INTRODUCTION

The law makes a fundamental distinction between peace and war. During times of war, the extensive peacetime constraints on the exercise of violence are relaxed and give way to the far more permissible rules of international humanitarian law (IHL) as informed and influenced by human rights law. As a result, we would like to think that in our modern world, unlike in times gone by, war is no longer a free-for-all in which victory is put above any law, morality, or humanity – the famous Martens Clause can be cited as evidence of this mentality. Yet, crimes inevitably occur in armed conflict – one would be hard-pressed naming a war that was completely bereft of criminal activity. Indeed, if one were to speak to anyone who has actually lived through and fought in wars – rather than only having read about them – they will attest to the horrors, bloodshed, and anguish that they entail. The effects of war do not end when the firing stops. Even where international humanitarian law is generally respected, mentally, if not psychically, the men and women who experience war firsthand soon realize that they are no longer the same person. War has a way of fundamentally changing all those involved – and not necessarily for the better. It is thus not surprising when, during remembrance services around the world every year, mature men and women who lived through the effects of armed conflicts that ended many decades ago still vividly remember their experiences. So much so that it brings many of them to tears.

This is perhaps why the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg was of the opinion, as far back as 1947, that “[w]ar is essentially an evil thing.”