Natural Law and the Nuremburg Trials
... a perspective – and depending what side you are on in the perspective determines your outcome in the application of the natural law. As natural law is not codified it provides no ability to inform constituents of unacceptable behavior. Reconciliation can only occur via a force majeure. This is seen in a couple of ways. First, in the instance of the Nuremberg Trials and the IWCT accused individuals are abducted to trial without any operation of law. Perhaps due process and the concept of constitutional rights only apply to individuals within America. The accused are detained and charged by a fictitious body imposing a law. It is interesting that both the Nuremberg Trials and IWCT are tribunals. They cannot be known as a court of law because there is no agreement as to what law exists and who is to enforce it. A basic issue of legality also needs to be examined in the context of the United States. Some conduct is immoral, harmful or both. Some conduct is criminal and punishable. However, the fact that some conduct is immoral and/or harmful does not mean it is criminal and punishable. The American Legal System purports that there is no crime without a law defining it and no punishment without a law providing for it. Furthermore a person cannot be punished unless their conduct was defined as criminal before they acted. If we propose to further our concept of legality in other parts of the world we must adhere to it completely. In the context of Nuremberg and the IWCT this did not occur. There is no doubt that committing atrocities is both immoral and harmful. However, there is no law that prohibits it other than the fiction woven by War Crimes Tribunals. No law exists that defines or provides for punishment of the charges purported by War Crimes Tribunals. Some might argue that international agreements between nations (such as the United Nations’ declarations) provide sufficient law, but those are not laws. Finally, the conduct a person is being charged for must have been criminal before their commission of the crime. In the case of the Nuremberg Judges convicted, their acts were legal within their nation’s laws. In addition, the crimes committed were not defined until the tribunals came about. In the case of the current IWCT one may argue that a precedent exists stemming from the original Nuremberg trials that established an international common law for criminal acts. Let us assume for a moment that a natural exists and could legally be applied. We must then determine if the accused met the actus reus and mens rea of the offenses. To satisfy the actus reus of an offense there must be a voluntary act or failure to perform a voluntary act that you have a legal duty to perform which causes social harm. In the case of the Nuremberg judges they did act voluntarily in condemning minorities to atrocities that did cause social harm, and they may have had a legal duty to not condemn the innocent. Arguably they may have acted under duress, but evidence exists that other judges resigned without retribution against them for not acting as the government desired. Under this scenario, the judges would have satisfied the actus reus of the natural law which was to not permit the happening of atrocities. A question exists as to whether the natural law that is being applied purports a strict liability offense or requires the mens rea element. It is assumed that the natural law requires a mens rea because it does not specify otherwise. Next we must examine whether they satisfied the mens rea requirement of the crime. An act in and of itself does not make a person guilty unless the mind is guilty. This guilty or culpable state of mind is a general pre-requisite to criminal responsibility and it must be such that there was a general immorality of motive, vicious will or evil-meaning mind. However, we do not require an intentional state of mind, only that the defendant committed acts in a manner that demonstrated immorality. In the context of the Nuremberg Judges, their acts were immoral, but they did not appear to act with a guilty mind for they felt they were acting in the best interest of their nation – actions for which there was no guilt. How was it that they could be found guilty then when they had not satisfied the mens rea of the crime? Either the Nuremberg Tribunal interpreted the offense as a strict liability one not requiring a mens rea, or the more plausible that the Tribunal imposed a foreign perspective. Meaning that in order to find the Judges guilty they had to judge them guilty by imposing a law ex post facto on the de...