[PDF] Law Reports Of Trials Of War Criminals Selected And Prepared By The United Nations War Crimes Commission eBook

Author : United Nations War Crimes Commission
Publisher :
Page : 138 pages
File Size : 39,52 MB
Release : 2013-07-21
Category :
ISBN : 9781491048153

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This 15-volume series summarizes more important proceedings taken against individuals accused of war crimes during World War II, excluding the major war criminals tried by the Nuremberg and Tokyo International Military Tribunals. These representative were selected for this series based on the major points of municipal and international law that were raised and settled during the trials as well as the potential for the greatest legal interest. For example, Volume 4 includes the trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita (PDF). Each volume begins with a unique introduction by the Right Honorable Lord Wright of Durley, Chairman of the United Nations War Crimes Commission. I have been asked to contribute a Foreword to the first volume of Law Reports on Trials of War Crimes which are being selected and prepared by the United Nations War Crimes Commission, of which I am Chairman. The Commission in producing and publishing these law reports is fulfilling the duty assigned to it. The Commission is primarily concerned with criminals who fall within the first category under the Moscow Declaration of October 30th, 1943. This category may generally be defined to be that embracing particular individuals who have committed offences against the laws of war and whose offences can be ascribed to a particular location. These are sometimes called "minor war criminals," but that is a misleading term because of the enormity and scope of the crimes committed, which really include all war crimes except those that were charged at the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials and are described as crimes which have no particular geographical location. The Declaration distinguished these two categories for the purpose of providing how they were to be punished. The latter, the" major war criminals," were to be punished by joint decision of the governments of the Allies and the joint decision has resulted in the Nuremberg trial and the Tokyo trial. The former category were dealt with in the Moscow Declaration by providing that Germans who took part in the various atrocities referred' to were to be brought back to the scene of their crimes and tried on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged. The Commission has not been concerned directly, though it has been concerned indirectly, in the crimes which were charged in the proceedings at Nuremberg and Tokyo, but it has had very close relations with the cases of what have been called the" minor criminals." The trials of that class of offenders constitute the subject of these reports. In the present volume, which was sent to press before the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was promulgated, there are reports of six cases tried by British Military Courts and three cases tried by United States Military Commissions. I shall not attempt to deal with the details of these cases, which included offences against prisoners of war, slaughter of mariners attempting to escape from a torpedoed ship, poison gas used on inmates of concentration camps, killing on a large scale by poison administered by medical personnel in a sanatorium, and similar crimes. It will be observed that in all these cases prosecutions were brought and conducted by the military authorities. The courts were constituted from serving officers of the two armies respectively with the exception of two instances, the Peleus and the Almelo cases, where the military courts were mixed in their composition. In the Peleus case the tribunal included Greek as well as British officers, and in the Almelo case Dutch as well as British officers. Most of these cases are dealing with offences committed against members of the military forces of the respective nation. In later volumes it is hoped to include reports of the trials of Germans accused of crimes in concentration camps. It was not found possible for technical reason to include in the present volume reports of French cases, but that defect will, it is hoped, be remedied in the following volumes.

Author : The United Nations War Crimes Commission
Publisher :
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 38,42 MB
Release : 2013-07-24
Category :
ISBN : 9781491071236

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This 15-volume series summarizes the course of the more important proceedings taken against individuals accused of war crimes during World War II, excluding the major war criminals tried by the Nuremberg and Tokyo International Military Tribunals. These representative trials of war criminals were selected for this series based on the major points of municipal and international law that were raised and settled during the trials as well as the potential for the greatest legal interest. For example, Volume 4 includes the trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita (PDF). Each volume begins with a unique introduction by the Right Honorable Lord Wright of Durley, Chairman of the United Nations War Crimes Commission. At the end of World War I, as everybody knows, there were admirable declarations that war crimes would be punished, and lists of criminals were prepared by a fact-finding committee, but nothing practical was effected towards identifying, tracing and apprehending accused individuals or puttingthem on trial, though an excellent report, with lists of war crimes, was prepared by the Commission on Responsibilities already referred to. The whole thing was abandoned after a few unsatisfactory trials, though at least one useful judgment was produced by the Leipzig Court in the Llandovery Castle case, and though the Leipzig cases (as they have been called) showedhow hopeless it was to expect justice in these circumstances from the courts of the Reich. Hence it came about that the victorious Allies after WorldWar II decided to try war criminals themselves, adopting either the system of the military courts or that of the national courts. They refused to think that Allied courts could not be impartial. Their decision has been amply justified by the trials that have been held. The International MilitaryTribunals, held one at Nuremberg and the other at Tokyo, stand as convincing proofs that impartial justice can in this way be administered. Thishas also been shown by the military and the national courts which have held hundreds of trials, a selection from which is contained in these volumes.The presence of neutral judges has been shown to be not essential to maintain a high standard of impartiality and this was in fact fortunate under thecircumstances, because neutral judges were in fact not available. Nor had the accused any legal right to object to being tried by such courts; all the accused were entitled to was a fair trial and that they got. Also, as I have stated, the types of courts employed were those traditionally recognised by International Law as competent for war crime trials.

Author : The United Nations War Crimes Commission
Publisher :
Page : 140 pages
File Size : 17,50 MB
Release : 2013-07-26
Category :
ISBN : 9781491200926

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This 15-volume series summarizes the course of the more important proceedings taken against individuals accused of war crimes during World War II, excluding the major war criminals tried by the Nuremberg and Tokyo International Military Tribunals. These representative trials of war criminals were selected for this series based on the major points of municipal and international law that were raised and settled during the trials as well as the potential for the greatest legal interest. For example, Volume 4 includes the trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita (PDF). Each volume begins with a unique introduction by the Right Honorable Lord Wright of Durley, Chairman of the United Nations War Crimes Commission. The most noteworthy case reported in this Volume is that of General Tomoyuki Yamashita who was tried and condemned by a United States Military Commission in Manila. His sentence was confirmed. The matter came before the Supreme Court of the United States on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition was rejected by that Court by a majority of the judges. The Court was not empowered to deal with the issues of fact which had been decided by the Court in Manila. The questions which came before the Supreme Court were questions of jurisdiction or competency. The majority, speaking by that great Judge, Stone, Chief Justice, whose death has deprived the Court of one of its greatest ornaments since its formation, held that the Military Commission was legally constituted, and that the charges exhibited in the Petition were within its competence because they were charges of violations of the law of war. The two dissenting judges founded their dissents upon certain technical question, no doubt of a basic character, but not calling for special notice here in this brief introduction which only deals with International Law. The observations of the Chief Justice (in which the majority of the judges agreed) are of leading importance for students of the law of war.

Author : The United Nations War Crimes Commission
Publisher :
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 21,90 MB
Release : 2013-07-26
Category :
ISBN : 9781491089743

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This 15-volume series summarizes the course of the more important proceedings taken against individuals accused of war crimes during World War II, excluding the major war criminals tried by the Nuremberg and Tokyo International Military Tribunals. These representative trials of war criminals were selected for this series based on the major points of municipal and international law that were raised and settled during the trials as well as the potential for the greatest legal interest. For example, Volume 4 includes the trial of General Tomoyuki Yamashita (PDF). Each volume begins with a unique introduction by the Right Honorable Lord Wright of Durley, Chairman of the United Nations War Crimes Commission.Altstotter and the other accused in this trial were former German Judges, Prosecutors or officials in the Reich Ministry of Justice. All were charged with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity between Septem., ber, 1939, and April, 1945 and with conspiring between January, 1933 and April, 1945 to commit such offences. Several were also charged with membership of criminal organisations as defined in the judgment of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal.