Annotation The modern use of international tribunals to try heads ofstate for genocide and crimes against humanity is oftenconsidered a positive development. Many people think thatthe establishment of special courts to prosecute notoriousdictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In AHistory of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a verydifferent and controversial view. He shows that trials ofheads of state are in fact not new, and that previous trialsthroughout history have themselves violated the law and dueprocess. It is the historical account which carries the argument. Byexamining trials of heads of state and government throughouthistory - figures as different as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker, and Saddam Hussein - Laughland shows thatmodern trials of heads of state have ugly historicalprecedents. In their different ways, all the trials hedescribes were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, andmany were gross exercises in hypocrisy. Political trials, hefinds, are only the continuation of war by other means. Withshort and easy chapters, but the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading, this book will force the general reader to re-examine prevailing opinions of this subject.
|
