In the aftermath of the First World Conflict, 1 / 4 of a century earlier than the Nuremberg and Tokyo warfare crimes trials, Britain, France, and different Allied or Entente powers performed a daring experiment in worldwide justice. Extensively denounced as a failure, and barely remembered as we speak, the experiment has necessary classes for worldwide justice in a world as soon as once more dominated by warfare.
On the finish of June 1918 the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Fortress, steaming from Halifax in Nova Scotia to Liverpool, was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-86. In response to the official report:
The ship went down inside ten minutes of being struck, and for upwards of two hours the submarine repeatedly tried to blot out all traces of the deed by speeding from side to side among the many wreckage and firing twenty shells or extra from the big gun they carried. Just one boat with 24 survivors escaped. This crime surpassed in savagery the already formidable array of murders of non-combatants by the Germans.
