BRITISH CASE OPENED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23375, 5 December 1945, Page 5

BRITISH CASE OPENED

“Crime Against The Peace” Rule Of Law Is Paramount By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright (11.40 p.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 within the space of one generation,” he said, “but it is precisely because we realise that victory is pot 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 who would perhaps say that these wretched men should be dealt with summarily without trial by executive action, that their personal power for evil being broken they shpqld be swept aside into oblivion witpout this elaborate, careful investigation into the part they played in plunging the world 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 in-1 effective though sanctions had proved theinselves, the world had sought to make aggressive war an international crime, and although previous tradition sought to punish States rather than it was both logical and right that, if the act of waging war itself was an offence against international law, those individuals who shared personal responsibility for bringing it about should answer personally for thp 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 lopg 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 responsible for systematic breaches of the laws of war affecting the nationals of so many States should escape.” International Usage Sir Hartly added that it was Britain’s view that the tribunal should apply tp 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 worldHe then detailed a long series of international pacts and agreements circumscribing the right of war, dating from The Hague Convention of 1899 and culminating m the Kellogg Pact of 1928 the most fundamental and most revolutionary enactment in modern international law—which expressly laid down that a violation by one signatory was an attack against all the others and they were fully entitled tp treat it as such. This was important, lest the defendants should maintain that it was not Germany who initiated the war against Britain and France. ' The declaration of war canie 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 Hartly said: ’’Hitler on July 16. 1949. 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, shows 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 shows 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 Hartly Shawcross, after describing the attack against Russia, continued: ’’This, then, is the case against the defendants. It may be said that they were mere instruments of Hitler's will, but the Instruments without which Hitler’s will could hot have been carried out. They are the men whose support built up Hitlgr into the position of power he occupied.'’