World War II

People

Glossary

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Thesis

In response to World War Two, the Allies formed The International Military Tribunal, which sought to bring impartial judgment to Nazi war criminals and, by orchestrating The Nuremberg Trials, established a precedent for international justice. While the trials infringed upon some liberal principles of justice in their proceedings, these violations, paradoxically, were necessary in order to establish the rule of law in an international context. The Nuremberg Trials removed the tradition of victors’ justice, and instead gave universal legal recognition to human rights and left a responsibility for the international community to intervene through objective trials when these rights are violated.

Robert H. Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor

“Justice Jackson was the architect of the international trial process and then the chief prosecutor of the surviving Nazi leaders at Nuremberg, Germany.”
- Robert H. Jackson Center

Colonel Murray Bernays

"Murray C. Bernays was an American lawyer...and a colonel with the U.S. Army General Staff Corps in 1945…[who] planned the legal framework and procedures for the Nuremberg War Crime Trials, basing the trials on the legal foundation of conspiracy and publically trying the war crimes defendants through well established legal methods.”
- The Murray C. Bernays Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

“[US] President Franklin Roosevelt asked the War Department to devise a plan for bringing war criminals to justice.”
- Professor Douglas O. Linder, University of Missouri-Kansas Law School

Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928

“Treaty between the United States and other Powers providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy.”
- United States Statutes at Large

Summary execution

“A summary execution is an execution in which a person is killed instantaneously without a formal trial under the legal system or without any trial at all.”
- “The question of extra-judicial, arbitrary and summary executions,” University of Macedonia

International Military Tribunal (IMT)

“The London Agreement also established the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which was a panel of eight judges, two named by each of the four Allied powers. One judge from each country actively presided at trial, and the other four sat on the panel
as alternates. ”
- West's Encyclopedia of American Law

The Counts

Count 1: Conspiracy
Count 2: Crimes Against Peace
Count 3: War Crimes
Count 4: Crimes Against Humanity

The Atrocities of World War II

Waging Aggressive War

The Holocaust

Condemnation