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This is the second volume of a 6-volume reference work which rectifies a lamentable gap in access to rich war crimes trial jurisprudence from the post-World War II era. The 6 volumes will compile a comprehensive and systematic collection of Law Reports of the 300 trials by Australian Military Courts held between 1945 and 1951. Those trials were held in eight locations and reports of the trials are grouped according to location. To introduce each trial location, a contextual essay provides background analysis explaining why the particular trials were conducted in that location.
This second volume includes reports for 80 of the 188 trials held at Rabaul, New Britain from late 1945 to mid-1946, the major trial location of the eight used. Given the lack of written reasons for judgment, these law reports draw extensively on the trial transcripts, including a description of prosecution and defence arguments, relevant legal issues, judgments and sentences. Launched at a propitious time in which Australia is engaged in a significant criminal investigation, and now prosecutions, of alleged ADF war crimes in Afghanistan, the reference work provides a rich and unrivalled resource and will be of lasting value both within Australian and outside it amongst scholars of the history of World War II and the development of international criminal law as well as to practitioners involved in contemporary war crimes trials. Many other Allied nations conducted their own military trials in both the European and Pacific theatres post-WWII, and the Australian experience, documented in these unique volumes, offers an important template for other national initiatives of this kind.
This second volume includes reports for 80 of the 188 trials held at Rabaul, New Britain from late 1945 to mid-1946, the major trial location of the eight used. Given the lack of written reasons for judgment, these law reports draw extensively on the trial transcripts, including a description of prosecution and defence arguments, relevant legal issues, judgments and sentences. Launched at a propitious time in which Australia is engaged in a significant criminal investigation, and now prosecutions, of alleged ADF war crimes in Afghanistan, the reference work provides a rich and unrivalled resource and will be of lasting value both within Australian and outside it amongst scholars of the history of World War II and the development of international criminal law as well as to practitioners involved in contemporary war crimes trials. Many other Allied nations conducted their own military trials in both the European and Pacific theatres post-WWII, and the Australian experience, documented in these unique volumes, offers an important template for other national initiatives of this kind.
Price: $342.00
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill | Nijhoff
Series: Law Reports of the Australian War Crimes Trials 1945-1951
Publication Date:
30 December 2026
ISBN: 9789004683518
Format: Hardcover
Narrelle Morris is an Associate Professor in the Curtin Law School, Curtin University, Western Australia and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She was the principal legal researcher on the Australia Research Council (ARC) funded project Australia’s Post-World War II War Crimes Trials of the Japanese: A Systematic and Comprehensive Law Reports Series, which was led by Tim McCormack and undertaken in collaboration with the Australian War Memorial and with the Legal Division of the Australian Government’s Department of Defence. Narrelle has also held an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (2014-2017) to conduct research into the Australian war crimes investigator and jurist Sir William Flood Webb. She is the author of Japan-Bashing: Anti-Japanism since the 1980s (Routledge, 2010) and Japanese War Crimes in the Pacific: Australia’s Investigations and Prosecutions (National Archives of Australia, 2019), amongst other publications.
Tim McCormack is a Professor of International Law at the University of Tasmania and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. He is the former Special Adviser on War Crimes to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague (2010-2024) and is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Humanitarian Law Series published by Brill | Nijhoff. Tim was the Chief Investigator of the ARC funded project Australia’s Post-World War II War Crimes Trials of the Japanese: A Systematic and Comprehensive Law Reports Series. He co-edited with Matt Killingsworth Civility, Barbarism and the Evolution of International Humanitarian Law: Who Do the Laws of War Protect? (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Tim and Narrelle Morris (along with Georgina Fitzpatrick) were also editors of, and contributing authors to, Australia’s War Crimes Trials 1945-51 (Brill, 2016), which was shortlisted in 2017 for the New South Wales Premier’s Award for Australian History.
Tim McCormack is a Professor of International Law at the University of Tasmania and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. He is the former Special Adviser on War Crimes to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague (2010-2024) and is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Humanitarian Law Series published by Brill | Nijhoff. Tim was the Chief Investigator of the ARC funded project Australia’s Post-World War II War Crimes Trials of the Japanese: A Systematic and Comprehensive Law Reports Series. He co-edited with Matt Killingsworth Civility, Barbarism and the Evolution of International Humanitarian Law: Who Do the Laws of War Protect? (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Tim and Narrelle Morris (along with Georgina Fitzpatrick) were also editors of, and contributing authors to, Australia’s War Crimes Trials 1945-51 (Brill, 2016), which was shortlisted in 2017 for the New South Wales Premier’s Award for Australian History.