War and aggression : criminal offences at international law

Abstract

The 1914-18 conflict enjoys the doubtful distinction of being the first universal war. The ensuing settlement was to be the harbinger of perpetual serenity, because " the war to end all wars" was now over. As the mirrors of Versailles reflected the formation of the League of Nations, humanity drew a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that this international and, presumably supra-national, organisation would ensure the permanence of peace. Nevertheless, only a few years after the signing of the Covenant which swore to "promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security" and which bound the League to "respect and preserve as against external aggression, the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League", Japan invaded Manchuria (1931) and continued aggressive expansion into China (1934-5), Italy invaded Abyssinia (1935) and later Albania (1939). Moreover Germany increased its pressure in Eastern Europe, openly defying the Versailles Peace Treaty by replenishing its arsenals. The march into the demilitarised Rhineland (1936), participation in the Spanish Civil War (the grand dress-rehearsal for the conflict that was to follow) and the Anschluss with Austria and Czechoslovakia, passed by almost unopposed. These three states, after walking out of the League, set up what eventually became known as the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. Article XVI of the Covenant should have triggered a firm reaction: "Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants ..... it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League ..... ".

But the League merely imposed economic sanctions upon the Italians after Abyssinia, sanctions which not all the members of the League observed, the end result being a loss of credibility on the part of the League, giving impetus to the gathering storm clouds of the late 1930s. By the time Germany invaded Poland, on the 1 September 1939, the Covenant was reduced to a mockery and the stage was set for a conflict of greater magnitude than that which had led to its birth. The Second World War had begun.