The indictment of public officials and military officers who are accused of disturbing the international order is a political rather than legal move. Prosecution for violation of international crimes is about politics; it is not about law—this is an unavoidable deductive conclusion from the discussions in this book.
Politics played an important role in the prosecution of persons charged with crimes of disrupting the world order. To silence the individuals who opposed his regime, one country leader charged the members of the opposition party with crimes of aggression, prosecuted them, and ensured their conviction. Situations such as this led several erudite criminal defence advocates to raise questions about the legality of the courts that were convened to hear and decide cases of international criminal law. Such courts were said to be farcical because their procedures were tailor-made to ensure the conviction of the indicted. Even the criminal principle of nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege had no applicability in many past trials for crimes of aggression.
The phrase “politics in exchange for prosecution” hindered the true dispensation of justice to the victims of crimes of an international character. Peace is always such an expensive commodity to maintain that sometimes charges of atrocities have to be extenuated just to achieve it. Some contributors presented examples of this situation.
Kirsten Sellars has performed a challenging job in arranging the sequence of the presentations and discussions in the book. The book could have been written in many volumes, but the extent of the discussions of the contributors will give their readers a sufficient overview of the international crimes committed in Asia and the result of their trials, as well as the observations of notable legal experts in criminal law. All contributors have rendered well-written accounts of the dynamic character of international criminal law. Their discussions will enable their readers to compare the application, in the past as well as in the present, of international criminal law. The varied styles of presenting their topics will place the readers in an Archimedean standpoint to view international criminal law as academicians, legal scholars, judges, prosecutors, defence advocates, sociologists, political scientists, and politicians. There are sufficient factual backdrops of the topics presented in each chapter for the reader to comprehend the flow of discussions that led to either the conviction, acquittal, or mercy of famous political personalities in many countries of Asia.
The book is an indispensable item in the library of a scholar of international criminal law. There are many books on international crimes and international criminal law, but the cases mentioned in this book are still good accounts to include in the further study of the evolution and unpredictable characterization of international crimes.
