War crime

A war crime was an criminal offense that could be punished on a planetary or galactic scale; genocide is perhaps the most prominent example of a war crime. Those convicted of a war crime were called war criminals, and the punishment sought for offenders in these situations was life in prison, if not outright execution.

Aamin Marritza was not on any Bajoran list of Cardassians wanted for war crimes, according to Odo, who claimed to have seen all of them. Later, posing as Gul Darhe'el, Marritza asked Major Kira Nerys "How could there be war crimes, when there wasn't any war?" during the Occupation of Bajor, claiming they had not fought, only surrendered. A short time later, when Marritza's true identity was exposed, he demanded that he be tried for war crimes under the identity of the late Darhe'el, hoping to force his home planet to atone for its crimes during the Occupation. (DS9: "Duet") Nerys would later refer to the actions of the Cardassian occupation during her continued encounters with former Prefect Gul Dukat; at one point, she also referred to the recent murder of Damar's family by the Dominion as a parallel to her own peoples' suffering, mockingly throwing Damar's own question back at him: "What kind of people give those orders?" (DS9: "Tacking Into The Wind")

During the Battle of J'Gal during the Klingon War, General Dak'Rah committed war crimes when he commanded that everyone on J'Gal, other than Klingon warriors, were to be treated as enemies. His soldiers began torturing and killing civilians, Federation and Klingon alike. Afterwards, the Klingons condemned Dak'Rah as a war criminal and the House of Ra'Ul received discommendation. However, Dak'Rah got away with it with the Federation by claiming credit for killing his subordinates in a supposed effort to stop their atrocities which had actually been an assassination attempt on Dak'Rah by Doctor Joseph M'Benga. (SNW: "Under the Cloak of War", "Shuttle to Kenfori")

In 2374, Dukat, former leader of the Cardassian Union, was to stand trial for war crimes before a Federation Special Jury at Starbase 621. However, he escaped custody and conviction when the starship transporting him, the USS Honshu, was intercepted and destroyed by Cardassian warships. (DS9: "Waltz")

A year later, Dax and Worf, captured by the Breen and handed over to the Dominion, were informed that they would be tried, convicted and executed for unnamed war crimes. This sentence, however, would not be carried out – as the pair were being led to their execution, Legate Damar, having realized once and for all that the Dominion had little use for his people other than cannon fodder, committed his first act of rebellion, boldly gunning down their Jem'Hadar guards and telling the prisoners how to escape Dominion territory. (DS9: "Strange Bedfellows")

As a part of the Treaty of Bajor, the Female Changeling agreed to stand trial for war crimes committed during the Dominion War. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind")

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Background information

The concept of war crimes was legally defined, roughly speaking, in the century preceding the air date of The Original Series, though early instances of war crimes tribunals took place as early as the fifteenth century. The four Geneva conventions, ratified from 1864 to 1949, paralleled the development of industralization and modern warfare, which granted those willing the ability to perpetrate war crimes on a greater scale.

Actions that would be legally defined as war crimes have appeared and been discussed in the wider Star Trek franchise since its initial run. They have served as both the backstory and narrative for various episodes, including Kirk's own history with Kodos on Tarsus IV (TOS: "The Conscience of the King"), the indiscriminate planet killer (TOS: "The Doomsday Machine") and the Eugenics Wars, a series of conflicts defined by the mass murder of civilian populations (TOS: "Space Seed"). During Deep Space Nine, the writing of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor drew several direct parallels to real-life war crimes committed during the Second World War, including mass executions to exterminate the population (DS9: "Duet"), as reprisals for resistance actions (DS9: "Waltz") and as summary punishment for alleged lawbreakers (DS9: "Things Past"). Other crimes included torture (TNG: "Ensign Ro", DS9: "Duet"), the forced collaboration of comfort women and rape of civilians (DS9: "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night", "Duet") and the use of slave labor through the entirety of the occupation and even after its conclusion (DS9: "The Homecoming").

In a paper for The New York Review of Science Fiction, Victor Grech wrote that war crimes were commonly depicted in the franchise, and outlined further examples including Ma'bor Jetrel's attempted genocide of the Talaxians (VOY: "Jetrel"), the actions of Kodos on Tarsus IV (TOS: "The Conscience of the King") and Kevin Uxbridge's instantaneous extermination of the Husnock species TNG: "The Survivors". Grech also points specifically to the inaction of Captain Archer's crew in the Enterprise episode "Dear Doctor" and Phlox's approach to "evolution"; by allowing the Valakians to die off, the crew indirectly perpetrates genocide. (ENT: "Dear Doctor") (The New York Review of Science Fiction, issue 342). In a second article, he also discussed at length the Cardassian occupation of Bajor and drew significant parallels between real-life and fictionalized war crimes, including medical experimentation on sentient beings by Nazi scientist Josef Mengele and clear fictional analogue Crell Moset, the morality of Aarmin Maaritza/Gul Darhe'el and his participation in genocide, and more. (Early Human Development, Volume 145, Article 105016).

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