From the inside cover: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the British military held 46 trials in Hong Kong. 123 defendants, mainly from Japan, were tried for war crimes. This book provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of the Hong Kong trials. The core crimes adjudicated by the four military tribunals included killings of hors de combat, abuses in prisoner-of-war camps including forced labour, and the torture and murder of civilians during military occupation. The crimes tried covered events in Hong Kong and the New Territories, parts of China and Japan, and on the High Seas. Taking place in the same post-war period as the more famous Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, the Hong Kong war crimes trials were part of the British programme of war crimes prosecutions in Asia and Europe, and they provide key insights into the Second World War in Asia as well as the development of international criminal law and procedure in this period.
A team of experts in international criminal law examine the trials in detail, relying extensively on original trial documents to place them in their historical context, and investigating how the tribunals dealt with substantive issues including war crimes, modes of responsibility and superior orders, and also procedural law. In order to assess the significance of the Hong Kong trials, the authors also provide comparative analyses of the contemporaneous proceedings, such as the Tokyo and Nuremberg trials, trials under Control Council Law #10, and other British trials under the Royal Warrant in Europe and Asia, to situate the Hong Kong trials within the wider history of international justice. This book also contains a unique interview with the late Major Murray Ormsby, the last surviving judge and prosecutor.
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