Analysis: Statement by Justice Jackson on War Trials Agreement
The analysis of Justice Robert H. Jackson's statement on the war trials agreement following World War II highlights the significant legal and moral considerations involved in prosecuting Nazi leaders for their crimes. This era marked a pivotal moment in international law, as the Allied powers—comprised of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France—sought a framework for addressing the atrocities committed during the war. Jackson's role as the chief prosecutor, appointed by President Harry S. Truman, underscored the commitment to establishing a fair trial process that would avoid the perception of "victors' justice" and instead focus on individual accountability for acts of aggression and crimes against humanity.
The Nuremberg Charter, which laid out the terms for the International Military Tribunal, introduced new classifications of war crimes, including crimes against peace. This was a significant development in international jurisprudence, as it held leaders personally responsible for the initiation of war. Jackson's reflections acknowledged the challenges posed by differing legal systems among the Allies but emphasized the importance of achieving a consensus to set a precedent for future war crimes trials. Moreover, he recognized the necessity of balancing justice with the realities of international cooperation, including potential delays in proceedings due to logistical complexities. Overall, Jackson's analysis sought to communicate the significance of these trials not only for the victims but also for the future of international law and accountability.
Analysis: Statement by Justice Jackson on War Trials Agreement
Date: August 12, 1945
Author: Robert H. Jackson
Genre: government document
Summary Overview
The four main victorious Allied powers in World War II—the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France—spent much of the summer following the surrender of Nazi Germany in April 1945 determining how the surviving Nazi leaders would be brought to justice. Issued only four days after the publication of what became known as the Nuremberg Charter, which set out the parameters and mechanisms for the trials of Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of World War II, Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson made a statement about the agreement and upcoming trials that cogently presented his justifications for the trials themselves, for the form agreed upon by the four Allies, and for the precedent being set for the future trials of war criminals or those in power who would initiate aggressive wars. Jackson had been appointed by the American president Harry S. Truman to be the prosecutor for the United States in the trials that would follow.
Defining Moment
Many of the conferences held between the leaders of the “Big Three” Allied powers during World War II—Franklin D. Roosevelt (followed upon his death in 1945 by Truman) of the United States, Winston Churchill of Great Britain (followed by Clement Attlee for the last months of the war), and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union—had addressed the problem of what to do with Nazi war criminals after the defeat of Nazi Germany was finally achieved. Over the course of three meetings—at Tehran, Iran, in December 1943; Yalta, the Soviet Union, in February 1945; and Potsdam, Germany, in July and August 1945—the Allied leaders articulated a common vision for bringing those who had started such a devastating war to justice.
As the Allied armies liberated the Nazi concentration camps, in which millions upon millions of Jews, Romani (Gypsies), political opponents, captured Soviets, disabled people, and homosexuals were killed, the determination to bring the Nazi leaders to justice became even stronger. Shortly after Franklin D. Roosevelt's death and the final surrender of Nazi Germany, President Truman appointed Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson chief prosecutor for the trials that were to be held. Shortly after his appointment in early May 1945, Jackson traveled to London to meet with representatives from Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France, in order to come to an agreement as to how to proceed with the trials that were to achieve justice for the millions that had died during the war, but that would have the virtue of being a fair trial, in order to avoid the charge of “victors' justice,” of killing the Nazi leaders out of vengeance.
Coming to consensus on how to try the Nazi leaders was not easy. Each of the four nations represented had its own legal system and acknowledged very different rights granted to the accused. During the negotiations, there were a number of dissenting opinions on how to stage the trials, or even if trials were necessary. Churchill was said to have favored summary execution. However, the Americans were able to persuade the doubters of the virtue of holding trials as a means of legitimizing the punishment of the Axis leaders.
The Nuremberg Charter established the International Military Tribunal, made up of representatives from all four of the signing nations, and listed three types of crimes with which the defendants would be charged: crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Crimes against peace and crimes against humanity were new categories of war crimes designed specifically to deal with the actions of the Nazi leaders, especially regarding the Holocaust. Once the charter was agreed upon, Jackson moved to convince the American people that such trials were the appropriate actions for a civilized nation to take at the conclusion of such a war.
Author Biography
Robert H. Jackson, associate justice of the United States, was a well-respected American jurist. Jackson was a lifelong Democrat, and though Truman appointed him America's chief counsel for the war crimes trials that would follow the war, he had been groomed for the role in part by his friendship with Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Jackson had served as a US attorney, as solicitor general of the United States, and as attorney general of the United States before being appointed by Roosevelt to the Supreme Court in 1941. By the time he arrived in London in June 1945, Jackson's views—favoring war crimes trials that would set an international precedent for trying war criminals—were well known, and Truman had no hesitation about appointing him to represent the interest of the United States.
Document Analysis
On August 12, 1945, only four days after the four Allied nations signed the Nuremberg Charter, Jackson wrote a statement in order to briefly outline the processes that would be observed in the war crimes trials that would be held to bring the Nazi leaders to justice. Jackson's statement is factual in nature, aimed at conveying to the American people that the proposed trials were the most appropriate way to impose punishments on the German war criminals.
Jackson begins by asserting that this agreement represents the first time that four victorious nations after a war had come to an agreement on “the principle of individual responsibility for the crime of attacking the international peace”—in other words, there would be criminal responsibility for starting a war of aggression, and it would fall not just on the aggressor nation as a whole, but on the individual leaders who orchestrated the conflict and any other criminal acts that took place during it. Jackson argues that the definitions included in the Nuremberg Charter—including the ideas of crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, which had been formulated for the first time—were designed with the idea of dissuading nations from pursuing policies that lead to aggressive wars in the future.
The statement acknowledges that the four nations have very different legal systems, and that these differences made the task of coming to an agreement on the legal proceedings difficult. Though the agreement required concessions on all sides, Jackson asserts that they were necessary if this effort were to set a precedent for future war crimes trials. Jackson acknowledges, for example, that the accused war criminals would not have “the benefit of all of the protections which our legal and constitutional system throws around defendants.” He argues that this is because Russian and French law does not extend the same rights to defendants as the American and British systems do; however, he notes that since a European continental system is a more familiar one to Germans, and this is to be a “trial of Europeans in Europe, for crimes committed in Europe,” the influence of continental law is appropriate.
Another impact of international cooperation that might bother Americans is the fact that the trials might not be speedy. This is a result, among other things, of needing to translate all the proceedings into four different languages. However, Jackson argues that he does “not think the world will be poorer even if it takes a month or so, more or less, to try these men who now are prisoners and whose capacity for harm already has been overcome.”
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Gerhart, Eugene C. America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958. Print.
Ginsburgs, George, and V. N. Kudriavtsev. The Nuremberg Trial and International Law. Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1990. Print.
Hirsch, Francine. “The Soviets at Nuremberg: International Law, Propaganda, and the Making of the Postwar Order.” American Historical Review 113.3 (2008): 701–30. Print.
Kelly, Michael J., and Timothy L. H. McCormack. “Contributions of the Nuremberg Trial to the Subsequent Development of International Law.” The Legacy of Nuremberg: Civilising Influence or Institutionalised Vengeance? Ed. David A. Blumenthal and Timothy L. H. McCormack. Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 2007. Print.