Synopses & Reviews
“This is a formidable and well-documented counterblast to a developing modern orthodoxy, expressing a point of view that many readers will not even have suspected existed, let alone read.”—Anthony Daniels, Spectator“A useful and controversial contribution to the debate about victor's justice, and a valuable warning that international war crimes tribunals need to operate with precision and care.”—Jonathan Steele, Guardian
The rapid development of the use of international courts and tribunals to try heads of state for genocide and other crimes against humanity has been welcomed by most people, because they think that the establishment of international tribunals and courts to try notorious dictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In A History of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a very different and controversial view, namely that political trials are inherently against the rule of law and almost always involve the abuse of process, as well as being seriously hypocritical.
By means of detailed consideration of the trials of figures as disparate as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker and Saddam Hussein, Laughland shows that the guilt of the accused has always been assumed in advance, that the judges are never impartial, that the process is always unfair and biased in favor of the prosecution, that the defense is not permitted to use all the arguments at its disposal, and that often the accusers have done exactly what they accuse the defence of having done. All the trials he recounts were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, often gross injustice. Although the chapters are short and easy to read, they are the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading. The general reader will be forced by this book to re-examine the ideas on this subject, and will be much less sanguine about the possibility of bringing dictators and other leaders to genuine justice.
John Laughlandlives in Bath and is an author, journalist, and has been a university lecturer in France. He has published The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea(Time Warner Paperbacks) and has written for the Spectator, The Economist, and The New York Times.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Trial of Charles I and the Last Judgement
The Trial of Louis XVI and the Terror
War Guilt after World War I
Defeat in the Dock: the Riom Trial
Justice as Purge: Marshal Pétain faces his Accusers
Treachery on Trial: the Case of Vidkun Quisling
Nuremberg: Making War Illegal
Creating Legitimacy: the Trial of Marshal Antonescu
Ethnic Cleansing and National Cleansing in Czechoslovakia, 1945–1947
People’s Justice in Liberated Hungary
From Mass Execution to Amnesty and Pardon: Postwar Trials in Bulgaria, Finland, and Greece
Politics as Conspiracy: the Tokyo Trials
The Greek Colonels, the Emperor Bokassa, and the Argentine Generals: Transitional Justice, 1975–2007
Revolution Returns: the Trial of Nicolae Ceausescu
A State on Trial: Erich Honecker in Moabit
Jean Kambanda, Convicted without Trial
Kosovo and the New World Order: the Trial of Slobodan Miloševic
Regime Change and the Trial of Saddam Hussein
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography and Further Reading
Index
Synopsis
The influence of political trials on history and its presiding figures has long captivated the imagination of historians, political analysts, and the general public. In recent years, there has been a growth of international criminal trials and an increase in media coverage and public awareness of their outcome, as they have begun single-handedly to define political eras. But it is not a recent phenomenon.
Beginning with the infamous trial in the seventeenth century of Charles I in England, John Laughland examines the origins of political trials. This book examines in fascinating detail the recent and ongoing trials of Nuremberg, Slobodan Miloevic, Saddam Hussein, and Charles Taylor, as well as the creation of tribunals for Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone, and also the permanent International Criminal Court. It looks from a historical perspective at those criminal proceedings so vital to our contemporary understanding of the development of political trails in which defendants have been prosecuted for acts committed in their capacity as holders of political power.
John Laughlandis an author, journalist, and university lecturer. He has published The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Ideaand has written for The Spectator, The Economist, and The New York Times.
Synopsis
The modern use of international tribunals to try heads of state for genocide and crimes against humanity is often considered a positive development. Many people think that the establishment of special courts to prosecute notorious dictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In A History of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a very different and controversial view. He shows that trials of heads of state are in fact not new, and that previous trials throughout history have themselves violated the law and due process.
It is the historical account which carries the argument. By examining trials of heads of state and government throughout history - figures as different as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker, and Saddam Hussein - Laughland shows that modern trials of heads of state have ugly historical precedents. In their different ways, all the trials he describes were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, and many were gross exercises in hypocrisy. Political trials, he finds, are only the continuation of war by other means.
With short and easy chapters, but the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading, this book will force the general reader to re-examine prevailing opinions of this subject.
About the Author
John Laughland is an author, journalist and university lecturer. His three books to date are: The Death of Politics: France under Mitterrand'(Michael Joseph, 1994); The Tainted Source: the Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea'(Little Brown, 1997); and Le tribunal pnal international: gardien du nouvel ordre mondial'(F.-X. de Guibert, Paris, 2003).