United Nations War Crimes Commission Research Articles

In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Poland, the United Nations War Crimes Commission, and the Search for Justice, by Michael Fleming

In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Poland, the United Nations War Crimes Commission, and the Search for Justice, by Michael Fleming

Epistemic Communities of Exile Lawyers at the UNWCC

Abstract During the 1940s in London, exiled lawyers from Europe and Asia were among the main actors in coining one of the most known principles of international criminal law. The notion of ‘crimes against humanity’ emanated from their legal debates. This paper debates how the term surfaced in meetings of the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) in 1944 and was taken up by the London Charter for the Nuremberg International Tribunal in 1945. Legal concepts, which previously needed to be discussed at conferences and via correspondence, developed much more quickly in the ‘breeding ground’ of the exile situation in London and were influenced by different legal traditions, here termed ‘legal flows’.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), 1943–1948, and the Codification of International Criminal Law: An Introduction to the Special Issue

The United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), 1943–1948, and the Codification of International Criminal Law: An Introduction to the Special Issue

The Imperial Precipice: Jurists and Diplomats of the French Empire at the United Nations War Crimes Commission

Abstract Delving into world-spanning legal agencies, histories of exiled diplomats and lawyers, this paper explores how Free France defended at the United Nations War Crimes Commission the vision of the interwar liberal order, one that reached across the global territories of the mandate system administered by the League of Nations, into the colonial territories of the French empire. From London to Chongqing, facing Vichy collaborationist authoritarian dictatorship in metropolitan France and anti-colonial pressures from the turbulent colonial frontiers, a handful of Free French jurists and politicians worked day and night to establish the imperial sovereignty of the French exile committee of general Charles de Gaulle, and restore French republicanism rooted in the legal tradition of Nicolas Fouquet, Jacques de Maleville and Léon Duguit. Drawing upon newly-unsealed UN and French archival materials, this paper documents Free France’s intervention at the UNWCC, the activities of its representatives and reflection on empires, race and international law.

Australian Representatives to the UNWCC, 1943–1948

Abstract Australia had a number of significant personnel involved in the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). Yet the strongest Australian influence on the UNWCC was not Australian at all; it was the British-born jurist Lord Wright of Durley, who served as Australia’s representative from mid-1944 and as UNWCC chair during the pivotal years from 1945 to 1948. Lord Wright took charge only months before the wars in Europe and the Pacific ended and thus played a significant role in directing the UNWCC’s efforts during this crucial period. Unfortunately, the UNWCC became less and less able over time to influence its national members and their approaches to prosecuting war crimes. The eventual sidelining of the UNWCC does not, however, change its important place in the history of multilateral institutions that sought to deal with war crimes committed in the twentieth century by means of international criminal law. Nor does it detract from the honest and industrious work of the various national representatives, including Lord Wright, to ensure that war criminals did not escape justice.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Prosecution of War Criminals in Yugoslavia

Abstract To understand the different developments that shaped the Yugoslav war crimes policy it is important to analyse the impact of international discussions on the Yugoslav criminal law and the Yugoslav involvement in the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). During the Second World War two different institutions claimed to be the legal representatives of the Yugoslav people: The Yugoslav government in exile in London and the communist led AVNOJ (The Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia). With this in mind, this paper analyses Yugoslav war crimes policies from different perspectives and in different settings. It shows that the Yugoslav`s discussion about the punishment of war criminals was influenced by power struggles, geopolitical aims, and legitimacy. While Yugoslav government in exile got lost in internal nationalist struggles, it was the Yugoslav representative at the UNWCC, and the communist led State commission to investigate the crimes of the occupiers and their accomplices who took the active role and shaped the Yugoslav war crimes policy. In consequence the Yugoslav national law for prosecuting war crimes was developed from different sources: pre-WWII traditions, Soviet law, and the UNWCC.

The Polish Government-in-Exile: The United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Holocaust

Abstract The author discusses the engagement of the Polish Government-in-Exile with the issue of German war crimes and its involvement with the United Nations War Crimes Commission during the Second World War. Information sent by the Polish Underground State allowed the Polish War Crimes Office to compile its charge file submissions for the UNWCC in a strategic and organized manner. According to the author, the War Crimes Office attempted to ensure that German crimes against Jews received due attention in its charge file submissions.

4. Les actions en justice contre les crimes de la Shoah en Yougoslavie

During the Second World War, Yugoslav Communists followed Soviet patterns and adopted Aron Trianin’s legal ideas when sentencing war criminals. However, as a result of their participation in the United Nations War Crimes Commission, they adapted the commission’s legal framework and a whole set of jurisdictional guidelines and standards and incorporated them into the country’s criminal law code. From this perspective, this paper will analyze Yugoslav war crime trials connected to the Shoah, focusing on the transition of knowledge and transnational dynamics : which institutions were involved in “legal flows?” Who were the convicted perpetrators in the first Shoah trials? Who were the witnesses and what kind of evidence was produced? Did judgments follow patterns set by the IMT? And how did the first Shoah trials shape Yugoslavia’s understanding of the WWII and the Shoah?

The Orientalist on Trial: Enrico Cerulli and the United Nations War Crimes Commission

Abstract This article examines the United Nations War Crimes Commission’s ruling against Enrico Cerulli, the distinguished Italian scholar and senior colonial administrator. It reconstructs the UNWCC debate concerning jurisdiction over Italian crimes in Ethiopia, set against the backdrop of postwar decolonization, and then outlines the specific case against Cerulli, the committee and extra-committee deliberations, and the inconclusive aftermath of these events. The conclusion critiques Cerulli’s conception of colonial guilt and briefly considers the implications of Ethiopia’s experience at the Commission for current debates about the International Criminal Court.

LEGAL FLOWS: CONTRIBUTIONS OF EXILED LAWYERS TO THE CONCEPT OF “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

This article addresses the normative framework of the concept of “crimes against humanity” from the perspective of intellectual history, by scrutinizing legal debates of marginalized (and exiled) academic–juridical actors within the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). Decisive for its successful implementation were two factors: the growing scale of mass violence against civilians during the Second World War, and the strong support and advocacy of “peripheral actors,” jurists forced into exile in London by the war. These jurists included representatives of smaller Allied countries from around the world, who used the commission's work to push for a codification of international law, which finally materialized during the London Conference of August 1945. This article studies the process of mediation and the emergence of legal concepts. It thereby introduces the concept of “legal flows” to highlight the different strands and older traditions of humanitarian law involved in coining new law. The experience of exile is shown to have had a significant constitutive function in the globalization of a concept (that of “crimes against humanity”).

When Institutional Design Is Flawed: Problems of Cooperation at the United Nations War Crimes Commission, 1943–1948

When Institutional Design Is Flawed: Problems of Cooperation at the United Nations War Crimes Commission, 1943–1948

The Missed Italian Nuremberg: The History of an Internationally-Sponsored Amnesty

In the aftermath of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, most international lawyers focused on their importance and legacy. Although the legal and moral value of the two major trials against the (surviving) members of the Axis Alliance appears indisputable, their success runs parallel with the almost untold story of the decision to conceal the responsibilities of the Italian forces. In October 1943, the Allied leaders had established the United Nations War Crimes Commission, an independent body tasked with investigating and recording the evidence of war crimes, and identifying where possible the individuals responsible; and reporting to the Governments concerned, when there was prima facie case for the prosecution of those individuals. Indeed, by March 1948 the Commission identified and listed more than 1,200 Italian nationals, who could have been held accountable for heinous war crimes, and in particular those committed on the territories of Ethiopia and Yugoslavia. On 1 November 1943 the Big Three (UK, USA and USSR) had also adopted the Moscow Declaration, agreeing that Italian war criminals had to be brought to justice. This proposition would be broadened by the Treaty of Peace with Italy, signed in February 1947, which Article 45 established that Italy should have arrested and surrendered for trial the persons accused of having committed, ordered, or abetted war crimes and crimes against peace or humanity by any Allied or Associated Power (including Ethiopia, since under Article 38 this provision would be applicable to all acts entailing the responsibility of Italy or Italian national towards it, from 3 October 1935).Despite these initiatives, apart from the 40 trials the British conducted in Italy immediately after the end of the conflict, no Italian would be held accountable for the commission of international crimes. In fact, since 1944 the Italian governments put in place diversionary strategies, with the effect of obstructing the enforcement of the obligations undertaken – and eventually the execution of the arrest warrants issued against Italian individuals. These strategies would never succeed, if at the same time the Italian governments hadn’t made significant efforts to build strong ties with the Allies (and in particular USA and UK) and to “reposition” the country. As a result, while on the one hand Italy was authorized to submit charges to the UNWCC (thus being recognized also as a victim of war crimes), to establish a national Commission of Inquiry to assess the charges brought by Yugoslavia (with the declared task of identifying the individuals to be brought to justice), and to adopt a generalized amnesty aimed at “pacifying the country”; on the other, its counterparts, and in particular Yugoslavia and Ethiopia, were actively discouraged from requesting the execution of the arrest warrants issued against Italian high officers, including Marshal Badoglio, who had been entrusted in September 1943 with creating a first post-Fascist government together with King Victor Emmanuel III.To sum up, the main proposition of this paper is that the missed prosecution of Italian alleged war criminals represents a debacle of the international community, for three main reasons. First of all, because the members of the international community, and in particular the Great Powers, were directly responsible for the non-enforcement of the new-born international criminal law, and in particular of the obligations undertaken by Italy between 1943 and 1947. Secondly, because for reasons of expediency, the victims of the crimes committed by Italy, and in particular Ethiopians and Yugoslavs, have never been provided with the same kind of justice which was granted to the victims of the other two members of the Axis.Lastly, because by granting a de facto amnesty to the individuals identified by the UNWCC as the most responsible for the crimes, the international community also paved the way for the adoption by the De Gasperi government of a generalized, de iure amnesty (the so-called “Togliatti Amnesty”), by which Italy “condoned” the crimes committed by Fascists and collaborators on the national territory. The combination of these initiatives would finally result in a “collective amnesia”, which constitutes a second victimization of the victims of those crimes, both at the national and international level.

The Distinctive Legal Features of Crimes Against Humanity

This research intends to analyze general features and elements of criminal acts against humanity. Also in this paper, special attention was paid to the distinctive features that are crucial in the legal classification of crimes against humanity as offenses punished with international acts and legal regulations of each state. The term Crime against humanity first appeared in the London Agreement of 8 August 1945 establishing the International Military Tribunal. In the course of the preparatory work, it had become apparent that certain crimes committed during the Second World War were not, strictly speaking, war crimes. These were crimes whose victims were of the same nationality as the perpetrators, or nationals of an allied State and were committed for different motives. As early as March 1944, the representative of the United States of America on the Legal Committee of the United Nations War Crimes Commission proposed that crimes committed against stateless persons or any other person by reason of their race or religion should be declared "Crimes against humanity". It suggests, in at least two distinct ways, the enormity of these offenses of the other criminal offenses. First, the phrase "crimes against humanity" suggests offenses that aggrieve not only the victims and their own communities, but all human beings, regardless of their community. Second, the phrase suggests that these offenses cut deep, violating the core humanity that we all share and that distinguishes us from other natural beings. This double meaning gives the phrase potency, but also an ambiguity we may trace back to the double meaning of the word "humanity". "Humanity" means both the quality of being human-humanness-and the aggregation of all human beings-humankind. Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "Are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of human beings". They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated by a government or a de facto authority. The law traditionally distinguishes between crimes against persons, crimes against property, crimes against public order, crimes against morals, and the like. Murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice.

The Distinctive Legal Features of Crimes Against Humanity

This research intends to analyze general features and elements of criminal acts against humanity. Also in this paper, special attention was paid to the distinctive features that are crucial in the legal classification of crimes against humanity as offenses punished with international acts and legal regulations of each state. The term Crime against humanity first appeared in the London Agreement of 8 August 1945 establishing the International Military Tribunal. In the course of the preparatory work, it had become apparent that certain crimes committed during the Second World War were not, strictly speaking, war crimes. These were crimes whose victims were of the same nationality as the perpetrators, or nationals of an allied State and were committed for different motives. As early as March 1944, the representative of the United States of America on the Legal Committee of the United Nations War Crimes Commission proposed that crimes committed against stateless persons or any other person by reason of their race or religion should be declared "Crimes against humanity". It suggests, in at least two distinct ways, the enormity of these offenses of the other criminal offenses. First, the phrase "crimes against humanity" suggests offenses that aggrieve not only the victims and their own communities, but all human beings, regardless of their community. Second, the phrase suggests that these offenses cut deep, violating the core humanity that we all share and that distinguishes us from other natural beings. This double meaning gives the phrase potency, but also an ambiguity we may trace back to the double meaning of the word "humanity". "Humanity" means both the quality of being human-humanness-and the aggregation of all human beings-humankind. Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "Are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of human beings". They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated by a government or a de facto authority. The law traditionally distinguishes between crimes against persons, crimes against property, crimes against public order, crimes against morals, and the like. Murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice.

Niedoceniona Komisja Narodów Zjednoczonych

The article presents, based on the archival materials, the major events that led to the creation of the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). The author points out that the development of the international criminal law, which was in its initial stage until 1939, was the work of some outstanding laweyers. The acomplishments of the UNWCC have enabled the establishment of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and Tokyo and carrying out the trials against war criminals.

Wykorzystywanie zwłok więźniów do badań w instytutach anatomicznych w III Rzeszy

The article describes the process of using prisoners’ bodies for research by scientist of Third Reich. Anatomical institutes which before the Second World War trained medical students on the basis of few human preparation, between 1939–1945 gained unlimited access to resources of human bodies. The primary source of preparations were prisoners’ decapitated bodies. For the purposes of the national economy Third Reich all corps were deprived of a legal protection. At the same time the Ministry of Justice of Third Reich adopted a regulation which standardized the equipment of dissectingrooms. This situation had given a chance to German scientist to pursue practically all research projects. Some of these project like receiving soap from human fat was the subject of a future investigation conducted by United Nations War Crimes Commission.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Origins of International Criminal Justice

The United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Origins of International Criminal Justice

Holding Collectives Accountable

This article argues that there is a need to understand better the legal origins of collective responsibility, as well as to provide additional material for further judicial interpretation of this form of responsibility. For the purposes of this article, collective responsibility refers to the form of individual criminal responsibility that holds individuals accountable for the criminal purpose or objective of a group where they acted in concert with others or otherwise contributed to the fulfillment of the common criminal plan. To spur on further inquiry into the subject of collective responsibility specifically, this article examines the contribution of the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) to the development of this mode of liability and discusses how it is relevant today. In order to provide sufficient background information on this subject matter, this article begins by presenting an overview of the evolution of collective responsibility from Nuremberg to where it stands in practice at the ICC. Finally, the article will demonstrate how the Commission’s diplomatic exchanges in tandem with cases under its supervision contributed to early formation of customary international law and how these historical events are important today.

The Relevance of the United Nations War Crimes Commission to the Prosecution of Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes Today

This article discusses aspects of the origin and development of jurisprudence relating to the prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the context of international criminal law. It examines a selection of archival material from the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) and other bodies connected to it, noting that the UNWCC was the first multinational criminal law organization to explicitly endorse SGBV crimes as international crimes. UNWCC-supported trials in both Europe and Asia suggest that rape committed in the context of armed conflict or situations of mass violence was punishable as a serious crime nearly 70 years ago. Moreover, many of the theories of liability used by contemporary tribunals today were used in the UNWCC-supported cases. The authors maintain that the UNWCC archives are not only valuable for tribunals prosecuting conflict-related SGBV cases today, but the jurisprudence emerging from UNWCC-supported cases may also be quite relevant to contemporary policy debates.

China, the Chinese Representative, and the Use of International Law to Counter Japanese Acts of Aggression: China’s Standpoint on UNWCC Jurisdiction

This article discusses China’s influence on the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). It describes China’s participation in the discussion of war crimes investigation and punishment, emphasizing the particular influence of Chinese Representative Wellington Koo. The article examines Koo’s application of international law to address Japanese atrocities committed towards China, particularly in using the UNWCC as a means of ensuring that Japanese aggression did not go unpunished. Despite the inability to hold many Japanese war criminals accountable, the author emphasizes China’s remarkable impact on the UNWCC, and maintains that China continues to remain a strong force in international law.