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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
10
Ibid.
, p. 91-92.
11
Ibid.
, p. 92-93.
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.