Blogpost by Dorothee Alberts
When on 20 November 1945 the opening session of the International Military Tribunal (IMT)[1] was being held in Nuremberg by the four Allied Powers — the United States of America, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union — it was clear to many of the participants that they were witnessing history in the making.[2]
In the dock were the twenty-one members of the Nazi elite that were still alive and had been successfully captured; another defendant was being prosecuted in absentia. Those men were widely assumed to have been the masterminds of the regime that was responsible for millions of deaths through war and mass persecution during the Holocaust for more than a decade prior to the capitulation of Nazi Germany. Through the power of their political and military ranks as well as their role in the propaganda machine of the Third Reich they were seen as the driving force behind the regime.[3] The defendants were indicted for crimes of which some had never been tried before: (1) common plan or conspiracy; (2) crimes against peace; (3) war crimes; and (4) crimes against humanity.[4] The possibility of also prosecuting the newly introduced legal concept of the crime of genocide was fiercely debated, but it was only during the subsequent trials at Nuremberg against even more perpetrators from the Nazi regime that this crime was included in a legal case for the first time. Aside from the newness of the legal crimes for which the defendants were being prosecuted, the IMT was also the first tribunal in history in which the reference to a higher order could not be used as a legal defense, nor would the previously common immunity for high ranking state organs be granted.[5]
While the indictment of the tribunal at Nuremberg led to what is widely seen as the birth of today’s International Human Rights Law, it also turned out to be the Achilles heel of the trial’s legitimacy and reputation. The lack of a legal precedent as well as binding written laws which the prosecutors at the tribunal could have used as reference has opened the doors to criticism that to some degree persists until today.[6] Being aware of the risk that came along with the undertaking, the creators of the tribunal saw it as a calculated risk they were willing to take. In his historic opening speech to the IMT the American Chief Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson stated what was the conviction of the creators of the tribunal: “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.“[7] Due to this felt urgency the creators of the IMT were determined to establish a legal precedent which they hoped would serve as a deterrent to future crimes of this scale.[8]
Clearly, the anticipated deterring effect has been limited, as the numerous atrocities which have been committed in the eight decades since the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg show. And yet, despite the backlash and criticism, the ongoing impact of the IMT on the evolution of International Law and the Human Rights is undeniable. Since its conclusion in 1946 multiple trials have been held, charging perpetrators for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide regardless of the ranks the perpetrators held at the time of the crime. Apart from the subsequent Nuremberg trials more tribunals such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as well as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda are testaments to the long-lasting effect of the IMT. Moreover, the tribunal’s legacy can be seen as a driving force for the successful creation of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In short, the IMT has paved the way for countless investigations into breaches of International Human Rights Law and in numerous cases for their successful prosecution — a legacy the creators of the IMT hoped for but could only dream of eighty years ago. In a time when the international human rights system faces profound strain, the Nuremberg legacy endures as a beacon — affirming both the necessity and the possibility of holding power to account.
[1] The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg is commonly known as the first one of the so called Nuremberg trials, of which thirteen were held in total. In this text “International Military Tribunal“, “IMT“ and “tribunal at Nuremberg“ are all interchangeably referring to the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.
[2] See: Telford Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy, New York 1970. p. 80; Whitney R. Harris: Justice Jackson at Nuremberg, 20 International Lawyer (1986) 867-896, p. 867.
[3] See: Memorandum to President Roosevelt from the Secretaries of State and War and the Attorney General, January 22, 1945, in: Report of Robert H. Jackson United States Representative to the International Conference on Military Trials, London 1945, Department of State, Publication 3080, International Organization and Conference Series II, European and British Commonwealth 1, Released February 1949, pp. 3-9, p. 4.
[4] See: Indictment against Hermann Goering et al., https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/count.asp, last access: 17 November 2025.
[5] See: Article 8 and Article 7 respectively of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/imtconst.asp, last access: 18 November 2025.
[6] For the criticism of the IMT see for example Howard S. Levie: Terrorism in War. The Law of War Crimes, New York 1993, p. 48; Devin O. Pendas: “Law, Not Vengeance“. Human Rights, the Rule of the Law and the Claims of Memory in German Holocaust Trials, in: Mark Philip Bradley and Patrice Petro (Eds..): Truth Claims. Representation and Human Rights, New Brunswick et al. 2002, pp. 23-41, p. 29.
[7] The Department of State Bulletin, Dir. of publ. Department of State, 25.11.1945, n° 335, Vol. XIII, Publication 2432. Washington: US Government Printing Office. “International Military Tribunal”, pp. 850-860, p. 850.
[8] See Memorandum to President Roosevelt, January 22, 1945, p. 6; Report to the President by Mr. Justice Jackson, June 6, 1945, in: Report of Robert H. Jackson United States Representative to the International Conference on Military Trials, London 1945, Department of State, Publication 3080, International Organization and Conference Series II, European and British Commonwealth 1, Released February 1949, pp. 42-54, p. 46.
Picture credit: National Archives, College Park, MD, USA