CYIL Vol. 7, 2016

CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ THE UNITED NATIONS WAR CRIMES COMMISSION… Punishment of War Crimes that started to deal with the questions related to future prosecution and punishment of the war criminals. 10 It should be noted that the Declaration of St. James’s was an initiative of the above-stated nine exile Governments and that the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union – despite being represented at the Conference – were not among its signatories. As the atrocities in the occupied countries continued ( inter alia , on 10 June 1942, the Czech village Lidice was erased following Heydrich’s assassination), the nine States that signed the Declaration launched a diplomatic offensive vis-à-vis the three powers and the Holy See. In July 1942, Greece and Norway, on behalf of all nine countries, presented to the United Kingdom a note expressing “fear that as the defeat of the enemy countries approaches, the regime of occupation will assume an ever more barbarous and merciless character, not excluding the extermination of the whole groups of people”. Furthermore, the signatories of the Declaration of St. James’s were “therefore convinced that only very definite steps by the most powerful among the Allies can exert a deterrent influence.” Subsequently, France and Czechoslovakia delivered a note to the Soviet Government in Moscow stating that they “have decided to send an urgent appeal to… the Union of Soviet Socials Republics to give a solemn warning to the guilty.” Similar notes were addressed by the Netherlands, Yugoslavia and Luxembourg to the United States in Washington, D.C., and by Belgium and Poland to the Holy See. 11 The response of the three powers to these notes was positive. 12 While these replies did not propose any concrete steps, the History of the Commission considers this to be a success, as “for the first time in official pronouncements, it was agreed that the guilty should be handed over to the country in which their crimes had been committed, and should be tried by the courts of that country.” 13 This principle was later confirmed in another important document, the Moscow Declaration, made by Marshal Stalin, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill 12 Ibid. , p. 93-94: President Roosevelt issued a declaration on 21 August 1942 through which he confirmed that “[w]hen victory has been achieved, it is the purpose of the Government of the United States… to make appropriate use of the information and evidence in respect to these barbaric crimes of the invaders, in Europe and in Asia. It seems only fair that they shall have to stand in courts of law in the very countries they are now oppressing and answer for their acts.” Similarly, Prime Minister Churchill in his speech in the House of Commons on 8 September 1942 declared that “those who are guilty of the Nazi crimes will have to stand up before tribunals in every land where their atrocities have been committed, in order that an indelible warning may be given to the future ages and that successive generations of men may say so perish all who do the like again”. The Soviet Union responded by a note dated 14 October 1942 that “[t]he Soviet Government approves and shares the just desire expressed in the collective note received that those guilty of the crimes indicated shall be handed over to judicial courts and prosecuted, and that the sentence passed on them shall be put into execution.” 13 Ibid. , p. 94. 10 Ibid. , p. 91-92. 11 Ibid. , p. 92-93.

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