United Nations War Crimes Commission archive

• Former prosecutor Richard Goldstone regrets he did not have access to the ‘treasure trove’ archive uncovered by SOAS for cases in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
• Latest research centred on a collection of newly accessible United Nation War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) archives brings legal and political support from World War II cases for today’s effort for prosecuting the perpetrators of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in conflict areas.

A five-year research project led by SOAS, University of London on a collection of World War II archives, held in secret for sixty years, has been published in a new paper which questions the assumption today that rape was not prosecuted as a war crime until after the post-Yugoslavia wars of the 1990s.

Greater access to the archives which documented thousands of cases against accused World War II criminals in Europe and Asia was the result of a campaign led by Dr Dan Plesch, Director of the SOAS Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD) and Assistant Director of Shanti Sattler, last year.

The findings, published in a paper in the Criminal Law Forum, the official journal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal law, ‘The Relevance of the United National War Crimes Commission to the Prosecution of Sexual and Gender-Based crimes today’ co-authored by Dr Plesch, Susana SáCouto, Director of American University War Crimes Research Office and Chante Lasco, Jurisprudence Collections Coordinator, WCRO, highlight the importance of UNWCC-supported cases for the prosecution of SGBV cases before contemporary tribunals.

The research shows that:

• Convictions for the war crimes of rape and forced prostitution took place around the world in the 1940s, in China, France, Guam, Greece, Philippines, Poland and Yugoslavia for example.
• Low level criminals as well as top-leaders were convicted for their direct crimes and for being in command of troops that committed them.
• Witnesses were offered some level of protection in some courts and in some cases courts recognized the relevance of coercive circumstances in analysing whether rape had occurred.
• These prosecutions were endorsed by a sixteen member international body including four states that are now permanent members of the UN Security Council, China, France, the UK and the US as well as India and Australia, and several now EU members including Belgium, Denmark Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway.

The paper argues that the specific legal and political contribution of these cases “cannot be overestimated” since in the twenty first century rape has often been regarded as a less than serious crime – even an inevitable part of war.

Speaking about the findings, Justice Richard Goldstone, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, said: “Had the work of the UNWCC been taken into account by the drafters of the Security Council statutes for the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the definitions of war crimes might well have been more explicit with regard to gender-related crimes. In any event, as the first Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY, I would have benefited immeasurable from access to this rich material.”

Dr Plesch added: “Among the files we found clear examples of international war criminals being prosecuted at national level with international support. These findings can boost the efforts of the UN, Foreign Secretary William Hague at the forthcoming Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict.”

The authors of ‘The Relevance of the United National War Crimes Commission to the Prosecution of Sexual and Gender-Based crimes today’’ say more research needs to be done on the national trial records and that the prosecutions that they have uncovered do not of course begin to address the vast amount of such crimes at the time.

The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict – is due to take place in London on 10-12 June.

Access the full paper: The Relevance of the United National War Crimes Commission to the Prosecution of Sexual and Gender-Based crimes today.

Access Justice Richard Goldstone’s Foreword in Criminal Law Forum: United Nations War Crimes Commission Symposium.

Click here to listen to the audio recording of the event “Reinforcing  Human Rights Standards: Uncovering Lessons from the United Nations War Crimes Commission of 1943 – 1948” that was held on April 28th at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington DC and marked the launch of the Criminal Law Forum Special Symposium on the UNWCC.  Justice Richard Goldstone chaired the event and discussed his foreword to Symposium.  The following authors presented their article contributions:

• Dan Plesch & Shanti Sattler – A New Paradigm of Customary International Criminal Law: The United Nations War Crimes Commission of 1943 – 1948 and its Associated Courts and Tribunals
• Dan Plesch, Susana SáCouto & Chante Lasco – The Relevance of the United Nations War Crimes Commission to the Prosecution of Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes Today
• Chris Simpson – Shutting Down the United Nations War Crimes Commission
• Kip Hale & Donna Cline – Holding Collectives Accountable

War Crimes Project Director and Assistant Director Dan Plesch and Shanti Sattler presented a paper “Beyond Nuremberg: Considering the Work of the United Nations War Crimes Commission of 1943 – 1948” at the conference “Historical Origins of International Criminal Law” in Hong Kong in March 2014.  The conference was hosted by the Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law (FICHL) and the City University of Hong Kong.

Check out this link for more information: http://www.fichl.org/activities/the-historical-origins-of-international-criminal-law/

Kip Hale of the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights just wrote an excellent article about our work for the Huffington Post. Read it here!  

The most recent article by the UNWCC project staff has just been published by the International Community Law Review.

Click here to get a copy!

Check out an article about the work of the UNWCC Project on PassBlue!

This two day conference, chaired by Justice Richard Goldstone, will mark the 70th anniversary of a forgotten initiative in operation from 1943 to 1948 and evaluate the potential contribution of the Commission’s work to contemporary efforts for international criminal justice and human rights advocacy.

With a focus on the key issues discussed by the Commission and addressed by member nations through their national trials, the conference will examine themes including the prosecution of sexual violence, torture, crimes against humanity and collective responsibility. Justice Richard Goldstone will open the conference with a keynote address and confirmed speakers include internationally-respected human rights law expert William Schabas, and Mark Ellis, Director of the International Bar Association.

The conference is hosted by the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS and the International Bar Association, with the generous support of the Oak Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and in cooperation with the Wiener Library, American University War Crimes Research Office, and the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights.

Click here to register!

The UN Archives and Records Management Section (UNARMS) and the ICC Legal Tools Project have responded magnificently to the UNWCC project’s representations to them to facilitate public access to the archive.

For the first time scholars, campaigners and lawyers can readily access the unrestricted files of the UNWCC. These files contain records of thousands of charges against Nazi and Japanese war criminals and the details of the development of a global, if short lived, system of international criminal justice. 

As late as November 2011, the UNARMS position was that even the now open sections of the archives could not be copied but following the representations made by our team at that time this policy has changed to some degree and this laid the ground for the access by the ICC. Some sections of the archive are also available in the Australian, Canadian, UK and US archives.

Dr. Plesch and his colleagues continue to seek effective access for bonafide researchers to the still restricted sections of the files which contain some 30,000 sets of pre-trial documents submitted by national and mixed military tribunals to the Commission for its prima facie judgement. These files contain details of many charges of crimes that are not being prosecuted with extensively today including rape and forced prostitution, and crimes by ordinary soldiers.

Dr Plesch’s work focuses on the overlooked contribution of the UN War Crimes Commission of 1943-1948 to International Criminal Law has been recognised as introducing a positive new paradigm by Justice Richard Goldstone. The Oak Foundation’s £31,000 grant is focused on making the entire 400,000 page archive publicly available including the still largely classified 36,000 charge files. The research is being conducted by Dr Plesch and Project Assistant Director, Shanti Sattler, in partnership with the SOAS Law School, the Wiener Library, the City University of New York’s graduate centre for international studies and the human rights centre of the American Bar Association.

CISD is delighted that Prof Thomas G. Weiss has joined the Centre as Research Professor working with Dr Plesch on their project looking at the implications of the alliance of United Nations during WW2 and prior to the UN Charter for Twenty First Century policy.

Professor Weiss’s distinguished career at the UN and as an academic includes leadership of the UN Intellectual History Project.