The Tribunal established by the Agreement referred to in Article 1 hereof shall have power and jurisdiction to try and determine charges of crime against individuals who and organizations which acted in aid of the European Axis Powers and to impose punishments on those found guilty.
The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within its jurisdiction for which there shall be individual responsibility:
(a) THE CRIME or WAR, namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of any international treaty, agreement, or assurance, or in particular, of the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, or participation in. a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
(b) WAR CRIMES, namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas; killing of hostages; sinking of merchant vessels in disregard of international law - attack upon hospital ships; plunder of public or private property; wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages; devastation not justified by military necessity.
(C) CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, namely, murder extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, religious grounds, in furtherance of or in connection With any crime within the jurisdiction of the International Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.
Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in furtherance of such plan.
International law shall include treaties, agreements, and assurances between nations, and the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and from the dictates of the public conscience.
| Source: International Conference on Military Trials : London, 1945 Report of Robert H. Jackson, United States Representative to the International Conference on Military Trials : London, 1945 International organization and conference series; II European and British Commonwealth 1 Department of State Publication 3080 Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1949 |