Victor's justice

The label "victor's justice" is a situation in which an entity participates in carrying out "justice" on its own basis of applying different rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the (former) enemy. Opponents generally charge that the difference in rules amounts to hypocrisy and leads to injustice. Targets of the label may consider it derogatory. The term was coined (as Victors' justice) by Richard Minear in his 1971 account of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

Closely related is vae victis behaviour, where victor unilaterally changes the agreed treaties or their interpretations and is seen as a form of victor's justice.

Legal constraints on the conduct of war in ancient Rome appear in Cicero: "As for war, humane laws touching it are drawn up in the fetial code of the Roman People." Specifically, "no war is just, unless it is entered upon after an official demand for satisfaction has been submitted or warning has been given and a formal declaration made." Breaches of this duty by Roman citizens were adjudicated at trial.

But to enemies of war, Roman law attributed neither duties nor rights; hence judgment – and punishment – of defeated foes was at Roman discretion. Still, the exercise of that discretion must serve justice, Cicero argued: "...when the victory is won, we should spare those who have not been blood-thirsty and barbarous in their warfare" (warmaking being excused only when "we may live in peace unharmed" in no other way).

The Western tradition of thinking on just war continues into Christendom and then Modernity, and from the late 19th century becomes codified in international conventions, most notably those of Geneva and the Hague, then said to express laws of war.

A stark and detailed example of victor's justice is presented by James Madison Page in his 1908 book The True Story of Andersonville Prison, subtitled "A Defense of Major Henry Wirz". After describing his months as a prisoner of war of the Confederacy, the author recounts the imprisonment and trial of Major Henry Wirz, CSA, commandant of the prison camp operated at Andersonville, Ga. during the American Civil War. Many of the phenomena and issues later observed in the war-crimes trials following the Second World War may be seen in this account of Wirz's trial, conviction, sentencing, and execution.

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