From the beginning of time
For as long as history has been documented, their has always been war. War has not been kind to who has ever fought in them, not to mention the soldiers fighting a different country or nation. Wars can go on for days, months, or even years at a time with only little time to recuperate. This can cause soldiers to feel frustrated or anxious and they can take it out on there enemies in a cruel or humiliating way. When they start to do this, they would have committed a war crime and this has been going on for as long as humans walked the Earth.
Do you remember?
My Lai Massacre
Picture from: http://bus-plunge.blogspot.com
This may sound familiar to you because it was a dark time in American history. During the Vietnam War (said to be called Democracy vs. Communism), United States of America invaded Vietnam to eliminate Communism. They went in to fight the Vietcong and win the war. United States of America has been there for a while and started to get tired, homesick, and/or frustrated. They fought to claim a land but when they won the land, the Vietcong would fight to get it back. An order was given to some soldiers to go and search for Vietcong in a small village called My Lai. When the soldiers got there, the soldiers started to shoot and murders innocent civilians. They started to shoot civilians probably because they couldn't tell between friend or foe. During an interview, Paul Meadlo, a U.S. soldier claimed on killing ten out of fifteen women and children (My Lai Massacre). This not only is wrong, but it also violates the U.N. laws. Most of these soldiers and/or officers have been put to justice.
The Nuremberg Trials
Photo from: National Archives and Records Administration
Hitler's attempted genocide of the Jewish population forced Allies hands to create a document about the laws of war. When the Allies defeated the Axis power however, the Allies had to quick create laws for war so future wars would be less horrific and protect the innocent. The Nazis that were captured were tried in front of IMT or International Military Tribunal (Ushmm.org). These Nazis were probably tried on murder or accessory to murder of Jewish citizens. Even today, Nazis are being found and are being tried and found guilty of being a murder.
Even today
Photo from: David Rising and Randy Herschaft
During WWII, there were some good aspects and a lot of bad aspects. A good aspect is that WWII brought the whole world out of depression. One major bad aspect is the Holocaust; During the Holocaust, many Jewish people were killed. When Allies beat the Axis power, many Nazi's were tried for their war crimes. The person in the picture is John Demjanjuk. He was a Nazi guard at a Nazi death camp. He is charged with 28,060 counts of accessory to murder (John Demjanjuk Guilty in German Nazi WWII Case). Nazi's are still being tried of war crimes (like John) because they broke U.N. universal declaration of human rights article 3, article 4, article 5, and many more. Even after 67 years, war crimes are still tried so that justice may be served to ones that have been affected.