. NMT03-T0971
Volume III · Page 971
| criminals in other states based on the absence there of the rules of international law which we enforce here. Only by giving consideration to the extraordinary and temporary situation in Germany can the procedure here be harmonized with established principles of national sovereignty. In Germany an international body (the Control Council) has assumed and exercised the power to establish judicial machinery for the punishment of those who have violated the rules of the common international law, a power which no international authority without consent could assume or exercise within a state having a national government presently in the exercise of its sovereign powers. |
| Construction of C. C. Law
10 War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity |
| We next approach the problem of the construction of C. C. Law 10, for whatever the scope of international common law may be, the power to enforce it in this case is defined and limited by the terms of the jurisdictional act. The first penal provision of C. C. Law No. 10, with which we are concerned is as follows: |
"Article II "1. — Each of the following acts is recognized as a crime: |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
(b) War Crimes. Atrocities or offences against persons or property constituting violations of the laws or customs of war, including but not limited to, murder, ill treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose, of civilian population from occupied territory, murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity." |
| Here we observe the controlling effect of
common international law as such, for the statutes by which we are governed
have adopted and incorporated the rules of international law as the rules by
which war crimes are to be identified. This legislative practice by which the
laws or customs of war are incorporated by reference into a statute is not
unknown in the United States. (See cases cited in Ex parte Quirin,
supra.) The scope of inquiry as to war crimes is, of course, limited by the provisions, properly construed, of the IMT Charter and C. C. Law 10. In this particular, the two enactments are in substantial |
