Collecting evidence on the battlefield

author Jean-Paul Laborde
journal RIDP (ISSN: 0223-5404)
volume 2022
issue Military Justice. Contemporary Challenges, History and Comparison
section Part 2. Military justice as it is. Contemporary challenges
publicatie datum 22 décembre 2022
langue English
pagina 175
abstract

With the involvement of Military Forces in several regions of the world, evidence collected by them in the battlefield is critical. Hence, the dilemma is the following one: could the international community consider that, amongst the various tasks of the Military Forces, collecting evidence and information for the purpose of criminal trials could be one of them? Criminal trials are essential after massacres, war crimes, crimes against humanity or even massive series of common crimes (looting, etc.). Of course, collecting evidence are not the primary tasks of Military Forces. However, while the prioritization of those tasks should be respected, collecting evidence in the battlefield should be taken into consideration for the benefit of the peacebuilding process and the postwar era. It should also be noted that ultimate goals of the military actions could, eventually, converge with the ones of the criminal justice in sentencing war criminals, including the political leaders, for instance those of terrorist organizations such as ISIS, who have provided directives and instructions about them and allow victims to get support, counselling and fair compensation. Finally, forensic or cyber evidence is key in any criminal trial. Not using the information in the battlefield, especially against terrorist organizations may imply that those criminals will be in the position in a very short period of time to go back to the battlefield and inflict new civil and military losses. Even more at the time of the Ukrainian war, those evidence are key to protect future generations from horrible war criminal acts that should never been gone unpunished.