Statecraft by Margaret Thatcher

Author:Margaret Thatcher [Thatcher, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007150649
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-05-25T04:00:00+00:00

GENOCIDE AND NUREMBERG

At first sight, the obvious exception to this is the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). This was the UN’s first legal response to the mass-murder of the Jews by the Third Reich. Its focus was more narrowly defined than might in other circumstances have been expected – namely the attempted destruction in whole or in part of groups identifiable on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, race or religion. So, for example, Pol Pot’s extermination of two million – that is about a quarter – of his fellow countrymen in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 would not be covered by the Convention. This was because, when it came to the framing of the document, the Soviets ensured that politically defined groups did not count: for Stalin, with the blood of twenty million Soviet citizens on his hands, that would have been much too near the mark. This Convention unusually overrode any claims of sovereign or other immunity by specifying that those responsible would be punished ‘whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals’ (Article IV).

This, again, was plain commonsense. Precisely because genocide is a crime that is only likely to be committed by or with the collaboration of those in power, it is very unlikely that the ordinary procedures of a national court will be sufficient to secure its punishment. Only in instances like that of Rwanda today, where the previous genocidal regime was overthrown, are such cases likely to come to trial.

It is thus the activity of the Nuremberg Tribunal which is the most important reference point for discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of international criminal courts erected to dispense justice to those accused of this most heinous of crimes. Unfortunately, what happened at Nuremberg has often been ‘misremembered’ – to adopt the expression of Professor Jeremy Rabkin – and, as a result, some of the wrong lessons have been learned.*

The prosecuting authorities at the Nuremberg Tribunal were, of course, heavily influenced by knowledge of the Holocaust. But they were more interested in securing convictions of the Nazi leaders on the charge of planning and initiating a ‘war of aggression’ than for ‘crimes against humanity’. In other words, it was the waging of war against sovereign countries, rather than other offences, which figured largest. This in turn reflected the fact that, as Professor Rabkin notes: ‘It is questionable if the Nuremberg Trials should actually be considered an “international” venture at all.’ The cases were thus brought by ‘the United States of America, the French Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’, not as was originally suggested ‘the peoples of the United Nations’.

The Nuremberg trials were attacked at the time as ‘victor’s justice’. And this is precisely what they were – and were intended to be. Far from being staged by uninvolved outsiders, they were organised by the powers which together had defeated and occupied Germany. It was these occupying powers which now exercised sovereignty there.

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