Today, October 1st, is a landmark day in international justice. Sixty years ago today, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg handed down its verdict. Twenty-four major war criminals were tried on charges of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, waging a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Nineteen were found guilty, three were acquitted, one was declared medically unfit to stand trial and one committed suicide before the trial's end. Twelve of the guilty were sentenced to death.
The trial gave us the Nuremberg Principles defining war crimes in international law, and the precedent that "only following orders" is no defence. It's ironic (and painful) then that on such a significant anniversary, the United States, one of the chief architects of the IMT, has just passed a law purporting to retrospectively immunise its soldiers and political leadership from prosecution for war crimes, and effectively overturning that precedent with regards to torture. Which I think proves the need for international criminal law more than ever. If states are not going to hold their own accountable, or write themselves a blank cheque for atrocity, then the international community must step in and do its utmost to ensure that there is justice. Otherwise, we are going to see state-sanctioned atrocities, genocide,and war crimes - crimes which should have ended with Nuremberg.
Nuremberg did the job it was designed to do as a substitute for a massacare.
ReplyDeleteAnd now we have the trials of Saddam Milosovich and so forth. We are lucky people dont care all that much about those issues because if they did it might well break our system.
Osama made a mistake - he should have surendered. Then he really would have won.