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personality of the Commission as an international organization was confirmed by
the application of the 1944 Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act, dealing with
privileges, immunities and capacities of certain international organizations and their
staff, on the Commission.
24
Regarding the institutional structure, the “engine” of the Commission was the
representatives of the member States who changed during its existence. Among
them, the well-known experts in the field of international law were present, such
as Sir Cecil J. B. Hurst (former president of the Permanent Court of International
Justice), Professor André Gros of France (who was later elected into the International
Court of Justice) and diplomat Professor Herbert Pell of the United States. The
members of the Commission elected Sir Hurst as its Chairman at its first meeting on
11 January 1944. After his retirement in January 1945, they elected Lord Wright.
25
Czechoslovakia was fortunate to have as its first delegate to the Commission Dr.
Bohuslav Ečer. In pre-war Czechoslovakia, he worked as an attorney and was active in
local politics in Brno. Due to his anti-Nazi stance, he had to escape from his country
after the rest of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany on 15 March 1939.
Following an odyssey through Yugoslavia, France, Spain and Portugal, he reached
the United Kingdom and joined the Ministry of Justice of the exile Government of
Czechoslovakia. Subsequently, he played an important role in the establishment of
the Commission and its activities and reached the military rank of General of the
Justice Service. After the war, he achieved the extradition of many war criminals from
the occupied zones in Germany to Czechoslovakia for subsequent trial, including
SS-
Obergruppenführer
K. H. Frank, the former State Minister for Bohemia and Moravia.
Dr. Ečer also acted as the head of the Czechoslovak delegation to the Nuremberg
Tribunal.
26
From 1947 to 1949, he served as an
ad hoc
Judge in the Corfu Channel
Case before the International Court of Justice. In 1948 he was appointed the Professor
for International Criminal Law at the Law School of the Masaryk University in his
home town Brno. After the Communist
coup d’etat
, he spoke up bravely against the
political trials and was not allowed to teach by the new regime.
27
Dr. Ečer, however, was not the only experienced lawyer of the Czechoslovak exile
Government who left a trace in the Commission’s work. One of the representatives of
Czechoslovakia in the Commission was Dr. Herbert Mayr-Harting, son of a pre-war
Minister of Justice from the German Christian Party (
i.e.
, the Beneš Government
– sometimes criticized for its approach towards the German minority - nominated
an ethnic German as its representative in a body dealing with German war crimes).
Dr. Mayr-Harting joined the staff of the Commission in March 1947 and became
24
See supra note 5, p. 128-129.
25
Ibid.
, p. 119.
26
Dr. Bohuslav Ečer himself published his memoires from this era in his book:
Jak jsem je stíhal
(How I
Prosecuted Them), Prague, 1946.
27
MOTL, S.
Oběti a jejich vrazi
(The Victims and their Murderers), Prague 2008, p. 46-53.