Trials for International Crimes in Asia

The issue of international crimes is highly topical in Asia, with still-resonant claims against the Japanese for war crimes, and deep schisms resulting from crimes in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and East Timor. Over the years, the region has hosted a succession of tribunals, from those held in Manila, Singapore and Tokyo after the Asia-Pacific War to those currently running in Dhaka and Phnom Penh. This book draws on extensive new research and offers the first comprehensive legal appraisal of the Asian trials. As well as the famous tribunals, it also considers lesser-known examples, such as the Dutch and Soviet trials of the Japanese, the Cambodian trial of the Khmer Rouge, and the Indonesian trials of their own military personnel. It focuses on their approach to the elements of international crimes, and their contribution to general theories of liability. In the process, this book challenges some orthodoxies about the development of international criminal law.

Foreword Simon Chesterman; Introduction Kirsten Sellars; 1. Treasonable conspiracies at Paris, Moscow, and Delhi: the legal hinterland of the Tokyo tribunal Kirsten Sellars; 2. Then and now: command responsibility, the Tokyo tribunal, and modern international criminal law Robert Cryer; 3. Colonial justice at the Netherlands Indies war crimes trials Lisette Schouten; 4. The superior orders defence at the postwar trials in Singapore Cheah Wui Ling; 5. The Khabarovsk trial: the Soviet riposte to the Tokyo tribunal Valentyna Polunina; 6. The People's Republic of China's 'lenient treatment' policy towards Japanese war criminals Ōsawa Takeshi; 7. Cambodia, 1979: trying Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide Tara Gutman; 8. Crimes against humanity in East Timor: the hearings at the Indonesian Ad Hoc Human Rights Court Mark Cammack; 9. Asia as the laboratory of the superior responsibility doctrine Rehan Abeyratne; 10. The two approaches to the superior orders plea Jia Bing Bing; 11. The joint criminal enterprise doctrine at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia Neha Jain; 12. Trials for international crimes in Bangladesh: prosecutorial strategies, defence arguments, and judgments M. Rafiqul Islam; 13. Theories of joint criminal responsibility at the Asian tribunals: Hong Kong, East Timor, Cambodia Nina H. B. Jørgensen; 14. The tribunals in Bangladesh: falling short of international standards Abdur Razzaq.

Kirsten Sellars is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.