PROF Daniel Plesch dp27@soas.ac.uk
Professor of Diplomacy and Strategy
A New Paradigm of Customary International Criminal Law: The UN War Crimes Commission of 1943–1948 and its Associated Courts and Tribunals
Plesch, Dan; Sattler, Shanti
Authors
Shanti Sattler
Abstract
This article focuses on the United Nations War Crimes Commission’s significant contribution to the development of customary international criminal law defined by the development of international legal standards and proceedings to combat impunity and promote justice. It draws on the Commission’s official history and its increasingly open archives in order to provide an overview of the UNWCC and its work, its members and its legacy for the contemporary era of international criminal law. The article firstly places the Commission in its historical context through the events and agreements that led to its creation and provided the legal character of the UNWCC. The defining characteristics of the Commission are afterwards described: the nations involved, the committee structure it formed and the sub-commission located in the Far East. Lastly, the accomplishments of the Commission are emphasised and criticisms of its work are presented. The article concludes with a discussion on the legacy of the Commission’s work and a possible future research agenda.
Citation
Plesch, D., & Sattler, S. (2014). A New Paradigm of Customary International Criminal Law: The UN War Crimes Commission of 1943–1948 and its Associated Courts and Tribunals. Criminal Law Forum, 25(1-2), 17-43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10609-014-9223-2
| Journal Article Type | Article |
|---|---|
| Online Publication Date | Apr 14, 2014 |
| Publication Date | Jun 1, 2014 |
| Deposit Date | Mar 31, 2015 |
| Publicly Available Date | Feb 14, 2020 |
| Journal | Criminal Law Forum |
| Print ISSN | 1046-8374 |
| Electronic ISSN | 1572-9850 |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 17-43 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10609-014-9223-2 |
| Keywords | war crimes, crimes against humanity, Nuremberg, International criminal court, World War Two, Holocaust, transitional justice, human rights |
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Copyright Statement
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014. This is the accepted manuscript of an article published by Springer Netherlands in Criminal Law Forum, available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10609-014-9223-2
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