Critical Flaws in International Law?

[Wien1938]

A controversial topic for intelligent discussion.

Were the Nuremburg Trials unfit to stand in law, and if so, what implications does this have for international law today?

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[Valiyn]

The trials weren't lawful and would never be held up as justice in a fair country. We only think of them as trials because we didn't like, and still don't like, those sentenced. Crimes were basically made up after the events, some that weren't crimes in Allied countries, along with unverified evidence and a non-impartial court.

Aside from the actual trials, I think the biggest flaw in International court is getting it accused to adhere. Examples include the US not cooperating post-trials to the war-crimes it's been found guilty of by international courts in the past.

[Ray9]

The real enigma about that situation is that they were given trials at all. Most of them should have been shot on sight. I believe it was determined that the trials were necessary to present all the facts to the rest of the world because the rest of the world was ignorant of most of the horrors that went on there.

[Night Runner]

The irony of the Nuremburg Trials was that both the judges and the accused were responsible for crimes against humanity. The bombing of Dresden, the unbelievable cover-up of Japan's Unit 731, etc... Winston Churchill said it best: "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." :uneasy:

Aside from the actual trials, I think the biggest flaw in International court is getting it accused to adhere. Examples include the US not cooperating post-trials to the war-crimes it's been found guilty of by international courts in the past.
Yes, but it's not just the US. The fundamental flaw is that the international law relies on full cooperation of all parties. That was the basic idea behind the United Nations, and the main cause for its laughable inefficiency. They can pass all the non-binding resolutions they want, but they lack the hard power to enforce them.

[Wien1938]

I honestly feel that the United Nations serves best as an international forum and channel of communications.
International Law is a nebulous concept because it does not have any of the forms of state law, which is tied to the twin notions of consent and authority - from whom is consent sought and to whom is authority (of enforcement) given?
I don't remember much fuss being raised over the Russian attack on Georgia, which (despite the protestations of Russian nationals) was not an exercise in national self-defence but an old fashioned and engineered war of aggression - explicitely outlawed in international law.
The question that arises from this (for me) is:

Does international law stand as binding if part of the contracting parties have or display no intention of abiding by those agreements?

[Arminius]

To be honest, I don't understand international law as a concept, particularly when it comes to so-called "war crimes". So, it is legal to gang up with your countrymen and go to another country to try and kill the inhabitants, but you have to follow special rules? I call bullshit. When you go to war, the only rule is to win. Everything else is a matter of internal policy and discipline on the parts of the involved organizations, those are the only laws that will end up being enforced anyway, might as well just limit ourselves to that.

I personally find the Nuremberg trials to be an exercise in arrogant self-righteousness on the part of the allies. We should have just owned up to the fact that we don't like Nazis and shot them for that reason. It would have been a lot more honest and would have saved a great deal of time.

As it stands, "international law" is stacked in favour of the great powers, and it makes sense, they are the ones who wrote the law after all. They follow the law when it is convenient, and ignore it when becomes an impediment to their interests. But ultimately, the only real law is what you can enforce, and that is where things get tricky.

[Mader]

Please, please tell me you aren't into history.

I will go with as far as the authority of International Law. It is valid as long as everyone wants to play by the same rules.

But Nuremburg was much much more than a trial such as we have in the American legal system. Most of the world did not know about the murders, the crimes that these men committed. Mengele operated on children with no anesthesia, he threw children and babies against the wall to kill them, injected them with poison, all in the name of science.

The trials brought the horrors of the war out in the open. They moved the world to declare that such horrors will not ever happen again. In America, we knew how many Americans died in the war, how many British died, but there was very very little knowledge of the Jews and the camps and the furnaces. The trials made this known.

Oh, and BTW, there are always trials for war crimes after the fighting has ended - WWII, Bosnia, Iraq, etc. Punishment? Revenge? not sure, but to question Nuremburg, to think of it as arrogant, just a bunch of folks who hated Nazi's..... Really, you need to read some boooks, good books about Germany, politics and social issues from 1900 on. Don't skip the parts about communism, socialism, progressivism, eugenics, nationalism and so on. The Nazi's were not just the losers in that war, Nazism was organized evil.

[Arminius]

Please, please tell me you aren't into history.

I will go with as far as the authority of International Law. It is valid as long as everyone wants to play by the same rules.

But Nuremburg was much much more than a trial such as we have in the American legal system. Most of the world did not know about the murders, the crimes that these men committed. Mengele operated on children with no anesthesia, he threw children and babies against the wall to kill them, injected them with poison, all in the name of science.

The trials brought the horrors of the war out in the open. They moved the world to declare that such horrors will not ever happen again. In America, we knew how many Americans died in the war, how many British died, but there was very very little knowledge of the Jews and the camps and the furnaces. The trials made this known.

Oh, and BTW, there are always trials for war crimes after the fighting has ended - WWII, Bosnia, Iraq, etc. Punishment? Revenge? not sure, but to question Nuremburg, to think of it as arrogant, just a bunch of folks who hated Nazi's..... Really, you need to read some boooks, good books about Germany, politics and social issues from 1900 on. Don't skip the parts about communism, socialism, progressivism, eugenics, nationalism and so on. The Nazi's were not just the losers in that war, Nazism was organized evil.
Did I say the Nazi's weren't any of the things you say? I know very well what led up to the war in Germany, I know very well what happened in the death camps, including Mengele's actions. But I also know what happened in Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. I know what happened in the Katyn Forest. I know we basically sold Eastern Europe and half of Germany to a man just as cruel and evil as Hitler. Yet, it was only the Nazi crimes that were punished. Selective justice is not justice. We put the Nazi's on trial, but did not hold ourselves to the same standard. Granted, the severity of "crimes" committed on the allied side was no where near the scale or cruelty of the Nazi's, but just because you put a murderer on trial does not mean you should let the burglar go. I also find it hard to believe that trials were necessary to make their actions known. Were we unable to make movies at that time? Were we unable to write? Did cameras not work in Auschwitz? Did the press disappear?

The "world" may declare an end to the horrors of war all it wishes, but it's deeds speak louder than it's empty declarations. Where was the world in Rwanda and Darfur? Ultimately, the horrors of Auschwitz cannot be prevented. They will happen again and again, of that I am sure. The victims and perpetrators will have different names and faces, but it will happen again. You recommend I read history books. That is good advice to anyone. I will indeed take it, but you should as well. You will see shades of Auschwitz throughout history, from the start of it's recording to the present day. The Nazi's were not organized evil, they were humans. A lot of people like to forget that, because what they did was so horrific it hurts to think humans could do it. But ultimately, they were just humans, not much different from you and me. We would like to think, "I could never do such a thing!", but can you honestly say that? Judging from history, it is astonishingly easy to get ordinary people to do horrific things. That is why I know it will happen again, as indeed it has. It is also why I think international law is dangerous. We gloss over, half-punish, or outright ignore our own sins and prosecute those of our enemies to the fullest severity, does that not strike you as dangerous and one sided? Best to simply admit we don't like Nazi's and shoot them than to become a self-righteous crusader who is self-declared as always right and just.

[Wien1938]

On this theme, there is a very good book by Omar Bartov called Murder In Our Midst about industrial killing. The potential for genocide or industrial mass murder is latent within humanity.

The Nazis executed were executed with good moral reason. If that was victor's justice, then so be it. But law is not a moral cause and to base the tenets of international law upon legally unsound trials calls into question the legal basis of international law.
For a law to be a law, it must apply to all under its jurisdiction. At present, most of the world has no intention of being bound by these rules.
So the question remains, upon what do we base the rules limiting the actions of states in the world?