On December 11

On this day in ...

... 1946, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 57(I), "Establishment of an International Children's Emergency Fund." The resolution aimed initially at helping "children and adolescents of countries which were victims of aggression" in the recently ended Second World War. Over time, of course, the mandate of the Fund – known today by its acronym, UNICEF – expanded to include all children throughout the world. On this very same day in 1965, when UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the organization was praised for the results it had achieved:

'Differences of view have been welded, almost always, into an accepted concensus in the search for agreement on the best methods of providing assistance to alleviate the agony of children who are victims of cruel circumstance.'

(Prior December 11 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Read On! Nordic Journal of International Law publishes special issue on Raoul Wallenberg

(Read On! ... occasional posts on writing worth reading)

The Nordic Journal of International Law has just published a "Special Issue: Exploring the Legacy of a Life Dedicated to Humanitarianism: A Special Issue in Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Raoul Wallenberg."
Wallenberg, who is believed to have died in Soviet custody in 1947, is globally revered for his successful rescue of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust during World War II. The special issue seeks to pay tribute to his legacy as a diplomat and humanitarian through the lens of examining current challenges in international law.

Raoul Wallenberg, 1944

Upon reflecting on the wide-ranging, historical impact made by one individual, the editors – Ulf Linderfalk and Rebecca Stern of Lund University, along with me, Cecilia Marcela Bailliet of the University of Oslo – envisaged collecting essays to mirror the different aspects of Wallenberg's contributions.
► The foreword is authored by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Selected themes within Public International Law and International Human Rights Law trace Wallenberg’s pathways in contemporary settings.
► The first theme relates to Wallenberg’s provision of protective passports (Schutzpass) and housing protected by diplomatic immunity. These were the ingenious output of courage in the face of evil, hence J. Craig Barker (University of Sussex) addresses the function of diplomatic missions in times of armed conflict or foreign armed intervention.
► The second theme draws on Wallenberg’s intervention with Nazi authorities to prevent a planned massacre in the ghetto in Budapest. Nina H. B. Jørgensen (Chinese University of Hong Kong) discusses “The Next Darfur” and accountability for failure to prevent genocide.
► The third topic correlates to his support for the Hungarian independence movement. Paul Blokker (University of Trento) analyzes the dilemmas of democratization from legal revolutions to democratic constitutionalism. Joseph Siegle (University of Maryland) complements this by analyzing the protection of civil liberties and the right to democracy.

► The epilogue connotes Wallenberg’s fate as a victim of enforced disappearance by examining the extent to which the prohibition of this violation has attained jus cogens status. Judge Antônio Cançado Trindade, of the International Court of Justice, presents the contribution of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (where he formerly served as President), and Jeremy Sarkin, a member of the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, assesses the status of this phenomenon under international law.
These themes reflect the profound importance of Wallenberg’s life and achievements, and underscore the need for us to address existent protection concerns. Thus, the special issue is intended to serve both as a memorial and as an impetus for future engagement.

On December 2

Depiction of the 1942  nuclear experiment

On this day in ...
... 1942 (70 years ago today), in "a jury-rigged laboratory" on a squash court underneath the Stagg Field bleachers at the University of Chicago, occurred the 1st human-made, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. At the head of this experiment was Enrico Fermi, an Italy-born Nobel laureate in physics who'd fled his homeland a few years earlier, during the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. A coded message from Fermi to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt thus heralded the nuclear era:

'The Italian navigator has landed in the new world.'

Fermi's Manhattan Project breakthrough would advance U.S. efforts to construct an atomic bomb.

(Prior December 2 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On November 14

On this day in ...
... 1904, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was a granddaughter of the founder of the Pillsbury Flour Mills Co. A couple years after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College, where she majored in French, she married a textile manufacturer named Oswald Bates Lord. Living with her husband and sons (one, Winston Lord, would become a U.S. Ambassador), Mary Pillsbury Lord (left) threw herself into volunteer work. In World War II, she toured Army installations throughout the world in her capacity as chair of the National Civilian Advisory Committee of the Women's Army Corps. In 1947, she organized and chaired the U.S. Committee for UNICEF, and in 1953, by appointment of President Dwight D.  Eisenhower, for whom she'd campaigned, Lord succeeded Eleanor Roosevelt as the U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Later she was appointed a U.S. representative to the U.N. General Assembly. After completing that post, she continued to be active in international affairs until her death in 1978. A year after, she was honored posthumously with the Freedom Award of the International Rescue Committee, which she had served as president. Her papers are available here and here.

(Prior November 14 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Go On! Uncovering culture & conflict in WWII's Pacific Theater – November conference in D.C.

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this introductory post)

Three years ago this month, the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation held its first conference in Washington, D.C. Entitled "Culture and Conflict," the conference explored the United States' March 2009 ratification of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Lawyers' Committee had reason to mark this development: the not-for-profit organization, along with the Archaeological Institute of America and U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, had led a coalition urging the U.S. to join the treaty.
I attended the program on a whim, unaware it would have a lasting impact on me.
At the time, I'd been working in archaeology for years, and had just earned a Juris Doctor at the University of Georgia. I hoped to use this degree to preserve cultural heritage, which, though difficult to define, generally refers to the objects, places, and traditions that define us as individuals, societies, nations, and even human beings. (prior IntLawGrrls posts)
"Culture and Conflict" reaffirmed my decision.
It began with the impetus to the 1954 Hague Convention: the European Theater of World War II. There and then, modern technology fully enabled man's barbaric impulses, with horrifying results for the continent's population and all they loved. Heritage was no exception. At times, it was a direct target, as with the Nazi looting of art. At others, it was an innocent bystander, as with the bombing of Monte Cassino. Either way, the result was the same, cultural devastation. After the fighting stopped, the dead were mourned, and Europe began to rebuild, Western civilization realized many of its treasures had been lost forever. The international community swore "never again" and –  based on previous efforts like the Lieber Code, Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and Roerich Pact – adopted the 1954 Hague Convention.
I had an understanding of this history before the conference, but it is far from my own area of expertise. My passion has always been studying and protecting the heritage of East Asia and the Pacific. I've traveled throughout the region and worked extensively in Cambodia and Papua New Guinea. In a strange coincidence for a girl whose family hails from Kentucky and Georgia, I was the third generation to briefly call PNG home – preceded by my uncle, an engineer, and before him, my grandfather, a soldier in General Douglas MacArthur's army.

So during "Culture and Conflict," I may have been the sole one in the audience who understood the landing at Guadalcanal better than Normandy, who had visited military cemeteries in Guam but not in England. I thus find it hard to explain why I – having devoted my career to preservation – had never previously considered the impact of WWII on the Pacific's heritage. But not until that day, when presented with the wealth of research done on the subject in Europe, did my ignorance hit me.
Yes, I already knew the Empire of Japan had pillaged its way across the hemisphere, but I'd heard more about the looting of gold bullion than masterpieces. I must have realized the Japanese home front suffered greatly itself – and that countless artworks, museums, and historic buildings were destroyed in the bombings of Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki – but I could name no examples. And I vaguely recalled a news item about the neglect suffered by Tarawa and other battlegrounds, but outside that, my knowledge was limited to the few sites I'd seen in person.
I initially believed this must be an oversight on my part alone. After all, countless books, chapters, and articles featured what has become known as "The Rape of Europa."
Surely Western scholarship had not turned its back on half the war and indeed world?
At the end of "Culture and Conflict," I took advantage of a question-and-answer session to ask that of the speakers, who included top authorities on WWII and heritage. They confirmed the topic in the Pacific had been all but ignored in the West, and possibly the East as well. A historian named Marc Masurovsky strongly encouraged me to look into it, however, and I promised him (and myself) I would.

On October 22

On this day in ...
... 2002 (10 years ago today), in Tirana, Géraldine Margit Virginia Olga Mária Apponyi de Nagyappony died, 87 years after her birth in Budapest, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the daughter of a Hungarian count and an American millionaire. From the time of her 1938 marriage to King Zog I, she preferred to be known as Queen Geraldine of the Albanians (left). (photo credit) The couple were deposed a year later when the Italians invaded (notwithstanding the couple's seemingly good relations with Mussolini), and they lived in exile for decades thereafter -- indeed, Zog died in exile, and Geraldina was permitted to return to Albania only in mid-2002, less than a half-year before her death.

(Prior October 22 posts  are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On October 12

On this day in ...
... 1942 (70 years ago today), the 450th anniversary of the day that Christopher Columbus set foot on land in North America, in a speech entitled "Americans of Italian Origin," delivered at a Carnegie Hall Columbus Day celebration, and broadcast live, Francis Biddle, then the Attorney General of the United States, announced that "Italian aliens will no longer be classed as alien enemies." (credit for 1945 photo of Biddle) He said that 600,000 such persons were in U.S. factories, helping the Allies in World War II efforts, including "the revolt against Italian fascism" led by Mussolini. As for Japanese and others still subject to regulation for having been broadly brushed "alien enemies," Biddle added:

'I wish to emphasize that in thus removing the label of alien enemy from Italians, we do not forget 'that there are other loyal persons now classed as alien enemies. Their situation is now being carefully and sympathetically studied by the Department of' Justice.'

(Prior October 12 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On October 5

On this day in ...

(credit for AP photo)

... 1947 (65 years ago today), Americans, or at least those relatively few with access to a television set, watched the 1st-ever telecast from the White House (right). Featured was President Harry S. Truman, who urged Americans not to eat meat on Tuesdays, nor eggs nor poultry on Wednesdays, as a means to reduce demand and so lower prices on those food products. In the same broadcast, Secretary of State George Marshall, whose efforts to rebuild the economy of Europe would become known as the Marshall Plan during the post-World War II years, declared,  according to The New York Times,

'that the American larder was the "vital" instrument of peace and called on the people to "tighten our belts, clean our plates and push ourselves away from the table" to relieve the hungry of Europe.'

(Prior October 5 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Hong Kong's 1940s war crimes trials rediscovered

(Part 2 of a 2-part series; Part 1 is here)

Having described in yesterday's post my overall research into post-World War II trials that took place in Hong Kong, today I discuss the most recent product of that research: ‘Rediscovering the war crimes trials in Hong Kong, 1946-1948’, published earlier this year in the Melbourne Journal of International Law. My post concludes with thoughts about the importance of and prospects for this project.

Rediscovering Hong Kong war crimes trials
My article begins by placing the trials in their historical context.
The Hong Kong war crimes trials were part a process of accountability parallel not only to the well-known trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo, but also to the thousands of academically neglected ‘minor’ Asian war crimes trials held by the British, Dutch, Chinese and Americans. Although in the ‘minor’ category, the Hong Kong trials involved some of the more notorious atrocities of World War II in Asia:
►  The killings and abuse that accompanied the invasion of Hong Kong island;
►  The web of prisoner of war camps on the island of Formosa (now, Taiwan) and at Hong Kong;
►  The extensive and systematic torture and abuse practised by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, in occupied Hong Kong; and

Lisbon Maru

►  Two notorious events at sea, surrounding the high seas sinking of the vessels Lisbon Maru and Behar and the killing of those on board.
The cases brought together as accused 2 lieutenant generals, 2 major generals, 1 rear admiral, 6 colonels and 3 majors, although the majority of the accused included lower-ranking members of the Imperial Japanese Army and Kempeitai, as well as several civilians.
In the article, I wanted to focus on presenting the neglected process and trials as they were, warts and all.
The article traces the legal basis for the trials, specifically: the constitutive UK Royal Warrant of 1946 and the Regulations annexed to it; the instructions issued by Allied Land Forces South East Asia, which oversaw the process in Hong Kong; the 7th edition of Britain's Manual of Military Law 1929 (as amended in 1936 and 1944), which applied through the Royal Warrant’s Regulations; and, finally, the international crime emerging from, to quote the Warrant, ‘violation of the laws and usages of war committed during any war in which His Majesty has been or may be engaged at any time since the 2nd September, 1939’.
‘Rediscovering the war crimes trials in Hong Kong, 1946-1948’ then proceeds to engage with some of the legal issues arising, namely:
►  Jurisdictional challenges (i.e. how the courts exercised jurisdiction over war crimes not just in Hong Kong, but also in Formosa (Taiwan), in China (Shanghai and Waichow), in Japan, and on the high seas;
►  Subject-matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction and temporal jurisdiction;
►  Procedure;
►  Superior orders;
►  Modes of responsibility; and
►  Sentencing issues.
I use four very different but fascinating case studies to provide a more informed insight into the events and the proceedings, and also briefly examine the local treason trials, as well as the Australian, Chinese, and Tokyo proceedings, each of which had a different Hong Kong nexus.
Piecing together the legal aspects of the trials has been unusually challenging, for these were military trials where no reasoned judgements accompanied the verdicts (this was not unusual, although some of the World War II cases did have reasoned decisions).
The law emerging from the Hong Kong trials was excavated by drawing extensively from the previously unexplored cases; by focusing on transcripts, documents admitted as evidence (affidavits, etc.), and the reports of the Judge Advocates; and of course,by  analysing the primary sources of law referred to earlier.
It is true that nothing can substitute for a decision that explains the reasoning of the court. But this article, and the forthcoming book that I am editing, entitled Hong Kong’s War Crimes Trials, do show that we can still gain much insight into the proceedings by closely examining the case files in order to put the jigsaw together. As I wrote in my closing paragraph:

Uncovering post-WWII accountability, in Hong Kong

(Thank you to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this introductory post, Part 1 of a 2-part series; Part 2 is here)

It was a real surprise for me to find, shortly after taking up an academic posting at the University of Hong Kong in 2005, that Britain’s one-time Pearl of the Orient had been the site of war crimes trials in the aftermath of World War II.

Very early on, I was delighted to supervise a dissertation about one of the trials by a then-student, Paul Harris, a Hong Kong Senior Counsel. I developed a fascination for the topic.
My own research has uncovered 3 different types of prosecutions:
► Treason trials, in the domestic Hong Kong courts, of persons accused of collaborating with the Japanese regime of occupation;
► War crimes trials, held by Australia with the consent of the British colonial administration, of crimes of particular interest to Australia (for example, concerning the prisoner of war camps in the Dutch East Indies); and, finally,
► Military proceedings brought by the United Kingdom under its Royal Warrant of 1946.
The atrocities committed in Hong Kong during the war were also tried by Chinese military tribunals, and formed part of the dossier of evidence heard in Tokyo by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
My work has focused on the third type of proceedings, to which I refer as the Hong Kong trials. In my article ‘Rediscovering the war crimes trials in Hong Kong, 1946-1948’, recently published in the Melbourne Journal of International Law, I introduce the product of several years of research into the topic.
This project began with a research grant that I won from the Hong Kong government in 2008, to: gather together the case files that were kept at the National Archives in Kew, about 10 miles west of central London; create a database to make the files available to the public; and analyse the materials. I launched the Hong Kong’s War Crimes Trials Collection website and database (above) in 2010, and have been continuing to conduct research in the area ever since.
As detailed in data available at the website, the accused in the Hong Kong trials were primarily members of the Imperial Japanese Army, including the Kempeitai, although several civilians and Navy officers were tried as well. In total, 46 judgements were issued. Of these, 44 were confirmed by the Reviewing Officer (Commander of Land Forces, Hong Kong), against 108 individuals. There were 14 acquittals. 2 judgements were not confirmed. There was one retrial following non-confirmation of the judgement, and one judgement was transferred to the Supreme Court, to be heard as the crime of treason instead of war crimes.

I am now completing the editing of Hong Kong’s War Crimes Trials, a book that has been commissioned by Oxford University Press. Contributors include experts such as Professor Robert Cryer of Birmingham University in England, Dr. Yuma Totani (right) of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Professor Bing Bing Jia of Tsinghua University in Beijing, Dr. Nina Jørgensen (left) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dr. Alexander Zahar of Macquarie University in Sydney, and Professor Roger S. Clark of Rutgers-Camden. Their essays will address, in far greater detail than my article, specific topics emerging from the Hong Kong trials, such as command responsibility, superior orders, and war crimes.
The precursor to that book is my just-published Melbourne Journal article, the contents of which I will discuss in my post tomorrow.

Look On! Notorious take on post-WWII

(Look On! takes occasional note of noteworthy productions)

Recently I went to the BFI Southbank, the British Film Institute cinema in London, to see Notorious (1946) by Alfred Hitchcock.
Throughout this month, the British Film Institute is celebrating the 'Genius of Hitchcock', a festival showcasing some of the work by this master of suspense, who was born in London in 1899 and died in California in 1980.
For those unfamiliar with Hitchcock, his most famous movies include Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963), Marnie (1964), Rear Window (1954), and Vertigo (1958). He made many other amazing films, mixing suspense and humour, such as Strangers on a Train (1951) (remade by Danny DeVito as Throw Mamma from the Train (1987)), The Trouble with Harry (1955) and Rope (1948). (Prior IntLawGrrls posts on Hitchcock here and here.)

Hitchcock is considered to be one of the movie greats, having moved from silent film to modern cinema, influencing directors and filmmakers around the world. I've been looking for an opportunity to include a Hitchcock movie in my ongoing research on human rights and film, and Notorious seemed to present the opportunity to do so.
The movie is a film noir thriller, combining suspense with romance. It begins with the trial and conviction of a Mr Huberman for treason – a law connection. His daughter, Alicia Huberman (played by Ingrid Bergman (right)), is contacted by one Devlin (played by Cary Grant), and asked to go to Brazil to spy on Nazi friends of her father. (poster credit) US secret agents want to know what the Nazis are doing in Rio. Alicia agrees, and soon Devlin and Alicia begin a passionate affair, unaware of the details of the task. However, Alicia must use her female charms to get herself into the close circle of the leader, Alexander Sebastian (played by Claude Rains). She thus places her love and her life at risk.
The film recalls events in real life:
A number of Americans were prosecuted following the end of the Second World War for treason on account of their participation in the Third Reich. For example, Mildred Gillars and Rita Zucca, known as Axis Sallys, were American broadcasters employed to disseminate Nazi propaganda who were prosecuted by the US.  Mostly famously, 'Tokyo Rose' Iva Toguri D'Aquino, an American citizen, was prosecuted and convicted for treason in 1949 following public outcry over her role in the propaganda programme, the Zero Hour aired on Radio Tokyo.

(Cross-posted at Human Rights Film Diary blog)

On September 28

(credit)

On this day in ...
... 1939, in Moscow, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, Foreign Ministers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, respectively, signed the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty in the wake of the 2 countries' joint invasion of Poland. The secret pact established each country's zones of influence, not only in Poland (left), but also in Lithuania. Six years later, at the end of World War II, Allies including, by then, the Soviet Union, would place von Ribbentrop in the prisoner's dock, as a defendant in the Trial of the Major War Criminals at Nuremberg. He would be convicted on all 4 counts and executed in 1946.

(Prior September 28 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Look On! Bent & need for LGBT protections

(Look On! takes occasional note of noteworthy productions)

In their book The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis (2000), Australian National University Law Professor Hilary Charlesworth, an IntLawGrrls contributor, and London School of Economics Law Professor Christine Chinkin explain that one feminist methodology in the study of international law is to expose the silences of the international system.
Meanwhile, feminist scholars of international criminal law, such as IntLawGrrl Kelly D. Askin, have noted how the founding International Military Tribunals, at Nuremberg and Tokyo, 'silenced' gender crimes in the judgments and proceedings:
► In Nuremberg, none of the Nazi war criminals were charged with rape, sexual violence, or forced abortion, despite ample documentary evidence.
► In Tokyo, rape was charged as a crime against honour; however, the sexual slavery of the so-called 'comfort women' was excluded from the indictment.
This is now a relatively well known story within the study of international criminal justice. Concerted efforts, since the 1990s, to ensure that victims and survivors of gender violence are not silenced by international proceedings, culminated in the enumeration of a plethora of gender crimes in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The Rome Statute is the first international treaty to use and define the word 'gender' – an achievement for feminist advocates and lawyers of international law. However, as the 1st Gender Advisor of the ICC, Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon, and others have noted, the definition of 'gender' in Article 7(3) excludes gay and lesbian persons. As some commentators have put it, the definition is heterosexist.
So why does this matter?

(credit)

The film Bent (1997) serves as a good reminder of why the protection of gay and lesbian persons in international criminal justice is important. It also reminds us that the persecution of many different groups during the Holocaust is prone to 'silencing'.
Originally a play by Martin Sherman, the film, directed by Sean Mathias, tells the story of Max, a gay man sent to Dachau under the Nazi regime. His partner, Ralph, is murdered by the SS for wearing glasses. Max had chosen a yellow star instead of a pink star, preferring to be persecuted as a Jewish man instead of a gay man. During his time at the camp, he falls in love with Horst, another inmate, who wears a pink star. Members of the cast include Clive Owen, Mick Jagger, Sir Ian McKellen, and Jude Law.
The persecution of gay men during the Holocaust is a neglected topic in legal literature and in academia more generally. According to WikiPedia, Bent appeared amid a wave of works exploring the topic; together, they led to an apology from the German government and to the construction of monuments in the memory of gay men persecuted by the Nazi regime.
The play depicts some of the horrors faced by gay men, but also provides an allegory on themes of shame, pride, and freedom. Difficult to watch, but definitely to be recommended.

(Cross-posted at Human Rights Film Diary blog)

On September 8

On this day in ...

... 1951, delegates from 4 dozen countries signed the Treaty of Peace with Japan, also known as the San Francisco Peace Treaty in recognition of the city where it was signed. (credit for photo of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida signing at the War Memorial Opera House, as members of his delegation look on) The treaty began with Japan's promise "to apply for membership in the United Nations and in all circumstances to conform to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations," signed in the same city 6 years earlier, and further "to strive to realize the objectives of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" that states then members of the U.N. General Assembly approved in 1948. The treaty brought to a formal end the Pacific Rim aspect of World War II. It marked too the start of a new, cooperative relationship between, in particular, Japan and the United States.

(Prior September 8 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On August 30

On this day in ...

Nancy Wake

... 1912 (100 years ago today), Nancy Wake was born in Wellington, New Zealand. She, her parents, and her five siblings moved to Sydney, Australia; soon after, their journalist father left them. Wake herself left home as a teenager, eventually traveling to New York and London and settling in Paris, where she was a free-lance writer said to be fond of the French city's nightlife. By the time Nazi Germany occupied France, she was living in Marseilles, the wife of a wealthy French industrialist who would be executed on account of the couple's work for the Resistance. Wake herself went to England and joined the Special Operations Executive, a British spy agency about which we've frequently posted here, here, and here. Parachuted with into France in 1944, Wake worked behind the enemy lines as a spy. The Germans nicknamed her la Souris blanche because she could not be captured. After the war her efforts were recognized with Britain's George Medal, the U.S. Medal of Freedom, and the French Legion d’Honneur. Wake, who published her memoirs, The White Mouse, in 1997, died in London a year ago this month.

(Prior August 30 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'Melbourne University Professor of Law Tim McCormack said he was frustrated on a number of levels about the Zentai case.'

–  An article in the Melbourne-based daily newspaper The Age, reporting on the today's decision in which the High Court of Australia ruled against the extradition to Hungary of Charles Zentai, a 90-year-old, Hungary-born Australian citizen accused of murdering a Jewish teenager in Budapest in 1944. (Other allegations against him here.) Hungary had sought Zentai's transfer, pursuant to the Hungary-Australia extradition treaty, to stand trial for a "war crime." But the judgment in Minister for Home Affairs of the Commonwealth v Zentai disallowed extradition for the reason that this offense was not prohibited under Hungarian law at the time in question. Thus our colleague Tim McCormack (below; prior posts), who advises the International Criminal Court on international humanitarian law, explained to The Age:

'The Hungarians didn’t choose the right offence to request the extradition.'

McCormack noted that a request on a charge of murder would not have posed the same problem, and added that Australia itself could prosecute but has not chosen to do so.

On August 4

On this day in ...
... 1910, Hedwig Lindenberg was born in Bucharest, Romania. After graduating from high school she studied art in Vienna, returned briefly to study philosophy and art history in Bucharest, and eventually resumed art training on her own, traveling to Paris and. Married in the early 1930s and there after known as Hedda Sterne (right), she fled to New York during World War II.
(photo credit) There she married again, to New Yorker cartoonist Saul Steinberg. She was only woman in a group of abstract expressionists known as "The Irascible 18"; other members included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. Though relatively unknown, her work has been displayed at major U.S. museums. (credit for 1950 painting at left) Sterne died in Manhattan in 2011, about 6 months after her 100th birthday.

(Prior August 4 posts  here, here, here, here, and here.)

On August 3

(credit)

On this day in ...
... 1914, as streetlamps went on in London, a little over a month before the assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Austrian throne and just hours before German troops invaded Belgium, Sir Edward Grey, Britain's Foreign Secretary, famously said:

'The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.'

World War I was under way and would not end till 1918. Grey did live longer than his quote predicted -- till 1933, not long before the onset of yet another global conflict.

(Prior August 3 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

'La vérité, c'est que pas un soldat allemand, pas un seul, ne fut mobilisé pour l'ensemble de l'opération.
'La vérité, c'est que ce crime fut commis en France, par la France.'

that is,

'The truth is that no German soldier, not one, was mobilized in this operation.
'The truth is that this crime was committed in France, by France.'

– French President François Hollande, in a speech Sunday in which he reaffirmed the responsibility of French officials for the 1942 le rafle du Vel d'Hiv. In this incident, as we posted a while back,

'on orders of the Vichy government that ruled after France fell to the Nazis in World War II, French police rounded up at least 13,000 citizens of Jewish heritage -- including more than 4,000 children -- and detained them in Paris' Vélodrome d'hiver, the Winter Velodrome not far from the Eiffel Tower. Of them, "not 1 child or woman escaped death at Auschwitz,"although 40 men did survive.'

Hollande's discours, which is available in full here and discussed in news articles here and here, came 17 years after a similar admission by then-President Jacques Chirac. (credit for photo of Hollande at Sunday's commemoration © Présidence de la République-Pascal Segrette/Laurent Blevennec)

On July 22

On this day in ...
... 1942 (70 years ago today), voluntary efforts having failed, mandatory gas rationing began in the United States, part of an effort to conserve fuel for use by the Allies in World War II. More than 3/4 of a million of the cards at right thus began to be used throughout the country.

(Prior July 22 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)