From Consortium News
By Peter Dyer

Just over six decades ago, the first Nuremberg Trial began. On Nov. 21, 1945, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson opened the prosecution of 21 Germans for initiating a war of aggression and for the crimes which flowed from this act. Now is a good time to reconsider some of the history and issues involved in this momentous trial in the light of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

After Nazi Germany had been defeated, the major victorious allies (the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France) drew up a Charter establishing an International Military Tribunal as the legal basis for prosecution for three distinct categories of crimes: crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The trial lasted for over a year, culminating in verdicts of guilty of one, some, or all of these crimes for 18 of the defendants. Eleven were sentenced to death.

While the Nuremberg trial is, these days, seldom invoked or discussed, it was, and still is, in the words of Tribunal President Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, unique in the history of the jurisprudence of the world. Among the most groundbreaking aspects were the drive to formally criminalize the three categories of crimes, and to establish responsibility by individuals for these crimes.

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