How do war crimes differ from the horrors of war? In this episode emeritus Professor of History, Robert Cribb, focuses on thirteen people prosecuted for war crimes following Japan’s defeat in World War Two. How can we explain what led certain combatants and civilians to commit war crimes? Considering the mass casualties of civilians perpetrated by Allied forces, were these trials victors’ justice? How did prosecutors determine individual culpability, and how did the accused defend their actions? Have we entered a period when the will to identify war crimes and to hold war criminals has withered?
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