The Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials (The Pro and Contra in the Aspect of International Law)

By: Andi Ibrahim Ali

Background

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals that took place in Nuremberg from 1945-1949. This tribunals were about to prosecute the prominent figures from defeated Nazi regime. The initiators were the United States of America, United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. In 1943 the idea to bring the Germany to the International Military Tribunal to prosecute in charges of the war crime, crime against peace, conspiracy, and crime against humanity. The key defendants included Hermann Goering, Martin Bornmann, Rudolph Hess, and Joachim von Ribbentrop were there and of course they ascertained to get the punishment as the charges.

Even the Nuremberg trial was already passed; the pro and the contra still make this tribunal a hot debate. The unclear law basis, the idealistic and the realistic describe about the tribunal should be ran or not.

In the first trial, 22 of the most senior Nazi leaders face prosecution. Twelve of them were sentenced to death, seven others received long prison sentences and another three were acquitted. This trial was followed by twelve further trials of 177 people altogether, of whom 24 were sentenced to death.  

The writers here are gonna help the readers to open mind about the Nuremberg Trial. The writers will show how the paths before the trial was held in Nuremberg, from years to years until the trial officially started. About the debate between the pro and the contra in arguing the trial, and which theories are actually becoming the basis of the debate.

Timeline

Jan, 13. 1943          : International Trial to prosecute the criminal under Nazi.

Oct, 30. 1943          : Moscow Declaration (2 types of Criminals)

a.     Commit Crime in one sole location

b.     Commit crime in several different locations

Nov 28- Dec 2 1943 : Conference in Tehran (Iran). It was attended by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and USSR leader Stalin. The results of the conference were:

a.     Roosevelt : Executions after the trials

b.     Stalin       : Mass executions for the German Officers

c.     Churchill  : Rejected the mass executions but adherent to the      idea of summary

Feb, 4-11 1945      : Yalta Conference (Concerning the punishment of war criminals) President Truman rejected Churchill’s proposal (Summary executions)

May, 2 1945          : Robert Jackson was nominated as the chief prosecutor by President Truman, and officially he prepared the trial.

June, 5 1945          : Declaration of Defeat

a.     Assumption of complete authority by allied power to bring criminal without any delay.

b.     The Tribunal approaches had not agreed.

June, 20 1945        : American delegates negotiated with the British and the alliances (French and Soviet Union) about the number of trial and content of the bill of indictment. The American delegation preferred a trial centred on the “Nazi conspiracy”, meaning that the accent would be on the crime of aggression with a limited number of defendants and with limited, but decisive proof, as well as on the indictment of certain organizations. The British wanted a quick trial to be concluded in less than two weeks.

                             Negotiations with the French and Soviet delegations proved to be more complicated. The USSR immediately expressed its disagreement over the procedure and the nature of the crimes. The French, just like the Soviets, wished to put the accent on war crimes and the suffering endured by the people, and not on the “crime against peace” as put forward by the Americans.

Aug, 2 1945           : American proposition accepted by Stalin in Potsdam Conference. The indictment was about the aggression of Nazi.

Aug, 8 1945           : All the alliances parties United States of America, British, France and Soviet Union signed London Agreement (Nuremberg Charter) as the charter of international military tribunal.

Oct, 18 1945          : The trials were held in Nuremberg as the refusal of USA to hold the trial in the city of ex occupied by Soviet Union. [1]

The Pro and the Contra

Many debates came from this trials because even the international law scholars. They thought about the Nazi punishment supposed to be not there and another said vice versa. The writers will elaborate more about the contra first. What was the argument about the contradictive thought.

The Contra

The contra about the IMT Nuremberg was based on the Legal Positivism theory. Legal positivists make some distinctive claims about what constitutes legal validity. It is difficult to improve on the following introduction offered by Leslie Green: "Whether a society has a legal system depends on the presence of certain structures of governance, not on the extent to which it satisfies ideals of justice, democracy, or the rule of law. What laws are in force in that system depends on what social standards its officials recognize as authoritative; for example, legislative enactments, judicial decisions, or social customs. The fact that a policy would be just, wise, efficient, or prudent is never sufficient reason for thinking that it is actually the law, and the fact that it is unjust, unwise, inefficient or imprudent is never sufficient reason for doubting it. According to positivism, law is a matter of what has been posited (ordered, decided, practiced, tolerated, etc); as we might say in a more modern idiom, positivism is the view that law is a social construction.[2]

Based on John Austin on legal positivism that he claims the existence of law depends on its sources and not on its merits. It merely states that the existence of law may not depend on morality.[3] It is clear the legal positivism disagree with the IMT Nuremberg. Another explanation came from Prof. Dr. Muladi S.H that wrote in Peradilan Hak Asasi Manusia Dalam Konteks Nasional dan Internasional because of the crime already committed before the Nuremberg Charter being compiled, and then it made a big debate as based on the “ex post facto criminalization.” The ex post facto law also called rectroactive law, in the writers language that means the law that could change the law consequences, because the law was made based on the issues that happened before. In the other words and in the linkages with the legal positivism, the ex post facto law could “violate” the criminal law. Moreover it raised a comment from one of the defendants Joachim von Ribbentrop that said “you’ll see. A few years from now the lawyers of the world will condemn this trial. You cannot have a trial without the law.” (Gilbert, 1995 p.36). U.S. federal judge, Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr. in “Nuremberg: A Fair Trial?,” argues against the trials based on a concept of justice predicated upon an assertion that, despite the immoral acts committed by the defendants, the trials did not cohere with established legal principles, such as ex post facto principles. The debate in the contradictive perspective of the trial was because it supposed no based law on the Nuremberg Trials. The legal positivism empirically sees it like this.

The Pro  

In “Opening Address for the U.S., Nuremberg Trials,” Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials, argued for the validity of the trials based on a concept of justice predicated upon an assertion of an absolute right and wrong. Jackson argued against the claims that the charges against the defendants were illegitimate ex post facto laws. He also argued Germany participated in international conventions which “prescribed certain restraints as to the treatment of belligerents” and “certain immunities for civilian populations” occupied by a foreign army. It was not true that the Charter was new law, not authoritatively declared at the time; the acts were committed and unknown to the defendants. The Charter created for the trials was based on such international conventions.[4]

From the explanations above from the Chief of prosecutor at the trials, we can see the based theory was the Natural Law. Natural law (God’s Law) is a law or body of laws that derives from nature and is believed to be binding upon human actions apart from or in conjunction with laws established by human authority.[5] Natural law links to the moral, the intrinsic morality of law. Many scholars such Aquinas speak of law requiring adherence to morality. Laws which are contrary to morality are illegitimate. Immoral actions require punishment under the law. An immoral action protected by law is not justice. Morality is law. Law is necessarily moral and justice is adherence to morality.

Another debate that agreed with the trials was come from the Hague convention and 1928 Kellog-Briand Pact in the based on crimes against peace. Besides that, it was said that if the prohibition of criminal in retroactive way based on justness, then it would be more unjust when the Nazi’s criminals were not being punished.

Conclusion

The pro and contra in the Nuremberg trial was just like a drama in the global political game. The alliances got the victory against the Nazi. Even many scholars still think that it was victor’s justice[6] but imagine if the Nuremberg trial was not initiated. The condition of the world nowadays would be change through the different history also.

The point is; the pro and the contra came up with their own law theory. The contra was with the legal positivist and the pro side with the natural law theory. Jackson argued the Nuremberg trials would best serve justice based on a conception of justice involving the natural law theory. Wyzanski argued not having the trials would best serve justice based on a conception of justice involving legal positivism. Under natural law theory, ex post facto principles could be violated, leading to infringement on liberty. However, while legal positivism preserves ex post facto principles, it could allow harmful acts to go unpunished or allow for an unacceptable alternate system of justice. It seems either option could lead to an injustice.

It should be admitted that whatever the argumentations about the Nuremberg Trial, it had created the precedents which could penetrate the principle of legality which is very useful for the next era in the applying the international criminal law (Kittichaisarre, 2001).

Work Cite

http://www.trial-ch.org/en/resources/tribunals/international-military-tribunals/tribunal-militaire-international-de-nuremberg/creation.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-positivism/

http://www.lawteacher.net/jurisprudence/essays/legal-positivism-of-law.php

http://www.roberthjackson.org/the-man/speeches-articles/speeches/speeches-by-robert-h-jackson/opening-statement-before-the-international-military-tribunal/

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/natural+law

Austin, John. “Legal Positivism.” Adams, David M. Philosophical Problems in the Law. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012.

Jackson, Robert H. “Opening Address for the U.S., Nuremberg Trials.” Adams, David M. Philosophical Problems in the Law. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012.

Kittichaisaree, Kriangsak, International Criminal Law, Oxford University Press, 2001

Muladi, Demokratisasi, HAM, dan Reformasi Hukum di Indonesia, The Habibie

Center,2002

 Wyzanski, Jr., Charles E. “Nuremberg: A Fair Trial?” Adams, David M. Philosophical Problems in the Law. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012.

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[1] http://www.trial-ch.org/en/resources/tribunals/international-military-tribunals/tribunal-militaire-international-de-nuremberg/creation.html

[2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-positivism/

[3] http://www.lawteacher.net/jurisprudence/essays/legal-positivism-of-law.php

[4] http://www.roberthjackson.org/the-man/speeches-articles/speeches/speeches-by-robert-h-jackson/opening-statement-before-the-international-military-tribunal/

[5] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/natural+law

[6] Victor’s justice: justice by the own basis of applying different rules to judge the wrong and right for their own forces and for their former enemy.

Me, what's wrong with me?

Me.....
The world does run without me
Why me?
I'm no one
If you take a look at me, what do you see?
Fake???
Am I always fake?
why i did something wrong. I have a girl and i did something wrong. It changed almost everything.
why I always screwed up???
is this me?
and why me did this?
I don't even know what I am.
Loser or Winner?

For God sake, I really love her. I don't want to end this beautiful relationship.
please "Me" do something right, something proper
and well, this is me, more or less



me...

why always USA?

Introduction

As we already know that United States of America is a super power country, with the strong economic, military and other aspects that required becoming a super power country. How did they start this hegemony power? One big question that should be answer, and in this past 2 years, the hegemony economy of United States of America was being unrivaled by China. Can the hegemonic power fall? I’ve always maintained that the United States’ rule as supreme superpower would come to an end economically, rather than militarily. When we consider the world’s history, it’s always notable that the time frames of any superpower, or subsequent world ruler, is becoming shorter and shorter. Initially, the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks had their time, and were the benchmark in all that was progressive and successful for thousands of years. More recently, the Spanish, British and a number of other European nations filled this gap, although only for a couple of hundred years. The British were more successful than the others due to their willingness to wage war when they wanted something, often culminating in tensions on the European mainland even though the dispute raged in other parts of the world.

One of the reasons was the strategic military position Britain had in relation to the rest of Europe, being more impenetrable due to them being an island; something even the modern Germans learnt on the hard way. When political pressure in favour of de-colonization started to emerge in the 20^th century, the Britt’s had the brains to render their conquered lands back to the locals... on their terms. Sure, they always had a war or military incident raging somewhere in the world, but that is a natural appearance considering the amount of ground that had to be defended. The Americans saw this, and used the same principle by applying economics. In contrast to the British and Romans, their rule was but for a couple of decades.

Why always United States of America if we want to compare the economic power from each state in the world? Maybe the history can tell everything, from the Christopher Colombus era until now. From the time that he found the new world until that new world becomes the supreme ruler in the world. How about Japan, how about Germany, which both of them are the big industrial states, and also they are, developed countries. And this is the ironic part of the history; both of them are the allies of the supreme ruler United States of America.

Should we as Indonesian people apply the same economy system that America has already applied? I don’t think so. The downturn of American economy is ongoing. Moreover Indonesia is a developing country; we are still being “raped” by big states like them. Another thing is Indonesia suitable if we use Keynesianism? Or economic liberal like USA did. Imaginaries economy like United State of America did, with the shares and else.

Indonesia supposes to be strong in order to face the globalization; we must have the blue print on order to make it as the base to make Indonesia a prosperous country. But sadly we don’t have such a blue print, because UUD 1945 and Pancasila, both of them are not sufficient to bring our lovely country Indonesia to become hegemony.

History

In this section, I will elaborate more about the United States of America after World War II history. These are about the building system, which is happened in 40’s until 50’s, growth period, from circa 1950-1973, crisis period, 1973-1980, globalization, and the last the strengthen the link of globalization.

1.     Building System

 If we talk about United States of America in economic sector, as I said before, we will see USA as the embryo, because believe it or not United States of America has made the world economic order. The United States of America seemed very clever in reading the situation of the world after the World War II. Before World War II, the economic system of United States of America was closed economic system. They did not want to go out before they strengthen the economic power.

After the World War II, many countries fell down because the drawbacks of the war. They just like had serious wounds that very hard to heal. But the United States of America came and gave the aids to the actors of World War II. But before go to the aids, United States of America and United Kingdom made one great step in order to make the economics of USA go worldwide or become the order of economic world.

The spirit of liberalism and also mercantilism pushed United States of America to increase the economic transaction based on the same access condition in the market. The conference was held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The conference produced the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and General agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The aims of the Bretten Woods conference were first, to decrease the tariff and other barriers in international trade, and the second to normalize and create the economic conflict.

The general agreement on tariff and trade was the embryo of the WTO (World Trade Organization). It established in January 1 1995 through the Uruguay Round. The WTO was established with the long negotiation, and the negotiation took until seven years.

In this part, the building system, the United States of America also applied the economic system called Keynesianism. What is Keynesianism? It is an economic theory that John Maynard Keynes had created. Keynesianism is a mixed economic system, which is the private and public sector have a important role in doing the economic. The aims were to accelerating public works programs, easing credit, and reducing taxes. In 1969, the Republican President Richard Nixon proclaimed that “I am Keynesianism.”

Actually there are so many program that USA planned. It is clear that the United States of America really want to concur the world. It was proved in the New Frontier of America.

2.     Growth Period

In the growth period the United States of America tried to go outside/ abroad. They helped the victim of the World War II. One easy example is the Marshall Plan. Before there was a European Union, there was a steel and coal community in Europe. Marshall Plan came from the State Secretary of United States of America named George Marshall.

The political effects of the Marshall Plan may have been just as important as the economic ones. Marshall Plan aid allowed the nations of Western Europe to relax austerity measures and rationing, reducing discontent and bringing political stability. The communist influence on Western Europe was greatly reduced, and throughout the region communist parties faded in popularity in the years after the Marshall Plan. The trade relations fostered by the Marshall Plan helped forge the North Atlantic alliance that would persist throughout the Cold War. At the same time, the nonparticipation of the states of Eastern Europe was one of the first clear signs that the continent was now divided.

The European countries believed that the integrity in Europe, between the European states was very important in order to help each other because of the similar of the identity. Like the constructivism itself, many organizations establish because of the similarity of the identity. Back to the European Union, the Marshall Plan also helped the European community from the steel and coal community, changed to the European Union. The Marshall Plan linked into the Bretten Wood System, also mandated free trade throughout the region.

3.     Crisis Period

During the October 1973 Arab and Israel war, the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced an embargo against the United States in response to the United States of America decision to resupply the Israeli military during the war. OPEC members also extended the embargo to other countries that supported Israel. The embargo both banned petroleum exports to the targeted nations and introduced cuts in oil production. Several years of negotiations between oil producing nations and oil companies had already destabilized a decades-old system of oil pricing, and thus the OPEC embargo was particularly effective.

Because of the war, the price of oil per barrel could be double or quadruple. The need of the oil for the America’s alliances became really bad. They could not afford the higher price and because that, many European states and also Japan as the America’s alliances triggered the rift within the Atlantic alliances. To complicate the situation, OPEC had linked an end to the embargo to successful U.S. efforts to create peace in the Middle East.   

4.     Globalizations

In this globalization, the United States of America did a liberalization of the trade. In this era also, the World Trade Organization came up. Not only that, there were also the global associations or regional associations which were focusing in economic sector. For examples are the NAFTA, SAFTA, GCC etc.

In this era, in my opinion United States of America supposed to be aware of the others, especially in economic sector. The new rivals will arise to become another super power in economic sector. The raise of China and others like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

5.     Strengthen the Link of Globalization

United States of America should strengthen their link of Globalization. Believe it or not, the super power will fall, and the new order will rise up. We see right now, China dominate the economic sector, and the United States of America looked like a fever man who try to get up again.

Analysis

The wind no longer blows to the west. It means that the United States of America become weaker and weaker. If we see from the military, or the other side except economic, the United States of America seems very strong, and no doubt, many people believe that the US still has their legitimacy, they are still super power. But in economic sector, the rise of the China, and other like BRICS could knock down the economy of America.

China has so called Dragon Machiavellian which means that China will strengthen the military power in order to kick the US out from Pacific. And also Beijing Consensus which is argued by Joshua Ramo that, China will offer the countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America economy and infrastructure aids with the political support in return. Ramo argues that China offers hope to developing countries after the collapse of the Washington consensus. It provides a more equitable paradigm of development that countries from Malaysia to Korea are following.

Actually the United States of America should be aware also in military power. Like I said before, China will strengthen their military power in order to kick America out from pacific. Kenneth Waltz argued that “when a state has a good economic gravity, then the military of the country itself will be increase and become much stronger.”

Is this the beginning of the fallen king of the world, the king will be fallen by the new power? Many expertises like John J Merzheimer believed that the bipolar will be much more stable than the multipolar or unipolar. Because the other developing countries will try to bandwagoning the super power states, let’s say United States of America and China. The result will be zero sum game like what defensive realism said.  The president of United States of America Barack Obama is a clever president. His policy called “wait and see” policy is maybe a good way to survive in order to keep his legitimacy.

Conclusion

From the title “why always USA” actually shows the question of many people that don’t understand why we always take a look to united States of America, and not other states or maybe our own state. The United States of America had started a great step in order to make the economy order in the world. Their efforts were successful and those are the prove that the geniuses of the U.S expertise. 

If I see the problem of the European Union about the crisis within the organization, and if we also take a look in the history about Marshall Plan, in the fact, where is the USA? Why USA did not help in order to solve the crisis within the EU? There are so many question that we can ask. Is that because the economy condition in United States of America is falling, that’s why they don’t help EU, or maybe the crisis was made by USA in order to make a situation. Because I believe, conflict, crisis can be set up by someone who has the power. And now, who has the power?

If we see the condition of the world right now, we see USA and China are the threatening each other, but I believe that they have a “bad affair” behind the fact, because they have a scenario in order to keep their legitimacy or to keep their power.