Documents pertaining to world war II criminals in Europe and Asia accessible for the first time

Updated on: Monday, August 05, 2013

Scholars, campaigners and lawyers can for the first time readily access more than 2,200 documents from a largely unknown archive housed at the United Nations that documents thousands of cases against accused World War II criminals in Europe and Asia.

The unrestricted records of the United Nations War Crimes Commission were put online in early July by the International Criminal Court after an agreement with the UN, a move spurred by British academic Dan Plesch, who has been leading the push for greater access to the archive. The documents relate to more than 10,000 cases.

Plesch said that following his research at the archive in New York he was invited to give a guest lecture on the War Crimes Commission at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, in March 2012 by Hans Bevers, the head of the prosecutor's research office. Bevers suggested the ICC might be interested in obtaining the archive and Plesch said he put him in touch with the UN office that manages the archives.

"It was a happy coincidence of him doing research here, him doing research there, and the ICC wanting to put as many archives as possible online," UN chief archivist Bridget Sisk said.

"Our goal is to make available as widely as possible open archives of the organization," she said. "The collaboration with ICC adds to the world's permanent war crimes tribunal the historical record in international criminal justice."

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said putting the unrestricted part of the archive online "will greatly enhance the availability of these materials to those engaged in research into the development of international criminal law, as well as to researchers from other academic disciplines."

The War Crimes Commission was established in October 1943 by 17 allied nations to issue lists of alleged war criminals ultimately involving approximately 37,000 individuals and examine the charges against them and try to assure their arrest and trial.

The commission was shut down in 1948, three years after the now 193 member United Nations officially came into existence. In 1949, the UN Secretariat drew up rules making the archive available only to governments on a confidential basis. In 1987, limited access was granted only to researchers and historians.

Plesch and his colleagues continue to seek access for researchers to the still restricted sections of the files, which he said contain some 30,000 sets of pre-trial documents submitted to the commission by national and military tribunals to judge whether the case should be pursued.

Documents pertaining to world war II criminals in Europe and Asia accessible for the first time

More Education news