"Inter arma silent leges" -Roman maxim War and law have had a constant relationship between each other ever since the existence of conflict as a collective phenomenon. The regulation of the state of war, whether stemming from tradition, custom, certain codes of conduct and, ultimately, law, has evolved throughout the centuries together with the notion of war. The idea of a "Crime of War", or war crime, is not new to the modern legal vocabulary. Unorthodox practices during a war have been branded as war crimes in many scenarios of conflict. However, these war crimes were not in themselves punishable...
for good or for bad, have come into and tainted the legal aspects of these Tribunals. To avoid these problems and the all too familiar situation where the vanquished is judged by the victor, it seems that the need for a permanent War Crimes Tribunal would be an invaluable contribution both to the development and to the effectiveness of the notion of crimes against humanity. Proposals have been made by academics, most of them arguing for a UN-based permanent court to deal with these cases of brutality in times of war. The final result remains yet to be seen.