ICYMI: Amann on A Nuremberg Woman and the Hague Academy

ICYMI: Diane Marie Amann, University of Georgia School of Law, has published A Nuremberg Woman and the Hague Academy at 35 European Journal of International Law 813 (2024). Here is the abstract.

This article, which forms part of the journal's special review series marking the centenary of the Hague Academy of International Law, draws from the author's ongoing research into the roles that lawyers and other women professionals played at post-World War II trials. The article focuses on the life of one “Nuremberg woman,” Dr. Aline Chalufour, who attended the Academy in 1937 and again in 1957. In between, she worked in what is now Vietnam as a colonial schoolteacher, in Canada as a Free French propagandist for de Gaulle, at Nuremberg and Hamburg as a war crimes prosecutor, and in France as one of the country's first women judges. Chalufour's experiences shed light on how marginalized groups fared during the Hague Academy's first 100 years. They further call upon the Academy, and the field it promotes, to do better in the next 100 years.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Amann on Inge Viermetz, Woman Acquitted at Nuremberg @MDianeAmann @UGASchoolofLaw

Diane Marie Amann, University of Georgia School of Law, has published Inge Viermetz, Woman Acquitted at Nuremberg as University of Georgia School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2024-4. Here is the abstract.

Conventional narratives tend to represent the post-World War II international criminal proceedings as a men’s project, thus obscuring the many women who participated, as lawyers, journalists, analysts, interpreters, witnesses, and defendants. Indeed, two women stood trial before Nuremberg Military Tribunals. This article examines the case of the only woman found not-guilty: Inge Viermetz, who had been an administrator at Lebensborn, the Nazi SS adoption and placement agency. The article outlines the prosecution’s child-taking case against Viermetz, as well as her successful gendered self-portrayal as a conventionally feminine caregiver. With references to Professor Megan A. Fairlie, at whose memorial symposium it was presented, the article concludes by considering contemporary implications of this acquittal at Nuremberg.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Somos on A New Architecture of Justice: Dan Kiley's Design for the Nuremberg Trials' Courtroom @msomos

Mark Somos, Harvard University Safra Center for Ethics; Harvard Law School, has published A New Architecture of Justice: Dan Kiley's Design for the Nuremberg Trials’ Courtroom as Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International law (MPIL) Research Paper No. 2018-04.
Here is the abstract.

Courtroom 600 in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice is one of the most iconic sites in the history of international criminal law. Yet the extensive literature on Courtroom 600 neglects the original 1945 drawings of the architect Dan Kiley, now in the archives of the Harvard Design School. This article revises our understanding of Courtroom 600 in light of these drawings. Among other findings it argues that Kiley, rather than Jackson or the OSS, was the main source of design decisions; that the secondary literature overemphasises film at the expense of architecture; and that the design of both Courtroom 600 and the entire reconstructed Palace of Justice offer valuable insights into this key moment in the history of international law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Gordon on The Propaganda Prosecutions at Nuremberg: The Origins of Atrocity Speech Law and the Touchstone for Normative Evolution

Gregory S. Gordon, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law, is publishing The Propaganda Prosecutions at Nuremberg: The Origin of Atrocity Speech Law and the Touchstone for Normative Evolution is volume 39 of the Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review (2017). Here is the abstract.

The black and white image of a two-tiered bench seating the cream of surviving Nazi leadership, framed by white-helmeted Allied sentries and dark-wood paneling, is by now the definitive meme for the birth of international criminal law (ICL). Less associated with that grainy photograph, though, is the origin of an important sub-branch of ICL – one that I call “atrocity speech law.” For among the defendants in that iconic Nuremberg dock were Julius Streicher, editor-in-chief of the rabidly anti-Semitic tabloid Der Stürmer, and Hans Frtizsche, head of the Radio Division of Joseph Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry. Nearly two years later, the Third Reich’s Press Chief, Otto Dietrich, assumed his place on the same set of pews as part of the Ministries trial of the so-called “subsequent Nuremberg proceedings.” From the judgments rendered in respect of these three defendants, Allied judges formulated a set of nascent but influential principles regulating the relationship between hate speech and large-scale human rights violations. This article, an invited submission for a special symposium issue on the Nuremberg trials, revisits those cases, which centered on persecution as a crime against humanity. In doing so, the article provides an overview of Nazi Holocaust propaganda, the rhetorical template for the modern mass-murder campaign. Within this historical context, it traces the development of atrocity speech law in the decades since, paying particular attention to the normative wellsprings of incitement to genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). And its analysis regarding persecution’s subsequent development provides an indispensable point of repair for understanding the jurisprudential split between the ICTR (concluding that hate speech on its own can satisfy persecution’s conduct element) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (reaching the opposite conclusion). As the article points out, on balance, the Nuremberg jurisprudence favors the ICTR approach. With important contemporary cases before domestic courts, the ICTY and the International Criminal Court, the Nuremberg propaganda judgments will continue to function as important doctrinal touchstones going forward. This article, which develops and expands on the Nazi propaganda sections featured in my recently-released Oxford University Press book, “Atrocity Speech Law: Foundation, Fragmentation, Fruition,” permits readers to see the Nuremberg judgments in a new light and understand their likely normative impact on international hate speech law for generations to come.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Bazyler on The Holocaust at Nuremberg: What the Record Reveals @MichaelBazyler

Michael J. Bazyler, Chapman University School of Law, is publishing The Holocaust at Nuremberg: What the Record Reveals in volume 39 of the Loyola (L.A.) International and Comparative Law Review (2017). Here is the abstract.

Historians continue to debate how much of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) proceedings at Nuremberg concerned the Holocaust. The official goal of the Allies in Europe was to end the war by militarily defeating Nazi Germany. Stopping the atrocities was of secondary importance. Once the war ended and the top Nazis were put on trial at Nuremberg, they were not tried for the mass murder of the Jews. Chief Nuremberg prosecutor Justice Robert Jackson announced at trial that the supreme crime committed by the twenty-one German defendants on the dock was the crime of waging aggressive war. This article aims to show that during the IMT trial, the genocide of the Jews — today known by the term Holocaust — was a running theme of the trial. To illustrate the significance of the subject of Jewish persecution at the IMT, the article examines actual testimony and other evidence introduced by the prosecution during each stage of the trial. Those who mine the IMT proceedings will find much about the fate of the Jews in territories under Nazi occupation. The historiography of the Holocaust began at Nuremberg.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

John Q. Barrett on the Opening of the Nuremberg Trials

John Q. Barrett, St. John's University School of Law; Robert H. Jackson Center, has published Opening the Nuremberg Trial: The Moment of November 20, 1945 as St. John's University Legal Studies Research Paper No. 15-0032. Here is the abstract.

On November 20, 1945, the International Military Tribunal (IMT), created by the victorious World War II Allied powers, began criminal trial proceedings in Nuremberg in the Allied-occupied former Germany. This first and only international Nuremberg trial involved twenty-one individual defendants and six organizations that had been leading parts of Nazi Germany’s government and war-waging. On November 20, 2015, the 70th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg trial, the city of Nuremberg hosted in the trial site, Palace of Justice Courtroom 600, a discussion among three men who worked there during 1945-46. Dr. Yves Beigbeder served as an assistant to French judge Henri Donnedieu de Vabres. Father Moritz Fuchs was the bodyguard of United States Chief of Counsel Robert H. Jackson. Dr. George Sakheim was an interpreter and translator in the Interrogation Division, U.S. Office of Chief of Counsel. These introductory remarks preceded the panel discussion. I describe some of the dimensions, including military power, political decision making, legal concepts, personalities and logistics, that led the Allies to the Nuremberg courtroom in November 1945.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Nuremberg's Legacy

Matisiko Samuel Collins has published The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Legacy: Strengths, Flaws and Relevancy Today. Here is the abstract.

Seventy years ago the allied powers took on a bold and rather radical move at the time to conduct a complex extraordinary legal experiment that would impact future generations. For the first time ever in the history of humanity an international tribunal was established to try individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. During that time the notion that an international tribunal could bring perpetrators to account for their crimes within an international context was unheard of and to a certain extent seemed rather utopian and contrary to ordinary practice.

However the presence of international criminal tribunals today is not strange despite Nuremberg’s shortcomings there is no doubt that its successes are measurable. Nuremberg set pace for the legal framework of international criminal law, one would argue it was the birth certificate of international criminal law today. Nuremberg’s least disputed contribution today is in the substantive law in the Nuremberg principles that are universally accepted. The Nuremberg principles managed to establish individual criminal responsibility and led to the demise of the strict application to the doctrine of state sovereignty. The principle of no immunity for heads of state is of great relevancy for the peace and security of the international community, in recent times we have witnessed many heads of states appear before international criminal tribunal to answer to charges of gross human rights violations committed against their civilian population.

Irrespective of the successes, flaws and legacy of the Nuremberg Trial, the Trial was a milestone that needs to be emphasised , Nuremberg was, is and will be of great relevancy to international criminal law in the future and there is doubt to a large extent its relevancy will always play key role in shaping the future of international criminal law. Nuremberg will still have a “lex ferenda” impact on the application and enforcement of international criminal especially when it comes to the subject of “the crime of aggression”.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

The Origins of Nuremberg

Kirsten Sellars, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, has published Founding Nuremberg: Innovation and Orthodoxy at the 1945 London Conference in Historical Origins of International Criminal Law (M. Bergsmo, W. L. Cheah, and P. Yi, eds.; Torkel Opsahl Academic Publisher, 2014).
Here is the abstract.

No document better conveys the roughness and expediency of the negotiations leading up to the tribunal at Nuremberg than the transcript of the four-power London Conference, held from 26 June to 2 August 1945. Their success was by no means assured: the Americans repeatedly threatened to walk out, the British fretted over German counter-charges, the French objected to crimes against peace, and the Soviets refused anything other than ad hoc charges. This was history in the making, and its making was an unedifying business.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Special Law and Humanities/Film Events At AALS, January 2015

I'd like to alert those of you planning to attend the AALS Annual Meeting in January 2015 to three interesting events taking place during that time. The AALS Film Committee is sponsoring two law and film nights during the meeting. The first, on January 2, at 7:30 p.m. (the first night of the conference), will be a screening of the classic Judgment at Nuremberg, directed by Stanley Kramer, written by Abby Mann, and starring a whole host of great actors, including Spencer Tracy as the thoughtful Chief Judge Dan Haywood, Marlene Dietrich as widowed Mrs. Bertholt, lost in denial, a young William Shatner (in his pre Captain Kirk days), Richard Widmark as the passionate prosecutor Colonel Lawson, Burt Lancaster as Dr. Ernst Janning and Werner Klemperer, two of the German judges accused of war crimes, Judy Garland as Irene Hoffman, a witness nearly overcome by the story she has to tell, and Maximilian Schell as Hans Rolfe, the defense attorney for the judges, who challenges both the prosecutors and the system of justice at every turn. Rolfe poses the ultimate question: in such a high profile trial, in which the stakes include the future of a nation, can these defendants ever get justice? The film dramatizes some of the famous "Nuremberg Trials" held after World War II, in particular those in which judges rather than political and military figures were defendants.

To introduce our film, we are honored to have Professor Harold Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. Professor Koh served as Legal Adviser for the Department of State from 2009 to 2013, service for which he received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award. Professor Koh is an expert in the area of national security, international human rights, and foreign relations, areas in which he has written extensively. I will be moderating a discussion afterward of the film for those interested.

On Sunday, January 4th, at 8 p.m. the Committee will sponsor a showing of the 2011 film Hot Coffee, directed by Susan Saladoff. The film recounts the famous lawsuit Stella Liebeck brought against McDonald's when she accidentally spilled some of its excessively hot beverage on herself. Hot Coffee is not just a movie about the torts regime. It's also a film about public relations and the rhetoric that lawyers use in telling stories. Dennis Greene, Professor of Law, University of Dayton School of Law, will moderate the discussion about this provocative and interesting film.

Finally, on Monday, January 5th at 2 p.m. AALS will present a very special event, a Cross-Cutting program, due in great part to the efforts of members of the Law and Film Committee. Professor Michael Olivas, former President of AALS, and current Chair of the Committee, will moderate a panel on the topic Anita F. Hill,  Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, and a Screening of the Film Anita. Speakers include Professors Taunya Lovell Banks of the University of Maryland School of Law, Jessica Silbey, Suffolk University Law School, and special guest Anita Hill, Senior Advisor to the Provost and Professor Social Policy, Law, and Women's Studies, Brandeis University Heller School for Social Policy and Management. This program also includes a special screening of the film Anita: Speaking Truth To Power (2014).

Professor Hill will also be a special guest at the Section on Minority Groups Luncheon, January 5, 2015, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

I will be posting more information about these events as it becomes available.

They're Not Lawyers, But They Play Them In the Movies

Attorney Alan L. Rupe discusses what movies have taught him about how to present a case in What I Learned at the Movies. Among the films he lists as worthy of legal study are Legally Blonde, North Country, Norma Rae, Philadelphia, and the lesser-known Office Space.

Evaluating International Tribunals

Richard Ashby Wilson has published Humanity’s Histories: Evaluating the Historical Accounts of International Tribunals and Truth Commissions. Here is the abstract.

Since the trials of high-ranking Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg during 1945-1946, commentators have been asking whether courts are the best place to write a history of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This debate gained momentum during the 1961 Eichmann trial in Israel and the Holocaust trials in France in the 1970s and 1980s, and took on new relevance during the wave of democratizations in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. During the 1990s, the United Nations and major donor governments adopted official policies stating that the task of writing a new official history was central to facilitating both co-existence and accountability after authoritarianism and violent conflict, and they promoted new institutions such as truth and reconciliation commissions to fulfill this undertaking. Now it is time to critically evaluate this range of institutions and ask: have international tribunals or commissions of inquiry actually provided significant insights into the origins and causes of political violence? How might states or international institutions document human rights violations in a way that is comprehensive and engages in a meaningful reckoning with the past?

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

The Nuremberg Trials in Historical and Cultural Context

Christiane Wilke, Carleton University, Department of Law, has published Reconsecrating the Temple of Justice: Invocations of Civilization and Humanity in the Nuremberg Justice Case, at 24 Canadian Journal of Law and Society 181 (2009). Here is the abstract.

The Nuremberg Trials provide the foundation for contemporary international criminal law. Yet these trials are rarely explored in their broader ideational and social context. This article examines the context and role of the concept of “civilization” as used in U.S. v Altstoetter, the 1947 trial of Nazi judges and judicial administrators at Nuremberg. I place the reference to civilization in Altstoetter within a tradition of international law that understood law and civilization as co-constitutive. The Altstoetter Court conceptualized Germany as an essentially civilized country that lapsed into barbaric and therefore lawless violence. This account helped the Court to establish the blameworthiness of the defendants’ conduct, blame the Nazi violence on lawlessness, and establish its own authority.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.