Nuremberg defense

English 2019 November 20 Etymology vertical Defendants in the dock at nuremberg trials.jpg The defendants in the dock at the major war criminals trial before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany, in November 1945 DefendantsTalk Nuremberg.jpg Some of the defendants conferring with each other and their lawyer (back to camera). From left to right, they are Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Franz von Papen, Wilhelm Frick, and Albert Speer. During some of the Nuremberg trials the Nuremberg defense was raised, though under the Nuremberg Charter which set down the rules for the trials the argument could not relieve a defendant of criminal liability but only act as a mitigating factor to potentially lessen the punishment. An allusion to a defense used by former Nazi officials prosecuted during the Nuremberg trials after World War II. The trials were held in Nuremberg in Bavaria, Germany. Pronunciation en /ˈnjʊəɹəmbəːɡ dɪˈfɛns/ RP en /ˈn(j)ʊɹəmˌbɚɡ dɪˈfɛns/ GA en En-au-Nuremberg defense.ogg AU en Nu rem berg de fense Noun en American spelling en ethics international law idiomatic An explanation offered as an excuse for behaving in a criminal or wrongful manner, claiming that one acted in this way because one was ordered by others (particularly superiors) to do so. en lawful orders superior orders en R. R. Baxter ‘Nuremberg Defense’ Beclouded [letter] Richard B. Allen ABA Journal: The Lawyer’s Magazine Chicago, Ill. w:American Bar Association September 1970 56 818 https://books.google.com/books?id=Jiekh9t3HEYC&pg=PA818 2 0747-0088 12253250 “‘Nuremberg defense’, universally pleaded in war crimes trials,” is in actuality the Nuremberg nondefense, universally rejected in war crimes trials. It is a pity that the law of the Nuremberg Tribunal is so little understood after the passage of nearly a quarter of a century. en Stephen M. Kristovich United States v. Barker: Misapplication of the Reliance on an Official Interpretation of the Law Defense https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2364&context=californialawreview https://web.archive.org/web/20180904203905/https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2364&context=californialawreview 4 September 2018 w:California Law Review Berkeley, Calif. University of California School of Law 1978 66 44 840 https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2364&context=californialawreview#page=33 10.15779/Z38JN0R 0008-1221 67019433 Recognition of the reliance on an official interpretation of the law defense for government officials and private citizens may initially seem to be the same as the Nuremberg defense of “I was just following orders.” en Laura Parker Court-martial begins for Abu Ghraib figure https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-01-06-graner-court-martial_x.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20190521162055/https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-01-06-graner-court-martial_x.htm 21 May 2019 w:USA Today 6 January 2005 “It seems like he's [Charles Graner's] wanting to do the Nuremberg defense: ‘I was following orders,’” says Thomas Moran, a Houston attorney and a former military lawyer. 5 January 2019 en US _ law by extension An explanation offered as a defense to criminal or wrongful behavior, claiming that one is justified in not obeying a governmental order or a domestic law because the order or law is itself unlawful. en The Nuremberg Defense Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 25, part 2 Washington, D.C. w:Congressional Quarterly 1967 936 1 0010-5910 1069410713 A relatively novel legal issue was raised by dissenters who contended that they did not so much oppose war in general as the Viet Nam war in particular. This contention, which became known as the Nuremberg defense, was raised by some young men who did not qualify as conscientious objectors and who were prosecuted for refusing to submit to induction. en Gary Komarow Individual Responsibility under International Law: The Nuremberg Principles in Domestic Legal Systems The International and Comparative Law Quarterly London British Institute of International and Comparative Law January 1980 29 1 28 10.1093/iclqaj/29.1.21 0020-5893 715077131 In United States v. Berrigan, a Federal court in Maryland laid down a legal blueprint for the treatment of war protest cases where an attempt was made to invoke the "Nuremberg defence." Father Philip Berrigan and three others stood charged with injuring the property of the United States Government, mutilating records filed in a public office of the United States, and hindering the administration of the Military Selective Service Act. en Jules Lobel The Limits of Constitutional Power: Conflicts between Foreign Policy and International Law w:Virginia Law Review Charlottesville, Va. Virginia Law Review Association October 1985 71 7 footnote 452 1158 10.2307/1073073 0042-6601 1073073 66542366 Even during the Vietnam War, in the Pentagon Papers case, a standing objection would not have barred the assertion of a Nuremberg defense by those who committed the civil disobedience. en Frank Lawrence The Nuremberg Principles: A Defense for Political Protestors https://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2965&context=hastings_law_journal https://web.archive.org/web/20190105110434/https://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2965&context=hastings_law_journal 5 January 2019 w:Hastings Law Journal San Francisco, Calif. Hastings College of the Law, University of California January 1989 40 2 part II (The Modern Nuremberg Defenses) 413–414 and 416 https://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2965&context=hastings_law_journal#page=18 0017-8322 818988466 [pages 413–434] The modern Nuremberg Defenses are the antithesis of the original defense: criminal defendants today build a defense based on the reasoning and principles used by the Allied nations to convict Germans at Nuremberg. There are essentially two modern Nuremberg Defenses: the Citizen's Duty and the Citizen's Privilege. [...] Under the Citizen's Duty defense, defendants assert that they could be held liable for complicity with international crimes if they fail to take action to prevent such crimes. [...] [page 416] Under the Citizen's Privilege formulation of the Defense, the Nuremberg Principles are joined with the statutory and common law privileges allowing citizens to prevent crime. This then creates a "citizen's privilege" to break domestic law. en Matthew Lippman Nuremberg: Forty Five Years Later w:Connecticut Journal of International Law Hartford, Conn. Connecticut Journal of International Law Association fall 1991 7 1 1 0897-1218 13662858 republished in Guénaël Mettraux Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial Oxford w:Oxford University Press 2008 part IX (Lowering the Procedural Barriers: Recognizing the Nuremberg Defense for Political Protestors) 539 https://books.google.com/books?id=CcFqLfRDRjkC&pg=PA539 978-0-19-923233-8 The American judiciary's narrow interpetation of the standing requirement under the Nuremberg Principles has eviscerated the Nuremberg defense and limited its application to a narrow range of cases. [...] The judiciary, in rejecting defendants' standing to raise the Nuremberg defense, ignores the recognized privilege of citizen intervention to prevent the commission of a crime. en María José Falcón y Tella Peter Muckley The Positive Aspect Civil Disobedience Monographs on International Law and Human Rights 7 Leiden w:Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2004 216 https://books.google.com/books?id=hVi-bguDX9IC&pg=PA216 978-90-04-14121-6 An area in which one may indeed use the international defence, like the Nuremberg defence, though with little success, is opposition to nuclear weapons and other situations where civil disobedients set themselves against military combat. [...] Therefore, civil disobedients' interference in the production of weapons is not criminally culpable, but rather clearly excusable as avoiding the violation of a more serious law. Although this defence has had little success so far, it is worth brandishing and counts amongst the defences preferred by civil disobedients. Alternative forms en Nuremberg defence Britain, Commonwealth Translations explanation offered as an excuse for behaving in a criminal or wrongful manner Dutch: nl bevel is bevel an order is an order Finnish: fi noudatin vain käskyjä -puolustus, fi Nürnbergin puolustus French: fr les ordres sont les ordres German: de Befehl ist Befehl an order is an order, de Handeln auf Befehl n Central Franconian (Ripuarian): gmw-cfr Beveelsnutstand Hebrew: he פקודה בלתי חוקית בעליל Polish: pl obrona norymberska f Russian: ru исполнение приказа или распоряжения Spanish: es defensa Núremberg f Swedish: sv (US law) explanation offered as a defense to criminal or wrongful behavior Polish: pl obrona norymberska f Further reading superior orders