The UNWCC was active in coordinating war crimes prosecutions across Europe and beyond, but much of this history has gone unremembered. This post gathers together research on the UNWCC’s actions across France, the Netherlands, and Yugoslavia, unearthing intriguing insights on early charges for mass killings of Jews and for sexual assault, domestic war crimes law, and the surprising scale and geographic distribution of prosecutions.
We’ve put together brief ‘taster’ dossiers of key issues of interest to the study of international criminal law, detailing UNWCC activities in the Netherlands and Yugoslavia. Originally prepared by former project assistant, Leah Owen (Oxford) for a presentation by Dan Plesch at the Hague Institute for Global Justice, these two dossiers compile basic information about the UNWCC in each country, as well as selections from the UNWCC archives on a wide range of topics including Holocaust-related charges, criminal and command responsibility, and the role played by national legal codes.
We also have the raw data for the previous post, by former project intern Christelle Meda (Panthéon-Assas). In this spreadsheet, Christelle delves into the 242 UNWCC cases prosecuted in French courts, examining their defendants, charges, sentences, issues of note, and more.