NCJ Number
211200
Journal
Criminal Justice Ethics Volume: 24 Issue: 1 Dated: Winter/Spring 2005 Pages: 31-46
Date Published
2005
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article examines the notion of justice from a retributivist perspective as it pertains to punishing war criminals.
Abstract
International criminal tribunals have been promoted as the legal means through which victims of war crimes may receive justice for often horrendous human rights violations. A retributivist position holds that punishment is the moral response to crimes, yet some critiques have contended that the atrocities committed by war criminals are beyond punishment, or that there is no punishment fitting for the crime. The article examines this critique, which contends there may be no justice for crimes such as genocide, from a retributivist position. The main contention of the author’s argument, which draws heavily from Kant’s retributivist view on crimes against humanity, is that war criminals have alienated themselves from civil society and, thus, should be permanently cast from it. In so doing, justice will have been achieved. Indeed, the author argues that the retributivist perspective on criminal justice can provide a coherent philosophical theory to justify the relatively new concept of international criminal justice. In the absence of such a philosophical underpinning, international criminal tribunals risk irrelevance and possible disintegration. Notes