the state and individual levels. However, these broader theories fail to recognize the empirical variation present within most cases: some units commit war crimes while others do not. Instead, the author argues that organizational level explanations may provide more nuanced tools to understand this variation. Examining socialization efforts, including training programs and enforcement, evaluates the development of a military’s efforts to comply with these laws of war. Investigating the evolution of unit subcultures and the role of unit leadership provides insight on how the unit internalizes the broader organization’s efforts. This mid-level approach offers greater opportunity to understand differences between units and their compliance with civilian protection norms.
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Notes
- 1.
There is a large literature on the deterrence value of war crimes tribunals, including Gary Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance—The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton University Press, 2000) and Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, “Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of Transitional Justice,” International Security 28 (3): 5-44. While war crimes tribunals create an important record of atrocities and provide a voice to victims, their deterrence value in limited. Scholars have also noted the inevitable power dynamics that influence international tribunals and limit the prosecutions of major state powers (including the United States and the United Kingdom)—see Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, Global Justice: The Politics of War Crimes Trials (Stanford, 2008). For a useful annotated bibliography, see Martin Menneke, “Punishing Genocidaires: A Deterrent Effect or Not?” Human Rights Review 8(4): 319-339.
- 2.
Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Collins, 1992). Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).
- 3.
In reality, the civilian-military dynamic can be much more interactive and contentious, but from an organizational point of view, this hierarchy helps explain how the different actors influence the organizational environment and culture.
- 4.
In the initial months after the death of Shidane Arone , the Canadian Forces commissioned a Board of Inquiry to investigate the incident, but this board did not investigate members that faced criminal prosecution in the military courts. Upon this conclusion of this Board’s Phase I Report, the Canadian government decided to create a civilian Commission of Inquiry with a broader mandate to investigate the Canadian Airborne Regiment. This Commission heard months of testimony from civilian and military leaders, as well as some of the lower-level officers implicated in the March 4 deaths. The Commission also tasked several scholars to write reports on various aspects of the incident. Unfortunately, the government ordered the Commission to complete its report before it could hear testimony on the March 16 death of Shidane Arone.
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Siver, C. (2018). Exploring and Explaining Participation in War Crimes. In: Military Interventions, War Crimes, and Protecting Civilians. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77691-0_2
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