Vespasian Pella

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.

[3] In 1948, he took part in formulating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [1].

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.