Mass forced movement of people has been used in conflicts to serve three goals: population control, territorial expansion and as a sorting mechanism. All three could be in play in Gaza.
School cantina damages in Ivanivka village, Chernihiv region, Ukraine.“
Anastasiia Chupis
Nearly 3,800 educational facilities have been damaged from bombing and shelling thus far in the war. Documenting these attacks requires extensive interviewing with reluctant, traumatised witnesses.
Both Israelis and Palestinians are accusing each other of genocide. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to a genocide expert on the legal definition of the term.
War crimes investigations are long, complex and involve international sensitivities. Nonetheless, there is growing inevitability that there will be prosecutions from the Israel-Gaza war.
The UN secretary-general said neither side is justified in its actions against civilians. But holding them accountable for war crimes is extremely difficult.
A convoy of trucks carrying aid supplies for Gaza from Egypt heads to the Rafah crossing on October 16, 2023.
KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images
This unleashing of violence, including the initial acts and the response to them, inevitably leads to war crimes.
Labeling a Russian rocket attack that killed 12 people in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, as a ‘tragedy’ sidelines human accountabilty.
Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Calling something a ‘tragedy’ serves to minimize human responsibility for its causes, which can be convenient for the people who are causing the ‘tragedy.’
Karim Khan, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, speaks at a Parliament Hill news conference during his first official visit to Canada in May 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
The war crimes probe signals a new path for Canada that prioritizes international law and corrects past policy failures, while validating the experiences of Ukrainians.
Ilse Koch’s husband was commandant of Buchenwald, one of Germany’s first and largest concentration camps. As the only woman among 31 people indicted for crimes committed there, she became infamous.
Two books by Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters about their reporting on Ben Roberts-Smith shed light on money, power, myth-making and the importance of investigative journalism.
The remains of a rocket that carried cluster munitions found in a Ukrainian field.
Alice Martins/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
The US administration said that it had received ‘written assurances’ from Ukraine that it would use cluster bombs carefully. Nonetheless, the munition will provide an additional risk to civilians.
Corporal Neil Ruskin/PR Handout/Australian Department of Defence
The ICC was only ever intended as a court of last resort, meaning it will only investigate and prosecute people for alleged war crimes when a country is unwilling or unable to do so itself.
The awarding, and revoking, of military medals is more complex than it appears, and is no replacement for the proper investigation of alleged war crimes.
The explosive evidence heard in the case also underscores the need for the Army and the Australian public to reckon fully with the conduct of Australian forces in the Afghanistan campaign.