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To the editor:
On Oct. 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg completed its work.
Twenty-two surviving members of the Nazi elite were charged with mass murder. Nineteen were convicted. The IMT created the foundations of modern international criminal law.
Eighty years later, this law is under assault by the U.S., Israel and Russia among other nations. Examples of this assault were on full display in September, when both President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly.
In their speeches, both leaders bragged and lied about their country’s violations of IHL and IL, including presumptive war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing, or never mentioned them.
President Trump threatened to “annihilate Iran” and attacked the ICC as “out of control," “anti-American," “an evil group” and a “rogue institution." Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier announced plans to “systematically disable” the International Criminal Court “brick by brick” and condemned “so-called international law."
It’s no surprise that the leaders of the U.S. and Israel are not in favor of international law.
The IMT established that atrocities were crimes against humanity and not just against victims: central to today’s human rights law. It’s found in the Genocide Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Eleanor Roosevelt championed, the Geneva Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the ICC.
The legal framework for prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes was created by the IMT, and its principles define the latter three above organizations.
The IMT also established that senior officials and heads of state can be prosecuted for international crimes and, codified in the IHL and the Rome Statute, it rejected the “just following orders” defense.
Both the U.S. and Israel are UN members and are legally bound by its charter that prohibits the use of force and the threat of force, obligates peaceful dispute resolution and respect for sovereign equality.
Both countries have repeatedly violated their obligations under the UN Charter.
Howard Elterman
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