Category: Torture and War Crimes

Australia shows the United Kingdom there is another way of being accountable for war crimes

20th November 2020

The United Kingdom government is currently making it (even) more difficult to prosecute its armed services for historic war crimes.

On this I did a video essay for the Financial Times (written and presented by me, produced by the estimable Tom Hannen).

The United Kingdom and war crimes (and torture in particular) is a depressing subject – from Kenya and Northern Ireland to Iraq and Afghanistan, there are cover-ups and other attempts to avoid scrutiny.

But there are other, more refreshing approaches to official accountability.

The Australian government has now published a report into war crimes in Afghanistan by its own special forces.

The report of by Paul Brereton, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry Report is an extraordinary and highly important document.

The report is unflinching.

And in response to the report, the Australian government has already taken concrete steps.

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War crimes happen, torture happens – and war crimes and torture can be committed by all sides, not just the ‘baddies’.

This is the nasty truth about conflict and human nature.

The question is about what to do about it when it happens.

One approach comprises official cover-ups, deflections, and smearing those seeking justice and accountability.

This is a misguided, short-term approach.

It means there is a sense of getting away with it, of permissiveness – and, in time, it means the armed services will lose valuable legitimacy when dealing with local populations.

The Australian approach is far harder, but a far better one.

The United Kingdom – as it did with torture in Kenya and Northern Ireland – would much prefer to pretend that these things never happen here.

Or, if there is acceptance that war crimes and torture took place, then there is then a shruggy ‘well, what is wrong with this?’  and ‘so what?’ and this dismissive attitude will get easy nods from political and media supporters.

Yet everything is wrong with war crimes and torture, and high standards matter and make a difference.

And the Australians seem to realise this, but the United Kingdom does not.

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Two gruesome legal topics: the law of slavery and the law of torture

19 October 2020

As a solicitor in practice I tend to specialise in commercial, media and communications law, and as a commentator I tend to explain public and international law.

(And as a historian of sorts, I am interested in law and anthropology and how complex societies can develop oral and written systems of law.)

But in addition to these areas, there are two special legal topics which fascinate and appal me.

Fascination: because I find it hard (as a western liberal writing in 2020) to believe that my own species has used and still uses the concept of law for such purposes, and so I want to understand why.

Why would and do people do these things?

Appalling: because both deal with the worst of human nature.

The first is the law of slavery: the extraordinary notion that there can be property rights for one human being in another human being.

By reason of the Black Lives Matter movement, I have recently published a few things on this (see here, here, here and here).

The second is the law of torture: the regulation of the deliberate and involuntary infliction of cruelty by some human beings on other human beings.

This second horrible subject has come up because of the United Kingdom government now seeking to make it harder to prosecute former and serving service personnel for war crimes and torture.

On this, I have done this video for the Financial Times.

And I have now done this podcast.

Not a pleasant thing to talk about, or to listen to others talking about, but important still the same.

Please watch and listen if you can.

Thank you for taking an interest.

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Please support the free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary on this blog and my Twitter account either by the Paypal box above or by becoming a Patreon subscriber.

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Comments are welcome but pre-moderated, and so comments will not be published if irksome.