Universality of Jurisdiction over War Crimes

Abstract

B ECAUSE of the mobility of troops in the present war and the practice of transferring troops from one front to another, it may well be that units of Gestapo, SS, or other German organizations, which have been charged with committing some of the worst war crimes, may have been moved from one front to another, perhaps as "flying squadrons".It may also be a fact that many, even hundreds of, members of such groups have now been captured and are prisoners of war in Great Britain or the United States.Such prisoners held by Great Britain may have committed atrocities against Yugoslavs in Yugoslavia or Greeks in Greece.German prisoners in the custody of the United States may have committed atrocities against Poles in Poland before the United States became a belligerent.Furthermore, for reasons not obvious, but none the less real, it may be that some countries will not wish to punish certain war criminals or that they would prefer that some such individuals be punished by other States.Again, the custodian State may wish to punish an offender itself rather than turn him over to another government even though a request for rendition has been made.Because of notions of territorial jurisdiction, it is thought by some persons that, although a State may punish war criminals for offenses committed against its own armed forces during the military operations, it may not punish an offender when the victim of a criminal act was not a member of its forces, if the crime was committed in a place over which, at the time of the act, the punishing State did not have