Season 9, Episode 8: Your Fave is a War Criminal (Part I) (Patreon)

People love to call Gundam characters 'war criminals,' but are they really? And if so, who and why? What war crimes did they commit? Who is history's greatest monster? This week on Mobile Suit Breakdown, Thom dusts off his legal skills and dives back into the first Gundam compilation movie with a copy of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in hand to see what he can find.

Disclaimer: this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not legal advice. If you need legal advice with regard to the law applicable in international armed conflicts, you should consult a qualified attorney.

Show Notes
Note: Show Notes for Episodes 9.8 and 9.9 ("Your Fave is a War Criminal" Parts I & II) are the same, but repeated for each episode to make them easier to find and reference

The Geneva Conventions of 1949

• Text of the four Geneva Conventions.
• International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) page on the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols. 
• Additional explanatory notes from the ICRC. 

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

• Full text of the Rome Statute in six official languages.
• Easier to navigate text of the Rome Statute (English only).
• The Elements of Crimes, a guide to interpreting the material elements of each specific crime listed in the Rome Statute.

Additional Information on "Protected Persons"

• ICRC page on the definition of protected persons.
• ICRC page on case law around the definition of protected persons.
• Medecins sans frontieres page on Protected Persons.
• ICRC definition of hors de combat. 

Additional Information on Perfidy

• Further information on perfidy from the ICRC. 
• Further information on perfidy from Medecins sans frontieres. 

Additional Information on Pillage

• James G. Stewart, Corporate War Crimes, Open Society International (September 2011). 
• Wikipedia page on Nazi war criminal Paul Pleiger.
• Text of the Nuremberg Tribunal indictment of certain Nazi economic ministers, including Pleiger, for war crimes. 
• Perkett, Amanda J., "Prosecuting Plunder and Pillage Within the Framework of Internal Armed Conflicts" (2005). War Crimes Memoranda. 163.

Doctrine of Command Responsibility

• ICRC page on Command Responsibility for Failure to Prevent, Repress, or Report War Crimes. 

Other Information on International Humanitarian Law that may be of Interest

• Text of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (May 25, 2000). 
• Reservations and declarations as to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (May 25, 2000)(archived). 
• Olivia B. Waxman for Time Magazine, How the Meaning of ‘War Crimes’ Has Changed—And Why It Will Be Hard to Prosecute Russia for Them (April 6, 2022).
• Mary Margaret Penrose for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, War Crime (updated September 19, 2023). 
• A 1947 commentary on the Nuremberg Trials and the idea of 'Aggressive War' as a crime: Leo Gross, The Criminality of Aggressive War, American Political Science Review Vol. 41, No. 2 (April 1947), pp. 205-225. Available at  https://www.jstor.org/stable/1950707 
• A brief 2016 commentary on the International Criminal Court and the Crime of Aggression, written by the then 97 year old sole surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials. Benjamin B. Ferencz, A Nuremberg Legacy: The Crime of Aggression, Washington University Global Studies Law Review Vol. 15, No. 4 (2016).
• One of the precursors to the Geneva Conventions: the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Fourth Hague Convention), October 18, 1907. 
• International Justice Resource Center page on the extremely controversial idea of "Universal Jurisdiction" adopted by the UN for certain war crimes tribunals. 
• Oona A. Hathaway, Between Power and Principle: An Integrated Theory of International Law, University of Chicago Law Review (2005). 
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on the philosophy of "international law" (May 12, 2022).

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