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Prosecuting the ‘unprosecutable’:Dead end or a way forward?

By Efe Ozkan & Mingma Doma Sherpa

Since passing the one year mark for the start of the war in Ukraine, the conflict has been elevated to a new level – a war lasting years, not an operation lasting days. Accusations of war crimes and misconduct have developed as a political platform calling for persecution and justice against the Russian Federation. In a state like the Russian Federation, the government cooperates on all levels, primarily through the knowledge and orders of Vladimir Putin himself. The question now is, who are these accusations directed against? Do we hold Putin responsible for war crimes because the soldiers were just “following orders”? Prof. Plesch and colleagues have uncovered a relic from the past, available on unwcc.org, that may present an answer.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the world has witnessed such events. Neither is it the first time that justice has been attempted against the perpetrators of these events. The United Nations War Crimes Commission- the predecessor to the ICC and many other tribunals- was the first international organisation to address the prosecution of war crimes. Thanks to Prof. Plesch and his colleagues, who have uncovered the legal documents surrounding the indictments against Nazis, which were in far greater number than those at Nuremberg, we are one step closer to answering the how of prosecution against Russia and Russians.

The UNWCC documents could be used as a credible source of reference as we navigate through the Russia-Ukraine war to hold the perpetrator/s accountable for the war crimes alongside the debate of the immunities of the head of state. However, Russia being a member of the P5 with the power to veto might bring the entire case to a dead-end. Nevertheless, perhaps Ukraine could be supported much as the UNWCC supported Poland and other states.

The final question here is: is there a practical way to enable prosecutions Will the world be able to find a way forward?

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Symposium on the UNWCC: 21st Century Value of the 1943-1948 UN War Crimes Commission

An op-ed by Dr Dan Plesch on the precedent and practice developed by the 1943-1948 UN War Crimes Commission, and how this can be applied in the case of Ukraine today.

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Early public diplomacy on the Holocaust – the United Nations Review

Through our research into the early UN, we happen across a lot of interesting files that go against conventional historical narratives. The documents of the United Nations Information Organisation – an early public diplomacy body established by the Allies to disseminate their message about the war, and about early human rights ideas – would be one such old largely forgotten archive. In particular, we’ve found an article from the United Nations Review (‘A Monthly Summary of Documents on the Allied Fight for Freedom’), from January 15 1943, detailing a ‘Joint Protest on Jewish Wrongs’. It contains a cross-national, public condemnation of Nazi exterminations efforts, and anti-Jewish persecution more broadly.

This public diplomacy document is being presented by Dan Plesch at the UN Library in Geneva today. It – and documents like it – have been overlooked for 75 years, and details public awareness of the Holocaust as it happened, years before the end of the war, overturning established understanding.

See here for the file!

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International Bar Association Paper on the UNWCC

publication of the War Crimes Committee by the International Bar Association.

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Review of Human Rights After Hitler: The Lost History of Prosecuting Axis War Crimes

Human Rights after Hitler: The Lost History of Prosecuting Axis War Crimes has been reviewed on the American Academy of Religion’s online book review website. The review of the book can be found here.

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More Torture Questions For Haspel

Commenting on Gina Haspel’s nomination to be director of the CIA, Dr Dan Plesch recalls in this article the United States’ position against the torture and maltreatment of prisoners -one they may be reminded of today.

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Drancy and Breendonck

A wide range of cases were handled by the UNWCC – some of the earliest included the prosecutions of Alois Brunner, commandant at Drancy (12), as well as camp staff for Breendonck (1).

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World War I, the Paris Peace Process and the untold legacy for the international prosecution of war crimes

By Mr. Ewan Lawson

The legacy of the Paris Peace process at the end of World War I is usually portrayed as one of unmitigated failure and indeed creating the conditions that ultimately led to the outbreak of the next war in Europe twenty years later. Despite calls for ‘justice’ from the outset of the war and a Commission being established to address war crimes and the responsibility for initiating the war as part of the process, formal justice gently petered out with some trials in a German court in Leipzig in 1921. However, the discussions in Paris in late 1918 and early 1919 played a significant role in creating the conditions that led to the establishment of the UNWCC in London in 1943, prosecutions for war crimes from Europe to the Far East as well as the tribunals in Nuremburg and Tokyo. Indeed, in considering what constituted a war crime in 1943, the UNWCC drew directly on those identified during the Paris process. Key to my ongoing research on the ways in which sexual violence became identified as a war crime is that this list produced in 1919 referred explicitly to the crimes of rape and enforced prostitution and indeed identified cases which might be suitable for investigation and prosecution.

In Britain, outrage at the violation of Belgian neutrality became intertwined with allegations of mistreatment of Belgian and French civilians including murder and rape. Given refutation of these allegations by the German authorities, the British government appointed a committee under Viscount Bryce to consider ‘outrages alleged to have been committed by German troops during this present War, cases of alleged maltreatment of civilians in the invaded territories, and breaches of the laws and established ways of war’. The Bryce Report which is also known as the Blue Book was based on evidence collected from refugee Belgian soldiers and civilians as well as diaries taken from dead German soldiers. The Report documented a range of atrocities including ‘murder, rape, arson and pillage’ which ‘began from the moment that the German army crossed the frontier’. Similar reports were produced by the French government and the Belgian government-in-exile.

Whilst not a member of the Bryce Committee, J H Morgan a legal scholar who was subsequently a member of the British military delegation during the Paris Peace process wrote to the Government from HQ British Expeditionary Force in France in March 1915 describing ‘honour outrages against women’ illustrating this with the case study of the town of Bailleul in northern France which had been occupied by German troops for 30 days in October 1914 and reporting some 30 cases of outrages against girls and young married women based on sworn statements and medical certificates. Morgan was subsequently involved in the work of another committee established under Lord Birkenhead in late 1918 which sought to identify evidence of war crimes having been committed by the Germans throughout the war. It is interesting to note that this committee primarily focused on crimes committed against British citizens and in particular the treatment of prisoners of war, unrestricted submarine warfare and armed raiders at sea and the indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities from the air. After four years of war which had nearly broken Britain it is perhaps unsurprising that the focus for justice looked inward.

These activities in Britain were reflected across the continent and as a result the Preliminary Peace Conference which met in Paris in January 1918 established a Commission to examine the ‘Responsibility of the Authors of War and the Enforcement of Penalties’. In addition to effectively attributing blame as to who started the war, this Commission was also to examine ‘the facts as to the breaches of the customs of war committed by the forces of the German Empire and their allies on land, on sea and in the air’. It was also to seek to identify individuals to be held responsible for these breaches and to consider what sort of tribunal would be appropriate.

Most of the attention to the work of the Commission has focused on the war guilt clauses in its final report. In particular the disagreements between some of the nations as to whether the Kaiser as a head of state should have some form of immunity. However, in Chapter II of its Report which focuses on Violations of the Laws and Customs of War, the Commission referred to a ‘outrages without regard…for the honour of individuals’ and in its list of charges includes rape and the abduction of girls and women for the purposes of enforced prostitution. In an Annex to the Report there is a table that lists the infractions linked to each of the crimes identified. In the case of rape these are identified as being committed by Germans in Belgium in 1914, Bulgars and Turks in Greece in 1916-18 and by Bulgars in Serbia between 1914 and 18. Enforced prostitution is specifically identified as having been committed by Bulgars and Turks in Greece throughout the war. It is this list that contributed to some of the early thinking of the UNWCC in 1943.

The Paris Peace process therefore has a more significant legacy than is perhaps usually considered, at least as far as the intent to prosecute sexual violence in conflict as an international crime is concerned. In Britain there is a further legacy with J H Morgan writing to His Majesty’s Government at the beginning of the war to remind them of the important legacy of the efforts that culminated in Paris.

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National Offices Conference

The National Offices Conference was one of the key events in the history of the UNWCC – a summit bringing together representatives of all sixteen national offices that worked with the Commission in the Royal Courts of Justice, in May/June 1945, with the aim of coordinating and giving impetus to the unprecedented set of war crimes trials planned.

Indian and Chinese officials proposing path-breaking models for military justice tribunals rubbed elbows with US Navy officers describing their practical systems for mapping alleged war crimes (down to the colours of pins they used), as well seminal figures in the history of human rights like René Cassin.

Below, we present footage from the Conference – sadly without sound – showing this momentous event.

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The Last Nazi Hunters

Dr Dan Plesch’s research cited in The Guardian once again – The author of a new history on the UN War Crimes Commission, concluded, “Right now, you see a German chancellor and public who are ironically more alive to the dangers, more willing to share the past, than some of the countries that fought them.”

Read the full story at: theguardian.com