Recent discussions among historians, jurists, and political scientists have increasingly centred on the effectiveness of the Laws of Armed Conflict in safeguarding legally protected groups such as civilians and prisoners of war. Central to this debate is the question of how a state’s public commitment to international law aligns with the actual conduct of its armed forces in combat zones. This article contributes to the discourse by examining the Boxer War in China (1900–1901), during which seven Western powers and Japan opposed an anti-foreign Chinese sect supported by military forces loyal to the Qing court. The analysis focuses on the legal stance of five key members of the anti-Boxer coalition—Germany, the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and Japan—and evaluates the conduct of their troops towards Chinese civilians and prisoners. Particular attention is given to Japan, offering insights into how the application of the international laws of war is shaped not only by the expectations of belligerents and their adversaries, as prominent scholars have suggested, but also by the dynamics among allies, including competition, as well as by each belligerent’s unique history and cultural context. This nuanced perspective highlights the interplay of legal commitments, alliance politics, and national identity in determining the behaviour of military forces during wartime.

Despite being outlawed, attacks on cultural heritage remain a pervasive feature in atrocity contexts, the effects of which are compounded by a relative deficit of accountability at the international level. To remedy this gap, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued Policy on Cultural Heritage. However, crimes against cultural heritage are not fully articulated in the Court’s governing instruments. To leverage the protective scope of the Court, the Policy adopts a human rights understanding of cultural heritage which I frame in terms of distinctive relationships between heritage and atrocity crimes. The Policy fertilises a second argument shorthanded as world-building. Against world-destruction, the Policy erects an accountability architecture. Conceptually, it foregrounds an understanding of the world as a cultural construct around which social relations are organised. Crimes against heritage undercut the very notion of what it means to be human; disrupt cultural identification, transmission, and development processes; and deny present and future generations the ability to be specific kinds of cultural human beings. In those regards, this article adds to the world society research agenda of English School theory by examining how the Policy more fully develops the Court’s role as an agent for humanity.

The circulation of harrowing war images on traditional and social media – beheaded soldiers, mutilated bodies and civilians burned alive by flames – underscores a profound and enduring connection between war, death and photography. While this nexus is not novel, contemporary developments in the speed, scale and permanence of visual media have opened new questions worth examining. This article aims to dig deeper into whether and how the normative landscape for protecting the inherent dignity of the deceased is evolving and the role that new challenges posed by digital media and the pervasive nature of contemporary visual media play in this process. The relevance of this study rests on the premise that ongoing academic and public debates tend to focus on the issue of media censorship, overshadowing critical inquiries into the legitimacy and legality of the display of certain images. Thus, it is argued that, in the context of publishing and disseminating images of the war dead, it is essential to examine not only what is hidden but also what is shown and how. This is especially pertinent given the asymmetric representation of death and conflict in the Western media, which frequently reinforces distant, “othering” perspectives. Finally, by examining the issue through multiple lenses, namely those of international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international criminal law, this study aims to provide a more comprehensive framework for addressing the ethical and legal dilemmas posed by war photography in the digital age.

The mistreatment of corpses during armed conflicts is a grim and ancient practice that persists in modern warfare despite the protections afforded to the dead under international humanitarian law (IHL). This article explores the application of the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity to acts committed against the deceased. Sketching the development of the prohibition against maltreatment of the dead in the early laws and customs of war, it identifies post-Second World War prosecutions as the turning point where violations of such IHL provisions were clearly sanctioned as crimes imputing individual responsibility under international law. Turning to the elements of the modern war crime of outrages upon personal dignity, the article appraises the scant engagement of international criminal courts and tribunals with the offence in contexts involving the dead. It stresses that jurisprudencial guidance must be primarily sought in national case law from European jurisdictions, which have, in recent years, played host to the prosecution of a significant number of war crimes cases involving the degrading treatment of corpses. On the basis of this jurisprudence, the article then revisits the elements of the war crime, examining the particulars of the offence in the context of the dead.

Judge Roberto Carlos Vidal López is a Lawyer and Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, where he gained a PhD in law. Since 1997 he has been a Professor and Expert Researcher there on human rights, international humanitarian law (IHL), forced migration and internal displacement. He has also studied history.

In addition to his work as a Professor, Judge Vidal López has been a Lecturer at the Universidad del Rosario and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. He has worked for the Ideas for Peace Foundation, the United Nations in Colombia, the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, the University Network for Peace, the Ombudsman’s Office of Colombia and the Brookings Institution, a major Washington-based think tank. He has also produced thirty publications, including Truth-Telling and Internal Displacement in Colombia (2012), The Participation of Internally Displaced People in Peace Processes in Colombia (2007) and Derecho global y desplazamiento interno: Creación, uso y desaparición del desplazamiento forzado por la violencia en el derecho contemporáneo (2007).

In France and Germany, it would have been unthinkable for a cabinet member of the Vichy government or the Nazi regime to become a national leader after the war. This was not the case in Japan with Kishi Nobusuke, who served as Minister of Trade and Industry in the wartime Tōjō cabinet. Astonishingly, Kishi became Prime Minister in February 1957. Similarly, Emperor Hirohito's war guilt and responsibility were never questioned at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, despite the abundance of crystal-clear evidence. In this article, I discuss how closely the U.S. and Japanese governments have been collaborating for the last 78 years since the end of the Asia-Pacific War in August 1945, supporting one another to whitewash each other's war crimes and responsibility in every possible way.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, a US citizen who was born in Japan, has taught in both countries. Applying his specialized knowledge of Russian history to an analysis of the US decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, he challenges the prevailing American view that the US decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified. The prevailing view is based on two premises: first, the use of the atomic bombs was the only option available to the US government to avoid launching a costly invasion of the Japanese homeland; and second, the atomic bombings had an immediate and direct impact on Japan's decision to surrender. Dr. Hasegawa rebuts both assumptions. He also assesses a third – and often hidden – justification for dropping the bombs, namely, the American desire for revenge. He argues that, even before the atomic bombings, the United States had already crossed the moral high ground that it had held. He views the US use of atomic bombs as a war crime. But he asserts that this action must be understood in the context of Japan's responsibility for starting the war of aggression and committing atrocities in the Asia–Pacific War.

This article makes use of network analysis to examine the establishment of the War Convicted Benefit Society (Sensō jukei-sha sewa-kai), an influential advocacy group in the popular movement that pushed for amnesty for Japanese war criminals from 1952 to 1958. By graphing the networks created by members of the Society, I demonstrate that early Occupation policies, precisely those that convicted and purged these old elites and resulted in the detention of many of them in Sugamo prison, actually created a new network of conservative power figures by linking the otherwise unconnected old mid-rank military network and the old colonial/political elite network to rally around their common experience of being “prosecuted.”

Numerous complex issues concerning the history of Japanese war crimes cloud the trials that adjudicated justice in postwar East Asia. Discrepancies between fact and fiction, or facts that can be proven in a court of law, result in a situation that even today renders what actually happened during the creation of empire and the ensuing war in Asia open to interpretation. More than seven decades after the war, disagreements about the justice or injustice of these processes continue to feed political friction in the region.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, a US citizen who was born in Japan, has taught in both countries. Applying his specialized knowledge of Russian history to an analysis of the US decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, he challenges the prevailing American view that the US decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified. The prevailing view is based on two premises: first, the use of the atomic bombs was the only option available to the US government to avoid launching a costly invasion of the Japanese homeland; and second, the atomic bombings had an immediate and direct impact on Japan's decision to surrender. Dr. Hasegawa rebuts both assumptions. He also assesses a third – and often hidden – justification for dropping the bombs, namely, the American desire for revenge. He argues that, even before the atomic bombings, the United States had already crossed the moral high ground that it had held. He views the US use of atomic bombs as a war crime. But he asserts that this action must be understood in the context of Japan's responsibility for starting the war of aggression and committing atrocities in the Asia–Pacific War.

Bearing in mind that the peace process between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP) has been an important milestone for transitional justice, this article aims to share some of the good practices and achievements of this process, as well as the setbacks and challenges that could be avoided in future peace processes. The article will highlight relevant contributions from the Chamber for Amnesty or Pardon (CAP) such as impacting the resocialization of former FARC-EP members and developing international humanitarian law discussions in relation to war crimes and less serious crimes. Additionally, it will describe some of the main challenges faced by the CAP, such as the high number of applications for transitional benefits that it receives, the high number of proceedings that it supervises, and the security concerns arising from implementing a peace agreement in a country still in conflict.