The Importance of the Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials, according to Telford Taylor Papers (Columbia University Law School, New York, May 9, 1949), were important as they highlighted (among others) the following lessons: (1) After Nuremberg, no head of state could claim to be above the law and individuals could not evade their responsibilities by hiding behind the anonymity of the administration they had served; (2) Ethnic cleansing, the waging of aggressive war and the evils attendant on those crimes are now punishable under International Law; (3) Without the Nuremberg Trials there would have been no legal framework on which to base the prosecution of those individuals who were responsible for the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and in Sierra Leone. Also, the trials of tyrants such as Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein would never have taken place; (4) The Nuremberg Trials laid the foundation for the international human rights laws, which entitle every human being to apply to the courts if they feel that their rights have been violated; and (5) Before the Nuremberg Trials there existed no legislation governing the conduct of war. (Roland, 2012)
The Nuremberg Principles
The Nuremberg principles are a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime.
The document was adopted by the UN International Law Commission to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II. (https://en.wikipedia.org)
The basic premise of the Nuremberg principles is that no person, no matter what his or her office, stands above International Law.
The Nuremberg Principles include the following: (1) Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under International Law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment; (2) 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; (3) 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 to him; and (4) Any person charged with a crime under International Law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law. (Sarmiento, 2009)
The Deterrent Now Exists
Some critics argue that the Nuremberg Trials “did not make the world a safer place, nor did they eradicate injustice, racial and religious persecution, enslavement, torture or genocide.”
Admittedly, decades after the establishment of the Nuremberg Tribunal, international crimes (war crimes and crimes against humanity) still flourish and are too common. And ongoing violence and widespread civil unrest likewise continue in numerous situations—with those responsible for the atrocities rarely facing justice.
But the lessons of Nuremberg are not validated by the subsequent atrocities and abuses committed after World War II.
One cannot deny that any of these abuses are also covered by the laws that were formulated and clarified in postwar Germany.
Of greater significance is the fact that—with laws discouraging the commitment of criminal acts and punishing those responsible when proof has been produced beyond a reasonable doubt—the deterrent now exists.
It is not the Nuremberg Tribunal or Trials that should be blamed—but the determination to implement such laws.
Unquestionably, the Nuremberg Tribunal was “a precedent and a promise. As part of the universal determination to avoid the scourge of war, legal precedents were created that outlawed wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The implied promise held forth to the world was that such crimes would be condemned in the future, whenever they occurred and that no person or nation would be above the law… The Nuremberg trials established that all of humanity would be guarded by an international legal shield and that even a Head of State would be held criminally responsible and punished for aggression and crimes against humanity.” (Rosen/www.roberthjackson.org)
Recent events teach us that in order to have “an effective international supplement to national structures and processes,” there is a need for a “multilateral institutional framework to hold some key individuals to account, while simultaneously providing a catalyst for more effective national enforcement of international criminal law.” (Ibid.)