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Nuremberg Principles In Criminal Justice

1318 Words6 Pages

The “Nuremberg Principles” are a set of seven guidelines for what constitutes a war crime officially documented in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 177. These principles were developed and resulted from the Nuremberg trials that started in 1945 with the creation of the International Military Tribunal (IMT). Principle three will be the main focal point of this essay. Principle three entails the idea that heads of state and government officials can be tried under international law, if they are responsible for the acts that constitute a crime. In other words, they do not enjoy immunity from prosecution. I believe that the IMT and the subsequent Nuremberg trials developed principle three well, however they were in a favorable position …show more content…

He was primarily concerned with the internal affairs of the Nazi concentration camps. For example, he controlled at what time the prisoners ate and how much they ate. However, extermination of prisoners was not of his concern. Pohl was tried on the basis of count three and four as according to Article 6 of the IMT Charter and subsequently convicted on both to death by hanging. The trying of Oswald Pohl under the Control Council Law No.10 at the United States military tribunal shows that principle three was further developed for the lower ranking government officials as well. This suggests that for this case the United States military tribunal followed the precedent set by the IMT in successfully trying and convicting government …show more content…

To me, a correct approach in this situation means that there was the practice of prosecuting heads of states or government officials, but that this does not necessarily entail that those prosecuted must be convicted. It also does not mean that the IMT or the subsequent tribunals should only focus on those with a high-ranking position although they did set out to try the major war criminals as stated in Article 1 of the IMT Charter. Furthermore, if we look at the objectives of International Criminal Law, the idea to end impunity is one of them. It must be recognized with this objective that it is not possible to try everyone simply due to lack of resources and time. I believe that the tribunals provided for some justice and that there was a reasonable attempt to end impunity through the process of establishing principle three of prosecuting heads of states and government

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