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.
These days, the
Nuremberg Trial is chiefly remembered for the prosecution and punishment
of individuals for genocide. Equally important at the time, however, was
the focus on wars of aggression. Thus, the first sentence of Justice
Jackson’s opening statement: “The privilege of opening the first trial
in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave
responsibility.”
Crimes against peace
and the responsibility for them were defined in Article 6, the heart of
the Charter of the IMT: “The tribunal…shall have the power to try and
punish persons who…whether as individuals or as members of
organizations, committed any of the following crimes...(a) 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…”
The desire was not
only to punish individuals for crimes but to set an international moral
and legal precedent for the future. Indeed, before the end of 1946, the
United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution 95 (1),
affirming “the principles of International Law recognized by the Charter
of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal.” And, of
course, the United Nations Charter forbids armed aggression and
violations of the sovereignty of any state by any other state, except in
immediate self defense (Article 2, Sec. 4 and Articles 39 and 51).
Invoking the precedent
set by the United States and its allies at the Nuremberg trial in 1946,
there can be no doubt that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a
war of aggression. There was no imminent threat to U.S. security nor to
the security of the world. The invasion violated the U.N. Charter as
well as U.N. Security Council Resolution #1441.
The Nuremberg
precedent calls for no less than the arrest and prosecution of those
individuals responsible for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with
President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, former
Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz.
Those who still
justify the invasion of Iraq would do well to remember the words of
Justice Jackson: “Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may
have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare
is an illegal means for settling these grievances or for altering these
conditions.”
And, for those who
have difficulty visualizing American leaders as defendants in such a
trial, Justice Jackson’s words again: “...(L)et me make clear that while
this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes,
and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn, aggression by
any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment...This
trial represents mankind’s desperate effort to apply the discipline of
the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the
foundations of the world’s peace and to commit aggression against the
rights of their neighbors.”
Peter Dyer is a machinist who moved with his wife from California to
New Zealand in 2004.
