BRITISH CASE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 47, 5 December 1945, Page 3

BRITISH CASE

WAR CRIMES TRIAL RULE OF LAW PARAMOUNT (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 6.30 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 4. The Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, opened the British case against Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg to-day, charging them with “the crime against the peace.” The British Empire has been twice victorious in wars which were forced on us Avithin the space of one generation,” lie said, “but it is precisely because Ave realise that victory is not enough and the rule of international law is not achievable by a strong arm alone that the British nation is taking part in this trial. “There are those avlio Avould perhaps say that these wretched men should be dealt Avith summarily without trial by executive action, that their personal power for evil being broken they should be swept aside into oblivion Avithout this elaborate, careful investigation into the part they played in plunging the Avorld into war, but that is not the British Empire’s view. Not so would the rule of law be raised and strengthened on the international, as well as the municipal plane, not so would future generations realise that right is not always on the side of big battalions.” Sir Hartley Shawcross said that ineffective though sanctions had proved themselves, the world had sought to make aggressive war an international crime, and although previous tradition sought to punish States rather than individuals, it Avas both logical and rigli that, if the act of waging war itself was an offence against international IaAV, those individuals who shared personal responsibility for bringing if about should ans Aver persanally for the course into which they had led their States. The individual war crimes had long been regarded by international law as triable by the courts of those nations, whose nationals had been outraged, at least as long as the state of war persisted. “It would indeed be illogical in the extreme if those who, although they may not by their own hands ( have committed individual crimes, were re* sponsible for systematic breaches of the laws of war affecting the nationals of so many States should escape.” Internationa! Usage

Sir Hartley added that - it Avas Britain’s Anew that the tribunal should apply to individuals, not the law; of the victor but the accepted principles of international usage and order to promote and fortify the rule of international law and safeguard the future peace and security of a war-stricken world. He then detailed a long series of international pacts and agreements circumscribing the rights of war, dating from The Hague Convention of 1890 and culminating in the Kellogg Pact of 1928—the most fundamental and most reA r olutionary enactment in modern international law which expressly laid down that, a Afiolation by one signatory was an attack against all the others and they Avere fully entitled to treat it as such. This was important, lest the defendants should maintain that if Avas not Germany who initiated the war against Britain and France. The declaration of Avar- came from Britain and France, but the act of war' came from Germany in violation of a fundamental enactment to which, she was a party. After tracing the history of Germany’s aggressive campaigns, Sir Hartley said: “Hitler, on July 16, 1940, issued to Jodi and Keitel a directive for the invasion of England. It started off by saying—and Englishmen will be for ever" proud of it—that ( Since England, in spite of a militarily hopeless situation, slioavs no signs of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and, if necessary, carry it out. Preparations must be completed by mid-August, but the first essential is that the English Air Force must be morally and actually so far overcome that it no longer slioavs any considerable aggressive force against the German attack.’ The Luftwaffe made strenuous efforts to realise that condition, but in one of the most splendid pages of British history it was decisively defeated.” Sir Hartley Shawcross, after describing the attack against Russia, continued “This, then, is the case against the defendants. It may be said that they Avere mere instruments of. Hitler’s will, but the instruments without which Hitler’s will could not have been carried out. They are the men whose support built up Hitler into the position of power he occupied.”