After The Holocaust - After World War II - 1945 onward

International Nuremberg Principles Academy

9th IHLD (2015) Benjamin Ferencz Presents

RobertHJacksonCenter
Published on Sep 9, 2015

 

Benjamin Ferencz, the chief prosecutor at the Einsatzgruppen Trial at Nuremberg, spoke via video to the 9th International Humanitarian Law Dialogs held the Robert H. Jackson Center on Aug. 30, 2015. For further information see www.roberthjackson.org.

 

BBC Interview with Benjamin Ferencz: Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal prosecutor, November 20, 2015. Additional clip here.

 

The United States and the International Criminal Court-CaarCenter
The United States and the International [...]
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The Geneva Conventions 1949
The Geneva Conventions 1949.pdf
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Nuremberg principles
Wikipedia

 

The Nuremberg principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II. Read more

Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1950
Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 19[...]
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Nuremberg Trial and International Law-AmJourInterLaw 41-01-1947, 20-37
Nuremberg Trial and International Law-Am[...]
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..............................Aftermath of World War II...........................

Aftermath of World War II
Wikipedia

 

The aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era. It was defined by the decline of the old great powers and the rise of two superpowers: the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States of America (US), creating a bipolar world. Allied during World War II, the US and the USSR became competitors on the world stage and engaged in what became known as the Cold War, so called because it never boiled over into open war between the two powers but was focused on espionage, political subversion and proxy wars. Western Europe and Japan were rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan whereas Eastern Europe fell in the Soviet sphere of influence and was forced to reject the plan. Europe was divided into a US-led Western Bloc and a Soviet-led Eastern Bloc. Internationally, alliances with the two blocs gradually shifted, with some nations trying to stay out of the Cold War through the Non-Aligned Movement. The Cold War also saw a nuclear arms race between the two superpowers; part of the reason that the Cold War never became a "hot" war was that the Soviet Union and the United States had nuclear deterrents against each other, leading to a mutually assured destruction standoff. Read more

 

The End of World War II in Europe -- May 8, 1945

Link to the End of World War II in Europe, Wikipedia

Victory in Europe Day
Wikipedia

 

Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces.[1] It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. Read more

 

Germany after the War, 1945-49

..................Reconstruction of Germany after WWII..............

Map showing the Oder–Neisse line and pre-war German territory ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union. (click to enlarge)
German cities had extensive bomb damage by the war's end

Reconstruction of Germany
Wikipedia

 

The reconstruction of Germany after World War II was a long process. Germany had suffered heavy losses during the war, both in lives and industrial power. 7.5 million Germans had been killed, roughly 11 percent of the population (see also World War II casualties). The country's cities were severely damaged from heavy bombing in the closing chapters of the War and agricultural production was only 35 percent of what it was before the war.

 

At the Potsdam Conference, the victorious Allies ceded roughly 100% of Germany's pre-Anschluss territory to Poland and the Soviet Union. The German population in this area was expelled by force, together with the Germans of the Sudetenland and the German populations scattered throughout the rest of Eastern Europe. Between 0.5 and 2 million are said to have died in the process, depending on source. (See also Expulsion of Germans after World War II). As a result, the population density grew in the "new" Germany that remained after the dismemberment.

 

As agreed at Potsdam, an attempt was made to convert Germany into a pastoral and agricultural nation, allowed only light industry. Many factories were dismantled as reparations or were simply destroyed (see also the Morgenthau Plan). Millions of German prisoners of war were for several years used as forced labor, both by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.

 

Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the United States pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how, as well as all patents in Germany. John Gimbel comes to the conclusion in his book, Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Post-war Germany, that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to 10 billion dollars, equivalent to around 100 billion dollars in 2006. (Ref: Norman M. Naimark The Russians in Germany pg. 206) (see also Operation Paperclip).

 

As soon as 1945, the Allied forces worked heavily on removing Nazi influence from Germany in a process dubbed as "denazification."

 

By mid-1947, the success of denazification and the start of the Cold War had led to a re-consideration of policy, as the Germans were seen as possible allies in the conflict and the dawning realization that the economic recovery of Europe was dependent on the reactivation of German industry. With the repudiation of the U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067 in July 1947, the Western Allies were able to start planning for the introduction of a currency reform to halt the rampant inflation. This type of action to help the German economy had been prohibited by the directive and its execution also led to the setting up of a Soviet controlled puppet state in the eastern zone, to maintain Soviet control there.(see also Berlin Blockade)

 

In 1948, the Deutsche Mark replaced the occupation currency as the currency of the Western occupation zones, leading to their eventual economic recovery.

 

In 1947, the Marshall Plan, initially known as the "European Recovery Program" was initiated. In the years 1947-1952, some $13 billion of economic and technical assistance—-equivalent to around $130 billion in 2006—were allocated to Western Europe. Despite protests from many beneficiaries, the Marshall Plan, although in the less generous form of loans, was in 1949 extended to also include the newly formed West Germany. In the years 1949-1952, West Germany received loans which totaled $1.45 billion, equivalent to around $14.5 billion in 2006.

 

The country subsequently began a slow but continuous improvement of its standard of living, with the export of local products, a reduction in unemployment, increased food production, and a reduced black market.

 

By 1950, the UK and France were finally induced to follow the U.S. lead, and stop the dismantling of German heavy industry. [1] [2] [3]. The country's economic recovery under the newly formed democratic government was, once it was permitted, swift and effective. During the mid-1950s, the unemployment rate in Germany was so low that it led to the influx of Turkish immigrants into the country's labor force.[citation needed] Germany's economy continued to improve until the 1973 oil crisis. (see also Wirtschaftswunder) Read more

 

Creation of Israel, 1948 - U.S. Department of State

Eliahu Elath presenting ark to President Truman

Creation of Israel, 1948
U.S. Department of State
Office of the Historian
Milestones: 1945–1952

 

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.

 

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

 

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state. Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

 

Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.

Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel. Read more

 

.................David Ben-Gurion - Founding of Israel................

David Ben-Gurion proclaiming independence beneath a large portrait of Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism

David Ben-Gurion
Founding of Israel
Wikipedia

 

On 14 May, on the last day of the British Mandate, Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the state of Israel. In the Israeli declaration of independence, he stated that the new nation would "uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of religion, race".

 

In his War Diaries in February 1948, Ben-Gurion wrote: "The war shall give us the land. The concepts of 'ours' and 'not ours' are peace concepts only, and they lose their meaning during war."[44] Also later he confirmed this by stating that, "In the Negev we shall not buy the land. We shall conquer it. You forget that we are at war."[44] Israeli historian Benny Morris has written of the massacres of Palestinian Arabs in 1948, and has stated that Ben-Gurion "covered up for the officers who did the massacres."[45]

David Ben-Gurion with Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Rabin in the Negev, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

After leading Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Ben-Gurion was elected Prime Minister of Israel when his Mapai (Labour) party won the largest number of Knesset seats in the first national election, held on 14 February 1949. He would remain in that post until 1963, except for a period of nearly two years between 1954 and 1955. As Prime Minister, he oversaw the establishment of the state's institutions. He presided over various national projects aimed at the rapid development of the country and its population: Operation Magic Carpet, the airlift of Jews from Arab countries, the construction of the National Water Carrier, rural development projects and the establishment of new towns and cities. In particular, he called for pioneering settlement in outlying areas, especially in the Negev. Ben-Gurion saw the struggle to make the Negev desert bloom as an area where the Jewish people could make a major contribution to humanity as a whole.[46] He believed that the sparsely populated and barren Negev desert offered a great opportunity for the Jews to settle in Palestine with minimal obstruction of the Arab population,[dubious – discuss] and set a personal example by settling in kibbutz Sde Boker at the centre of the Negev.[46]

 

During this period, Palestinian fedayeen repeatedly infiltrated into Israel from Arab territory. In 1953, after a handful of unsuccessful retaliatory actions, Ben-Gurion charged Ariel Sharon, then security chief of the northern region, with setting up a new commando unit designed to respond to fedayeen infiltrations. Ben-Gurion told Sharon, "The Palestinians must learn that they will pay a high price for Israeli lives." Sharon formed Unit 101, a small commando unit answerable directly to the IDF General Staff tasked with retaliating for fedayeen raids. During its five months of existence, the unit launched repeated raids against military targets and villages used as bases by the fedayeen.[47] These attacks became known as the reprisal operations.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman in the Oval Office, receiving a Menorah as a gift from the Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion (center). To the right is Abba Eban, the Ambassador of Israel to the United States.

In 1953, Ben-Gurion announced his intention to withdraw from government and was replaced by Moshe Sharett, who was elected the second Prime Minister of Israel in January 1954. However, Ben-Gurion temporarily served as acting prime minister when Sharett visited the United States in 1955. During Ben-Gurion's tenure as acting prime minister, the IDF carried out Operation Olive Leaves, a successful attack on fortified Syrian emplacements near the northeastern shores of the Sea of Galilee. The operation was a response to Syrian attacks on Israeli fishermen. Ben-Gurion had ordered the operation without consulting the Israeli cabinet and seeking a vote on the matter, and Sharett would later bitterly complain that Ben-Gurion had exceeded his authority.[48]

 

Ben-Gurion returned to government in 1955. He assumed the post of Defense Minister and was soon re-elected prime minister. When Ben-Gurion returned to government, Israeli forces began responding more aggressively to Egyptian-sponsored Palestinian guerilla attacks from Gaza—still under Egyptian rule. Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser signed the Egyptian-Czech arms deal and purchased a large amount of modern arms. The Israelis responded by arming themselves with help from France. Nasser blocked the passage of Israeli ships through the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal. In July 1956, the United States and Britain withdrew their offer to fund the Aswan High Dam project on the Nile and a week later, Nasser ordered the nationalization of the French and British-controlled Suez Canal. In late 1956, the bellicosity of statements Arab prompted Israel to remove the threat of the concentrated Egyptian forces in the Sinai, and Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai peninsula. Other Israeli aims were elimination of the Fedayeen incursions into Israel that made life unbearable for its southern population, and opening the blockaded Straits of Tiran for Israeli ships.[49][50][51][52][53][54] Israel occupied much of the peninsula within a few days. As agreed beforehand, within a couple of days, Britain and France invaded too, aiming at regaining Western control of the Suez Canal and removing the Egyptian president Nasser. The United States pressure forced the British and French to back down and Israel to withdraw from Sinai in return for free Israeli navigation through the Red Sea. The United Nations responded by establishing its first peacekeeping force, (UNEF). It was stationed between Egypt and Israel and for the next decade it maintained peace and stopped the Fedayeen incursions into Israel.

David Ben-Gurion speaking at the Knesset, 1957

In 1959, David Ben-Gurion learned from West German officials of reports that the notorious Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, was likely living in hiding in Argentina. In response, Ben-Gurion ordered the Israel foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, to capture the international fugitive alive for trial in Israel. In 1960, this mission was accomplished and Eichmann was tried and convicted in an internationally publicized trial for various offenses including crimes against humanity, and was subsequently executed in 1962.

 

Ben-Gurion stepped down as prime minister for personal reasons in 1963, and chose Levi Eshkol as his successor. A year later a rivalry developed between the two on the issue of the Lavon Affair, a failed 1954 Israeli covert operation in Egypt. Ben-Gurion had insisted that the operation be properly investigated, while Eshkol refused. Ben-Gurion subsequently broke with Mapai in June 1965 and formed a new party, Rafi, while Mapai merged with Ahdut HaAvoda to form Alignment, with Eshkol as its head. Alignment defeated Rafi in the November 1965 election, establishing Eshkol as the country's leader. Read more

 

................................The State of Israel......................................

Israel

Wikipedia

 

Israel...officially the State of Israel...is a country in West Asia, situated at the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. It shares land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories (which are claimed by the State of Palestine and are partially controlled by Israel) comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip[7] to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. It contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area.[8][9] Israel's financial center is Tel Aviv,[10] while Jerusalem is both its self-designated, though unrecognised by the United Nations,[11] capital and the most populous individual city under the country's governmental administration. Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is internationally disputed.[note 2][12]

 

On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly recommended the adoption and implementation of the Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine. This UN plan specified borders for new Arab and Jewish states and also specified an area of Jerusalem and its environs which was to be administered by the UN under an international regime.[13][14] The end of the British Mandate for Palestine was set for midnight on 14 May 1948. That day, David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel," which would start to function from the termination of the mandate.[15][16][17] The borders of the new state were not specified in the declaration.[14][18] Neighboring Arab armies invaded the former Palestinian mandate on the next day and fought the Israeli forces.[19][20] Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states,[21] in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula (1956–57, 1967–82), part of South Lebanon (1982–2000), Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. It extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank.[22][23][24][25] Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed. Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is the world's longest military occupation in modern times.[note 3][27]

 

Read more

 

In the Name of Sorrow and Hope
Booknotes

 

Noa Ben Artzi-Pelossof, only granddaughter of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, discussed her book, "In the Name of Sorrow and Hope," published by Alfred A. Knopf. She gained international recognition when she read her "last letter" to her grandfather at his funeral. In the book, written when she was only 19, she reminisced about her childhood in Israel, her family, and her grandfather. The book details Prime Minister Rabin's evolution from soldier to Middle East peacemaker. It continues through to the leader's 1995 assassination by a member of the militant Israeli right wing. Ms. Ben Artzi-Pelossof reflected on her experiences as a young Israeli woman. Now a member of the Israeli army, she also talked about extremism in the Middle East, the political climate which resulted in her grandfather's death, and her hopes for peace. Read more

 

 

Ben Ferencz and The International Criminal Court - ICC

Benjamin B. Ferencz

Benjamin B. Ferencz
Wikipedia

 

Benjamin Berell[1] Ferencz (born March 11, 1920)[2][3] is a Hungarian-born American lawyer. He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the twelve military trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany. Later, he became an advocate of the establishment of an international rule of law and of an International Criminal Court. From 1985 to 1996, he was Adjunct Professor of International Law at Pace University. Read more

 

 

LAW not WAR

Rule Of Law - ROL

 

Ben Ferencz, the last living U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials of nazis after WWII, is hailed as the founding father of the International Criminal Court (ICC). His vision of "Law Not War" remains unfulfilled as long as his own country, the United States, refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of either the ICC or the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Rome Statute (PDF). See The Atlantic, The Last Man at Nuremberg

 

Rule of Law UN - ROL Unit                         ROL Peacekeeping

Rule of Law UN Resolution 69/123            ROL OHCHR

Rule of Law United Nations                       ROL Post-Conflict (PDF)

Rule of Law Vatican Seeks ROL                 ROL UNPD

Rule of Law ROL Indicators (PDF)              ROL UNPOL

 

Rule of Law American Bar Association (PDF) Wikipedia

Rule of Law Wikipedia

Rule of Law U.S. Institute of Peace, GLAS

Rule of Law World Justice Project

Rule of Law Heritage Foundation

Rule of Law Transitional Justice (PDF)

Rule of Law Inventing ROL for the UN (PDF)

 

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: LAW AND HISTORY
Adam S. Chilton & Eric A. Posner July 2016
THE LAW SCHOOL THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

 

 

The Last Man at Nuremberg
The Atlantic
By Emma Green
May 9, 2014

 

 

The life of 95-year-old Benjamin Ferencz, the only living prosecutor from the war-crime trials that followed the Holocaust

 

Benjamin Ferencz was 27 when the Einsatzgruppen trial began in 1947. There were 22 defendants, all men, all members of the German SS. "One of the counsel has characterized this trial as the biggest murder trial in history," the military tribunal wrote. "In this case, the defendants are not … charged with sitting in an office hundreds and thousands of miles away from the slaughter.… These men were in the field actively superintending, controlling, directing, and taking an active part in the bloody harvest." Put simply, the Einsatzgruppen were exterminators: Their squads traveled to towns throughout Eastern Europe, rounding up Jews and shooting them with mechanized efficiency. Some mass graves were filled with hundreds of bodies; others, thousands.

 

Otto Ohlendorf, Paul Blobel, and almost two dozen others led these divisions of Hitler’s army; after the war, they were indicted for crimes against humanity. Benjamin Ferencz was 27, and he was the chief prosecutor responsible for convicting 22 men on trial for murdering 1 million men, women, and children.

In the nearly 70 years since he took part in the trials at Nuremberg, Ferencz has lived a remarkable life. He led efforts to return property to Holocaust survivors after the war and participated in reparations negotiations between Israel and West Germany. He wrote multiple books, including a hefty, two-volume tome outlining his ideas for the body that would later become the International Criminal Court. He fathered four children.

 

Now he’s 95, and tired. "I’m getting old," he said. "I’m running out of steam. I need help from young people." Read more

 

Ben Ferencz, age 27

Benjamin Ferencz, the only surviving member of the prosecution team at Nuremberg, is a fierce critic of illegal U.S. war-making. In response to U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, he dedicated the rest of his life to establishing an International Criminal Court (ICC) that could prosecute senior officials of any government who commit aggression and other war crimes. The Rome Statute (PDF)

 

Ferencz is hailed as the founding father of the ICC, but his vision of "Law Not War" remains unfulfilled as long as his own country, the United States, refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of either the ICC or the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Read more

 

The International Criminal Court - ICC - The Hague

Headquarters of the ICC in The Hague

International Criminal Court (ICC) homepage

IntlCriminalCourt - YouTube Channel

ICC Wikipedia

 

Not to be confused with the

International Court of Justice (ICJ).

 

The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt)[2] is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal that sits in The Hague in the Netherlands. The ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The ICC is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and it may therefore only exercise its jurisdiction when certain conditions are met, such as when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals or when the United Nations Security Council or individual states refer investigations to the Court. The ICC began functioning on 1 July 2002, the date that the Rome Statute entered into force. The Rome Statute is a multilateral treaty which serves as the ICC's foundational and governing document. States which become party to the Rome Statute, for example by ratifying it, become member states of the ICC. Currently, there are 123 states which are party to the Rome Statute and therefore members of the ICC.

 

The ICC has four principal organs: the Presidency, the Judicial Divisions, the Office of the Prosecutor, and the Registry. The President is the most senior judge chosen by his or her peers in the Judicial Division, which hears cases before the Court. The Office of the Prosecutor is headed by the Prosecutor who investigates crimes and initiates proceedings before the Judicial Division. The Registry is headed by the Registrar and is charged with managing all the administrative functions of the ICC, including the headquarters, detention unit, and public defense office.

 

The Office of the Prosecutor has opened nine official investigations and is also conducting an additional nine preliminary examinations. Thus far, 36 individuals have been indicted in the ICC, including Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo.

 

Read more Wikipedia

 

State parties to the Rome Statute

of the International Criminal Court, Wikipedia

 

There is presently bipartisan consensus that the United States does not intend to ratify the Rome Statute.[43] Some US Senators have suggested that the treaty could not be ratified without a constitutional amendment.[44] Therefore, US opponents of the ICC argue that the US Constitution in its present form does not allow a cession of judicial authority to any body other than the Supreme Court. In the view of proponents of the ICC there is no inconsistency with the US Constitution, arguing that the role of the US Supreme Court as final arbiter of US law would not be disturbed. Before the Rome Statute, opposition to the ICC was largely headed by Republican Senator Jesse Helms.[45] Other objections to ratification have included that it violates international law, is a political court without appeal, denies fundamental American human rights, denies the authority of the United Nations, and would violate US national sovereignty. Read more

 

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The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, ICC-01/04-01/06

Coalition for the International Criminal Court, Lubanga Case

 

Ferencz Closes Lubanga Case for ICC

 

May it please your Honors,

 

This is a historic moment in the evolution of international criminal law. For the first time a permanent international criminal court will hear the closing statement for the Prosecution as it concludes it first case against its first accused Mr. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo.

 

I witnessed such an evolution. As an American soldier, I survived the indescribable horrors of World War II and served as a liberator of many concentration camps. Shortly thereafter, I was appointed a Prosecutor at the Nuremberg War crimes trials which mapped new rules for the protection of humanity. I was 27 years old then. I am now in my 92nd year, having spent a lifetime striving for a more humane world governed by the rule of law.

 

I am honoured to represent the Prosecutor and to share some personal observations regarding the significance of this trial.

 

The most significant advance I have observed in international law has gone almost unnoticed; it is the slow awakening of the human conscience. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed inalienable, fundamental rights of “all members of the human family as a foundation of freedom peace and justice in the world.” Countless human rights declarations have been made over many years by many dedicated persons and organizations. But legal action to enforce the promises has been slow in coming.

 

In Rome in 1998, when the Statute that binds this Court was overwhelmingly approved, over a hundred sovereign states decided that child recruitment and forcing them to participate in hostilities were among “the most serious crimes of concern for the international community as a whole.” Punishing perpetrators was recognized as a legal obligation.

 

What makes this Court so distinctive is its primary goal to deter crimes before they take place by letting wrongdoers know in advance that they will be called to account by an impartial International Criminal Court. The law can no longer be silent but must instead be heard and enforced to protect the fundamental rights of people everywhere.

 

The Prosecutor’s Office spoke at length meticulously detailing grim facts establishing the responsibility of the accused for the crimes alleged. The evidence showed that waves of children, recruited under Mr. Lubanga’s command, moved through as many as 20 training camps, some holding between eight and sixteen hundred children under age 15.

 

Words and figures cannot adequately portray the physical and psychological harm inflicted on vulnerable children who were brutalized and who lived in constant fear. The loss and grief to their inconsolable families is immeasurable. Their childhood stolen, deprived of education and all human rights, the suffering of the young victims and their families left permanent scars. We must try to restore the faith of children so that they may join in restoring the shattered world from which they came.

 

Imagine the pain of mothers crying and pleading at the door of the camps still suffering and wondering what happened to their children. Picture the agony of the father who said : “[…] he is my first son. All of my hopes were laid on him. […]the child was ruined. […] Today he can do nothing in his life. He has abandoned his education. And this is something which affects me greatly.”

 

All of the girls recruited could expect to be sexually violated.

 

All of these events which the Prosecution has carefully presented have been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Once again, “the case we present is a plea of humanity to law.” It was a call for human beings to behave in a humane and lawful way.

 

The hope of humankind is that compassion and compromise may replace the cruel and senseless violence of armed conflicts. That is the law as prescribed by the Rome Statute that binds this Court as well as the UN Charter that binds everyone. Vengeance begets vengeance. The illegal use of armed force, which is the soil from which all human rights violation grow must be condemned as a crime against humanity. International disputes must be resolved not by armed force but by peaceful means only. Seizing and training young people to hate and kill presumed adversaries undermines the legal and moral firmament of human society.

 

Let the voice and the verdict of this esteemed global court now speak for the awakened conscience of the world.

 

The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo
ICC Case Information Sheet
LubangaENG.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [367.6 KB]

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says

Dr. Josef Mengele in 1956, left. Arthur Rudolph, center, in 1990, was a rocket scientist for Nazi Germany and NASA. John Demjanjuk in 2006.
Rudolph at NASA

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says

The New York Times

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

November 13, 2010

 

WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a "safe haven" in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

 

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

 

It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.

 

The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.

 

Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.

 

The Justice Department report, describing what it calls "the government’s collaboration with persecutors," says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis "were indeed knowingly granted entry" to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. "America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well," it said.

 

The report also documents divisions within the government over the effort and the legal pitfalls in relying on testimony from Holocaust survivors that was decades old. The report also concluded that the number of Nazis who made it into the United States was almost certainly much smaller than 10,000, the figure widely cited by government officials.

 

The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006. Under the threat of a lawsuit, it turned over a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but even then many of the most legally and diplomatically sensitive portions were omitted. A complete version was obtained by The New York Times.

 

The Justice Department said the report, the product of six years of work, was never formally completed and did not represent its official findings. It cited "numerous factual errors and omissions," but declined to say what they were.

 

More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the O.S.I., which was merged with another unit this year.

 

In chronicling the cases of Nazis who were aided by American intelligence officials, the report cites help that C.I.A. officials provided in 1954 to Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolf Eichmann who had helped develop the initial plans "to purge Germany of the Jews" and who later worked for the C.I.A. in the United States. In a chain of memos, C.I.A. officials debated what to do if Von Bolschwing were confronted about his past — whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or "explain it away on the basis of extenuating circumstances," the report said.

 

The Justice Department, after learning of Von Bolschwing’s Nazi ties, sought to deport him in 1981. He died that year at age 72.

 

The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany. (Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.)

 

The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department’s No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so "would be to the detriment of the national interest."

 

Justice Department investigators later found evidence that Rudolph was much more actively involved in exploiting slave laborers at Mittelwerk than he or American intelligence officials had acknowledged, the report says.

 

Some intelligence officials objected when the Justice Department sought to deport him in 1983, but the O.S.I. considered the deportation of someone of Rudolph’s prominence as an affirmation of "the depth of the government’s commitment to the Nazi prosecution program," according to internal memos.

The Justice Department itself sometimes concealed what American officials knew about Nazis in this country, the report found.

 

In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that "misstated the facts" in asserting that checks of C.I.A. and F.B.I. records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier. In fact, the report said, the Justice Department "knew that Soobzokov had advised the C.I.A. of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States." Read more

 

The O.S.I. Report

 

In Hunt for Nazis, an Incomplete History, The New York Times

 

A secret internal history of the Justice Department’s Nazi-hunting unit, the Office of Special Investigations, chronicles numerous hidden chapters in the office’s 31-year-existence. But a heavily redacted version of the report turned over by the Justice Department in response to a lawsuit deletes more than 1,000 passages in the report, including many of the most intriguing references. Here is a sampling of the original passages in the unredacted report, obtained by the New York Times, as compared with the deleted versions. Read more

 

Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II

Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II, Barnes & Noble


From Publishers Weekly
Think of this book as one-stop shopping to learn about the Holocaust restitution negotiations of the late 1990s. Eizenstat was at the center of the tornado, as European companies and banks belatedly made compensation for their WWII-era behavior. In this comprehensive, well-written and unsparing reflection on those negotiations, the former Clinton administration official offers a behind-the-scenes look at how agreements were reached to provide Holocaust survivors with monies they or their families had lost during the war. He begins with the unusual pair of World Jewish Congress (whose president, Edgar Bronfman, was a friend of Clinton's) and Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, who teamed up to make this an issue that Europe could not ignore. Whether writing about the most well-publicized of these negotiations-the German slave labor agreement or the "Swiss gold" affair, which eventually led to a $1.25-billion settlement-or some of the lesser-known accords, Eizenstat tells his story with flair and with due regard for the role of politics (D'Amato, for instance, "milked the Swiss controversy for everything it was worth"). According to Eizenstat, some elements of the survivors' cases carried little legal weight, but European governments and firms wilted under public relations pressure, often purposefully intensified by lawyers on behalf of the survivors. While other books have been written about this subject, none has been as comprehensive or as balanced. 8 pages of b&w photos, not seen by PW. The New York Times recently reported on the furor created by the book jacket - a gold swastika superimposed on the Swiss flag - in Switzerland.

 

Book With Swastika Angers the Swiss - NYT
Book With Swastika Angers the Swiss - Th[...]
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Conversations with History: Stuart E. Eizenstat, author of Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II. YouTube