Transcript The Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
• The International Military Tribunal of 1946,
convened by the U.S., British, French and
Soviets, which convicted the major Nazi
leaders who survived World War II
AND
• Twelve cases tried by U.S. military
tribunals at Nuremberg from1946-9 of
groups of doctors, lawyers, industrialists,
Einsatzgruppen and more.
Legacy
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International Law
Human Rights & Genocide Conventions
Code of Medical Ethics
Enforcement Mechanisms & Tribunals
Models of Bringing Individual Perpetrators to Justice
Deportations to Home Countries for Justice
Vocabulary: War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity,
Genocide, Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Timeline
• 11/30/43: Moscow
Declaration signed by U.S.,
U.K., Soviet Union and
China.
• 2/4-11/45: Yalta agreement
signed
by Roosevelt, Churchill and
Stalin
• 4/12/45: Truman becomes
President
• 4/12/45: Dachau liberated
by U.S.
•
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Timeline continued
• 4/30/45: Adolf Hitler
commits suicide.
• 5/2/45: Supreme Court
Justice Robert
Jackson appointed as chief
U,S,
prosecutor in the
Nuremberg War
Crimes Trial.
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Timeline continued
• 5/8/45: Germany surrenders
unconditionally to Allies.
• 7/7/45: Jackson visits
Nuremberg & recommends it as
trial site.
• 8/2/45: Potsdam Protocol
• 8/8/45: London Agreement
• 10/6/45: 4 powers issue
joint statement of indictment
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Timeline continued
• 10/14/45: Sir Geoffrey
Lawrence (UK) elected
President of the IMT
• 10/18-19/45: 24 men and 7
organizations are indicted,
charged with the systematic
murder of millions of people
• 11/20/45: Nuremberg Trials
begin. All defendants plead
“not guilty.”
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Nuremberg Charges
• The Common Plan or Conspiracy
– Crimes Against Peace
– War Crimes
– Crimes Against Humanity
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image.php?pointer=3918
Bergen Belsen
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. …
Justice Jackson
from his opening statement
Why Trials?
The Trial which is now about to begin is unique in the
history of the jurisprudence of the world and it is of
supreme importance to millions of people
all
over the globe.
Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, President, Opening Remarks
• Create precedents in international law
• Create moral precedents
• Collate historical record
Procedural Innovations
• International Tribunal
• Individuals Tried
States do not commit crimes; individuals do
• No Immunity for Heads of State, etc.
Substantive Innovations
• Established Crimes Against Humanity as a
charge: mass crimes – murder, torture,
(rape)
• Established Crime of Genocide
• In the spring of 1945, as the war finally
came to an end, the world confronted the
atrocities the Nazis had committed.
• Who was responsible for the Holocaust?
• Should those who participated in the
atrocities committed during the war be
punished, and if so, who was accountable?
• Should those individuals be tried in a court
of law? What is the purpose of a trial? Is it
to punish evil doing or is it to set a
precedent for the future?
• Who should be tried? Are individuals
responsible for their crimes if they have
obey the laws of their nation? Are there
higher laws and if so, what are they?
• How does one determine punishment? Is
everyone equally guilty or do some bear
more responsibility than others? Can an
entire nation be guilty?
• Between 1945 and 1950, the fate of 199
individuals was decided in thirteen separate
trials in Nuremberg. Those trials
established important precedents that have
become part of the unwritten laws of
nations in the years since.
The Allies and the Trials
• Winston Churchill did not want a trial
– Thought all should be hung
• Americans and Russians wanted a trial
• How do you try people for the murder of
millions of people that had been made
“legal” under Hitler?
• Many people were convinced that the
individuals responsible had to be tried
before an international court and they
wanted each person to take personal
responsibility for their actions.
• Winston Churchill argued that the Nazis
should be summarily hung. Only after
considerable pressure from the Russians and
the Americans, did the British change their
stand.
• Ironic Stalin wanted a trial. In the early
1930’s, Stalin held many “trials” when he
was trying to consolidate his power. Most
of these people were considered guilty and
had to prove their innocence. Most were
killed, including some of Russia’s top
Generals.
• Trials decide questions of law, but what
laws had the German’s broken? Some
would insist that “all is fair in love and
war”
The Lieber Code
• Compiled by Frances Lieber and given to
American soldiers during the Civil War
– It detailed how civilians, prisoners of war, and
spied were to be treated
– Other nations, including Britain, France, and
Germany prepared similar manuals
– View the code
– See important parts of the code
• Before Nuremberg, the most famous war
crimes trial was at the end of the Civil War.
Captain Henry Wirts, a Confederate officer
who commanded the prison camp at
Andersonville, Georgia. This camp had a
reputation for starvation and cruelty that
was not equaled until Hitler’s time.
• Wirts was accused of the deaths of several
thousand Yankee prisoners of war. He was tried
in a military court, convicted, and hanged.
• Wirtz argued he was only obeying the orders of
his commander. The evidence supported Wirz’s
claims, but the judges convicted him because he
followed orders willingly rather than under duress.
What is the difference?
The Hague
• Held in 1907 in Hague, Netherlands
– Focused on the rights of civilians and soldiers
who have surrendered
Geneva Accord
• Established how prisoners of war were to be
treated and called for the protection of the
wounded.
Previous Violations
• World War I- Germany while unprovoked,
invaded Belgium
– Treaty of Versailles said Kaiser Wilhelm was to
be tried for aggression, but those trials never
took place
• 1915- Turks massacred the Armenians in
genocide- no trials took place
• As Hitler prepared for the “final solution of
the Jewish question,” he asked, “Who after
all, speaks today of the annihilation of the
Armenians? What was he saying about
international law? What was he saying
about the “rules of war”
• Professor Richard Hovannisian maintains
that had the perpetrators of the Armenian
Genocide been more vigorously prosecuted
and punished for their crimes, the case
might have served as a deterrent for the
Holocaust. Do you agree?
The Crimes
• Crime of conspiracy
– Leaders, organizers, instigators, and
accomplices in the formulation or execution of
a common plan, or a conspiracy to commit any
of the following crimes are responsible for all
acts performed by any persons in executing
such a plan.
• The Allies were going to punish anyone
who violated international law. They were
going to hold accountable not only those
who ordered the crimes, but also those who
participated in them. This included
businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and a
number of other people.
The Crimes
• Crimes against peace
– Planning, preparing or initiating a war of
aggression.
• War Crimes
– This meant breaking the rules of war. It
included killing prisoners or war and destroying
homes and property
• Aggression is an attack on someone
• War crimes- violations of the laws or customs or war.
Such violations shall include, but not limited to, murder,
ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor for any other
purposes of civilian population of or in an occupied
territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or
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.
The Crimes
• Crimes against humanity
– The murder, extermination, enslavement,
deportation, and other inhumane acts
committed against any civilian population
before or during the war.
Who should be tried?
• The first job facing the court at Nuremberg
was to decide who should be tried.
• 24 Nazi’s were indicted
• 22 stood trial
• The rest were turned over to local trials
• The first job facing the court at Nuremberg
was to decide who should be tried.
• Though Hitler and a few others had taken
their own lives, most of the top Nazi leaders
had been captured by the Allies. Hundreds
of names of accused Nazis were brought
before the court. The International Military
Tribunal decided to try only 24 of the
central leaders of the Nazi Party.
• Only 24 Nazis were indicted and two of them never stood
trial. Robert Ley, the head of the Nazi labor movement
committed suicide before the trial began.
• The court ruled that Gustav Krupp, an industrialist, was
too ill to be tried. Many other top Nazi leaders, including
Hitler and Goebbels, killed themselves in the final days of
the war. Others like Adolf Eichmann, managed to
disappear during the confusion that marked Germany’s
defeat.
How the trials were set up
• Allies formed the International Military
Tribunal (IMT) to bring the Nazi leaders to
trial
– Tribunal is a court of justice
• The defendants were made aware of all
charges, each was entitled to a lawyer and
had the right to plead his own case, offering
witnesses and evidence on his behalf.
• In the 1200’s St. Thomas Aquinas defined a
“just war” as one fought by a legitimate
government for a just cause and with the
intention of bringing about good. Was the
battle raged by the Allies a “just war”
• In 1945, the United States dropped atomic
bombs on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Research the bombings and
decide if they were “war crimes”
• How important is it to establish rules of
warfare? Does the knowledge that those
rules cannot always be implemented affect
your response?
The Nuremberg Trials
• Began Nov. 20, 1945
and lasted 10 months
• Chief prosecutor was
Robert H. Jackson,
justice on United
States Supreme Court
– Opening Statement by
Jackson
Statement by Jackson
• “We must never forget that the record on
which we judge these defendants today is
the record on which history will judge us
tomorrow. To pass these defendants a
poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips
as well.”
• When this was said, many looked at the two
Soviet judges. The Russians had invaded
Poland in 1939 and Finland in 1940and
were widely believed to be responsible for
the massacre of thousands of Polish officers
in the Katyn Forest. They were also
responsible for the murder of thousands of
their own citizens in the 1930s as part of
Stalin’s efforts to consolidate his control
over the nation.
• By 1970, Telford Taylor could sadly write
that, “now the wheel has spun full circle,
and the fingers of accusation are pointed not
at others… but at ourselves. Worse yet,
many of the pointing fingers are our own.
Voices of the rich and poor and black and
white, strident voices and scholarly voices,
all speaking our own tongue, raise questions
of the legality under the Nuremberg
principles of our military actions in
The Prosecution
• Used the Nazi’s own records
• Tried to show the Nazis planned a war and
planned to conquer the world if they could
– A crime against peace
• A minor part of the prosecution was
documents and witnesses of the Holocaust
• Throughout the trial, the prosecution used
the Nazis own records as evidence. Jackson
himself was amazed not only at the quantity
of records available, but also at the
incredible detail in those records. He did
not think “men would ever be so foolish as
to put in writing some of the things the
Germans did.”
The Defense
• Too much evidence to claim the Holocaust
didn’t happen
– Had to make case on other issues
• Said tribunal had no legal authority
• Said they were just following orders
• Defense said that the trial was just a way for
the Allies to take revenge and that it was a
“show trial” to justify the execution of
individual Nazis.
• A big part of the defense was that it was the
government of Nazi Germany that was at
fault. These Nazi leaders had only been
following orders. But the judges declared:
• “That international law imposes duties and
liabilities upon individuals as well as upon
States… Crimes against international law
are committed by men, not by abstract
entities (such as a government or political
party) and only by punishing individuals
who commit such crimes can…
international law be enforced. P. 167-The
Holocaust and the World of the Jews
The Defense
• Vehemently denied responsibility for
crimes against humanity
• Throughout the trial, the defendants
vehemently denied responsibility for crimes
against humanity. They argued that wars
have always been brutal and this war was
much like any other. They also insisted that
the victors were equally guilty.
• The judges said that all people are aware of
certain basic laws such as the law against
murder, the law against enslavement, and
the law against extermination.
• Duty to these human laws comes before
duty to any state or nation and a person will
not be forgiven for “following orders’ in
violation of these laws. In fact, the higher a
person is in military or governmental
authority, the greater his or her
accountability.
The Defense
• Used the argument Fuhrer-prinzip
– Nazi “leadership principal”
– All orders given in Germany were Hitler’s
orders and the punishment for not obeying was
death.
• They claimed that all Nazis were innocent;
only Hitler could be held accountable.
• The Tribunal rejected this argument. The
judges stated, “It was also submitted on
behalf of most of these defendants that…
they were acting under the orders of
Hitler…. That a soldier was ordered to kill
or torture in violation of the international
law of war has never been recognized as a
defense to such acts of brutality.—The
Holocaust and the World of the Jews. P.
169
• Amazingly enough, the laws of the Nazi
Germany agreed with this ruling. Article 47
of the German military law stated that “no
obedience was due to an order that called
for the performance of a crime” This law
applied to the SS as well as the German
Army.
The Nuremberg Trials
• The details of what the Nazi’s had done
became vivid to the rest of the world
• The details of what the Nazis had
accomplished in their death camps, the socalled medical experiments they had
conducted, their slave labor program, the
horrors they had inflicted wherever they
went, were day by day, exposed in
thousands upon thousands of words of
testimony, motion pictures, and grisly
exhibits.
• A war-weary world soon became all too
familiar with the overwhelming and
virtually incomprehensible statistics of the
Nazi nightmare, and with the expressionless
faces of the inconsequential-looking men in
the prisoner’s docks.
• That vindictiveness was not the purpose of
the trial was shown by the differences in
sentences handed down.
• Hans Fritsche, an editor and propagandist
• Franz von Papen, former chancellor and
diplomat
• Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht- a
financial genius
• All were acquitted
• Death sentences were given to:
• Martin Gormann, the SA Boss, in absentia
• Hermann Goering, who managed to poison himself an hour before
execution
• Ribbentrop
• Kaltenbrunner
• Rosenberg
• Frank
• Streicher
• Frick
• Sauckel
• Seyss-Inquart
• Jodl
• Prominent Japanese war leaders were
similarly tried. Two committed suicide:
General Shigeru Honjo and Prince
Fumimaro Konoye.
• Seven were sentenced to hanging: General
Hideki Tojo. Tojo sought, unsuccessfully,
to kill himself.
Sentences
• Martin Bormann
– Hitler’s secretary, was
tried in absentia, never
captured, sentenced to
die
A body was later found
in Berlin and Bormann
was pronounced dead
by a German court in
1973.
Sentences
• Hermann Goering–
–
–
–
Highest ranking official, 2nd to Hitler
Commanded the Luftwaffe
Set up the Gestapo
Sentenced to death, but took poison hours
before he was to be hung
• According to the judges, he was the
“moving force for the aggressive war,
second only to Hitler” He was the “creator
of the oppressive pogrom against the Jews
and other races, at home and abroad.”
• It was he who developed the Gestapo and
the concentration camps
• “
• By decree of July 31, 1941, he directed
(Heinrich) Himmler and (Reinhard)
Heydrich to bring about a complete solution
to the Jewish question in the German sphere
of influence in Europe.”
• Hermann Goering told a fellow defendant
that “you must accept the fact that your life
is lost. The only question left is whether
you are willing to stand by me and die a
martyr’s death. You should not feel too
said, some day the German people will rise
against and acknowledge us as heroes, and
our cones will be moved to marble caskets,
in a national shrine.”
Sentences
• Jochaim von Ribbentrop
– Hitler’s foreign minister
– Deported Jews from occupied countries “to the
East”
Sentences
• Julius Streicher
– Published Der
Stuermer, an
antisemitic newspaper
– Found guilty of
“inciting the
population to abuse,
maltreat, and slay their
fellow citizens.”
• Goebbels was in the bunker with Hitler.
After Hitler and Ava Braun died, he gave
lethal injections to his six children. He then
ordered the SS orderlies to shoot him and
his wife.
• Himmler, the man behind the final solution,
was convinced Germany should seek peace
with Britain and the U.S. Discovering
this, Hitler ordered Himmler’s arrest.
Himmler escaped in disguise, but was
arrested by the British and committed
suicide before he could be interrogated.
• Bayer became part of IG Farben, a
conglomerate of German chemical
industries which formed the financial core
of the Nazi regime. IG Farben owned 42.5%
of the company that manufactured Zyklon B
a chemical used in the gas chambers of
Auschwitz.
• When the Allies split IG Farben after World
War II for involvement in several Nazi war
crimes, Bayer reappeared as an individual
business. Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer,
sentenced to seven years in prison by the
Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, was
made head of the supervisory board of
Bayer in 1956, after his release.
• Bayer corporation also discovered Heroine
Later Trials
• The first Nuremberg Trials were followed
by a dozen others.
• Those accused
– Military leaders
– High-ranking SS and police officers
– Doctors who performed selections and medical
experiments
– Businessmen who used slave labor
• After the first set of trials ended, the United
States held twelve others at Nuremberg.
• Read Facing History Reading: The
Scientists of Annihilation p. 434
• Physicians are bound by the Hippocratic
Oath Discuss what responsibilities a
physician has to his or her patients and
society?
• To what extent were doctors and health-care
professionals in the Third Reich guided by
ideology rather than the interests of
medicine and their patients.
• Alfreid Krupp and the directors of his
company were tried for their use of slave
labor.
• Top executives of I.G. Farben were tried for
the sale of Zyklon B and the construction of
industrial plants at Auschwitz.
• Just a few years after the trials, American
scientists and physicians secretly
experimented on prisoners and mentally
retarded children to discover the effects of
radiation. Most Americans knew nothing of
the test until the Energy Secretary Hazel
O’Leary opened the records to the public in
1993. Use newspapers and magazines to
research the story that reporters then
discovered.
• Albert Speer research reading in Facing
History book p. 437
• Most of the defendants in the second round
of trials were convicted. Some were
sentenced to death. However, in 1948,
many of the death sentences were reduced
to prison sentences. Many of the convicted
war criminals were freed after only a few
• Why was this done? The main reason was
because by late 1940’s there was great
tension between the United States and the
Soviet Union. With the Soviet Union as an
enemy, the United States thought it needed
the support of the German people. The
United States believed that shortening the
sentences of former Nazi leaders might help
win that support. The decision was a great
disappointment to the survivors of the
• Together, Britain, France, and the United
States convicted over 5,000 Nazis and
sentenced 800 to death. P. 440 Facing
History The Soviets held similar trials but
did not release statistics.
• These trials took place between 1946 and
1949 and 177 defendants were accused of
various crimes
Later Trials
• The Allies extradited many Nazis to nations
once occupied by Germany
• Norwegians convicted Prime Minister
Vidkun Quisling
• French convicted Henri-Philippe Petain
• The Belgians convicted 75 Nazis, the
Luxembourgers 68, the Dutch 204, the
Danes and Norwegians 80 each and the
Poles thousands of Nazis
Later Trials
• Rudolf Hess
– Tried by the Poles and the Czechs
– Was the Commandant at Auschwitz
– Sentenced to life in prison
• Hess was asked if he had considered
whether the Jews he murdered deserved
such a fate. He responded:
• From Facing History p. 433
• Don’t you see, we SS men were not
supposed to think about these things. It
never even occurred to us. And besides, it
was something already taken for granted
that the Jews were to blame for
everything…
• We just never heard anything else. It was
not just newspapers like Der Steurmer but it
was everything we ever heard. Even our
military and ideological training took for
granted that we had to protect Germany
from the Jews…
• It only started to occur to me after the
collapse that maybe it was not quite right,
after I had heard what everybody was
saying… We were all so trained to obey
orders without even thinking that the
thought of disobeying an order would
simply never have occurred to anybody and
somebody else would have done just as well
if I hadn’t…
• You can be sure that it was not always a
pleasure to see those mountains of corpses
and smell the continual burning.- But
Himmler had ordered it and had even
explained the necessity and I really never
gave much thought to whether it was
wrong. It just seemed a necessity.
Results of the Nuremberg Trials
• Told the world in great detail about the
Holocaust
• Established the principle that individuals
can’t escape responsibility for their actions
by saying they were following orders
• Set the standards for judging the actions of
nations in the future
Adolf Eichmann Trial
• Some high ranking Nazis escaped from the
Allies
– One was Adolf Eichman
• Did more than any other Nazi to persecute
Jews
• Was in charge of deporting Jews from all
over Europe to death camps
• Many Nazi leaders disappeared at the end of
the war. Some were aided by relatives and
friends with international connections. He
drove over 100,000 Jews out of Austria in
less than two years.
• Eichmann enjoyed his work. He added his
own personal cruelty to his victim’s
suffering whenever he could
• He regularly lied to leaders of the Jewish
community. He used nasty and vulgar
insults when talking to them. He liked
showing the Jews the power he had over
their lives.
• He was the official who organized the
Wannsee Conference for his boss Reinhard
Heydrich. He also prepared a record of the
conference.
• Between 1942 and 1945, Eichmann was in charge
of deporting Jews from all over Europe to the
death camps. He determined the timing and pace
of deportations . He seized Jewish property and
hid the real purposes of the deportations from the
world.
• Himmler, the head of the SS, called Eichman “the
Master” when it came to deporting Jews. He was
dedicated to his work. He often visited the camps.
• In 1944, Eichmann went to Auschwitz and
made suggestions to speed up the process of
murder. Eichmann wanted to increase the
murder rate from 10,000 to 12,000 per day.
Eichmann also went to Hungary in 1944 to
oversee the deportation of Jews to
Auschwitz.
• He stopped at nothing to secure every
available train. He did not care that the
German army needed trains to get soldiers
and weapons to the front lines. Like Hitler,
Eichmann considered killing Jews to be
more important than the needs of the
German army.
• Russia and U.S. competed for Nazi scientists.
American officials were even willing to alter the
files of Nazi medical researchers and physicists to
help them gain admission to the United States.
Among them were scientists who helped the
United States develop its rocket science program.
The Americans also recruited Siegfried Ruff, who
conducted experiments at Dachau on human
survival capabilities at high altitudes.
• Adolf Eichman was not one of the leaders
of the Nazi party. However, once Hitler
decided to exterminate the Jews, no Nazi
official did more to carry out that policy
than Adolf Eichmann.
• Eichmann rose through the ranks of the SS
because he worked hard and with great
enthusiasm. In 1938 and 1939- Eichman
was in charge of forcing Jews out of
Austria.
Tracking Down Eichmann
• Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor,
was instrumental in tracking Eichmann to
Argentina
• Found in 1949, but by then, most countries
had lost interest and would not extradite
Nazis
• Eichmann had covered his tracks very
effectively. For a while, not even his wife
and children knew he was alive.
Eventually, he was able to contact his wife
and bring his family to Argentina
• Simon Wisenthal told the Isreali
government. They sent an agent to get his
photograph. He was living under the name
Ricardo Klement. The photograph was
shown to many people who had met
Eichmann prior to 1945 and a police expert
compared it with another photo of him and
concluded it was him.
• In April 1960, the Israeli agents went to
Argentina and spent weeks learning his
daily routine. They decided it would be
easiest to grab him while he was on his way
home from work. They kidnapped
Eichmann and brought him to an Israeli
hideout for 10 days.
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
• April 11, 1961
Eichmann walks into a
courtroom in
Jerusalem, Isreal
– Put in bulletproof glass
booth, for his
protection
• Main focus was
crimes against the
Jewish people
Eichmann’s Defense
• His main defense was “just following
orders”
• He also lied about how much authority he
had, what he knew, and what he did.
• He said he had no power of his own. Many
of his answers were “It was so ordered”
Eichmann’s sentence
• Was sentenced to death
• He is the only person executed by the State
of Israel
• On Dec. 11, 1961, the Israeli court found
Eichmann guilty of crimes against the
Jewish people, crimes against humanity,
war crimes,and membership in criminal
organizations. Four days later it sentenced
him to death.
• Eichmann appealed the court’s decision,
but the court of appeals upheld the guilty
verdict. In May 1962, Eichmann was
hanged and his body cremated. His ashes
were scattered at sea.
Effect of Eichmann Trial
• More Holocaust survivors came forward to
tell their stories
• More scholars studied the Holocaust
“Nazi Hunters”
• Individuals and organizations known as “Nazi
Hunters” still actively seek to bring Nazis to trial.
• The Butcher of Lyons was sentenced to life in
prison in 1987.
• Klaus Barbie, the head of the Gestapo in Lyons,
France, was tracked down by Nazi hunters. His
trial concentrated on his part in the Final Solution.
He was sentenced to life in prison in 1987.
Legacy: Genocide Convention
• 1933: Raphael Lemkin begins to write about
mass murder as a crime under international law
• 1943: Coins the word: “genocide.”
– Greek –genos (family, tribe or race)
– Latin -cide (killing)
• 1946: Genocide recognized by UN as crime in
international law
• 1948: Genocide Convention adopted by UN.
Rape eventually added as an act of genocide
Genocide Convention
• Article I:
The Contracting Parties confirm that
genocide, whether committed in time of
peace or in time of war, is a crime under
international law which they undertake to
prevent and to punish.
Legacy: Genocide
• 4 decades before the U.S. ratifies the
Genocide Convention
• 50 years before anyone is convicted of
genocide
• 97 countries ratify the convention before the
U.S.
Legacy: Human Rights
• Adoption by UN of Declaration of Human Rights follows the
Genocide Convention in 1948 on the next day.
• Article 1.
• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood.
• Article 2.
• Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this
Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status.
Legacy: Nuremberg Code of
Medical Ethics
• Code of Ethics:
– Informed Consent mandatory and exercised freely
– Experiments must avoid physical and mental
suffering
– Experiments must be avoided if death or disabling
injury a possibility
Never Again?
Genocides Continue
Armenia
East TimorSudan
Europe
Uganda
??
Indonesia
Iraq
??
Burundi
Yugoslavia
Bangladesh
Rwanda
Uganda
War Crimes Continue
Srebrenica
Rwanda
Abu Grahib