Plot Synopsis

Produced, written and directed by Jonathan Silvers, DEAD RECKONING: WAR & JUSTICE is a three-part documentary series the probes post-World War II justice over 70 years, by following war crimes investigators and prosecutors as they pursue some of the world's most notorious war criminals -- notably Adolf Eichmann, Saddam Hussein, Radovan Karadzic, Charles Taylor, and Efrain Rios Montt. The principles, legal doctrines and tactics that emerged from those pursuits now inform the effort to expose, prosecute, and punish present day human rights violators whose depredations have left millions dead and displaced. It is a tale of daring escapades, political obstruction, broken promises, and triumphs and failures. Interspersed throughout the film is footage of current excavations and investigations, as well as archival footage. The documentary also features an array of candid interviews and insights from the world's leading legal authorities, forensic scientists, medical researchers and foremost human rights workers and international justice experts, including Benjamin Ferencz, U.S. Army prosecutor at Nuremberg, and currently an official at the International Criminal Court (ICC); Allan Ryan, former Chief War Crimes Prosecutor of the US Department of Justice; Eric Stover, Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley's School of Law; pioneering forensic anthropologist, the late Clyde Snow; Naomi Roht-Arriaza, UC Hastings School of Law; journalist Philip Gourevitch; various members of Physicians for Human Rights, and more. On Tuesday, March 28, 2017 from 8-11pm (check local listings), PBS premiered the entire series, showing all three episodes back to back.

"The General's Ghost" (Hour 1): The film begins with vengeance: U.S. General Douglas MacArthur's 1945 military trial of Japan's General Tomoyuki Yamashita for horrific atrocities in the Philippines. Despite the lack of any evidence that Yamashita ordered or even knew about the atrocities, he was condemned to death, raising the question: Are commanders responsible for crimes their troops commit?

"The Blind Eye" (Hour 2): The second hour looks at how the United States and the Soviet Union shoved international justice into the deep freeze of the Cold War, and how atrocities in conflicts with high numbers of civilian deaths -- such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Guatemala -- are covered up or ignored.

"In Our Time" (Hour 3): In the third and final hour, we see both the revitalization of postwar justice over two decades and its limitations in confronting the exponential rise in civilian atrocities -- sexual violence and genocide -- occurring in the Balkans, Rwanda, Congo, Syria, Sri Lanka, and other countries.