We Must Never Forget… History Will Judge Us
February 28th, 2009
If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others we would not be willing to have invoked against us.
- Chief Justice Robert Jackson
Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Tribunals
We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our lips as well. We must summon such detachment and intellectual integrity to our task that this trial will commend itself to posterity as fulfilling humanity’s aspirations to do justice…
Any resort to war – to any kind of war – is a resort to means that are inherently criminal. War inevitably is a course of killings, assualts, deprivations of liberty, and destruction of property…
This trial is part of the great effort to make the peace more secure… and constitutes another step in the same direction: juridical action of a kind to ensure that those who start a war will pay for it personally…
It is not necessary among the ruins of this ancient and beautiful city, with untold members of its civilian inhabitants still buried in its rubble, to argue the proposition that to start or wage an aggresive war has the moral qualities of the worst of crimes…
If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others we would not be willing to have invoked against us.
- Chief Justice Robert Jackson
Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Tribunals
The Nuremberg Principles
Principle I: Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.
Principle II: The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III: The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible for him.
Principle V: Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial based on the facts and law.
Principle VI: The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under interntional law:
a. Crimes against peace: (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i)
b. War crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labr or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder of ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
c. Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deporation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Principle VII: Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.