Dirty hands, savage enemies, and bad apples: A taxonomy of war crimes apologia

In this paper, we detail and critique dominant narratives of war crime apologia. These narratives portray the circumstances of a war crime, the perpetrator’s character and motives, and the broader context in which the crime occurred, in ways that minimise or negate the perpetrator’s moral, and sometimes legal, blameworthiness. In section one, we identify and critique three broad categories: (1) individualising narratives (‘uncommon practice’), (2) excusatory narratives (‘essence of war’), and (3) justificatory narratives (‘tragic necessity’). Drawing on a range of real world examples, we outline the features of these narratives and the underlying theory of moral responsibility and blameworthiness on which they implicitly depend. In section two, we elucidate the role of these narratives in the promotion and perpetuation of socially, politically, and legally harmful attitudes towards war crimes. By advancing self-serving perpetrator-centric views about responsibility and blame, these narratives cultivate a cultural and legal toleration and, in some cases, celebration, of atrocity. They also perpetuate a distorted image of war itself, as a space that cannot accommodate moral and legal restraints. This image of war, we argue, weakens the post-Geneva consensus about the reach and limits of battlefield violence and makes the future commission of war crimes more likely. In conclusion, we consider how these narratives could be challenged within military institutions, and in the political and social realm.