Lessons from the United Nations War Crimes Commission for Contemporary Immunities Law

Event Details

 In the 1940s, the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) - comprised of leading experts of the day and first chaired by Sir Cecil Hurst (former President of the Permanent Court of International Justice) - was tasked with collecting evidence of Nazi war crimes and crimes against humanity (including exterminations of Jewish populations that would today be termed genocide), making an expert determination of whether the evidence was sufficient to justify prosecutions against alleged offenders, and endorsing and supporting States to carry out prosecutions in their domestic courts in accordance with the rule of law. Crucially, the UNWCC and its founding Member States adopted a rule 'rejecting as irrelevant the doctrines of immunities of heads of State and members of Government, and of acts of State'. Before the War ended, the UNWCC supported several Member States' indictments against senior Nazi officials while they were still in post, including Adolf Hitler, then still the sitting head of State of Germany. The UNWCC also listed these individuals as accused war criminals subject to immediate arrest for trial in the domestic courts of the indicting States.

This roundtable event will consider whether the pioneering work undertaken by the UNWCC challenges the orthodox position that heads of State, heads of government, and foreign ministers have absolute personal immunity and inviolability from foreign criminal jurisdiction. Additionally, the event will consider whether the UNWCC provides a model that could be used to establish a similar body today that could support and legitimise prosecutions of international crimes in domestic courts.

Join the conversation @BIICL #internationalcriminallaw; #warcrimes; #crimesagainsthumanity; #genocide

Speakers:

Professor Dan Plesch, Professor of Diplomacy and Strategy at SOAS University of London

 Anthony Wenton Research Fellow in Public International Law, BIICL

Event convened by Anthony Wenton, Research Fellow in Public International Law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

Pricing and Registration

This roundtable is open to  invited guests only

Enquiries about the event can be sent to The Events Team