The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated…
THE INTERRELATED PREDICATES AND PRECEDENTS OF JUST WAR AND NUREMBERG
In the first Nuremberg Trial, 22 war criminals went on trial of whom 12 were hanged. They were all charged with varying levels of responsibility for five interrelated, concomitant and mutually supporting crimes:
a) Launching and Waging Aggressive and Illegal War; which impliesand if proved supports a charge of:
b) Conspiracy to Launch and Wage Aggressive Illegal War (since no parties go to war without planning and giving asserted reasons );
c) Crimes Against Peace (which all illegal wars, launched and waged on the basis of illegal conspiracy, imply and entail ,per se);
d) Crimes Against Humanity (which charges a, b, c, imply and entail per se by virtue of the known horrors and effects of war) and:
e) War Crimes (no such right of “selfdefense” or “necessary measures” by those guilty of charges a, b, c, d, ).
At the time of the Nuremberg Trial, it was recognized that the foundation (sources, precedents and authorities) of “established” international law visavis the Nuremberg charges, was limited with respect to established principles and their widespread understanding, acceptance and application. This led to the charge by the defense at Nuremberg of the charges themselves representing a case of ex post facto: creating and applying legal principles, and even applicable international law, that did not exist at the time of alleged offenses having been committed. Thus, it was argued by the Defense that, at the time, the alleged offenses were not crimes however odious; and thus further, any prosecution would be an example of ex post facto.
The prosecution argued that in addition to established international law “(which evolves with customary use/acceptance” of certain principles; e.g. Conventions like the Hague Convention, Geneva Conventions etc) that established that the Nazis knew what they conspired to do and did was illegal, as attempts at coverup reveal mens rea and consciousness of guilt (no need to coverup what you believe to be clean only what you know to be dirty), there was also a body of established principles of “Just War” (JW) that the Nazis themselves had recognized. They, themselves, had actually referred to and made use of some of these JW principles in contriving the various phony pretexts that they employed for their own violations of those same principles in the various wars they launched and conducted. This is exactly what the Bush Administration does today.
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