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Unknown Legacies of the Nuremberg Trial: Regional Approaches and Perspectives in East Central Europe

Panel 1: (Re-)Discovering the History of the Nuremberg Trial
International Networks and Domestic Efforts Preceding the London Conference

Featuring:
Dominika Uczkiewicz - Panelist
Elias Forneris - Panelist
Kinga Czechowska - Panelist
Ivo Cerman - Panelist
Piotr Długołęcki - Moderator

Dominika Uczkiewicz – Polish Contribution to the UNWCC and the IMT

The United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), established on 20 October 1943 by representatives of seventeen Allied nations, played a key role in shaping post-war justice. Operating until 1948, it investigated allegations of war crimes, collected evidence, compiled lists of suspected perpetrators, and supported member states legally and institutionally. With over 8,000 case files concerning more than 36,000 individuals, the UNWCC was the only international mechanism enabling the prosecution of international crimes at the national level.

Despite its inclusive inter-Allied cooperation, the UNWCC’s approach was not reflected in the London Charter. Participation in the International Military Tribunal (IMT) was limited to the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France. Occupied countries, which had documented Nazi crimes from the early stages of the war and were instrumental in founding the UNWCC, were excluded from formal roles. Nevertheless, states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia influenced the Tribunal’s work. This paper examines the Polish case through UNWCC charge files from 1944–1945 and their role in drafting the Polish indictment submitted to the IMT in December 1945, as well as the aims and achievements of the Polish delegation in Nuremberg.

Elias Forneris – French and Belgian Lawyers in London: Planning Post-War Justice (1941–1944)

European governments-in-exile in London began addressing post-war justice as early as 1941. French and Belgian legal circles were particularly active, notably through René Cassin and Marcel de Baer. Cassin, later a principal author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, served as de Gaulle’s Commissary for Justice and participated in bodies such as the Cambridge Commission and the London International Assembly. Marcel de Baer, working for the Belgian government-in-exile, shared these forums and later played a leading role in the UNWCC.

Both sought to define and legitimise the prosecution of war crimes during the war itself. Their early conceptual work helped shape post-war justice frameworks for France, Belgium, and other European states, while influencing Cassin’s later human rights work and de Baer’s contributions to international criminal justice.

Kinga Czechowska – Wacław Kulski and Michał Potulicki: Lawyers of the Polish Government-in-Exile

This paper adopts a biographical perspective on post-war justice by examining Wacław Kulski and Michał Potulicki, key legal figures in the Polish government-in-exile. Alongside Ambassador Edward Raczyński, they were involved in signing the Declaration of St James’s Palace in 1942 and later served on the Inter-Allied Commission on the Punishment of War Crimes, a precursor to the UNWCC. Both trained as lawyers and worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the early interwar period. Archival materials, particularly from the Hoover Institution, reveal how their interwar legal and diplomatic experience shaped Poland’s wartime efforts toward accountability and post-war justice.

Ivo Cerman – Bohuslav Ečer and Antonín Hobza: The Czechoslovak Approach to Crimes against Peace

This paper explores Czechoslovakia’s contribution to the Nuremberg Trial through Bohuslav Ečer and Antonín Hobza and their engagement with the concept of crimes against peace. While recent scholarship attributes this concept largely to Soviet legal thought, Ečer’s role as a mediator of these ideas in Western forums merits closer scrutiny. Both figures were connected to Communist politics to differing degrees, and their work must be assessed critically in light of political pressures. The paper reassesses their intellectual independence, legal sources, and broader engagement with international criminal law beyond crimes against peace.