This is volume 1 of a new, 5-volume reference work which rectifies a lamentable gap in access to rich war crimes trial jurisprudence from the post-World War II era. It offers a comprehensive collection of the Law Reports of the 300 Australian Military Courts trials held between 1945-1951, together with location essays on their background and relevance. Launched at a propitious time in which Australia is engaged in a significant criminal investigation of alleged ADF war crimes in Afghanistan, it will be of lasting value both within Australia and outside it in the wider realm of international criminal law. Many other Allied nations conducted their own military trials in both the European and Pacific theatres post-WWII, and the Australian experience, documented in these unique volumes, offers an important template for other national initiatives of this kind. The collection supplies i.a. trial transcripts and analysis of prosecution and defense arguments, relevant legal issues, judgments and sentences. It is a rich and unrivalled resource for historians and scholars as well as practitioners of international criminal law.

This unique volume provides a detailed analysis of Australia’s 300 war crimes trials of principally Japanese accused conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Part I contains contextual essays explaining why Australia established military courts to conduct these trials and thematic essays considering various legal issues in, and historical perspectives on, the trials. Part II offers a comprehensive collection of eight location essays, one each for the physical locations where the trials were held. In Part III post-trial issues are reviewed, such as the operation of compounds for war criminals; the repatriation of convicted Japanese war criminals to serve the remainder of their sentences; and reflections of some of those convicted on their experience of the trials. In the final essay, a contemporary reflection on the fairness of the trials is provided, not on the basis of a twenty-first century critique of contemporary minimum standards of fair trial expected in the prosecution of war crimes, but by reviewing approaches taken in the trials themselves as well as from reactions to the trials by those associated with them. The essays are supported by a large collection of unique historical photographs, maps and statistical materials. There has been no systematic and comprehensive analysis of these trials so far, which has meant that they are virtually precluded from consideration as judicial precedent. This volume fills that gap, and offers scholars and practitioners an important and groundbreaking resource.

Among these communities, three local men from the villages of Serniki, Israylovka, and Gnivan were intimately implicated in such killing operations: Ivan Polyukhovich, a forester in the German-controlled administration; Heinrich Wagner, a Volksdeutscher liaison officer; and Mikolay Berezowsky, a member of the local police force. More than fifty years later, these three men were arrested and brought to trial in Australia for their alleged war crimes.

‘For the first time Australia speaks, not for herself alone, but for the whole British Commonwealth.’ So wrote a journalist about Australia’s leading role in the Allied program of war crimes trials which followed the end of the Second World War in the Pacific. An Australian judge, Sir William Webb, was president of the Tokyo Trial of Japan’s wartime political and military leaders, and Australia conducted hundreds of other trials throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The most tenacious of the Allied prosecutors, Australia led the unsuccessful bid to prosecute Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal and was the last country to conduct war crimes trials against the Japanese, on Manus Island in 1951. The aim of the trials was to prevent a repetition of the horrors of the Pacific War, in which millions had perished, mostly civilians, and tens of thousands of prisoners of war had died in Japanese captivity. Yet debate around the trials was fierce at the time – whether they had a legal basis, whether the Emperor should have been prosecuted, and whether their devastating bombing of Japanese cities had robbed the Allies of the moral authority to put their enemies on trial. Seventy years on, much remains to be learnt from both the successes and failures of these trials. Were they fair? Were their goals realistic? Were they acts of justice or revenge? With international law more important today than ever, Stern Justice makes an irrefutable case for not allowing them to stay forgotten.

Beginning in late 1945, the United States, Britain, China, Australia, France, the Netherlands, and later the Philippines, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China convened national courts to prosecute Japanese military personnel for war crimes. The defendants included ethnic Koreans and Taiwanese who had served with the armed forces as Japanese subjects. In Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East tried Japanese leaders. While the fairness of these trials has been a focus for decades, Japanese War Criminals instead argues that the most important issues arose outside the courtroom. What was the legal basis for identifying and detaining subjects, determining who should be prosecuted, collecting evidence, and granting clemency after conviction? The answers to these questions helped set the norms for transitional justice in the postwar era and today contribute to strategies for addressing problematic areas of international law. Examining the complex moral, ethical, legal, and political issues surrounding the Allied prosecution project, from the first investigations during the war to the final release of prisoners in 1958, Japanese War Criminals shows how a simple effort to punish the guilty evolved into a multidimensional struggle that muddied the assignment of criminal responsibility for war crimes. Over time, indignation in Japan over Allied military actions, particularly the deployment of the atomic bombs, eclipsed anger over Japanese atrocities, and, among the Western powers, new Cold War imperatives took hold. This book makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the construction of the postwar international order in Asia and to our comprehension of the difficulties of implementing transitional justice.