The Nuremberg Trial was a landmark in the development of international law, its influence continues to shape our understanding of international criminal justice. This volume presents the most important essays examining the trial from legal, political, historical and philosophical perspectives. Together, the perspectives provide an overview of the Trial that is invaluable to understanding the significance of the Nuremberg Trial to modern international law and politics.
"Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg reveals the pivotal role the Soviet Union played in the Nuremberg Trials of 1945 and 1946. The Nuremberg Trials (IMT), most notable for their aim to bring perpetrators of Nazi war crimes to justice in the wake of World War II, paved the way for global conversations about genocide, justice, and human rights that continue to this day. As Francine Hirsch reveals in this new history of the trials, a central part of the story has been ignored or forgotten: the critical role the Soviet Union played in making them happen in the first place. While there were practical reasons for this omission--until recently, critical Soviet documents about Nuremberg were buried in the former Soviet archives, and even Russian researchers had limited access--Hirsch shows that there were political reasons as well. The Soviet Union was regarded by its wartime Allies not just as a fellow victor but a rival, and it was not in the interests of the Western powers to highlight the Soviet contribution to postwar justice"--
The ‘International Military Tribunal for the Far East’ (IMTFE), held in Tokyo from May 1946 to November 1948, was a landmark event in the development of modern international criminal law. The trial in Tokyo was a complex undertaking and international effort to hold individuals accountable for core international crimes and delivering justice. The Tribunal consisted of 11 judges and respective national prosecution teams from 11 countries, and a mixed Japanese–American team of defence lawyers. The IMTFE indicted 28 Japanese defendants, amongst them former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, military leaders, and diplomats, based on a 55-count indictment pertaining to crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The judgment was not unanimous, with one majority judgment, two concurring opinions, and three dissenting opinions. The trial and the outcome were the subject of significant controversy and the Tribunal’s files were subsequently shelved in the archives. While its counterpart in Europe, the ‘International Military Tribunal’ (IMT) at Nuremberg, has been at the centre of public and scholarly interest, the Tokyo Tribunal has more recently gained international scholarly attention. This volume combines perspectives from law, history, and the social sciences to discuss the legal, historical, political and cultural significance of the Tokyo Tribunal. The collection is based on an international conference marking the 70th anniversary of the judgment of the IMTFE, which was held in Nuremberg in 2018. The volume features reflections by eminent scholars and experts on the establishment and functioning of the Tribunal, procedural and substantive issues as well as receptions and repercussions of the trial.
In this new collection of essays the editors assess the legacy of the Nuremberg Trial asking whether the Trial really did have a civilising influence or if it constituted little more than institutionalised vengeance. Three essays focus particularly on the historical context and involve rich analysis of, for example, the atmospherics of the Trial itself and the attitudes of German society at the time to the conduct of the Trial. The majority of the essays deal with the contemporary legacies of the Nuremberg Trial and attempt to assess the ongoing relevance of the Judgment itself and of the principles encapsulated in it. Some essays consider the importance of the principle of individual criminal responsibility under international law and argue that the international community has to some extent failed to fulfil the promise of Nuremberg in the decades since the Trial. Other essays focus on contemporary application of aspects of the substantive law of Nuremberg - particularly the international crime of aggression, the law of military occupation and the use of the crime of conspiracy as an alternative basis of criminal responsibility. The collection also includes essays analysing the nature and operation of a number of international criminal tribunals since Nuremberg including the permanent International Criminal Court. The final grouping of essays focus on the impact of the Nuremberg Trial on Australia examining, in particular, Australia's post-World War Two war crimes trials of Japanese defendants, Australia's extensive national case law on Article 1(F) of the Refugee Convention and Australia's national implementing legislation for the Rome Statute.
This book offers a radically new and definitive reappraisal of Allied responses to Nazi human experiments and the origins of informed consent. It places the victims and Allied Medical Intelligence officers at centre stage, while providing a full reconstruction of policies on war crimes and trials related to Nazi medical atrocities and genocide.
At the end of World War II the Allies faced a threefold challenge: how to punish perpetrators of appalling crimes for which the categories of 'genocide' and 'crimes against humanity' had to be coined; how to explain that these had been committed by Germany, of all nations; and how to reform Germans. The Allied answer to this conundrum was the application of historical reasoning to legal procedure. In the thirteen Nuremberg trials held between 1945 and 1949, and in corresponding cases elsewhere, a concerted effort was made to punish key perpetrators while at the same time providing a complex analysis of the Nazi state and German history. Building on a long debate about Germany's divergence from a presumed Western path of development, Allied prosecutors sketched a historical trajectory which had led Germany to betray the Western model. Historical reasoning both accounted for the moral breakdown of a 'civilised' nation and rendered plausible arguments that this had indeed been a collective failure rather than one of a small criminal clique. The prosecutors therefore carefully laid out how institutions such as private enterprise, academic science, the military, or bureaucracy, which looked ostensibly similar to their opposite numbers in the Allied nations, had been corrupted in Germany even before Hitler's rise to power. While the argument, depending on individual protagonists, subject matters, and contexts, met with uneven success in court, it offered a final twist which was of obvious appeal in the Cold War to come: if Germany had lost its way, it could still be brought back into the Western fold. The first comprehensive study of the Nuremberg trials, The Betrayal thus also explores how history underpins transitional trials as we encounter them in today's courtrooms from Arusha to The Hague.
This pioneering book explores the intersections of law and culture at the International Criminal Court (ICC), offering insights into how notions of culture affect the Court’s legal foundations, functioning and legitimacy, both in theory and in practice.
Here is a gripping account of the major postwar trial of the Nazi hierarchy in World War II. The Nuremberg Trial brilliantly recreates the trial proceedings and offers a reasoned, often profound examination of the processes that created international law. From the whimpering of Kaltenbrunner and Ribbentrop on the stand to the icy coolness of Goering, each participant is vividly drawn. Includes twenty-four photographs of the key players as well as extensive references, sources, biographies, and an index.
