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A Guilty Nation?

pointless & uncalled for

13:36 / 27.02.06

Today the Hague will be asked to consider if Serbia, as a nation and a state can be considered guilty of the crime of attempted genocide against Bosnia.

But can a geographical entity, human population included, be held accountable for a crime, and indeed should it?

And what could be the ramifications of either verdict.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:19 / 27.02.06

Hmmm, firstly, who was tried at Nuremberg after the Second World War? Were they being tried as individuals or as representatives of the German Government or of the German state? I think that should be the benchmark for such actions. I believe that at the moment Saddam Hussein and his Injustice Gang are being tried as individual bastards rather than representatives of either the Iraqi state or government.

The problem with trying to put the State on trial is that you should really be forced to show that every single member of the state actively wanted Bosnian Muslims dead. I think that would be insanely difficult to prove, so I wonder if this is just to try and encourage them to turn over the individuals still at large by perhaps trying to make it seem more patriotic to give them up than help them to evade justice.

pointless & uncalled for

16:57 / 27.02.06

Nuremburg was the seat of trials of leaders and certain members of European Axis forces, the majority of which happened before the International Military Tribunal. The wikipedia article reveals that it is not without it's critics regarding contruction, bias and due prosecution.

However, I understand that it represents a foundation upon which The Hague's judicial protocols were established.

As far as I can determine the prosecutions of individuals were as individuals rather than as components of the state for whom they acted on behalf. Hussein is a different issue because he is a deposed head of state and therefore can be reasonably argued to always act in the name of the state, particualrly when it comes down to mass killing that demonstrably resulted in a political advantage.

pointless & uncalled for

17:05 / 27.02.06

The problem with trying to put the State on trial is that you should really be forced to show that every single member of the state actively wanted Bosnian Muslims dead. I think that would be insanely difficult to prove, so I wonder if this is just to try and encourage them to turn over the individuals still at large by perhaps trying to make it seem more patriotic to give them up than help them to evade justice.

I would disagree with that. I think that to put the state on trial would only require that, excepting totalarian, dictatorial or similar, the form and structure of governence of the state, in power at the time, determined a course of action that could appreciably result in the genocide of Bosnian Muslims.

The trouble with prosecution of the individual as wholly seperate from the state is that it creates an absolution for the state from any responsibility for the effects of it's past actions.

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