NUREMBERG TRIALS

ORIGIN AND ESTABLISHMENT

The Nuremberg Trials is the general name for two sets of trials of Nazis involved in crimes
committed during the Holocaust of World War II. The first, and most famous, began on
November 20, 1945. It was entitled the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International
Military Tribunal, which tried the most important leaders of Nazi Germany. The second set of
trials, for lesser war criminals, was conducted under Control Council Law No. 10, at the U.S.
Nuremberg Military Tribunals.
After the war, some of those responsible for crimes committed during the Holocaust were brought
to trial. Nuremberg, Germany, was chosen as a site for trials that took place in 1945 and 1946.
Judges from the Allied powers—Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—
presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals.
A precedent for trying those accused of war crimes had been set at the end of World War I in
the Leipzig War Crimes Trials held in May to July 1921 before the Reichsgericht (German
Supreme Court) in Leipzig, although these had been on a very limited scale and largely regarded
as ineffectual. At the beginning of 1940, the Polish government-in-exile asked the British and
French governments to condemn the German invasion of their country. The British initially
declined to do so; however, in April 1940, a joint declaration was issued by the British, French
and Polis. Relatively bland because of Anglo-French reservations, it proclaimed the trio's desire
to make a formal and public protest to the conscience of the world against the action of the German
government whom they must hold responsible for these crimes which cannot remain unpunished.
Three-and-a-half years later, the stated intention to punish the Germans was much more trenchant.
On 1 November 1943, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States published
their "Declaration on German Atrocities in Occupied Europe", which gave a "full warning" that,
when the Nazis were defeated, the Allies would "pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth in
order that justice may be done. The above declaration is without prejudice to the case of the major
war criminals whose offences have no particular geographical location and who will be punished
by a joint decision of the Government of the Allies. This intention by the Allies to dispense justice
was reiterated at the Yalta Conference and at Potsdam in 1945.
British War Cabinet documents, released on 2 January 2006, showed that as early as December
1944 the Cabinet had discussed their policy for the punishment of the leading Nazis if captured.
The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had then advocated a policy of summary
execution in some circumstances, with the use of an Act of Attainder to circumvent legal obstacles,
being dissuaded from this only by talks with US and Soviet leaders later in the war.
In late 1943, during the Tripartite Dinner Meeting at the Tehran Conference, the Soviet
leader, Joseph Stalin, proposed executing 50,000–100,000 German staff officers. US
President Franklin D. Roosevelt joked that perhaps 49,000 would do. Churchill, believing them to
be serious, denounced the idea of the cold blooded execution of soldiers who fought for their
country and that he would rather be "taken out in the courtyard and shot" himself than partake in
any such action.[11] However, he also stated that war criminals must pay for their crimes and that,
in accordance with the Moscow Document which he himself had written, they should be tried at
the places where the crimes were committed. Churchill was vigorously opposed to executions "for
political purposes. According to the minutes of a meeting between Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta,
on 4 February 1945, at the Livadia Palace, President Roosevelt "said that he had been very much
struck by the extent of German destruction in Crimea and therefore he was more bloodthirsty in
regard to the Germans than he had been a year ago, and he hoped that Marshal Stalin would again
propose a toast to the execution of 50,000 officers of the German Army."
Henry Morgenthau Jr., US Secretary of the Treasury, suggested a plan for the
total denazification of Germany this was known as the Morgenthau Plan. The plan advocated the
forced de-industrialisation of Germany and the summary execution of so-called "arch-criminals",
i.e. the major war criminals. Roosevelt initially supported this plan, and managed to convince
Churchill to support it in a less drastic form. Later, details were leaked generating widespread
condemnation by the nation's newspapers. Roosevelt, aware of strong public disapproval,
abandoned the plan, but did not adopt an alternative position on the matter. The demise of the
Morgenthau Plan created the need for an alternative method of dealing with the Nazi leadership.
The plan for the "Trial of European War Criminals" was drafted by Secretary of War Henry L.
Stimson and the War Department. Following Roosevelt's death in April 1945, the new
president, Harry S. Truman, gave strong approval for a judicial process. After a series of
negotiations between Britain, the US, Soviet Union and France, details of the trial were worked
out. The trials were to commence on 20 November 1945, in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg.
Twelve prominent Nazis were sentenced to death. Most of the defendants admitted to the crimes
of which they were accused, although most claimed that they were simply following the orders of
a higher authority. Those individuals directly involved in the killing received the most severe
sentences. Other people who played key roles in the Holocaust, including high-level government
officials, and business executives who used concentration camp inmates as forced labourers,
received short prison sentences or no penalty at all.
The Nazis' highest authority, the person most to blame for the Holocaust, was missing at the trials.
Adolf Hitler had committed suicide in the final days of the war, as had several of his closest aides.
Many more criminals were never tried. Some fled Germany to live abroad, including hundreds
who came to the United States.
Trials of Nazis continued to take place both in Germany and many other countries. Simon
Wiesenthal, a Nazi-hunter, provided leads for war crimes investigators about Adolf Eichmann.
Eichmann, who had helped plan and carry out the deportations of millions of Jews, was brought
to trial in Israel. The testimony of hundreds of witnesses, many of them survivors, was followed
all over the world. Eichmann was found guilty and executed in 1962.

MEMBER COUNTRIES

On 20 April 1942, representatives from the nine countries occupied by Germany met in London
to draft the "Inter-Allied Resolution on German War Crimes". At the meetings
in Tehran (1943), Yalta(1945) and Potsdam (1945), the three major wartime powers, the United
Kingdom, United States, and the Soviet Union, agreed on the format of punishment for those
responsible for war crimes during World War II. France was also awarded a place on the tribunal.
The legal basis for the trial was established by the London Charter, which was agreed upon by the
four so-called Great Powers on 8 August 1945, and which restricted the trial to "punishment of
the major war criminals of the European Axis countries
Some 200 German war crimes defendants were tried at Nuremberg, and 1,600 others were tried
under the traditional channels of military justice. The legal basis for the jurisdiction of the court
was that defined by the Instrument of Surrender of Germany. Political authority for Germany had
been transferred to the Allied Control Council which, having sovereign power over Germany,
could choose to punish violations of international law and the laws of war. Because the court was
limited to violations of the laws of war, it did not have jurisdiction over crimes that took place
before the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939.
The IMT was established on August 8, 1945 by the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of
America, the French Republic, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) for the trial
of war criminals whose offenses had no particular geographical location. The defendants were
indicted for crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and of a common plan or
conspiracy to commit those aforementioned crimes. The trial began on November 20, 1945 and a
total of 403 open sessions were held. The prosecution called thirty-three witnesses, whereas the
defence questioned sixty-one witnesses, in addition to 143 witnesses who gave evidence for the
defence by means of written answers to interrogatories. The hearing of evidence and the closing
statements were concluded on August 31, 1946.

JURISDICTION

In the years that pursued the choice of the General Assembly to delay thought of the draft Code of
Offenses and the subject of a worldwide criminal purview, there was minimal solid advancement
in further building up the Nuremberg inheritance. The expectations of Biddle, Truman, Donnedieu
de Vabres, Alfaro and others of a perpetual legal body with criminal locale over worldwide
violations stayed only that. In the late 1970s and into the mid 1980s, after the appropriation by the
General Assembly of Resolution 3314 (XXIX) on the meaning of animosity, a restored push to
take up the draft Code of Offenses originated from a blend of Eastern Bloc states and individuals
from the Non-Aligned Movement ('NAM').1 Both gatherings conceded to the need to build up the
Code of Offenses, attracting consideration regarding issues, for example, Israel's besieging of
Lebanon, the danger of atomic war and politically-sanctioned racial segregation in South Africa.2
Frequent references were made to the Nuremberg Tribunal and Principles.3 However, just the
NAM states (joined by some Western expresses that were wary of the requirement for building up
the Code of Offenses) were in support likewise of setting up a worldwide court, while Eastern Bloc
nations wanted to rebuff such offenses by means of national courts.4 On 10 December 1981 the

1 Analytical Paper Prepared Pursuant to the Request Contained in Paragraph 256 of the Report of the Commission on
the Work of its Thirty-fourth Session, UN Doc. A/CN.4/365, 23 March 1983, paras. 8–47.
2
Ibid., paras. 23–31.
3
Ibid., paras. 9–14, 40–49.
4
Ibid., paras. 126–39.
General Assembly welcomed the ILC to continue its work and to survey the draft Code of
Offenses, yet it made no notice of the subject of a universal criminal jurisdiction.5

Article 6 of the charter described the jurisdiction, or authority, of the tribunal:

The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for
which there shall be individual responsibility:

1. CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging

of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or
assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the
accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
2. WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations
shall include, but not be limited to murder, 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;
3. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement,
deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population,
before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in
execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal,
whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a

common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the forgoing crimes are responsible for all acts
performed by any persons in execution of such plan.

IMPACT OF THE NUREMBERG TRIALS ON INTERNATIONAL LAW

The foundation of the IMT filled in as a model for other universal courts and the standards created
and perceived in the IMT Charter and in the judgment of the IMT majorly affected the
advancement of worldwide criminal law. After the decision was reported, the United Nations (UN)
Secretary General stated that

The interests of harmony and so as to secure humankind against future wars, it will be of
unequivocal essentialness to have the standards which were utilized in the Nuremberg
preliminaries and as per which the German war-lawbreakers were condemned, made a perpetual
piece of the assemblage of worldwide law as fast as would be prudent.

5 United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 36/106, UN Doc. A/RES/36/106, 10 December 1981.
Accordingly, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed the "Nuremberg Principles" in
its resolution 95 (I) and coordinated the International Law Commission (ILC) to classify them.

The ILC formulated the following seven Nuremberg standards:

1. Any individual who perpetrates a demonstration which comprises a wrongdoing under global
law is dependable therefor and subject to discipline.

2. The certainty that interior law does not force a punishment for a demonstration which establishes
a wrongdoing under universal law does not mitigate the individual who submitted the
demonstration from obligation under global law.

3. The certainty that an individual who carried out a demonstration which comprises a wrongdoing
under universal law went about as Head of State or dependable Government authority does not
assuage him from obligation under worldwide law.

4. The actuality that an individual acted in accordance with request of his Government or of an
unrivalled does not ease him from obligation under global law, gave an ethical decision was in
certainty conceivable to him.

5. Any individual accused of a wrongdoing under universal law has the privilege to a reasonable
preliminary on the actualities and law.

6. The wrongdoings hereinafter set out are culpable as violations under universal law:
 a.
Wrongdoings against peace:
 (i) Planning, readiness, inception or pursuing of a war of hostility
or a war disregarding universal bargains, understandings or assurances;
 (ii) Participation in a
typical arrangement or trick for the achievement of any of the demonstrations referenced under
(i).
 b. War crimes:
 Violations of the laws or traditions of war which incorporate, however are
not constrained to, murder, abuse or expelling to slave-work or for some other reason for regular
citizen populace of or in involved region, murder or abuse of detainees of war, of people on the
oceans, executing of prisoners, loot of open or private property, wanton pulverization of urban
communities, towns, or towns, or obliteration not defended by military necessity.
 c. Violations
against humanity:
 Murder, elimination, oppression, expulsion and other barbaric acts done
against any regular citizen populace, or abuses on political, racial or religious grounds, when such
acts are done or such mistreatments are carried on in execution of or regarding any wrongdoing
against harmony or any atrocity.

7. Complicity in the commission of a wrongdoing against harmony, an atrocity, or an unspeakable

atrocity as set out in Principle VI is a wrongdoing under universal law.

The UN General Assembly never officially embraced or dismissed the Nuremberg standards after
the codification by the ILC, yet the standards have been reaffirmed and further created in the rules
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the previous Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the International Criminal Court (ICC) and in
worldwide and national case law. The Nuremberg principles are today generally considered to
represent customary worldwide law. A few standards are even viewed as authoritative standards
of universal law (jus cogens).

CONCLUSION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NUREMBERG

LEGACY
For some associated with the United Nations in the late 1940s and mid 1950s, the Nuremberg
Tribunal was, in the expressions of the ILC part Roberto Cordova, a "milestone in history".6 It was
not the start of endeavours to set up a universal criminal code or worldwide criminal court as past
endeavours were reliably recognized, yet it was noteworthy as the minute where these endeavours
"go from simple desiderata or plans to real deeds".7 In this view, Nuremberg was a stage towards
a world request dependent on the standard of law, and the legal advisor's job in legitimate history
was to add to the dynamic advancement of this request. Simultaneously, a contending perspective
endured, mirroring another way of thinking similarly implanted in the experience of Nuremberg.
Under this way of thinking, the support of harmony and security was the area, if not the obligation,
of a select gathering of states and the legal advisor was mindful so as to notice the perspectives on
the military and political tip top. Incapable to connect a trade off between these on a very basic
level contradicting sees, the ILC embraced the Nuremberg Principles, and set to draft a Code of
Offenses and to think about the foundation of a global legal body to authorize this code, without
tending to either the degree of the commitment to rebuff wrongdoings under worldwide law or a
considerable lot of the central reactions of the selectivity of the primary examples of universal
criminal equity − reactions which had been voiced most noisily by Judge Radhabinod Pal as he
would see it at the Tokyo Tribunal. The net impact was to assert the privilege of states to seek after
worldwide criminal equity yet to leave open the topic of their commitment to do as such, a heritage
which keeps on being found in global criminal equity today. The job of the Nuremberg Tribunal
in these discussions was fundamentally to exhibit the likelihood (yet in addition the shortcomings)
of a judicially based request. The real substance of the Nuremberg preliminaries was less talked
about, yet it had a critical effect, for instance in the incorporation of war violations and
wrongdoings against humankind in the draft Code of Offenses.

6 Summary Record of the 45th Meeting, UN Doc. A/CN.4/SR.45, 13 June 1950, para. 47.

7 Alfaro Report: International Criminal Jurisdiction, para. 37.

CONCLUSION

Reference to the Nuremberg Tribunal and preliminaries played various jobs in the process
prompting the foundation of the ICC. Members in, and advocates of, the Nuremberg Tribunal and
preliminaries utilized the chance to push not just for the codification of the standards of the Charter
and Judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal yet additionally to advance the further improvement of
a universal request wherein the interests of states would be subjected to the free utilization of the
standard of law and where people would be considered straightforwardly responsible under
worldwide law. Simultaneously, similarly inserted in the heritage of Nuremberg was and remains
a comprehension of the Nuremberg Tribunal as the result of understanding among four Great
Powers just as a guarantee to guaranteeing that the legitimate request remains grounded in the truth
of universal governmental issues. Comparative contending perspectives were showed from the
most profound auxiliary issues to the best specialized focuses, wherein reference to the Nuremberg
Tribunal and preliminaries was oftentimes used to brace contentions however was once in a while
determinative of the result. The suffering heritage of Nuremberg isn't one yet various. While the
Nuremberg Principles and resulting improvements catch a typical center of understanding, they
likewise leave open the likelihood of a wide scope of points of view. In such conditions, influential
intrigue to the heritage of Nuremberg assumes a specific shared comprehension of the Nuremberg
Tribunal's essentialness which may not be in every case all around partook similarly.