ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how the interwar period (1919–1939) was instrumental in the emergence of international crime as a legal concept in public international law. It is in this period that legal scholars first argued that the international community itself had a claim to protection under international law, and that individuals in addition to states could be held responsible, tried, and punished for violations of international law. Three questions were central to the debates in the interwar period on the status of criminal violations of international law: (1) What acts constitute international crimes? (2) Who has criminal responsibility? (3) Who has the authority to punish international crimes? The chapter argues that the different proposals emerging from these debates signified a radical shift in how legal scholars and other actors expanded the referent of legal obligations beyond the rights of sovereign states to include what they saw as the international community.
