Dojcinovic on War Crimes: Definition, History, Practice

Predrag Dojcinovic, University of Connecticut, Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute; International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1998-2017), has published War Crimes: Definition, History, Practice. Here is the abstract.

This encyclopedic entry on war crimes provides insights into their definition, historical development, and application in major international criminal trials. As some of the gravest offenses under international law, war crimes involve serious violations of international humanitarian law committed during armed conflict. Defined in Article 8 of the 1998 Rome Statute, they include targeting civilians, torture, and using child soldiers. Rooted in ancient norms and shaped by Grotius, the Lieber Code, and the Hague Conventions, the concept evolved significantly through the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols (APs), which extended protections to civilians and non-international conflicts. Enforcement by tribunals like Nuremberg, ICTY, ICTR, and the ICC has established clear jurisprudence, affirming individual criminal responsibility and refining the legal elements of war crimes.

Download the entry from SSRN at the link.

Somos on A New Architecture of Justice: Dan Kiley's Design for the Nuremberg Trials' Courtroom @msomos

Mark Somos, Harvard University Safra Center for Ethics; Harvard Law School, has published A New Architecture of Justice: Dan Kiley's Design for the Nuremberg Trials’ Courtroom as Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International law (MPIL) Research Paper No. 2018-04.
Here is the abstract.

Courtroom 600 in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice is one of the most iconic sites in the history of international criminal law. Yet the extensive literature on Courtroom 600 neglects the original 1945 drawings of the architect Dan Kiley, now in the archives of the Harvard Design School. This article revises our understanding of Courtroom 600 in light of these drawings. Among other findings it argues that Kiley, rather than Jackson or the OSS, was the main source of design decisions; that the secondary literature overemphasises film at the expense of architecture; and that the design of both Courtroom 600 and the entire reconstructed Palace of Justice offer valuable insights into this key moment in the history of international law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Cheah and Vormbaum on British War Crimes Trials in Europe and Asia, 1945-1949: A Comparative Study @Cheah_WL

W. L. Cheah, National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law, and Moritz Vormbaum, Humboldt University of Berlin, are publishing British War Crimes Trials in Europe and Asia, 1945–1949: A Comparative Study in the Leiden Journal of International Law. Here is the abstract.

Between 1945 and 1949, the British military conducted a large number of war crimes trials in Europe and Asia. Based on historical archival records, among other sources, this article evaluates and compares the British authorities’ implementation of the 1945 Royal Warrant and war crimes trials in Europe and Asia, with a specific focus on trials organized in Germany and Singapore. By examining the British war crimes trial experience in those two jurisdictions, the article analyses factors shaping the evolution of the Royal Warrant’s legal framework and trial model in different contexts. It therefore contributes to the growing historical work on post-Second World War trials and current debates among scholars of transitional justice and international criminal law on the contextual factors that impact on war crimes trials.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.