In his new book on Australia’s dismal and shameful record on war criminals, Mark Aarons argues that Australia should adopt the Belgian solution, although he makes no mention of Belgian law. Australia should introduce legal measures that would grant jurisdiction to Australian courts to hear cases against any individual accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, on the basis of their presence in the country. Thus, the Afghani secret police officer, the Khmer Rouge village official, the Chilean torturer, and the Ukrainian or Baltic Nazi collaborator could each and all be prosecuted in Australia for breaches of this new Australian law.

There are several problems or at least potential difficulties with Aarons’s proposals. First, of course, the national solution is contrary to the international push for a court with a global criminal jurisdiction. This raises many fundamental issues, not the least of which is whether we perceive crimes against humanity and genocide to be crimes against humanity or simply crimes against Australia. While national prosecutions are perhaps a valid stop-gap measure while we await a new international ethical consciousness, the very epistemological structure of ‘crimes against humanity’ must at some level be seen to transcend outdated and limiting concepts of the nation state.

Second, of course, there are concerns of realpolitik, both domestic and international. Genocide is not, at this moment, a crime against Australian law, and many in government circles are quite content with that position. Their satisfaction is not due to a primary sympathy with Afghani torturers or Holocaust perpetrators, although Aarons does document in great detail the complicity of Australian intelligence organs, bureaucrats and government officials in ensuring the presence of such individuals in the country. Instead, many in Australia do not wish to face the spectacle, albeit I think a far-fetched one, of Australian politicians standing trial for genocide against Aboriginal peoples. After all, what is good for the Afghani gander is good for the Australian goose, at least in theory. Internationally, one can imagine that were Australia to pass the legislation proposed by Aarons, we would become the Belgium of the Antipodes. No one would visit. George W. Bush, as President of the United States, would run the risk of indictment for conspiracy to commit genocide, and any number of regional and other world leaders would risk similar accusations. Political tourism and Australia’s standing as a world actor would be in jeopardy.

In addition, it should be mentioned that Aarons’s proposal is based on the imposition of a retroactive criminal liability, something that most lawyers consider to be a jurisprudential no-no. His discussion of the various prosecutions or non-prosecutions of alleged Nazi collaborators in Australia is couched in terms of the failure of the legal system. In some cases, he is no doubt correct in asserting that political interference, lack of will, and even technical failure were present. Yet in reading this book, I get the distinct impression that because the author is convinced the individuals are in fact guilty, the law should somehow simply be capable of recognising that fact. On the particular cases with which he deals, I tend to share Aarons’s belief about the ‘appropriate’ out-come, but I do not believe it is possible to assert, without a jurisprudentially and ethically unacceptable a priori, that a system that results in an acquittal is, by definition, a failure.

Another disappointment with the book is the virtual absence of anything concrete or new. Much of the work is, by the author’s own admission, already to be found in his previous books. There is some updating, based on newly available material, but most of the detail of the post-World War II migration of Nazi collaborators and the role of government in assisting these new Australians has already been well-documented by Aarons himself. The first chapter, which deals with the presence of more recent mass criminals in the country, is remarkably thin. There are descriptions of some individual cases, although, somewhat ironically, the most recent controversy on this question is remarkably absent from Aarons’s treatment. The imminent arrival of members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) has caused much concern in Australia. The SLA, a Lebanese Christian militia, served as an Israeli surrogate in the occupied ‘buffer’ zone of that country. Serious allegations about the involvement of SLA members in mass imprisonment, torture and murder have come from groups such as Amnesty International, but one finds no mention of their potential presence in Aarons’s work. The discussion of other cases is full of assertions that involvement by individuals with an Australian connection in crimes is ‘reliably reported’ or that senior law enforcement officials are of the opinion that such crimes were ‘probably’ committed. Again and again, we are informed that there are ‘substantial allegations’ and that it is a ‘statistical certainty’ that perpetrators of crimes against humanity are present among us.

Let me be clear here. I believe that Aarons is right. Unfortunately, what I believe is of little importance. No doubt our pernicious and chilling libel laws have something to do with the lack of more substantive detail on the ‘new’ war criminals in Australia. To be fair, the author himself uses the information provided in this early part of the work to call for a complete and independent inquiry into the question to determine the extent of the problem. Nonetheless, I came away from reading this part of the book with a sense of little if any progress on this vital legal and ethical issue, and with some lingering questions about which war criminals we are talking about.

Aarons makes an impassioned plea for Australia to do something positive about war criminals in this country. I share his concerns and applaud him for his persistence in keeping the issue on the public agenda. Whether he offers anything new by way of information or workable by way of solution are separate questions, but I will not hold my breath either way waiting for this or the next government of Australia to take a principled stand. Realpolitik rules, justice waits.