Vespasian Pella on a Belgian medal

Vespasian V. Pella (4/17 January 1897, in Bucharest – 24 August 1952, in New York City) was a Romanian international law expert.

During the interwar period, he promoted the notion of international criminal proceedings against heads of state found guilty of crimes against humanity by the establishment of a special international tribunal for that purpose. In 1938 he served as President of the Committee on Legal Questions of the League of Nations.[1]

He was elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy in 1943.[2]

In 1944 he was appointed Romanian Ambassador to Switzerland, and in that capacity saved several Romanian Jews from deportation to Nazi occupied Poland.[3]

In 1948, he took part in formulating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide .

He kept advocating the idea of establishing an international criminal court and, in 1950, presented his proposals to that effect to the International Law Commission (UN document A/CN.4/39), which deliberated over the issue in its meetings of 5 to 6 July 1950.[4]

Works

Books

  • La criminalité collective des états et le droit pénal de l'avenir, Bucarest : Imprimerie de l'état, 1925
  • "Vers l'unification du droit pénal par la création d'un Institut international auprès de la Société des Nations", (1928) 3 Études Crimin. 49–56
  • La Guerre-Crime et les Criminels de Guerre, Paris, 1946
  • The International Association of Penal Law and the Safeguarding of Peace, Paris, 1947

Articles

  • "Towards an International Criminal Court" American Journal of International Law, Vol. 44, 1950, p. 37

References

  1. ↑ "Indiana University Bloomington".
  2. ↑ (in Romanian) Membrii Academiei Române din 1866 până în prezent at the Romanian Academy site
  3. ↑ "The Romanian Jewish Community". www.romanianjewish.org. Archived from the original on 23 February 2004.
  4. ↑ Yearbook of the ILC 1950, vol. 1, p. 165
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