. NMT02-T0691
Volume II · Page 691
is the proper concern of international law insofar as it affects the community of nations.
The law has recognized that some conditions may justify the transfer of people from one country to another. Correspondingly, and with much more relevance to the present case, international law has enunciated certain conditions under which the fact of deportation becomes a crime.
If the transfer is carried out without a legal title, as is the case where people are deported from a country occupied by an invader while the occupied enemy still has an army in the field, the deportation is contrary to international law. The rationale of this rule lies in the supposition that the occupying power has prevented temporarily the rightful sovereign from exercising power over its citizens.
Articles 43, 46, 49, 52, 55, and 56 of the Hague Regulations, which limit the rights of the belligerent occupant, do not expressly specify as a crime the deportation of civilians from an occupied territory. However, Article 52 states the following conditions under which services may be demanded from the inhabitants of occupied countries:
1. They must be for the needs of the army of occupation;Insofar as this section limits the conscription of labor to that required for the needs of the army of occupation, it is clear that the use of labor from occupied territories outside of the area of occupation is forbidden by the Hague Regulations.
2. They must be in proportion to the resources of the country;
and
3. They must be of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation to take part in military operations against their own country.
The illegality of the deportation of civilians in territories under belligerent occupation was demonstrated in the First World War when the Germans attempted a deportation program of Belgian workers into Germany. This measure met with world-wide protest and was abandoned after about four months.
Among the voices raised in protest against the deportation of Belgians by Germany in 1916-1917 was that of Lansing, Secretary of State. He wrote
"The Government of the United States has learned with the greatest concern and regret of the policy of the German Government to deport from Belgium a portion of the civilian population for the purposes of forcing them to labor in Germany, and is constrained to protest in a friendly spirit but most
