CYIL Vol. 7, 2016

PETR VÁLEK CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ and additional administrative expenses. These costs were covered by the financial contributions of the member States. From the current perspective, the Commission was a “low-cost organization”, since the annual expenditures in the two final years, i.e., at the peak of its activities, were approximately GBP 15,000. 35 According to the History of the Commission, this organization went through four different phases of its existence. The first one, from October 1943 to January 1945, was a preparatory phase, during which “important questions of principle and procedure” were debated and the machinery of retribution was being prepared. One of these issues was whether the competence of the Commission covered the investigations of crimes committed by the Nazis against Jews and stateless persons in Germany, i.e., of the crimes against humanity (see bellow). Another arose regarding the crime of aggression, when Committee III in a preliminary report maintained that the waging of aggressive war could not be regarded as a war crime. Czechoslovakia, however, presented a report in the opposite sense and won this argument. 36 During the second phase, from February 1945 to June 1946, the retribution was begun, tribunals were constituted by the Allied Powers and the war crimes trials were opened. Within this period, the Chairman of the Commission visited, inter alia , the newly-liberated concentration camp of Buchenwald on 26 April 1945 and other Commissioners attended the trial of K. H. Frank in Prague 37 at the end of March 1946 and the trials in Dachau and Mauthausen in November 1945 and April 1946. Furthermore, cooperation with the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects (CROWCASS) and Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was established. The first problems with extradition from the occupation zones arose. 38 In the third phase, from July 1946 to July 1947, the listing of accused persons by the Commission and the trials of war criminals attained an increased tempo. At the same time, following the critical voices in the British press and Parliament on the war crimes trials, the United Kingdom representative suggested on 24 April 1947 to terminate the work of Committee I by the end of May 1947 and of the Commission by the end of that year. This proposal was opposed by Belgium, so this question was deferred to October 1947. At that point, the Chairman suggested to end the work on 31 March 1948, which was approved. Therefore, the fourth phase, from July 1947 to March 1948, was the concluding one, when the Commission was occupied in winding up its activities or transferring them to other bodies and with the writing of its own history. During the four and

35 Ibid. , p. 132-134. 36 Ibid. , p. 138-140.

37 This trial is brilliantly described in: DRÁPAL, J. Poslušen zákonů své země a svého stavu, Kamill Resler – Obhájce K. H. Franka [ Obedient of the Laws of One’s Own Country and Profession , Kamill Resler – Attorney of K. H. Frank ], Prague 2014. 38 See supra note 4, p. 141-143.

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