The Enemy and the Nuremberg Principles

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he Enemy and the Nuremberg Principles

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_19679.shtml

 

The Enemy and the Nuremberg Principles

By Robert Thompson

Sep 19, 2005, 23:13

 

 

Editor's Note: Robert Thompson, an Axis of Logic columnist, has served

as an international lawyer since the 1960s. He continues to consult as

a patron with the pan-European charity Fair Trials Abroad (FTA). The

FTA helps European Union citizens facing trial in jurisdictions other

than their own. He has never stopped studying and reflecting upon many

aspects of international law, both public and private. As an authority

on international law, we have asked him to write an opinion regarding

the possible criminality of George Walker Bush, et. al. The reader

will find more about Mr. Thompson's biography and a link to his column

at the end of this article. - LMB

 

The Enemy and the Nuremberg Principles

 

By Robert Thompson

 

As we all should know, one of the first significant acts of the infant

United Nations Organisation was the setting up of the Nuremberg

Tribunal to try former Nazi high officials.

 

Everyone agreed, as they now do, to say that we should oppose

terrorism, that something had to be done about such vile crimes, but

it was necessary first to define the offences which were alleged to

have been committed.

 

The Nuremberg Principles

 

These definitions had been framed to serve as the foundation for the

Tribunal which was to be set up in Nuremberg (in German, Nuernberg), a

highly significant choice of place since it had served as the site for

some of Adolf Hitler's biggest popular triumphs. It was at Nuremberg

that Hitler managed to persuade the German people to follow his

criminal path. As a result, the rules were called the " Nuremberg

Principles " (hereinafter each individually called a " Principle "

together with its number). They remain valid as the simple basis for

our understanding of what are the most serious crimes under

international law.

 

We now have to oppose terrorism, including massive state terrorism,

which makes one ask whether or not the old definitions, dating from

1946, would apply to today's circumstances, with particular reference

to the behaviour of the leaders and high officials of nations which

are members of the United Nations.

 

Three particular crimes are defined in Principle VI, namely:

 

(a) Crimes against Peace:

 

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war of

aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements

or assurances ;

 

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the

accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

 

(b) War crimes:

 

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are

not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labour

or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied

territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on

the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property,

wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not

justified by military necessity;

 

© Crimes against humanity:

 

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman

acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on

political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or

such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with

any crime against peace or any war crime.

 

Principle VII adds:

 

Complicity in a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime

against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under

international law.

 

There we see what are considered to be crimes against international

law unanimously accepted by the United Nations Organisation, but we

also want to know who can be considered to have committed such crimes

and this point is covered in Principles I to IV, which state:

 

Principle I

 

Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under

international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.

 

Principle II

 

The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which

constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the

person who committed that act from reponsibility under international law.

 

Principle III

 

The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime

under international law acted as Head of State or responsible

Government official does not relieve him from reponsibility under

international law.

 

Principle IV

 

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of

a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under

international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

 

Dealing with persons accused of such crimes is dealt with in Principle

V which provides :

 

Any person charged with a crime under international law has the

right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

 

The Record of the Bush Administration

 

There are insistent voices raised around the world regarding potential

criminality among the present administration in the United States of

America (hereinafter referred to as the " USA " ), and we therefore have

to go back over the history of this administration which has been in

power, after a very dubious election and with certain fairly minor

modifications, since January 2001.

 

This administration team (to which I shall hereinafter refer as the

" Bush Administration " ) came to power in the USA with aims which had

previously been drawn up by an amorphous group of persons and

interests commonly and conveniently known as the " neo-conservatives " ,

or " neo-cons " for short. The Bush Administration still holds absolute

power over the finances, the armed forces and the liberties of the USA.

 

Among the aims for the Bush Administration, prepared well in advance

of the election, the neo-cons had made detailed plans to invade Iraq,

which they saw as being the place where there were enormous reserves

of oil, and with whose unpleasant ruler the USA, under Mr George H.W.

Bush, had fallen out for reasons which remain unclear. This

disagreement can be the subject of further study, but we are here

considering the present Bush Administration, and must not go off at a

tangent.

 

We await with some impatience a future full and careful investigation

into the events leading up to the horrors of 11th September 2001, but

what is certain is that the Bush Administration showed weakness and

stupidity in its reaction, even if it did not, contrary to the belief

of some, fully understand what had happened. For those of us living in

countries where violent terrorist activity had for many years been

financed and armed either by the government of the USA or, with its

benevolent permission, by highly organised groups of persons based in

the USA, this seems odd, but this did not lessen our sadness and

sorrow at the hideous waste of innocent life in New York and

elsewhere. Although ordinary citizens in the USA and their successive

governments seem to have allowed such activities to continue against

others for so long, we are not so vicious as to look upon their being

visited upon the USA as a just retribution.

 

However, after a few days of vacillation, the Bush Administration

decided to use these attacks by persons unconnected with Iraq, where

they were ruthlessly kept powerless, as an excuse to carry out their

long-planned war against the Country. They used dubious Iraqi exiles,

including the infamous Mr Ahmed Chalaby, still sought by Jordan for an

affair of bank fraud, to persuade influential people to believe that

invading troops would be received with flowers. They deliberately

ignored the expert advice and opinion which was available in order to

obtain the agreement of doubting fellow members of the Administration

and almost every legislator in the USA to their schemes.

 

We now come to the question of possible criminality on the part of

leading members of the Bush Administration, including the President

himself, and we have to examine what happened and which provisions

apply to them. I have many years experience of criminal law in both

France and in England and also of international law, but none whatever

of the internal law in the USA, whether Federal or in any individual

state, since I have never crossed the Atlantic. I propose therefore to

limit myself to the Nuremberg Principles, as a touchstone of what is a

crime under international law, and leave matters of municipal law to

lawyers qualified in the USA.

 

The Defendents

 

I have taken a handful of those involved as specimens rather than

examining the record of every person within the Bush Administration,

for the simple reason that I do not know enough about so many of the

persons under general public accusation, so I have limited these

comments to the following:

 

* George Walker Bush

 

* Mr Richard Cheney

 

* Mr Colin Powell

 

* Mr Donald Rumsfeld

 

* Mr Paul Wolfowitz

 

* Dr Condoleezza Rice

 

The Crimes

 

Taking first the offences defined in Principle VI, the known facts as

reported (even by their supporters in the media) lead to the

inevitable conclusion that, although there is doubt about the guilt of

Mr Colin Powell, the others were all involved in :

 

(a) Crimes against peace, in that they planned, prepared,

initiated and waged a war of aggression against Iraq in violation of

the international agreement as contained in clearly worded Security

Council Resolutions ;

 

(b) War crimes, in that they were party to the ill-treatment and

deportation of civilians, and prisoners of war, such as those who

were, and still are, sent to Guantanamo Bay from Afghanistan and

elsewhere - they were also all involved in the destruction of cities,

towns and villages in Iraq. It is probable that this also includes the

use in Abu Ghraib of methods applied at Guantanamo Bay to break down

the morale of prisoners.

 

© Crimes against humanity, in that they were involved in the the

murder and extermination of civilians in Iraq, as in Fallujah, and the

deportation of civilians from Afghanistan and elsewhere to Guantanamo Bay.

 

It seems unnecessary to go into further details of their crimes, since

they have even boasted of what they have done and taken full

responsibilty for them.

 

It is then appropriate to turn to their possible guilt under Principle

VII, where things look even worse. Here even Mr Powell seems to have

become as guilty as the others, perhaps out of misguided loyalty - but

that could only be the basis for a plea in mitigation rather than for

a defence as to guilt.

 

All the suggested defendants have colluded in the crimes committed in

Iraq and against people captured in Afghanistan or elsewhere, and are

thus guilty under the Principle.

 

In addition, over a much longer period, they have all been guilty of

complicity in the crimes committed by the Zionist invaders, with whom

Mr Wolfowitz is perhaps the most closely implicated, against the

indigenous people of Palestine.

 

GWB has even gone so far as to describe the well-known criminal, Mr

Ariel Sharon (who is guilty of almost every crime defined in

Principles VI and VII), as a " man of peace " , which would in the case

of a man of normal intelligence require a great deal of explanation on

his part. In mitigation, it would no doubt be pleaded that he never

understood that there was a difference between a war of aggression and

peace, but that would be on the basis of diminished responsibility

since it would be virtually impossible to argue on behalf of GWB a

total lack of guilt.

 

In other words, I consider that the persons listed are all guilty of

very serious crimes as defined in the Nuremberg Principles, and I

would be happy to see them brought before the International Criminal

Court in the Hague, which the USA quite understandably refuses to

recognise. Among their accomplices outside the USA, it would be

appropriate to include both Mr Sharon and Mr Anthony Blair, neither of

whom appears to have any conscience when it comes to giving massive

support to state terrorism by the USA or the Zionists.

 

For the sake of clarity, I would confirm that I cannot see any reason

not to include the actions of all these persons in the definition of

the terrorism against which the United Nations have agreed to fight.

 

I therefore leave it to any who are so kind as to read these lines to

judge whether or not these persons as criminals under international law.

 

© Copyright 2005 by AxisofLogic.com

 

*Robert Thompson is a columnist on Axis of Logic. His writings can be

found in " Letters from France " . He is a French citizen, is a retired

Avocat (Trial Lawyer) at the Boulogne-sur-Mer Bar, living with his

wife in a small village in Northern France. He was born at Leek (North

Staffordshire, England) in 1931, and, after reading Jurisprudence at

Oxford University, he became an English Solicitor. He later went to

work at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. There he was in charge of the Legal Department and also Secretary General

of the Court of Arbitration, the most important international

commercial arbitration centre on the world. While there, he became the

I.C.C. Director in charge of relations with the Arab states, where he

travelled for professional reasons, and he worked towards legal

cooperation with the countries then within the Comecon.

 

Read additional articles on Axis of Logic's Enemy Series:

 

The Enemy Next Door

Paul Harris, -Axis of Logic

 

Our Neighbor - The Enemy

Carlos Herrera - writing from Caracas, -Axis of Logic

 

Who is the Enemy?

Les Blough, -Axis of Logic

 

Astonishing the Enemy

Gary Steven Corseri, -Axis Featured Poem