Two US marines are facing criminal charges for urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, after their actions were caught on a video that circulated widely on the internet, the US military said on Monday.

Staff sergeants Joseph W Chamblin and Edward W Deptola will face courts martial, the first criminal charges faced by anyone over the incident. The video prompted widespread anger in Afghanistan earlier this year; the Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the marines’ actions “inhuman”.

Chamblin and Deptola, were also charged with “posing for unofficial photographs with human casualties”, and will face charges over failing to report or stop misconduct by junior marines, the military said. Three marines have already been disciplined over the urination incident.   »»» guardian.co.uk

When Hugo Grotius wrote De Jure Belli Ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) several centuries ago, the obligation to respect the bodies of fallen enemies was already universal. Grotius writes, “all animosity against the vanquished and the dead must cease, because they have suffered the last of evils that can be inflicted. If there have been struggles among the living, your hatred surely must be satisfied with the death of an adversary. For the tongue of strife is now silenced. The rules, respecting this (respect for cadavers), are observed, even while the utmost rage of war still continues. For the hand of death has destroyed all enmity towards the fallen, and protected their bodies from all insult.”

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