SRMMUN 2020Cards against Humanity
Nikita Rebecca, reporting from the International Law Commission (ILC), opines on the short-comings of the Nuremberg trials.
The Nuremberg trials are considered to be one of the oldest and the most notable crime tribunals in history. This trial was composed of many phases, and was carried out in Nuremberg, Germany. The reporter would like to elaborate on the war crimes of Nazi Germany to aid in the better understanding of the failure of the Nuremberg trials. There are several aspects, that need to be dealt with, in the case of the Nuremberg trials, ranging from the efficiency of these trials to the legal intricacies.
The fall of Nazi Germany, began with Adolf Hitler committing suicide in his Berlin bunker on 30 April, 1945 [1]. This was followed by the Federal Republic of Germany (Germany), surrendering on all fronts on 8 May, 1945. Although, Hitler passed away, the unspeakable acts committed under his reign still lived on. During the World War II (WWII), the Germans committed systematic war crimes that included massacres, mass rape, looting, the exploitation of forced labor, and the mass murder of over millions of Soviet prisoners of war, and participated in the extermination of Jews. Gas chambers and concentration camps that housed men, women and children flourished in Nazi Germany. The state of the prisoners, living in these concentration camps was filthy and over-crowded. The depravity of these acts caught the attention of the international community.
Certain horrors deem to be too grave, to just turn and look the other way. This called for an elaborate legal tribunal or a criminal court, to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes. Amidst the differences in opinion and political inclination, there were a series of 13 trials that were held by the allied powers of Great Britain, the Republic of France (France), the United States of America (USA) and the Soviet Union. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the first joint declaration that was issued officially noted, the mass murder of European Jewry and resolving to prosecute those responsible for violence against civilian populations [2]. The crimes charged before the Nuremberg courts were crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes. The surviving high-ranking German leaders were tried for the crimes of Nazi Germany’s that included the crimes of the Holocaust. This trial took place before an International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, Germany. Judges from the Allied powers—Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—presided over the hearing of 22 major Nazi criminals, according to several sources. Subsequently, the United States of America conducted the 12 additional trials in Nuremberg of high-level officials of the German government, military, as well as medical professionals and leading industrialists. Some of the notable trials of the Nuremberg trials include the trials of the doctors, trials of the witches, trials of the lawyers etc.
Every judicial system has its own cracks and crevices that result in malfunctions and injustice. The reporter would like to point out the legal short-comings of the Nuremberg trials, with the help of suitable statistics. There were 199 defendants tried at Nuremberg, out of which only 161 were convicted and 37 were sentenced to death. This included 12 of those tried by the IMT. This shows that the punishment that was given to the perpetrators of these heinous acts were very subjective and poorly decided upon. Crimes like genocide, that constituted the Holocaust, were included in a few of the trials. Only the US trial of Einsatzgruppen leaders, focused mainly on the crimes during the time of Holocaust. In other trials, they were sidelined or dismissed. This brought out the inefficacy of the tribunal, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the guilt of the defendants. Another major factor that influenced these trials was in line with the previous observation. Most of the defendants mainly acknowledged that the crimes they were being accused of occurred but outright denied their own responsibility. Most of them claimed that they were following orders from a higher authority and were coerced into committing those crimes.
The failure of the Nuremberg trials also lies hugely on the fact that, only a very small portion of those accused of war crimes were tried. Those that held important positions in the Nazi government were either dead or on the run. Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, two of the most notable figures in the Holocaust, were missing at the trials. Adolf Hitler and several members of his inner circle had committed suicide in the final days of the war. Many more criminals were never tried, as they fled overseas. So this trial was definitely not a success, in terms of numbers either.
The Nuremberg trials continued to generate discussion in the legal world even today. Questions regarding the legitimacy of the tribunals and the appropriateness of individual verdicts they reached still raise more than a few eyebrows. It is true that the Nuremberg trials, is still the oldest and the most prolific historical trials, in the history of international law. There is no doubt, that these tribunals did shape the debates surrounding state responsibility. However, there were several aspects that lacked clarity. The cards against humanity were stacked up higher than ever in the courts of Nuremberg. But that did not stop them from crashing hard and fast.
(edited by Vaishnavi Deepak)
References: [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/10/world-war-ii-the-fall-of-nazi-germany/100166/ [2]: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nuremberg-trials