The Nuremberg trial is a milestone in the development of international criminal law. The Nuremberg Trials have had a great impact on international criminal law as a whole. Crime against humanity was given a legal definition. For the first time in history, the pre-eminence of individual rights and their being subject to codified law was established, in an area which previously only recognized the rights of States. Fundamental principles which originated from the Nuremberg Trials include individual responsibility for international crimes, the right of the accused to a fair trial, the historic declaration whereby the position of a Head of State or a high level government official, does not guarantee immunity. For the first time in modern history, the leaders of a defeated country were indicted for committing serious crimes endangering the bases of peaceful coexistence among individual human beings and peoples: crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Finally, respect for human rights principles has now become universal. The Nuremberg Trials proved themselves to be innovating but were highly criticized and notably held to be victor’s justice. The Tribunal did not inscribe in its Charter exactions committed on the side of the Allies. But immediately after the Trials, Nuremberg became the basis for attempts to set up a permanent international court. As a result, the UN International Law Commission put forward the creation of a permanent court amongst its first proposals. The Convention against Genocide adopted in 1948 provided for the fact that this crime can be penalized before an international tribunal. Nuremberg trails laid the basic foundations for the later development of international criminal law. This term paper shows that, with its existence and principles the tribunal at Nuremberg has a great importance in creation of contemporary international criminal law.

"The Nuremberg Trials constituted a historic moment and a landmark in the development of international criminal law not just because of its primitive character but also its reflections on the creation of modern international criminal law. They gave rise to a new system of international criminal justice which includes national courts, ad hoc tribunals, mixed tribunals and finally the International Criminal Court. All of these institutions are rooted in Nuremberg. This article contends that, with its existence and principles the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg has a great importance in creation of contemporary international criminal law. Keywords International Criminal Law, International Criminal Justice, The Individual Criminal Responsibility, The Nuremberg Trials , The International Criminal Court, The Rome Statute, Military Tribunals, Ad Hoc Tribunals, The Nuremberg Principles, War Crimes. "

In our previous article on the "Evolution of International Criminal Tribunals", we mentioned that the Nazi regime that ruled Germany during the Second World War committed crimes of genocide and violations of humanitarian law. In this article, we will discuss the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal established in Nuremberg to try the Nazi authorities after the War. ... The documents are in the archives of the countries that established the court and some documents are not available on the internet. In order to make an evaluation by considering the conditions, possibilities and limitations of the period as a whole, it can be said that national archives, especially in the USA, should be examined by experts on the subject. However, in the light of the available data, there is no doubt that this court is a great step towards the realisation of the ideal of universal human rights. STRASAM link : bit.ly/3rFWxh2

This thesis analyzes the charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in the context of the Nuremberg Einsatzgruppen trial (1947-48) and the role that each charge played in the formation of modern international criminal law. Prior to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1945-46), international law was designed to govern the laws and customs of combat between sovereign states. However, the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II prompted contemporary legal thinkers to consider expanding the purview of international law in order to protect the human rights of civilians. On the eve of the International Military Tribunal, Hersch Lauterpacht minted the concept crimes against humanity for use in the courtroom. The new legal phrase was used to prosecute Nazis who had committed atrocities against civilians as part of a state-sponsored campaign. Around the same time, Raphael Lemkin devised the word genocide to refer to the intent to destroy an ethnic, racial, or religious group in whole or in part. The legal basis for the main Nuremberg Trial, Control Council Law No. 10, enabled each victorious Allied country to conduct their own series of trials against Nazi war criminals. American prosecutors conducted a series of twelve additional trials between 1946-49, which are now known as the subsequent Nuremberg proceedings (SNT). The Einsatzgruppen trial was the ninth SNT where American lawyers prosecuted twenty-two high-ranking officials who oversaw the murder of Polish and Soviet Jews by way of mass shootings. In this thesis, I argue that the Einsatzgruppen trial represented the most apparent legal confrontation with the crime of genocide to date. However, the processes and politics surrounding the Nuremberg trials made the formal prosecution of genocide virtually impossible during the time that the trial was taking place. Instead, crimes against humanity was used as the principle charge during the Einsatzgruppen trial. The difficulties encountered by American lawyers at Nuremberg provide a reflection of the challenges faced by modern-day human rights lawyers in securing convictions for the charge of genocide.