AGGRESSIVE WAR AN INTERNATIONAL CRIME
AGGRESSIVE WAR AN INTERNATIONAL CRIME PROEFSCHRIFT TER VERKRIJGING V AN DE GRAAD VAN DOCTOR IN DE RECHTSGELEERDHEID AAN DE RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT TE UTRECHT. OP GEZAG VAN DE RECTOR MAGNIFICUS, Dr V. J. KONINGSBERGER. HOOGLERAAR IN DE FACULTEIT DER WIS- EN NATUURKUNDE. VOLGENS BESLUIT VAN DE SENAAT DER UNIVERSITEIT TEGEN DE BEDENKINGEN VAN DE FACULTEIT DER RECHTSGELEERD. HElD TE VERDEDIGEN OP WOENSDAG 14 JANUARI 1953 DES NAMIDDAGS TE 4 UUR DOOR CORNELIS ARNOLD POMPE GEBOREN TE NI)MEGEN 's-gra VENHAGE MARTINUS NIJHOFF 1953
Promotor: Prof. Dr J. H. W. VERZIJL ISBN 978-94-011-8177-8 DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-8821-0 ISBN 978-94-011-8821-0 (ebook)
AAN MIJN VADER EN MOEDER AAN MAIRE
Terugziende over de jaren van mijn academische studie, gaan mijn gedachten op de eerste plaats naar hem, die mij al op prille leeftijd rechtskundige lessen gaf en die, als hoogleraar, aan mij zoals aan zijn andere studenten zijn vaderlijke leiding, zorg en belangstelling heeft gegeven. Bij alles wat ik hem en mijn moeder dank en wat niet op deze plaats en niet in woorden kan worden uitgedrukt, denk ik hier bijzonder aan de zorg, die zij voor mijn studie hebben gedragen, en aan de vorming en het voorbeeld, die zij mij daarbij hebben gegeven. Hooggeleerde Verzijl, hooggeachte promotor, het is een groot voorrecht zich Uw leerling te mogen noemen, te behoren tot hen, voor wie Gij de we reid van het volkenrecht hebt ontsloten en in dienst van wier vorming Gij Uw grote bekwaamheden hebt gesteld. Met grote dankbaarheid denk ik aan de jaren van mijn assistentschap, aan het geregelde contact, dat ik met U heb kunnen onderhouden, en aan Uw nooit aflatende belangstelling en critische zorg, ook voor de ontwikkeliing van inzichten, die niet geheel met de Uwe stroken. Dankbare herinneringen bewaar ik aan het onderricht, dat ik van U, Hoogleraren en Oud-Hoogleraren van de Juridische Faculteit, heb mogen ontvangen. Met vreugde en dankbaarheid denk ik aan het Collegium Studiosorum Veritas en aan de vorming en vriendschap, die ik in het Collegium gevonden heb. Velen in binnen- en buitenland hebben mij bij het werk aan mijn proefschrift hun belangstelling en hulp gegeven. Hun allen, en met name aan de heer Edward Hallam Tuck, die mij hielp bij de revisie van de juridische terminologie, zeg ik hierbij mijn hartelijke dank. Men heeft het probleem van de definitie van aggressie wel trachten te verhelderen met een verwijzing naar het probleem van de definitie van een lief meisje. Nog onoplosbaarder is voor mij het probleem hoe onder woorden te brengen wat mijn vrouw - niet aileen door het reviseren van de Engelse tekst - voor de totstandkoming van mijn proefschrift heeft betekend.
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION XI ABBREVIATIONS USED IN TEXT XVI I. WAR 1. INTRODUCTORY 2. RELATIVITY OF THE STATE OF WAR 3. 'CONSTRUCTIVE' STATE OF WAR. 4. 'WAR' IN NUREMBERG AND TOKYO 5. DISAPPEARANCE OF THE CONCEPT OF WAR. 1 7 18 20 33 II. WAR OF AGGRESSION 1. WAR AS A STATUS AND WAR OF AGGRESSION 2. AGGRESSIVE WAR AND AGGRESSION 3. AGGRESSION AND DEFENCE 4. THE FUNCTION OF A DEFINITION OF AGGRESSION. 5. THE DETERMINATION OF THE AGGRESSOR. 6. DEFINITION OF AGGRESSION. 39 46 55 66 71 85 III. EVOLUTION TOWARDS NUREMBERG 1. INTRODUCTORY. 2. ANTIQUITY AND THE ORIENT. 3. BELLUM JUSTUM IN WESTERN CHRISTIANITY 4. THE PERIOD OF INDIFFERENCE. 5. THE PERIOD OF DISCRIMINATION. 6. THE DOCTRINE OF INTERNATIONAL PENAL LAW 116 118 123 138 152 165 IV. THE PUNISHMENT FOR AGGRESSIVE WAR 1. THE SECOND WORLD WAR 2. THE CHARTER OF LONDON 3. THE JUDGMENTS 4. THE DOCTRINE ON NUREMBERG 5. CONSEQUENCES OF NUREMBERG 176 188 202 235 288
CONTENTS IX v. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 'NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES' 1. THE AFFIRMATION OF THE 'NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES' 309 2. THE FORMULATION OF THE 'NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES'. 321 3. THE DRAFT CODE OF OFFENCES AGAINST THE PEACE AND SECURITY OF MANKIND 338 4..J URISDICTION OVER OFFENCES AGAINST THE PEACE AND SECURITY OF MANKIND 353 POSTSCRIPT. 365 BIBLIOGRAPHY 367 INDEX 375
INTRODUCTION Six years after the rendering of the Nuremberg Judgment world conditions are not such as to encourage a study on what constituted its principal innovation in the legal field: the punishment of the authors of aggressive war. The war alliance against the Axis Powers which was the political basis of the Nuremberg Trial and of the United Nation~ Organisation has broken up. Mutual fear, threats and accusations and a gigantic armament race are the dominating factors in international life during the cold war period, and the minds of statesmen, military men and lawyers alike are more preoccupied with the problem of how to win a possible third world war than with that of preventing its occurrence and avoiding responsibility for its outbreak. While the survival of their freedom and civilization is at stake, the nations seem more intent on preparing for what is vaguely and equivocally called 'self-defence' than on accepting and assuring the reign of law. The strain of the protracted struggle in Korea, moreover, seems to turn the first experiment with military sanctions against an aggressor into a classic game of power politics. It is not surprising that in such circumstances little energy is displayed in efforts to implement the principles to which the United Nations pledged themselves in Nuremberg, and that many statesmen and lawyers seem prepared to abandon, at least for the near future, the precedent of the time of alliance, expression of confidence in the victory of law over force. There is a tendency to justify, or at least to excuse, the former enemy leaders for their aggressive actions and to judge the cases submitted in Nuremberg and Tokyo in the light of the past and present conduct of some of the prosecuting Powers and of to-day's political conditions which ask for political freedom and not for strict legal rules. According to this view it would be wise to give
XII INTRODUCTION way to the insistence of the defeated on the revisal of the Judgments and to recognize the unfairness of the proceedings, thus undoing some of the harm this 'victor's justice' has caused. This view is certainly more logical than that of those who approve the judgments as the politically justifiable elimination of dangerous elements but deny the desirability of drawing any general consequences from the principles proclaimed. It is asserted that the acts relating to war and peace are of such magnitude that they cannot give rise to individual criminal responsibility. Wars arise from history, they are movements of peoples rather than of men. Reference can here be made to Tolstoy who, in his 'War and Peace', compares Napoleon leading his troops through Russia to a traveller who, pushing against the inner side of his coach, imagines that it is he who is making the carriage move. On much the same lines it is contended that punishment of the authors of a war cannot have any preventive effect as nations go to war in the idea that they will win it and not because they think they will remain unpunished. In addition to these arguments it is alleged that the law proclaimed in Nuremberg would render whole categories of soldiers and public servants liable to punishment for the fulfilment of their duties in the preparation and waging of a war. The uncertainty of the concepts 'aggression' and 'defence' would, moreover, always allow a victor to eliminate whole categories of enemy persons by judicial proceedings. The basic question of international relations is whether law can rule over power politics. Though every epoch has known its idealists and its pessimists, a Vitoria and a Macchiavelli, a Grotius and a Thomas Hobbes, some periods have been strongly affected by the attempts to establish world order, while during others mankind seemed to have resigned itself to international chaos and the rule of force. This century has on the whole been a period of legal construction in the international field, twice interrupted but also greatly stimulated by the occurrence of the catastrophe of a world war. The post-war trials together with the adoption of the United Nations Charter were, after the Second World War, the powerful confirmation of the world's faith in justice as the
INTRODUCTION XIII foundation of peace. The immediate development of a new crisis has shattered this faith but not destoyed it. Objective factors like the total interdependence of nations and the unimaginable increase of destructive power through atomic weapons have made the creation of a just legal order not only desirable but imperative, the only way of saving freedom and civilization which can no more be entrusted to the power of single sovereign nations. This study has been written on grounds of the conviction that the efforts to create an international legal order, of which criminal justice is an essential part, must and will be continued and that there exist objective standards of international conduct which criminal justice can help to enforce upon individual statesmen and nations. It is not the purpose of this study to argue the desirability of the punishment for aggressive war but only to give a legal justification of the relevant part of the post war Judgments and to elucidate, as precisely as possible, their legal impacts. These Judgments and the execution of the sentences imposed by the tribunals are facts which are sealed by the express and solemn approval of the majority of civilized nations and which can no more be undone. And what the nations instituted, adhered to and approved were not extra-ordinary political proceedings but the administration of justice, what they recognized and reaffirmed were not principles of political action but principles of law which they solemnly pledged to apply to themselves as well as to their former enemies. Though before Nuremberg no rule existed making aggressive war a crime for which individuals could be punished, there was nothing unlawful or unjust in the punishment of the Nazi leaders who launched the Second World War. Resort to aggressive war had been forbidden and condemned in a basic and unequivocal rule of international law. And the Nuremberg Tribunal established beyond any doubt that aggressive war had been resorted to not as a sudden national reaction on international events, not in any mistaken interpretation of the right of selfdefence, but after years of careful and deliberate planning and preparation. The Tribunal, recognizing this grave violation of the fundamental rule of international law as having all the essentials of criminality, was justified in punishing its authors in
XIV INTRODUCTION the name of the offended world community, thus establishing a law-making precedent in a field where no criminal law had existed before. The step making aggressive war an international crime has, thus, been taken. The question of the desirability of such a step is no more a basic issue and the theoretical arguments against holding the authors of an aggressive war individually responsible are refuted by the clear proof of the personal guilt of the Nazi leaders who brought about the war. The penal rule developed in the Nuremberg case can be invoked by any tribunal called upon to judge the authors of an aggressive war and the great task facing the United Nations is to incorporate this rule in a system of international penal law and to institute an international criminal jurisdiction to apply it. A failure to execute this task would be a breach of a heavy moral obligation, but it would not invalidate the established substantial law. While elaborating this view of the foundation and significance of the post-war Judgments with respect to the criminality of aggressive war, this study presents an attempt to determine the content and limits of the rule developed by the Nuremberg and subsequent tribunals. In view of the far-reaching and exaggerated conclusions which some opponents as well as some supporters of the Nuremberg Judgment have drawn from its dicta, the state of international law in this field should be carefully defined. The Nuremberg law remains embodied in the concrete judicial decisions, and in drawing abstract conclusions one continuously runs the danger of overlooking the circumstances of the case in which these decisions were given and the conditions of today's international society. The first two chapters of this book are concerned with the determination of the state of international public law with regard to the concepts of war and aggression. The last two chapters concern aggressive war as a crime under international penal law and contain an analysis and interpretation of the post-war judgments in the light of preparatory works and subsequent literature, as well as of the steps taken so far for implementing the Nuremberg principles. Between these two parts the third chapter traces the idea of criminal war to the history of international law preceding Nuremberg and contains a survey of
INTRODUCTION xv the development of the legal concept of war in theory and practice. Every study dealing with such vital and topical subjects as the definition of aggression and the criminality of war runs the risk of being immediately rendered out of date by the fast-moving international events, by the continuing discussions in the United Nations and by the constant flow of new literature. With the knowledge that effords to be complete and to present definite con clusions on the legal situation are vain, research on the subject has been closed in October 1952. In this legal study political and philosophical considerations have been discarded as far as possible. But when dealing with a revolutionary development like that which led to the establishment of aggressive war as an international crime, one cannot avoid touching the deeper grounds where law and other sciences find their common origin. No attempt has therefore been made to abstain from expressing convictions which underly every conception and interpretation of law.
ABBREVIATIONS A.J.LL.: American Journal of International Law. B.Y.LL.: British Yearbook of International Law. I.M.T.: International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Tribunal). L.o.N.: League of Nations. De Martens, R. N.R. N.S. N.R.G. J Successive parts of de Martens, Recueil de Traites. R.d.C. (A.D.L): Recueil des Cours de l'academie de Droit International. R.D.I.: Revue de Droit International, de Sciences Diplomatiques, Politiques et Sociales (Geneve). R.G.D.I.P.: Revue Generale de Droit International Public. U.N.C.I.O.: United Nations Conference on International Organisation (San Francisco 1945). U.N.W.C.C.: United Nations War Crimes Commission.