Polish and U.S. military law

Szymon Kulmaszewskit, A Comparative Analysis of the Military Justice Systems of Poland and the United States v. America.

Most authors agree that “military justice” does not have a clearly defined normative definition. Nevertheless, the term is anchored in the area of institutionalized activities of a military organization (armed forces) and for this reason it functions in the language of both legal science and military science. The text presents a synthetic outline of the history of military justice in Poland and in the U.S. Underlying the assumptions of the military justice system, such as the need to exercise jurisdiction over military persons, and the need to handle military cases within the framework of separated, common features can be discerned. Due to the fact that problems of the creation and application of military law broadens the scope of normative terminology to include the concept of military justice system, and with it the concept of a military case, this study engages in a broad interpretation of those concepts, and the result yields some surprises. For one, the enforcement of military law runs in a manner separated from the general order in many legal systems. There is no single international standard for military justice: it heavily reflects domestic attitudes about the role of armed forces in society. Even for areas of seeming commonality such as the influence of international human rights law, nations differ in how they apply international standards to the military. Thus, conventional wisdom would hold that military justice systems will vary greatly by country as matters of national prerogative. And yet the common organic features of the military justice system of Poland and the U.S. bear stunning similarities. This, we argue, reveals a common law for military justice, and lays the groundwork for further comparative law studies with a focus on military justice.