Before entering upon the examination of the concrete events and facts which lie at the foundation of the charges raised against the defendants, I think it necessary to dwell on certain general legal questions connected with the proceedings. This is indispensable, because the present Trial is the first one in history where justice is being done by an agency of an international legal system—the International Military Tribunal. This also becomes necessary, since special consideration was given to questions of law in both the written and oral motions made before the Tribunal.
The first and the most general legal problem which, in my opinion, has to be considered by the Tribunal is the problem of legality. Contrary to the system of fascist tyranny and arbitrary fascist practices, the great democracies which have established this Tribunal, as well as all democracies throughout the world, exist and act on a firm legal basis. But neither the concrete law nor the concept of law can be identical in the national and in the international meaning of these terms. Lex in its meaning in national law is an act of legislative power of a state, clothed in a proper form. In its meaning in international law it is different. In the international field there never existed, nor now exist, any legislative bodies which are competent to pass laws which are binding on individual states. The legal system of international relations, which include those relations which are manifested in the co-ordinated effort to combat criminality, is based on different legal principles. In the international field the basic source of law and the only legislative act is a treaty, an agreement between states. Accordingly, just as duly promulgated laws passed by legislative bodies and properly published are an absolute and sufficient legal basis for the administration of national justice, so in the international field an international treaty is an absolute and sufficient legal basis for the implementation and the activity of agencies of international justice created by the signatories.
The International Military Tribunal was established for the trial and punishment of major war criminals on the basis of the London Agreement, dated 8 August 1945, signed by the four countries acting in the interests of all freedom-loving nations. Being an integral part of this agreement, the Charter of the International Military Tribunal is to be considered an unquestionable and sufficient legislative act, defining and determining the basis and the procedure for the trial and punishment of major war criminals. Provoked by fear of responsibility or, at best, by insufficient knowledge of the organic nature of international justice, the references to the principle nullum crimen sine lege, or to the principle that “a statute cannot have retroactive power,” are not applicable because of the following fundamental, decisive fact: The Charter of the Tribunal is in force and in operation and all its provisions possess absolute and binding force.
Pursuant to Article 6 of the Charter, the defendants are charged with Crimes against Peace, crimes committed in violation of rules and customs of war, and Crimes against Humanity. We must state with great satisfaction that in placing on such actions the stigma of criminality the Charter of the Tribunal has reduced to rules of law those international principles and ideas which for many years have been set forth in the defense of law and justice in the field of international relations.
First of all—criminal aggression. For a number of decades nations interested in strengthening the cause of peace have proclaimed and advocated the idea that aggression constitutes the gravest encroachment on the peaceful relations between nations, a most serious international crime. These hopes and demands on the part of nations found their expression in a series of acts and documents which officially recognized aggression as an international crime.
On 27 August 1928 the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in Paris:
“Persuaded”—proclaimed the agreement—“that the time has come when a frank renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy should be made . . . convinced that all changes in their relations with one another should be sought only by pacific means . . . the High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.”
In 1929—a year after the signing of the Paris Pact—at the Congress of the International Association of Criminal Law at Bucharest a resolution was passed which squarely raised the question of criminal responsibility for aggression. “Whereas war has been outlawed by the Paris Pact of 1928, and acknowledging the necessity of securing international order and harmony by means of effective sanctions. . .” the Congress considered imperative “the establishment of an international penal judicial system” as well as of the principle of criminal responsibility of states and single individuals for acts of aggression.
Thus long ago was proclaimed the principle of penal responsibility for criminal aggression, the principle which found its clear legal expression in Subparagraph (a) of Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal.
Consequently, the fascist aggressors, the defendants, knew that by their predatory attacks on other countries they committed the gravest Crimes against Peace. They knew it, and they know it now, and that is the reason why they attempted and are now attempting to camouflage their criminal aggression with lies about defense.