Tweet
Oxford University Press - Academic Insights For The Thinking World
Jan 30 2015
Judicial resistance? War crime trials after World War I
The Birth of the New Justice
By Mark Lewis
January 30th 2015
There was a great change in peace settlements after World War I. Not
only were the Central Powers supposed to pay reparations, cede
territory, and submit to new rules concerning the citizenship of their
former subjects, but they were also required to deliver nationals
accused of violations of the laws and customs of war (or violations of
the laws of humanity, in the case of the Ottoman Empire) to the Allies
to stand trial.
This was the first time in European history that victor powers imposed
such a demand following an international war. This was also the first
time that regulations specified by the Geneva and Hague Conventions
were enforced after a war ended. Previously, states used their own
military tribunals to enforce the laws and customs of war (as well as
regulations concerning espionage), but they typically granted amnesty
for foreigners after a peace treaty was signed.
The Allies intended to create special combined military tribunals to
prosecute individuals whose violations had affected persons from
multiple countries. They demanded post-war trials for many reasons.
Legal representatives to the Paris Peace Conference believed that
"might makes right" should not supplant international law; therefore,
the rules governing the treatment of civilians and prisoners-of-war
must be enforced. They declared the war had created a modern
sensibility that demanded legal innovations, such as prosecuting heads
of state and holding officers responsible for the actions of
subordinates. British and French leaders wanted to mollify domestic
feelings of injury as well as propel an interpretation that the war
had been a fight for "justice over barbarism," rather than a colossal
blood-letting. They also sought to use trials to exert pressure on
post-war governments to pursue territorial and financial objectives.
The German, Ottoman, and Bulgarian governments resisted extradition
demands and foreign trials, yet staged their own prosecutions. Each
fulfilled a variety of goals by doing so. The Weimar government in
Germany was initially forced to sign the Versailles Treaty with its
extradition demands, then negotiated to hold its own trials before its
Supreme Court in Leipzig because the German military, plus right-wing
political parties, refused the extradition of German officers. The
Weimar government, led by the Social Democratic party, needed the
military's support to suppress communist revolutions. The Leipzig
trials, held 1921-27, only covered a small number of cases, serving to
deflect responsibility for the most serious German violations, such as
the massacre of approximately 6,500 civilians in Belgium and
deportation of civilians to work in Germany. The limited scope of the
trials did not purge the German military as the Allies had hoped. Yet
the trials presented an opportunity for German prosecutors to take
international charges and frame them in German law. Although the
Allies were disturbed by the small number of convictions, this was the
first time that a European country had agreed to try its own after a
major war.
The Ottoman imperial government first destroyed the archives of the
"Special Organization," a secret group of Turkish nationalists who
deported Greeks from the Aegean region in 1914 and planned and
executed the massacre of Armenians in 1915. But in late 1918, a new
Ottoman imperial government formed a commission to investigate
parliamentary deputies and former government ministers from the
Turkish nationalist party, the Committee of Union and Progress, which
had planned the attacks. It also sought to prosecute Committee members
who had been responsible for the Ottoman Empire's entrance into the
war. The government then held a series of military trials of its own
accord in 1919 to prosecute actual perpetrators of the massacres, as
well as purge the government of Committee members, as these were
opponents of the imperial system. It also wanted to quash the British
government's efforts to prosecute Turks with British military
tribunals. Yet after the British occupied Istanbul, the nationalist
movement under Mustafa Kemal retaliated by arresting British officers.
Ultimately, the Kemalists gained control of the country, ended all
Turkish military prosecutions for the massacres, and nullified guilty
verdicts.
Like the German and Ottoman situations, Bulgaria began a rocky
governmental and social transformation after the war. The initial
post-war government signed an armistice with the Allies to avoid the
occupation of the capital, Sofia. It then passed a law granting
amnesty for persons accused of violating the laws and customs of war.
However, a new government came to power in 1919, representing a
coalition of the Agrarian Union, a pro-peasant party, and right-wing
parties. The government arrested former ministers and generals and
prosecuted them with special civilian courts in order to purge them;
they were blamed for Bulgaria's entrance into the war. Some were
prosecuted because they lead groups of refugees from Macedonia in a
terrorist organization, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization. Suppressing Macedonian terrorism was an important
condition for Bulgaria to improve its relationship with its neighbor,
the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1923, however,
Aleksandar Stambuliski, the leader of the Agrarian Union, was
assassinated in a military coup, leading to new problems in Bulgaria.
We could ask a counter-factual question: What if the Allies had
managed to hold mixed military tribunals for war-time violations
instead of allowing the defeated states to stage their own trials? If
an Allied tribunal for Germany was run fairly and political posturing
was suppressed, it might have established important legal precedents,
such as establishing individual criminal liability for violations of
the laws of war and the responsibility of officers and political
leaders for ordering violations. On the other hand, guilty verdicts
might have given Germany's nationalist parties new heroes in their
quest to overturn the Versailles order.
An Allied tribunal for the Armenian massacres would have established
the concept that a sovereign government's ministers and police
apparatus could be held criminally responsible under international law
for actions undertaken against their fellow nationals. It might also
have created a new historical source about this highly contested
episode in Ottoman and Turkish history. Yet it is speculative whether
the Allies would have been able to compel the post-war Turkish
government to pay reparations to Armenian survivors and return stolen
property.
Finally, an Allied tribunal for alleged Bulgarian war criminals, if
constructed impartially, might have resolved the intense feelings of
recrimination that several of the Balkan nations harbored toward each
other after World War I. It might also have helped the Agrarian Union
survive against its military and terrorist enemies. However, a trial
concentrating only on Bulgarian crimes would not have dealt with
crimes committed by Serbian, Greek, and Bulgarian forces and
paramilitaries during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, so a selective
tribunal after World War I may not have healed all wounds.
Image Credit: Chteau de Versailles Hall of Mirrors Ceiling. Photo by
Dennis Jarvis. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.
Mark Lewis is the author of The Birth of the New Justice: The
Internationalization of Crime and Punishment, 1919-1950, which won the
Wiener Library's Fraenkel Prize in 2013. He is also the co-author of
Himmler's Jewish Tailor: The Story of Holocaust Survivor Jacob Frank,
the oral history of a Polish Jew who was the head of a clothing
factory at the SS-run labor camp on Lipowa Street in Lublin, Poland.
Lewis is an Associate Professor of History at the College of Staten
Island, City University of New York.
http://blog.oup.com/2015/01/world-war-one-war-crimes-trials/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Jan 30 2015
Judicial resistance? War crime trials after World War I
The Birth of the New Justice
By Mark Lewis
January 30th 2015
There was a great change in peace settlements after World War I. Not
only were the Central Powers supposed to pay reparations, cede
territory, and submit to new rules concerning the citizenship of their
former subjects, but they were also required to deliver nationals
accused of violations of the laws and customs of war (or violations of
the laws of humanity, in the case of the Ottoman Empire) to the Allies
to stand trial.
This was the first time in European history that victor powers imposed
such a demand following an international war. This was also the first
time that regulations specified by the Geneva and Hague Conventions
were enforced after a war ended. Previously, states used their own
military tribunals to enforce the laws and customs of war (as well as
regulations concerning espionage), but they typically granted amnesty
for foreigners after a peace treaty was signed.
The Allies intended to create special combined military tribunals to
prosecute individuals whose violations had affected persons from
multiple countries. They demanded post-war trials for many reasons.
Legal representatives to the Paris Peace Conference believed that
"might makes right" should not supplant international law; therefore,
the rules governing the treatment of civilians and prisoners-of-war
must be enforced. They declared the war had created a modern
sensibility that demanded legal innovations, such as prosecuting heads
of state and holding officers responsible for the actions of
subordinates. British and French leaders wanted to mollify domestic
feelings of injury as well as propel an interpretation that the war
had been a fight for "justice over barbarism," rather than a colossal
blood-letting. They also sought to use trials to exert pressure on
post-war governments to pursue territorial and financial objectives.
The German, Ottoman, and Bulgarian governments resisted extradition
demands and foreign trials, yet staged their own prosecutions. Each
fulfilled a variety of goals by doing so. The Weimar government in
Germany was initially forced to sign the Versailles Treaty with its
extradition demands, then negotiated to hold its own trials before its
Supreme Court in Leipzig because the German military, plus right-wing
political parties, refused the extradition of German officers. The
Weimar government, led by the Social Democratic party, needed the
military's support to suppress communist revolutions. The Leipzig
trials, held 1921-27, only covered a small number of cases, serving to
deflect responsibility for the most serious German violations, such as
the massacre of approximately 6,500 civilians in Belgium and
deportation of civilians to work in Germany. The limited scope of the
trials did not purge the German military as the Allies had hoped. Yet
the trials presented an opportunity for German prosecutors to take
international charges and frame them in German law. Although the
Allies were disturbed by the small number of convictions, this was the
first time that a European country had agreed to try its own after a
major war.
The Ottoman imperial government first destroyed the archives of the
"Special Organization," a secret group of Turkish nationalists who
deported Greeks from the Aegean region in 1914 and planned and
executed the massacre of Armenians in 1915. But in late 1918, a new
Ottoman imperial government formed a commission to investigate
parliamentary deputies and former government ministers from the
Turkish nationalist party, the Committee of Union and Progress, which
had planned the attacks. It also sought to prosecute Committee members
who had been responsible for the Ottoman Empire's entrance into the
war. The government then held a series of military trials of its own
accord in 1919 to prosecute actual perpetrators of the massacres, as
well as purge the government of Committee members, as these were
opponents of the imperial system. It also wanted to quash the British
government's efforts to prosecute Turks with British military
tribunals. Yet after the British occupied Istanbul, the nationalist
movement under Mustafa Kemal retaliated by arresting British officers.
Ultimately, the Kemalists gained control of the country, ended all
Turkish military prosecutions for the massacres, and nullified guilty
verdicts.
Like the German and Ottoman situations, Bulgaria began a rocky
governmental and social transformation after the war. The initial
post-war government signed an armistice with the Allies to avoid the
occupation of the capital, Sofia. It then passed a law granting
amnesty for persons accused of violating the laws and customs of war.
However, a new government came to power in 1919, representing a
coalition of the Agrarian Union, a pro-peasant party, and right-wing
parties. The government arrested former ministers and generals and
prosecuted them with special civilian courts in order to purge them;
they were blamed for Bulgaria's entrance into the war. Some were
prosecuted because they lead groups of refugees from Macedonia in a
terrorist organization, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization. Suppressing Macedonian terrorism was an important
condition for Bulgaria to improve its relationship with its neighbor,
the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1923, however,
Aleksandar Stambuliski, the leader of the Agrarian Union, was
assassinated in a military coup, leading to new problems in Bulgaria.
We could ask a counter-factual question: What if the Allies had
managed to hold mixed military tribunals for war-time violations
instead of allowing the defeated states to stage their own trials? If
an Allied tribunal for Germany was run fairly and political posturing
was suppressed, it might have established important legal precedents,
such as establishing individual criminal liability for violations of
the laws of war and the responsibility of officers and political
leaders for ordering violations. On the other hand, guilty verdicts
might have given Germany's nationalist parties new heroes in their
quest to overturn the Versailles order.
An Allied tribunal for the Armenian massacres would have established
the concept that a sovereign government's ministers and police
apparatus could be held criminally responsible under international law
for actions undertaken against their fellow nationals. It might also
have created a new historical source about this highly contested
episode in Ottoman and Turkish history. Yet it is speculative whether
the Allies would have been able to compel the post-war Turkish
government to pay reparations to Armenian survivors and return stolen
property.
Finally, an Allied tribunal for alleged Bulgarian war criminals, if
constructed impartially, might have resolved the intense feelings of
recrimination that several of the Balkan nations harbored toward each
other after World War I. It might also have helped the Agrarian Union
survive against its military and terrorist enemies. However, a trial
concentrating only on Bulgarian crimes would not have dealt with
crimes committed by Serbian, Greek, and Bulgarian forces and
paramilitaries during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, so a selective
tribunal after World War I may not have healed all wounds.
Image Credit: Chteau de Versailles Hall of Mirrors Ceiling. Photo by
Dennis Jarvis. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.
Mark Lewis is the author of The Birth of the New Justice: The
Internationalization of Crime and Punishment, 1919-1950, which won the
Wiener Library's Fraenkel Prize in 2013. He is also the co-author of
Himmler's Jewish Tailor: The Story of Holocaust Survivor Jacob Frank,
the oral history of a Polish Jew who was the head of a clothing
factory at the SS-run labor camp on Lipowa Street in Lublin, Poland.
Lewis is an Associate Professor of History at the College of Staten
Island, City University of New York.
http://blog.oup.com/2015/01/world-war-one-war-crimes-trials/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress