The Legal Moment in International History: Global Perspectives on Doing Law and Writing History in Nuremberg and Tokyo, 1945–1948. Introduction (original) (raw)
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Among many texts that had been written about the Nuremberg Trial, from different academic perspectives, this paper aims to historically contextualize the creation and conduction of the first grand international criminal court in History. A background of strong symbolism, controvert discourses and political need to signpost a quick and exemplary solution for the destination of Germany's Nazi leaders is analyzed through statements, legislation and trial records. The narrative highlights the ambient of choosing procedural rules, targets and criminal principles of the court that represented a watershed in what jurists understand as international criminal law nowadays. It therefore dialogues with other studies concerning the Trial in historiography and international law and then concludes, in short, that if any obvious connection between Nuremberg's International Criminal Law and politics is proposed, it is made forcefully, due to the openly presented contradictions and difficulties in every decision.
European Journal of International Law, 2010
When the international criminal tribunals were convened in Nuremberg and Tokyo in the mid-1940s, the response from lawyers was mixed. Some believed that the Second World War was an exceptional event requiring special legal remedies, and commended the tribunals for advancing international law. Others condemned them for their legal shortcomings and maintained that some of the charges were retroactive and selectively applied. Since then, successive generations of commentators have interpreted the tribunals in their own ways, shaped by the conflicts and political concerns of their own times. The past two decades have seen the establishment of new international courts, and an accompanying revival of interest in their predecessors at Nuremberg and Tokyo. Recent commentaries have analysed the founding documents, the choice of defendants, the handling of the charges, the conduct of the casesand also the legal and political legacies of the tribunals. They demonstrate that long-standing disagreements over antecedents, aims and outcomes have still not been settled, and that the problems inherent in some of the original charges have still not been solved, despite the appearance of similar charges within the remit of the International Criminal Court today.