Prosecuting Tony Blair and others

Crimes Against Peace

Crimes against peace, as described by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946, are “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Also known as the crime of aggression crimes against peace formed the first charge against the Nazis in the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

The charter defined them as “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy [to do so].” Crimes against peace are not war crimes per se, which involve unlawful conduct during war and for that reasons are described as forming part of the Jus in bello, the laws governing the conduct of wars ; but rather Crimes Against Peace are concerned with the laws governing the resort to the use of force in the first instance, and for that reasons are described as forming a part of the Jus ad bellum.

The idea of charging the Nazis with the crime of starting World War II was controversial at the time and has remained so ever since. For the Americans, crimes against peace were the chief offence of the Nazis, and the criminality of aggressive war needed to be enshrined in international law. But starting a war had not been regarded by many as criminal up to that time. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which outlawed war (not too successfully, to say the least), only rendered aggression an illegal act for States, not a criminal act for which individuals could be tried. The French resisted the concept for this reason; the Soviets, for their part, were concerned about criminalizing aggressive war given their invasions of Finland and annexation of parts of Poland.

The American view prevailed, however, though it should be noted that the tribunal’s jurisdiction was limited to Axis aggression-leading to the conviction of leading Nazis for crimes against peace. Afterward, a fierce debate raged in legal circles as to whether the Allies had applied criminal law retroactively. Whatever may be the case for the allegation that the likes of Goering and Von Ribbentrop could not have known their invasion of Poland was an unlawful act of aggression for which they were personally liable, such excuses passed away long long ago, by the hand of American jurists and juges as much if not more than any other.

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