Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals

By Gary Jonathan Bass

Book Overview

International justice has become a crucial part of the ongoing political debates about the future of shattered societies like Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Chile. Why do our governments sometimes display such striking idealism in the face of war crimes and atrocities abroad, and at other times cynically abandon the pursuit of international justice altogether? Why today does justice seem so slow to come for war crimes victims in the Balkans? In this book, Gary Bass offers an unprecedented look at the politics behind international war crimes tribunals, combining analysis with investigative reporting and a broad historical perspective. The Nuremberg trials powerfully demonstrated how effective war crimes tribunals can be. But there have been many other important tribunals that have not been as successful, and which have been largely left out of today's debates about international justice. This timely book brings them in, using primary documents to examine the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, the Armenian genocide, World War II, and the recent wars in the former Yugoslavia. Bass explains that bringing war criminals to justice can be a military ordeal, a source of endless legal frustration, as well as a diplomatic nightmare. The book takes readers behind the scenes to see vividly how leaders like David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton have wrestled with these agonizing moral dilemmas. The book asks how law and international politics interact, and how power can be made to serve the cause of justice. Bass brings new archival research to bear on such events as the prosecution of the Armenian genocide, presenting surprising episodes that add to the historical record. His sections on the former Yugoslavia tell--with important new discoveries--the secret story of the politicking behind the prosecution of war crimes in Bosnia, drawing on interviews with senior White House officials, key diplomats, and chief prosecutors at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Bass concludes that despite the obstacles, legalistic justice for war criminals is nonetheless worth pursuing. His arguments will interest anyone concerned about human rights and the pursuit of idealism in international politics.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 069104922X
• ISBN13: 9780691049229
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 440 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

excellent case studies of the politics of war crimes trials

At the Tehran Conference in 1943, Stalin toasted the summary executions of 50,000 German officers, Churchill privately proposed a number of some 100 major war criminals, Roosevelt kept silent, swayed alternately by Hans Morgenthau, Jr., who proposed some 2500 summary executions, and Henry Stimson, who preferred trials. That Stimson should ultimately prevail in the debate owes as much to accidents of history as to any profound historical moment culminating in Nuremberg. How Nuremberg ultimately played out, and the subsequent notion of holding leaders personally responsible for war crimes, is a tale well worth reading. Gary Jonathan Bass's book, Stay the Hand of Vengeance, debunks several of the myths that grow from such moments. Still, in reviving the story of Leipzig (trials of German officers after World War I) and Constantinople/Malta (trials of Ottoman officers after World War I), Bass has presented not just a useful set of anecdotes on trials that failed and one that succeeded beyond expectation or intention, but a careful history of what drove efforts to hold such trials in the first place, of the limited political will behind them, the complexity and likelihood of failure. Bass offers two principle insights: first, liberal states have a tendency to support individual accountability through trials for leaders responsible for war crimes that is unique (illiberal states prefer summary executions without second thought). Second, the tendency for liberal states to desire individual accountability and punishment ("legalism," as Bass uses the term) varies directly with the quantity of suffering experienced by that state: France loses 14 times as many men as America in World War I, and Britain 10 times as many men, and both are far more interested in war crimes trials. America, on the other hand, supported prosecutions for those responsible for unrestricted submarine warfare. The first goal of liberal states is to punish those who have harmed their own citizens. The second goal is to do so without risking their own troops. Bass calls this "selfishness." The principle defect with Bass's amazingly rich work (and apparently, his first academic work following the Let's Go Guide to Egypt and Israel) is that it was published before 9-11, before Guantanamo, the trial of Saddam, the death of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, the ongoing efforts in Arusha and Rwanda, and the preliminary flickerings of prosecutions before the International Criminal Court for offenses in Darfur, Sudan, and Uganda. An update is urgently needed. Vainly, one hopes Bass's insights into war crimes trials and the politics behind them will prove unnecessary. Those who anticipate that new monstrous figures will arise in this century may be well-served by a careful read of Bass's work, in that the prospects and pitfalls of trials as a means of addressing global villainy deserve this sort of well-researched, attentively reasoned, albeit somewhat disheartening, treatment. "

well written, fascinating

This book is thoroughly researched and footnoted and very well written. It culminates in a balanced account of the development of the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and exposes the role of Western nations in supporting- and in some cases, obstructing the tribunal's work. Bass' thesis is that Western nations value human rights and the rule of law,- but not more than the lives of their own soldiers - thus accounting for the sporadic Western support for War Crimes tribunals. This is provocative book which has many insights into the complexities of international organizations, human rights, and diplomacy.

Don't Miss This Book

Gary Jonathan Bass's book is a riveting, thoughtful read into what has been a long-neglected chapter of history. Piecing it all together wasn't easy. Mr. Bass takes sound scholarship, adds good reporting, and weaves a tale that I, frankly, could not put down. Read it. You won't regret it.

Great History, Great Journalism, Great Scholarship

If you care even a little bit about international justice, you have to read this groundbreaking book. The research is incredibly painstaking--there's unbelievable stuff about the war crimes tribunal after the Napoleonic Wars, and a riveting reconstruction of the failed tribunal after the Armenian genocide. But there's also great journalism about the search for justice in the Balkans. It looks like international tribunals are going to be the next big thing; this is the definitive history, and the definitive analysis.