Alleged usage of chemical weapons in Russia by the British

[phylo_roadking]

FOR INSTANCE... http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/judlawre.htm

Article 6 of the Charter provides:

" (b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in 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;
" (c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated."
As heretofore stated, the Charter does not define as a separate crime any conspiracy except the one set out in Article 6 (a), dealing with crimes against peace.

The Tribunal is of course bound by the Charter, in the definition which it gives both of war crimes and crimes against humanity. With respect to war crimes, however, as has already been pointed out, the crimes defined by Article 6, section (b), of the Charter were already recognised as war crimes under international law. They were covered by Articles 46, 50, 52, and 56 of the Hague Convention of 1907, and Articles 2, 3, 4, 46 and 51 of the Geneva Convention of 1929. That violations of these provisions constituted crimes for which the guilty individuals were punishable is too well settled to admit of argument.

But it is argued that the Hague Convention does not apply in this case, because of the " general participation " clause in Article 2 of the Hague Convention of 1907. That clause provided:

"The provisions contained in the regulations (Rules of Land Warfare referred to in Article 1 as well as in the present Convention do not apply except between contracting powers, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention."

Several of the belligerents in the recent war were not parties to this Convention.

Oh dear.

[phylo_roadking]

In other words - those nations in the prosecuting side of the Nuremberg tribunal who were high Contracting Powers to the Hague Conventions were prosecuting Germans for War Crimes as breeches of the Hague Rules of Land Warfare....but NON-signatories of the Hague Conventions were ONLY prosecuting them for breeches of Customary Law!

[phylo_roadking]

Several of the belligerents in the recent war were not parties to this Convention

Hmm - I wonder WHO they could mean....

[David Thompson]

Sergey -- You asked, referring to the 1946 IMT judgment:

There is no direct reference to the Hague 1907 (or any other) convention (only to laws or customs of war). So could we use the same approach? Could we speak about usage of chemical weapons by the British on Russian soil as about war crime without any link to the Hague 1907 convention?

The problem I have with this approach is that in 1919 the use of poison gas was customary.

[phylo_roadking]

Exactly. And if you scrutinize the list of activities stipulated as War Crimes under customary law by the Nurmeberg Tribunal - it's specifically not on the list....

...murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in 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

[David Thompson]

phylo -- You wrote:

Because it was at Nuremberg in 1945 that Customary Law was first given the SAME weight as International Law in process. This didn't apply in 1919...

There is a little-known earlier precedent. At the end of May, 1915 the allied powers in WWI sent a diplomatic warning to the Ottoman Empire notifying that country that its officials would be held personally responsible for the massacres of Armenian civilians because those massacres were crimes against humanity. You can see the text of the May 29, 1915 allied telegram requesting the US State Department notify Turkey at http://www.armenian-genocide.org/Affirm ... etail.html

See also the discussion beginning at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 136#255136
and a recapitulation of subsequent events in 1919 at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 047#646047

[phylo_roadking]

David, I've heard of that; Turkey had indeed signed up to the Hague and Geneva Conventions extant at that date except for 1907, and the Allies were basically saying that Customary humanitarian law would apply across ALL circumstances as the Turks had already accepted the International Laws on some aspects. So that although nothing was said about internal conflicts in all of those as discussed about the Russian Civil War - having accepted International Law on warfare, and International Humanitarian Law - the Turks had also accepted customary humanitarian law regarding Armenian civilians in ALL circumstances, even though they weren't specifically protected by the Hague and Geneva Conventions.


What Turkey had already signed up to...

Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field. Geneva, 22 August 1864

Declaration Renouncing the Use, in Time of War, of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes Weight. Saint Petersburg, 29 November / 11 December 1868.

Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 29 July 1899.

Convention (III) for the Adaptation to Maritime Warfare of the Principles of the Geneva Convention of 22 August 1864. The Hague, 29 July 1899.

Declaration (IV,2) concerning Asphyxiating Gases. The Hague, 29 July 1899.

Declaration (IV,3) concerning Expanding Bullets. The Hague, 29 July 1899.

Convention for the Exemption of Hospital Ships, in Time of War, from The Payment of all Dues and Taxes Imposed for the Benefit of the State. The Hague, 21 December 1904.

Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. Geneva, 6 July 1906.

[David Thompson]

phylo -- Do you have a hyperlink for our readers?

[David Thompson]

For more on the extensive use of poison gas in WWI, see:

Poison gas in World War I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_gas_in_World_War_I
Weapons of War: Poison Gas
http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/gas.htm

According to this source, the Russian government started using poison gas in 1917 (the Central Powers had used it against Russia first), though the claim is not footnoted:

Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918, p. 102
http://books.google.com/books?id=Yikxt3 ... 2jjjK58mJ8

[phylo_roadking]

Problem is - that by repudiating International treaties the Bolsheviks also repudiated the customary laws directly underneath them that were thus codified at International level - leaving Russian citizens under Bolshevik rule as of 1919 in the fallback situation of being protected only by the laws and customs that those repudiations didn't take away. So that repudiation left them far worse off than simply saying nothing - when the FULL raft of customary law could have given them some protection.

[phylo_roadking]

oops - yes, the bestest - the International Committee ot the Red Cross http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/Pays?ReadForm&c=TR

[David Thompson]

Thanks, phylo.

[Sergey]

Sergey -- You asked, referring to the 1946 IMT judgment:

There is no direct reference to the Hague 1907 (or any other) convention (only to laws or customs of war). So could we use the same approach? Could we speak about usage of chemical weapons by the British on Russian soil as about war crime without any link to the Hague 1907 convention?

The problem I have with this approach is that in 1919 the use of poison gas was customary.

Btw, I have discussed it with my friends here in Jerusalem. All of them strongly doubt that usage of poisonous gases was ever human or permissible.

[phylo_roadking]

Sergey, residents of Jerusalem are probably going to have a VERY prejudiced view of ....gas....

[David Thompson]

An off-topic post from Penn44 containing a personal remark was deleted by the moderator -- DT.

Sergey -- You wrote:

Btw, I have discussed it with my friends here in Jerusalem. All of them strongly doubt that usage of poisonous gases was ever human or permissible.

I invite them to convince our readers with sourced arguments.