On October 25, 1946, three weeks after the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg entered its verdicts, the United States established Military Tribunal I for the trial of twenty-three Nazi physicians. The charges, delivered by Brigadier General Telford Taylor on December 9, 1946, form a seminal chapter in the history of medical ethics and, specifically, medical ethics in war. The list of noxious experiments conducted on civilians and prisons of war, and condemned by the Tribunal as war crimes and as (...) crimes against humanity, is by now more or less familiar. That list included: high-altitude experiments; freezing experiments; malaria experiments; sulfanilamide experiments; bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration and bone transplantation experiments; sea water experiments; jaundice and spotted fever experiments; sterilization experiments; experiments with poison and with incendiary bombs. What remains less familiar is the moral mindset of doctors and health care workers who plied their medical skill for morally questionable uses in war. In his 1981 work, The Nazi Doctors, Robert Jay Lifton took up that question, interviewing doctors, many of whom for forty years continued to distance themselves psychologically from their deeds. The questions about moral distancing Lifton raised have immediate urgency for us now. Military medical doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists serve in U.S. military prisons in Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Kandahar, and, until very recently, in undisclosed CIA operated facilities around the world where medical ethics are again at issue. Moreover, they serve in top positions in the Pentagon, as civilian and military heads of command, who pass orders and regulations to military doctors in the field, and who are in charge of the health of enemy combatants, as well as U.S. soldiers. Because we recently marked the sixtieth anniversary of the judgment at Nuremberg, I want to awaken our collective memory to the ways in which doctors in war, even in a war very different from the one the Nazis fought, can insulate themselves from their moral and professional consciences. (shrink)

Since its 1980s coining by Richard Falk, the ‘Grotian Moment’ concept has garnered popularity in international law discourse, denoting a rapid, paradigm-shifting development in international law. This concept builds upon a prevalent recollection of two past events as such paradigm-shifts. The first is, obviously, the ‘original’ Grotian Moment, anointing Grotius as the Father of International Law, mainly for publishing, in 1625, his ground-breaking treatise, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, which is said to had brought about a momentous paradigm-shift that gave (...) rise to modern (statist and secular), or even the first-ever-effective, international law. The second event is the post-ww2 Nuremberg international trial. Presumably, from its mid-seventeenth-century birth to Nuremberg, international law was starkly statist, and so individuals had generally not been its subjects. This, among other things, meant that international criminal law (icl) was not acceptable. Nuremberg is, therefore, celebrated as the first-ever international criminal tribunal, as icl’s birthplace and even more generally as the turning-point in international law’s attitude towards the individual. Simply put, Nuremberg is considered the prototype of a modern Grotian Moment. However, this paper shows that neither 1625 nor 1945 were truly Grotian Moments (their significance notwithstanding) and present’s likely causes for those myths. The paper further reveals that these myths, as well as the current embrace of the ‘Grotian Moment’ concept, are all manifestations of a larger, understudied phenomenon: that internationalists, evermore obsessed with perceiving themselves as cutting-edge, too often satisfy that fix by erasing the past. (shrink)

This brief 1994 book review essay (5500 words) examines Telford Taylor's memoir, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials (1992). The review is a personal one, set against two things - the author's work, while reading Taylor's memoir, in Iraq for Human Rights Watch leading a forensic team excavating Kurdish victims of the 1988 al-Anfal campaign, and the diplomatic discussions leading to the formation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. The essay argues that the Nuremberg trials, according to (...) Taylor, had a certain deflationary emotional affect - deliberately ratcheting down the emotions of what had occurred to the limited world of the courtroom. It was able to do that because the WWII allies had been willing to pay the price of victory and had 'earned' the right to conduct a trial. The Yugoslavia tribunal, by contrast, and at that time, was premised on a claim to universal justice that did not depend upon the willingness of its sponsors to intervene in the slaughter in the former Yugoslavia. "Nuremberg was a lovely hood ornament," said one of the author's unnamed sources, a senior European military judge advocate, "on the ungainly vehicle that liberated Western Europe, but it was not a substitute for D-Day.". (shrink)

Justice at Nuremberg traces the history of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial held in 1946-47, as seen through the eyes of the Austrian bliogemigrbliogé psychiatrist Leo Alexander. His investigations helped the United States to prosecute twenty German doctors and three administrators for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The legacy of Nuremberg was profound. In the Nuremberg code--a landmark in the history of modern medical ethics--the judges laid down, for the first time, international guidelines for permissible experiments (...) on humans. One of those who helped to formulate the code was Alexander. Justice at Nuremberg provides a detailed insight into the origins of human rights in medical science and into the changing role of international law, ethics and politics. (shrink)

The contemporary human rights movement holds up Nuremberg as a template with which to define responsibility for mass violence. I argue that the negotiations that ended apartheid—the Convention for a Democratic South Africa —provide the raw material for a critique of the “lessons of Nuremberg.” Whereas Nuremberg shaped a notion of justice as criminal justice, CODESA calls on us to think of justice as primarily political. CODESA shed the zero-sum logic of criminal justice for the inclusive nature (...) of political justice. If the former accents victims’ justice, the latter prioritizes survivors’ justice. If Nuremberg has been ideologized as a paradigm, the end of apartheid has been exceptionalized as an improbable outcome produced by the exceptional personality of Nelson Mandela. This essay argues for the core relevance of the South African transition for ending civil wars in the rest of Africa. (shrink)

The requirement that animals be used in research and testing in order to protect humans was formalized in the Nuremberg Code and subsequent national and international laws, codes, and declarations. We review the history of these requirements and contrast what was known via science about animal models then with what is known now. We further analyze the predictive value of animal models when used as test subjects for human response to drugs and disease. We explore the use of animals (...) for models in toxicity testing as an example of the problem with using animal models. We conclude that the requirements for animal testing found in the Nuremberg Code were based on scientifically outdated principles, compromised by people with a vested interest in animal experimentation, serve no useful function, increase the cost of drug development, and prevent otherwise safe and efficacious drugs and therapies from being implemented. (shrink)

Just over seventy years ago, three trials took place in Nuremberg, Germany. At the time, they seemed a turning point in international relations—and, indeed, proved to be. The trials involved the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, economic, and judicial leadership of Nazi Germany, those who planned, oversaw, or otherwise participated in the Holocaust and other large crimes. At the time, the Trials were widely condemned for using retroactive criminal statutes. The most famous discussion is what became (...) known as the Hart-Fuller Debate. This paper argues that Locke provides the best account of the lawfulness of the Trials—at least when compared to the accounts offered by Fuller, Hart, and Ronald Dworkin. (shrink)

This is the first re-publication and first English translation of regulations concerning Human Experimentation which were binding law prior to and during the Third Reich, 1931 to 1945. The introduction briefly describes the duties of the Reichsgesundheitsamt, which formulated these regulations. It then outlines the basic concept of the Richtlinien for protecting subjects and patients on the one hand and for encouraging New Therapy and Human Experimentation on the other hand. Major issues, like personal responsibility of the physician or researcher, (...) teaching of ethics of research and therapy, and research and therapy on vulnerable populations, are compared with the regulations in the Nuremberg Code and subsequent regulations influenced by the Nuremberg Code. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This volume presents the most important essays examining the Nuremberg trial from legal, political, historical, and philosophical perspectives. Together, the perspectives provide an overview of the Trial that is invaluable to understanding its significance to modern international law and politics.

The story of patient self‐determination cannot be told without the Nuremberg trials. Patient autonomy was the first criterion enunciated by the Nuremberg judges and has served as a touchstone for human subject research and patient care ever since. Yet this ideal was in an important sense irrelevant at the moment it was originally proclaimed.

The “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the “Geneva Declaration” by the World Medical Association, both in 1948, were preceded by the foundation of the United Nations in New York (1945), the World Medical Association in London (1946) and the World Health Organization in Geneva (1948). After the end of World War II the community of nations strove to achieve and sustain their primary goals of peace and security, as well as their basic premise, namely the health of human beings. (...) All these associations were well aware of the crimes by medicine, in particular by the accused Nazi physicians at the Nuremberg Doctors Trial (1946/47, sentence: August 1947). During the first conference of the World Medical Association (September 1947) issues of medical ethics played a major role: and a new document was drafted concerning the values of the medical profession. After the catastrophe of the War and the criminal activities of scientists, the late 1940s saw increased scrutiny paid to fundamental questions of human rights and medical ethics, which are still highly relevant for today’s medicine and morality. The article focuses on the development of medical ethics and human rights reflected in the statement of important persons, codes and institutions in the field. (shrink)

Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum, better known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, pictures and describes world civilisations and illustrious individuals from Creation to 1493. Although its sources and circumstances of production have been extensively explored, the cultural significance of its many woodcut images has received far less attention. This preliminary study highlights relationships between images, audience and the humanist agenda of Schedel and his milieu by examining selected representations of cultural outsiders with reference to external illustrated genres that demonstrated the centrality (...) of Others in German Christian culture. I argue that the Chronicle’s images of ‘foreign bodies’ harnessed their audience’s established fascination with monsters, wonders, witchcraft, Jews and the Ottoman Turks to advance the German humanist goal of elevating the position of Germania on the world historical stage and in so doing, contributed to the emerging idea of a German national identity. (shrink)

The trial of major Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg was a landmark event in the development of modern international law, and continues to be highly influential in our understanding of international criminal law and post-conflict justice. This volume offers a unique collection of the most important essays written on the Trial, discussing the key legal, political, and philosophical questions raised by the Trial both at the time and in historical perspective. -/- The collection focuses on pieces from those involved (...) in the Tribunal, discussing the establishment of the Tribunal, the Trial itself, and the debate that followed the Judgment. Also included are representative essays of the academic debate that has surrounded Nuremberg in the sixty years since the Trial. Ranging from the contribution of Nuremberg to the substantive development of international criminal law to the philosophical evaluation of legalism in post-conflict international relations, the perspectives provided by the essays offer a unique overview of the persistent significance of Nuremberg across a range of academic disciplines. -/- The collection also features newly translated essays from key German, Russian, and French writers, available in English for the first time; a new essay by Guénaël Mettraux examining the Nuremberg legacy in contemporary international criminal justice; and an exhaustive bibliography of the literature on Nuremberg. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt was arrested by the Russians in Berlin in April 1945, interrogated and released. In September 1945 he was arrested by the Americans and held in internment camps until March 1947, when he was brought to Nuremberg as a potential defendant in the War Crimes Trials. Although he was released in a matter of weeks without being charged, this episode has created further suspicion about Schmitt's role in the Third Reich. Without oversimplifying the complexity of the question, since (...) everything about this enigmatic jurist and political thinker defies simple or even concise explanation, the decision to interrogate him at Nuremberg was largely due to the infamous reputation he had acquired abroad. (shrink)

Los centros penitenciarios poseen módulos educativos donde se procura dotar de enseñanza reglada a los internos para favorecer su reinserción, como se recoge en la Constitución Española de 1978 así como en los decretos de Enseñanza Secundaria para personas adultas. En este marco, se ofrece aquí una propuesta educativa para desarrollar un tema controvertido, como es el del Holocausto, en un ámbito educativo especialmente sensible a procesos educativos en situaciones de confinamiento, un aula de 4º de ESPA en un centro (...) penitenciario, a través del conocimiento de las responsabilidades criminales consideradas en los Juicios de Núremberg. Utilizando la representación dramática como recurso didáctico, ya que los internos tendrían que reproducir los distintos roles de los participantes en los juicios, se pretende, en las diferentes sesiones en las que está estructurada esta propuesta, tratar de las responsabilidades morales, entender la necesaria existencia de unas instituciones fuertes con códigos de convivencia adecuados y desarrollar la empatía con las víctimas del régimen nazi, con el objetivo de que sean desarrollados valores cívicos entre los internos. (shrink)

This article is a defense of the Nuremberg Trials. It addresses the standard criticism of the trials and outlines six principles of international law that constitute the legacy of Nuremberg.

This article addresses, from a Frankfurt School perspective on law identified with Franz Neumann and more recently Habermas, the attack upon the principles of war criminality formulated at the Nuremberg trials by the increasingly influential legal and political theory of Carl Schmitt. It also considers the contradictions within certain of the defence arguments that Schmitt himself resorted to when interrogated as a possible war crimes defendant at Nuremberg. The overall argument is that a distinctly internal, or “immanent”, form (...) of critique is required of Schmitt's position, in which its is found wanting even on its own terms. In principle, the application of this dialectical mode of critique can allow a genuine debate to emerge between those seeking to continue both the Schmittian and critical theory traditions, whilst safeguarding the latter from the dangers of formulating polemical interventions that are, in effect, counterproductive to their own intentions. (shrink)

The Nuremberg Trial is of paramount importance, first of all, in historic and legal terms, as it laid the foundations for an international justice system that had no precedent in history, but also in linguistic terms, as it marks the very beginning of simultaneous interpretation and the modern profession of interpreting. By analysing the testimonies of those exceptional interpreters who were ensuring the communication in four languages before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, we will highlight the linguistic (...) and technical challenges they were facing as well as the deeply personal struggles they had to overcome, in particular on a psychological and ethical level, while taking part in a worldwide historic event. The aim of this article is to deepen the current state of research on simultaneous interpretation, but above all to pay tribute to these remarkable interpreters and translators who made history with their pioneering work and their legendary accomplishments in Nuremberg.RésuméLe procès de Nuremberg revêt une importance capitale non seulement sur le plan historique et juridique, car il permet de jeter les bases d’une justice internationale sans précédent dans l’histoire, mais aussi sur le plan linguistique, car il marque l’avènement de l’interprétation simultanée et de la profession moderne d’interprète. L’analyse des témoignages de grands interprètes assurant la communication en quatre langues devant le Tribunal Militaire International à Nuremberg nous permet de mettre en exergue des problèmes linguistiques, les difficultés techniques et les obstacles liés à la nature humaine, tant psychologiques qu’éthiques auxquels étaient confrontés les interprètes et les traducteurs assistant à cet événement à l’échelle mondiale. Le présent article vise à approfondir l’état actuel des recherches sur l’interprétation simultanée, mais surtout à rendre hommage aux interprètes et traducteurs pionniers dont le travail remarquable à Nuremberg a marqué l’histoire du métier. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary essays on the ethical issues which encompassed the trials and Code of Nuremberg have been collated from researchers from various countries in fields as diverse as medicine, bioethics, psychoanalysis, history, philosophy, Jewish thought, law, and ethics. The book focuses on five main areas: the juridical originality of the Nuremberg trials; the scientific, epistemological, and psychoanalytic backgrounds of racism and anti-Semitism; the biomedical and bioethical issues of the Nuremberg Code; a post-Nuremberg historical, ethical, and philosophical study (...) of the notion of a 'crime against humanity'; and the Jewish perspective on purity, impurity, race, and the universal ethical expectations of mankind. The goal of the interdisciplinary study is to outline the necessary components of a bridge between science ethics, and ethics and law. (shrink)

This important new work surveys the source and ramifications of the famed Nuremburg Code -- recognized around the world as one of the cornerstones of modern bioethics.