When Justice turns into… Revenge.

[Skip]

I'd hate to see that notion put into legal effect against the British. ...

Why?

Because the nation, as a whole, and its ruling families in particular, benefited from the destruction of other societies. It doesn't matter that the international court can't find a living war criminal to string up; it can find a great many artifacts and a great deal of wealth whose ownership can be traced back to Africa, India, China - to the estates, as it were, of the victims. The restitution, not to mention punitive damages, might be ruinous. And i bet the royal family (since they've changed bloodlines a couple times over the colonial period) would get out of paying it, as would the banks (on some grounds - they just always do). That leaves the taxpayer to pick up the tab, along of maybe a few down-at-heel aristos with long racial memories.

The reason for statutes of limitations is precisely to keep from replaying the same old oo-killed-oo skit, when there is so much contemporary atrocity to deal with.

[tillingborn]

I'd hate to see that notion put into legal effect against the British. ...

Why?

Because the nation, as a whole, and its ruling families in particular, benefited from the destruction of other societies.

As I said elsewhere, most countries have a de facto aristocracy. Ours is a bit special, largely thanks to Magna Carta. Often held aloft as a stepping stone to popular democracy, it was actually a contract between warlords. The deal was that the various barons and whatnot joined a bigger gang, with the monarch as the leader, in return for a share of the proceeds; basically it was a truce in gang warfare and the losers were the ordinary people. The intervening 800 years has to some degree been the battle of the majority to regain control of their destiny. The descedents of this bunch of thugs still owns a third of the land in Great Britain. Wars of conquest, Empire building, have always been fought for the benefit of the ruling classes, the hoi polloi have little to gain, but astonishingly, the ruling elite has managed to persuade enough people that their personal identity is enhanced by the brutality and ruthlessness of others.
The UK is still the 5th richest nation on Earth, thanks in part to the plundering of large parts of the rest of the world that you refer to, Skip. The other main historical factor is industrialisation, which the UK is largely responsible for. Practically all mature industrialised western democracies have a more equitable share of wealth than the UK and a higher standard of living for the majority. The glaring exception is the USA, where the ruling classes are content to allow millions of citizens to endure grinding poverty in the name of 'freedom', but astonishingly, the ruling elite has managed to persuade enough people that their personal identity is enhanced by their freedom to be dirt poor. A lot of the wealth of the ruling elite in the USA was built on the trade of commodities like cotton and tobacco, farmed by slaves on land stolen from native Americans. As much as freeing up the legal system to deal with current crap, statutes of limitations are put in place by people with a lot of power and money, to ensure they don't have to give it back. That, I would suggest, is true on both sides of the Atlantic.
There is a UN Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Quite right too; as ArisingUK has suggested, don't let the bastards doing it now think it will ever be forgotten.

[Skip]

Okay, but the spirals of revenge might take up too much of the energy required for survival.

[tillingborn]

Okay, but the spirals of revenge might take up too much of the energy required for survival.

That is one of the arguments used by the people who would lose out in any redistribution of wealth and power. Usually what happens is that the poor eventually get pissed off and have a bloody revolution, which, sadly, some people don't survive. Elitists will then argue that cream rises to the top; so does fat and the whole cycle begins afresh. With any luck we can find a better solution this time around.
There are all sorts of variations of constant vigilance being the price of liberty. One of the earliest is attributed to John Philpot Curran in 1790: "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."
It may take energy, but people will generally do what they can for an easy life. To people with power this sometimes means getting as much from your charges as possible; too many of them don't know when enough is enough. What the rest of us have to do is find a way to persuade ludicrously rich people that they have bled us enough, without having to chop their heads off.
Apart from that, the spirals of revenge from a 98 year old man is something we'll just have to face.

[Skip]

I'm not particularly concerned with this guy. Whether guilty (the charge, in such cases, is not genocide, but something specific that he personally did or gave the order for) or not, his suffering won't last long.

As for prosecuting 400-year-old atrocities, I see nothing to be gained. Indeed, I see nothing to be gained by revenge generally. Nor in keeping tribal hatreds on life-support indefinitely. I wish the UN had the physical ability to carry out its moral mandate, but the US (et al) have done to the UN what they do to unions of all kinds - including their own federation.

Settling Native land-claims as fairly as possible is another matter entirely - I'm all for that. Restoration and repair; reconciliation and redistribution, I'm all for. Stopping current insanity and preventing future destruction; extending wellness and happiness to as many creatures as possible, in the present and future.

[skakos]

I'd hate to see that notion put into legal effect against the British. ...

Why?

Because the nation, as a whole, and its ruling families in particular, benefited from the destruction of other societies. It doesn't matter that the international court can't find a living war criminal to string up; it can find a great many artifacts and a great deal of wealth whose ownership can be traced back to Africa, India, China - to the estates, as it were, of the victims. The restitution, not to mention punitive damages, might be ruinous. And i bet the royal family (since they've changed bloodlines a couple times over the colonial period) would get out of paying it, as would the banks (on some grounds - they just always do). That leaves the taxpayer to pick up the tab, along of maybe a few down-at-heel aristos with long racial memories.

The reason for statutes of limitations is precisely to keep from replaying the same old oo-killed-oo skit, when there is so much contemporary atrocity to deal with.

The Law is dictated by those in power...

[Skip]

The Law is dictated by those in power...

No shit!

Anyway, the whole business of "following orders" being no excuse is a farce. What happens to a soldier who refuses to follow an order? He's not there at the end of the war to be punished by the victors, because he's been shot by his own side. The same allies who staged the trials of Nazi war-criminals had (and have, to this day) no qualms about offing their own insubordinates and whistle-blowers.

The foot-soldier loses, either way; the officer loses only if his side loses... and maybe not then, if the winning side has some use for his skills in rocketry or cryptography or enhanced interrogation.