S. Nuremberg Trials and War Crimes Law

The seminar will cover the law of war (or law of armed conflict) from the American Civil War through Nuremberg and Tokyo and to the modern re-emergence of international courts for today’s conflicts. The aim is to explore this long-standing, evolving, and fragile legal tradition and its directions.

Before there were courts, there were customs and treaties, and we will examine their legal bases and tools, ranging from traditional war crimes and humanitarian law and the doctrine of "just war" in its mediaeval and modern guises, to modern developments such as the crimes of aggression, complicity, and genocide and to civil damages and reparations for violations of human rights in war or peace. We will examine trials addressing Andersonville, the Lakota Sioux, and waterboarding of Philippine insurgents, the World War II cases, mid-century cases of Eichmann and the My Lai massacre, and recent international trials in The Hague, Arusha, and elsewhere. We also will examine the treaties and codes on which these trials are based, starting with the suppression of the slave trade and the Red Cross agreements and later the Hague, Geneva, and Genocide Conventions and the continuing attempts to reform the law of war by treaty and practice in such areas as guerrillas, land mines, aerial bombing, environmental warfare, noncombatant immunity, POWs and hostages, gender crimes, and new war technologies (e.g. lasers, drones, autonomous weapons).

Central to the course are the Nuremberg Trials (1945-49), which marked a transition from the traditional to the modern law of war: the course will focus on Nuremberg and other post-World War II civilian and military trials, both by occupying powers and newly liberated governments in Europe and the Far East. The Nuremberg unit will focus not only on the legal responsibility of soldiers and their commanders, but also more broadly on the various sectors of the modern, industrialized nation at war: diplomats and other government officials, doctors, lawyers and judges, industrial and financial leaders, military and security officials, and political and party officials. We conclude with the international and mixed criminal courts created on the model of Nuremberg to punish war criminals and similar human rights violators in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Lebanon, Cambodia, and elsewhere, and on the international criminal court; on the use of political and legal (both civil and criminal) tools in domestic courts against these offenders; on revitalized doctrines of military commissions and of restitution and reparations; and on alternative mechanisms for war crimes justice (truth commissions and political apologies).

Students may either take a final exam or write a term paper for either major or minor writing credit. Papers are especially welcome, but persons wishing to write must discuss their proposed topics in advance with the instructor.