Accountability for War Crimes. New book from Pilecki's expert - Instytut Pileckiego
16.07.2026 (Thu)
Accountability for War Crimes. New book from Pilecki's expert
It is an expanded English-language edition of the monograph "Problem odpowiedzialności karnej za zbrodnie wojenne w pracach rządu polskiego na emigracji (1939–1945)", which in 2023 was awarded a grant under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education’s “Excellent Science II” program for the translation and open-access publication of the book abroad.
The book reconstructs the origins and principal elements of the Polish authorities-in-exile’s policy on the prosecution and punishment of war crimes and discusses the significance of Polish lawyers’ involvement in the Allied accountability program. The prosecution and punishment of war criminals was one of the main policy priorities of the Polish government-in-exile.
This was shaped both by prevailing international circumstances and by public sentiment in occupied Poland, where society expected decisive reckoning. The monograph also demonstrates that, owing to the involvement of leading representatives of prewar international law scholarship, including Wacław Komarnicki and Stefan Glaser, Polish legal concepts did not emerge in a vacuum but constituted a critical development of interwar debates on the evolution of international law.
https://brill.com/display/title/74380
The e-book is available freely on the publisher's website, and the book will soon be released in a paper version.
The publication is interdisciplinary in nature, combining historical research methodology with international legal analysis. The monograph draws on an extensive body of sources from Polish and foreign archives, including the hitherto rarely studied holdings of the archive of the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC).
Its comprehensive English-language discussion of materials from the Central Archives of Modern Records (AAN), the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), and the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London introduces a wealth of Polish-language archival documentation into the broader international discourse, highlighting the contribution of Polish lawyers to preparations for the Nuremberg trials.
Project financed from state budget funds granted by the Minister of Education and Science under the "Doskonała Nauka II" ["Excellent Science II"] Program.
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