Military Justice in Modern History

The Adjudication of War and Violence in a Globalising World

Kelly Maddox, Tino Schölz, Urs Matthias Zachmann

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110990270
• Subtopic: Modern History
• Index: History

Military justice has long played a central role in the adjudication of war and violence throughout the world. It is one of the principal mechanisms used to maintain soldierly discipline as well as to protect civilian populations. At the same time, military justice also has served as an instrument of power in occupied territories by adjudicating the crimes of local inhabitants and has been vital to upholding order among prisoners of war. 
This volume explores the adjudication of wartime violence through diverse case studies of military justice within modern history (c. 1850–1945). This was a formative period in which our contemporary international legal framework emerged against the backdrop of the internationalisation and standardisation of national, customary practices and the increasing totalisation and globalisation of modern warfare. By examining the evolving and dialectic functions of military justice within this dynamic context, the volume develops important historical perspectives on the enforcement of discipline in armed forces, the punishment of enemy combatants and the administration of law and justice over civilians in occupied areas. 
"Military Justice in Modern History" reflects on issues in the adjudication of war and violence that are still prevalent in the conflict zones of our world today. 

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Military Justice in Modern History: An Introductory Overview
• National and International Means of (Military) Justice: Four Circles of a Legal Debate on the Punishment of Violations of the Laws of War in the Period Between the Franco-Prussian War and the Beginning of the Cold War (1864–1949)
• From Circumstantial Legislation to Civilianisation: A Century of Reforms in French Military Justice (1850–1928)
• Enforcing Discipline: The Institutional Development of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Justice System (1868–1945)
• Arbitrary Justice: Military Tribunals in Early Twentieth-Century Bolivia
• British Courts Martial in the Era of the First World War, 1914–1920
• Fascist Justice: Italian Military Magistrates in the Colonies and Occupied Territories (1922–1945)
• Assessing Soviet Military Justice: Military Tribunals and the Punishment of Red Army Soldiers During the Second World War
• Heart of Darkness: Japanese Military Justice on the Road to Nanjing, 1937
• The “Long Arm” of the Military Justice of the Wehrmacht: A Case Study on Luxembourgish Desertions
• Military Justice and its Potential for Violence towards Civilians Under Wartime Occupation: The Imperial Japanese Army in China, 1894–1941
• Wehrmacht Military Courts as Instruments of Occupation: The Case of German-Occupied Norway, 1940–1945
• Justice Behind the Lines: Prisoners of War, Military Justice and Reprisals in the First World War
• Japanese Military Justice Against Allied Soldiers During the Pacific War 1941–1945: An Assessment of the Trial Against Walter Anker and Four Others
• Index