War Crimes Prosecution of the Century: Australian Accountability

This terrific essay by two experienced  and thoughtful Army judge advocates outlines the myriad issues involved in what truly may be the war crimes prosecution of the century -- not only for Australia, but for the world. While the erudite lawyers' essay focuses on evidentiary and other trial-related challenges in Australia's prosecution of Ben Roberts-Smith, it appropriately brings to fore the the political, social and cultural obstacles to trying Australia's most decorated living military veteran for multiple counts of murder on the battlefield.

Such dynamics are present in many if not most war crimes trials, and they are on steroids here given that Roberts-Smith is a national war hero who had been awarded the nation's highest military honor.  If the U.S. military community thought Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher's court-martial for alleged war crimes several years ago was a made-for-TV show, fraught with political baggage -- tune in to what's happening on the other side of the world in this Aussie prosecution. 

Interestingly while Australia does the hard and required thing to comply with its legal obligations to ensure fair accountability for alleged war crimes, Israel recently witnessed seemingly the exact opposite with its shameful handling of the criminal case against IDF soldiers for their "alleged" (captured on video, hence the quotation marks) brutalization of Palestinian detainees during the Gaza War. For more on that episode of a severe lack of accountability for war crimes and the immense political and social pressure that led to such impunity, see this piece by two leading experts in the field. 

Moral legitimacy is hard to come by, and Australia sure seems to be working on building its own while other nations -- including the U.S., given its military serial murder campaign (crimes against humanity) in the Caribbean and threatened war crimes in Iran -- sadly move in the opposite direction.