Preview

Why the Nuremberg Trials Did Not Set a Good Precident for Crimes Against Humanity Essay Example

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4284 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Why the Nuremberg Trials Did Not Set a Good Precident for Crimes Against Humanity Essay Example
“All human beings, whatever their cultural or historical background, suffer when they are intimidated, imprisoned or tortured… We must, therefore, insist on a global consensus, not only on the need to respect human rights worldwide, but also on the definition of these rights… for it is the inherent nature of all human beings to yearn for freedom, equality and dignity, and they have an equal right to achieve that”. ~ The Dali Llama

Early twentieth century events including the Armenian genocide during World War I and the Holocaust during World War II provided a historical basis and plenty of positive evidence for those who, like the Dali Llama, argued the need for an internationally identifiable definition of human rights. The systematic extermination of over 200,000 Armenians at the hands of the Young Turks during World War I and over 6 million Jews by the Nazis during World War II undoubtedly catalyzed an international coalition for addressing crimes against humanity. Yet, in order to define crimes against humanity, the international community faced both cultural barriers and the universally accepted rights to state sovereignty. Even still, the need to set a strong international precedent for condemning crimes against humanity that was undertaken during the Nuremberg trials after World War II was not successfully carried out. The shortcomings of the Nuremberg trials, in terms of defending against crimes against humanity, failed to separate the atrocities of the Holocaust from the acts of war perpetrated by the Nazis. In doing so, the trials inadvertently downplayed the historical and cultural significance of the Holocaust. Those who deserved justice the most and those who were guilty of injustices within the realm of crimes against humanity were not always held accountable. Thus, questions regarding the Nuremberg trial’s failure to set a precedent for condemning future crimes against humanity, the positive and negative affects of defining accountability during
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Kristallnacht Paper

    • 1196 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Kristallnacht Paper

    In the introduction to Alan E. Steinweis’ book Kristallnacht 1938, he argues that the German citizens attacking Jewish synagogues, businesses, homes, properties and the Jewish people themselves on November 9th, 1938 is important to understand the perspective of German Society and it’s role in the prosecution of Jews perpetrated by the Nazis. It further suggests that the involvement of Germans in the attacks was far more wide spread than just a small group of Nazi and Nazi sympathizers. It included not just German military officers and personnel, but also workers, teenagers and even children. Kristallnacht 1938 is different than other books and publications on the subject of the events that occurred in Germany in November 1938. Its primary focus is more on the individuals committing the attacks rather than the Jewish victims. It also argues against some of the prevailing theories noted in other works about the Kristallnacht.…

    • 1196 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Donald L. Niewyk's Argumentative Analysis
    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Donald L. Niewyk's Argumentative Analysis

    Donald L. Niewyk’s fifth and sixth chapters both deal more with outside perspectives and outside reactions than it does with those who were persecuted. The fifth chapter, “Bystander Reactions,” offers four different arguments as to why bystanders acted they way they did during the Holocaust. The sixth chapter, “Possibilities of Rescue,” discusses three different viewpoints on what foreign governments could have done to prevent the Holocaust. These two chapters conclude Niewyk’s book The Holocaust and wrap up the final sequence of events surrounding the Holocaust and the camps.…

    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Alien Tort Statute (ATS)
    • 1216 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Alien Tort Statute (ATS)

    Nevertheless, if we bring this claim we should highlight the similarities between our case and the Ninth Circuit decision. It is well established that individuals can be held liable under the ATS for committing genocide. Thus, under the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning Lansdale could be held liable because other non-state actors have also been found liable for committing…

    • 1216 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Stanley Milgram's Influence On The Holocaust
    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Stanley Milgram's Influence On The Holocaust

    Stanley Milgram, born a Jew, wonders how he was fortunate enough to be born and raised in the United States, however, he was still impacted by the Holocaust. He felt very passionate about the Holocaust and feels guilty that he hadn’t died in the concentration camps with his fellow Jews in Europe (Miller, 2015). Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, sought out the reasoning behind why Nazi soldiers blindly obeyed authority, especially after the Nuremberg War Criminal trials in World War II (McLeod, 2007). The Nuremberg War Criminal trials consisted of thirteen trials against the higher ranked “Nazi war criminals.” The Nazi criminals killed innocent Jews but proceeded to do so anyway during the Holocaust (Nuremberg Trials, 2015). Some of the Nazis knew killing Jews was immoral, but claim they were “just following orders.” The fact that Milgram was a Jew (Miller, 2015) accompanied by the testimonies in…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Differences And Similarities Between The Holocaust And Armenian Genocide
    • 835 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Differences And Similarities Between The Holocaust And Armenian Genocide

    Throughout history, it has been shown that naturally, human beings can be evil and are competent of committing atrocious and disreputable crimes against other human beings. The United Nations has a law that is supposed to protect human rights; however, these rights have been violated in the past, and are still unfortunately, on occasion, contravened today. These human rights cover a wide assortment of topics and come in a number of forms. Many of these rights have been abused and today are studied deeply in history, such as sexual abuse against women, basic discrimination, or the commitment of hate crimes. Regrettably, there have been many lives lost due to infringements of these human rights, and in some horrific cases, these counts of numerous…

    • 835 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Elie Wiesel's Night: The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights
    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Elie Wiesel's Night: The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights

    Human rights… When thought of most assume everyone has rights and they can’t be taken. Little do they know about the Holocaust? In the 1940’s they Holocaust began. In the book Night it is a true story about a young boy’s life while having to live through the Holocaust. It explains the horrible acts done by the German, the camps he had to travel too, and the things he had to witness, and much more. There have been many problems in the world but one of the most horrific is the Holocaust. The Jewish people lost almost all rights that every human should have. Some of the rights are the unthinkable freedom from discrimination sadly the right to not be tortured and of course the right to not have these violated.…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Genocide And Holocaust Similarities
    • 109 Words
    • 1 Page

    Genocide And Holocaust Similarities

    Every case of genocide and mass murder has its own story and anotherness, they also didn’t happen in the blink of an eye. The perpetrators of these events have always had a fundamental reason to what led them to execute such gruesome crimes. Most may know, the German holocaust and the Rwandan genocide are the two most known and most terrible violation of human rights because of the amount of people that were killed and the way in which these murders were performed. This essay is a discussion of key similarities and differences of the roles of perpetrators in the two case studies; Rwandan genocide and the German…

    • 109 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Nuremburg Trials
    • 1812 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Nuremburg Trials

    The Holocaust was an unparalleled crime composed of millions of murders imprisonment, racism, and destruction. It destroyed millions of lives and wiped out over six million Jews during the course of World War II under Hitler’s power. The aftermath of these horrific events proved to be a difficult one since no form of punishment could ever suffice to the torture and pain the Nazi’s inflicted on the Jewish Community. This challenge was attempted by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) held at Nuremberg, Germany where they held Nazi’s in court for crimes of war and genocide. These became known as the Nuremburg Trials.…

    • 1812 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Did The Nuremberg Trials Affect The Future
    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Did The Nuremberg Trials Affect The Future

    To begin, the Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials prosecuting and questioning Nazi war criminals. When Hitler came to power, he created laws persecuting Jews and other enemies of Nazi. These laws provoked the death of 6 million European Jews. In response, the allied leaders of Great Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union “issued the first joint declaration officially noting the mass murder of European Jewry and resolving to prosecute those responsible for violence against civilian populations,” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Mass Killing Summary
    • 2299 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Mass Killing Summary

    Shaw argues that studies on genocide have concentrated too heavily on the specific perpetrators and victims with regard to intentions and identities respectively. Instead, he wants to propose that the crime of genocide should be understood within the structure of conflict situations. The most important aspect of genocide studies from the point of view of politics is that the concept of genocide must be clarified, Shaw believes that scholarship should provide this elucidation. By returning to the original definition proposed by Lemkin, the focus is more generally on attacks by the armed against the unarmed. Shaw states that “Lemkin invented ‘genocide’ because he wanted to describe – and highlight for countervailing action – a general class of violent actions.” Taking lessons from one of the most influential studies on war by Carl von Clausewitz, Shaw sees genocide as a form of war directed against civilians. Debates about genocide have certainly advanced since the introduction of the term, yet, Shaw feels these debates from the 1940s onwards have lost two very key aspects of the original concept. In agreement with Lemkin the omission of cultural genocide or social destruction meaning not just physically but a way of life and how genocide relates to war are vital in understanding the nature of the crime. He argues that “Genocide always involves physical violence but it involves many other things as well. Defining genocide by killing misses the social aims that lie behind it. Genocide involves mass killing but it is much more than mass killing.” Similar to some of the arguments made by Claudia Card in relation to the inclusion of cultural genocide, Shaw’s assertion that genocide must be viewed in the context of war provides a valuable framework for understanding the particular violence against civilians. The use of word civilians here is important for Shaw, rather than the UN Genocide…

    • 2299 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Dehumanization And Elie Wiesel
    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page

    Examples Of Dehumanization And Elie Wiesel

    The tragedy we know today as the Holocaust has set the mark for horrific events that followed, and to come. This catastrophe is one of the greatest examples of dehumanization, and Elie Wiesel offers his first hand account of the disaster to educate people on what took place during this time. Wiesel shares with his audience the brutality, and hatefulness of the Nazis and their followers. He presents his readers with multiple instances of people being stripped of their rights, and humanity. In correlation with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a number of rights have been broken or cease to exist.…

    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Is The Holocaust Unique
    • 1994 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Is The Holocaust Unique

    The uniqueness of the Holocaust has always been controversial. Was it a singular event where latter atrocities could not match in ideology, degree, or characteristics or was it a predecessor for where similar events could be used as a depiction of the Holocaust simply in another place and time? Firstly, the Holocaust, commonly referred to as the Nazi slaughter of Jews, Gypsies and other ‘racial undesirables during World War II , is based on a general ideology of racialism that myths of justification in the national mass murders of Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia adopt in their search for mass support. The victims and the types of atrocities in each case…

    • 1994 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    US Response To The Holocaust
    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages

    US Response To The Holocaust

    The Holocaust was the country that sponsored mass murders for of over six million Jews by the Nazi government during World War II. It was the culmination of close to a decade of official discrimination, racial segregation, and brutal violence against the Jewish residential district in Germany. Under the shield of the war, the Nazis turned to systematic genocide after 1941, setting up industrial-style “extermination camps” planning to execute the detained Jewish population of Germany and Europe. While other groups targeted for extinction by the Nazi state, including gypsies, gays and communists, anti-Semitism was a fundamental tenet of Nazi ideology. In fact, Hitler believed until the end that the “war against the Jews” was a more important goal than victory in the conventional military battles of World War II. The Holocaust is today known as one of the worst mass crimes in human history.…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Big Picture Analysis
    • 1506 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Big Picture Analysis

    “You cannot talk solely of human rights in terms of torture and imprisonment and killing. True, this is the gravest…

    • 1506 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    foreign dignatary
    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages

    foreign dignatary

    In the story “A Foreign Dignitary”, by MacLaverty, the people without human rights are young girls. One is a dancer who was used as a sex slave. The director of prison offers it to the civil servant after the end of the dancing “she is yours for the night” (Maclaverty, 142). The other is a prisoner in the confined box. The Director of this prison looks down on punishment and tells the Foreign Dignity that punishment is old and primitive. The Director sounds like he respects the human rights of criminals. On the contrary, the ways to treat the young girls are far worse than punishment in the prison. Those girls are deprived of human rights and they live as slaves. People as innocent as young girls being treated this way is one of the worst cases of human rights violations. The director of prisons states: "the power of punishment is to silence, not to confute” (Maclaverty, 144). This is a great example to show how the director sees human rights. He believes that silencing people is the best way how to punish them, not trying to prove what wrong or right.…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More