jurist

Crimes against Humanity and Crimes of Denationalization: The Victory of Political Expediency Over Justice
Mark A. Lewis
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199660285.003.0004
Jurists at the Paris Peace Conference discussed crimes committed by a government against its own population, and crimes committed by a military to destroy the national culture of an occupied population. Yet jurists in the 1920s wanted to prevent these types of violence through population exchanges and treaties to protect collective minority rights, not by establishing new laws backed by criminal prosecution. International trials in the Balkans were difficult to implement because of political instability, plus military tribunals were a domestic tool of political justice. Jurists such as Nicholas Politis drafted population exchange agreements to deal with forced expulsions that had already occurred, plus the dominant view was that separating populations was the best way to ensure social peace. Thus, discussions about the crime of “denationalization” and “crimes against humanity” at the Paris Peace Conference did not immediately enter the intellectual framework of the “new justice.” https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/…/acprof-9780199660285-ch…