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8 Brit. Y.B. Int'l L. 81 (1927)
Do We Need an International Criminal Court

handle is hein.journals/byrint8 and id is 85 raw text is: DO WE NEED AN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT? By Professor J. L. BRIERLY, O.B.E., M.A., B.C.L., Chichele Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at Oxford. THE Advisory Committee of Jurists who prepared the draft Statute of the Permanent Court in 1920 appended to their project a resolution which proposed the establishment of a High Court of International Justice with competence to try crimes constitut- ing a breach of international public order or against the universal law of nations, referred to it by the Assembly or by the Council of the League of Nations. The court was to have power to define the nature of the crime, to fix the penalty, and to decide the appropriate means of carrying out the sentence, as well as to for- mulate its own rules of procedure. To this part of the Committee's proposals the Assembly of the League of 1920 gave short shrift, on the grounds that criminal cases are best entrusted, as at pre- sent, to the ordinary tribunals ; that if crimes of this kind should in future be brought within the scope of international tribunals, a criminal division of the Court of International Justice should be set up for the purpose; and that in any case consideration of the problem was premature. As a proposition of immediate practical interest this action of the Assembly has probably killed the proposal, but in non-official quarters it still attracts considerable support. The International Law Association has steadily supported the general idea of such a court at three meetings. At Buenos Aires in 1922 1 it resolved that the creation of an international criminal court was essential in the interests of justice, and that the matter was urgent. At Stockholm in 1924 2 the Association considered a draft statute presented by Dr. H. H. L. Bellot, and appointed a committee to examine the matter. At Vienna in 1926 3 it adopted a revised draft by an overwhelming majority of those present. There can be no doubt of the depth and sincerity of the conviction of those in many different countries who sympathize with the proposal; and there is a risk that the issue may come to be regarded as one between the obstructive conservatism of foreign offices and I Report of the 81st Conference, p. 86. 2 Report of the 88rd Conference, p. 110. 3 The Report of this Conference is not yet published.

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