Making Sense of Mass Atrocity

This book trenchantly diagnoses the law's limits in making sense of mass atrocity.

Mark Osiel (Author)

9780521861854, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 July 2009

276 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.59 kg

Review of the hardback: 'In this provocative, seminal work, Professor Osiel masterfully explores innovative legal vehicles to justly hold accountable individual and group perpetrators of mass atrocity … He brings to bear ground-breaking, and in some cases, somewhat controversial legal theories and tactics to attach proper criminal liability to those culpable in mass killings. A bold, highly instructive, and invaluable contribution to transnational humanitarian law.' Colonel Joseph P. 'Dutch' Bialke, U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate

Genocide, crimes against humanity, and the worst war crimes are possible only when the state or other organisations mobilise and co-ordinate the efforts of many people. Responsibility for mass atrocity is always widely shared, often by thousands. Yet criminal law, with its liberal underpinnings, prefers to blame particular individuals for isolated acts. Is such law, therefore, constitutionally unable to make any sense of the most catastrophic conflagrations of our time? Drawing on the experience of several prosecutions, this book both trenchantly diagnoses the law's limits at such times and offers a spirited defence of its moral and intellectual resources for meeting the vexing challenge of holding anyone criminally accountable for mass atrocity. Just as war criminals develop new methods of eluding law's historic grasp, so criminal law flexibly devises novel responses to their stratagems. Mark Osiel examines several such legal innovations in international jurisprudence and proposes still others.

1. The challenge of prosecuting mass atrocity
Part I. Legal Rules and their Problems: 2. The responsibility of superiors
3. Participating in a criminal enterprise
4. Defining the criminal enterprise
Part II. The Political Context of Legal Choice: 5. Must national prosecutions serve global concerns?
6. The conflicting incentives of national and international prosecutors
Part III. New Possibilities and Solutions: 7. The bureaucracy of murder
8. Collective sanctions for collective wrong
9. The collective responsibility of military officers
10. Being economical with amnesty.

Subject Areas: Military & defence law [LNDK], International humanitarian law [LBBS], International human rights law [LBBR], Criminology: legal aspects [LAR]