true, even though we took part of the treaties..
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/imt_jack02.aspRobert H. Jackson : chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg (August 12, 1945).
"The definitions under which we will try the Germans are general definitions. They impose liability upon war-making statesmen of all countries alike. If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner's dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure."
The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.
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http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/Nuremberg_Fallujah.htmlThe Crime of War: From Nuremberg to Fallujah
A review of current international law regarding wars of aggression
by Nicolas J. S. Davies
Z magazine, February 2005
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It is important to understand that war crimes fall into two classes: (1) war crimes relevant to battlefield conduct; (2) waging a war of aggression. To explain what was at that time an unprecedented focus on the second kind of war crime, war of aggression, the Nuremberg Judgment included the following statement: "The charges in the indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
The treaty that outlawed the waging of aggressive war was the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, otherwise known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact or the Pact of Paris. It was named for U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and the French statesperson Aristide Briand. It was signed by President Coolidge in 1928 and duly ratified by the U.S. Senate. It was the result of a decade of negotiations and lesser diplomatic achievements to prevent war and was motivated by the horror and tragedy of World War I. In 1932, the new Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, made the following statement regarding its significance: "War between nations was renounced by the signatories of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty. This means that it has become throughout practically the entire world... an illegal thing. Hereafter, when engaged in armed conflict, either one or both of them must be termed violators of this general treaty law .... We denounce them as law breakers."
The convictions of German leaders at Nuremberg for the crime of waging aggressive war were based entirely on the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the history of lesser treaties that led up to its signing. The Nuremberg Judgment states: "The question is, what was the legal effect of this pact? The nations who signed the pact or adhered to it unconditionally condemned recourse to war for the future as an instrument of policy, and expressly renounced it. After the signing of the pact, any nation resorting to war as an instrument of national policy breaks the pact. In the opinion of the Tribunal, the solemn renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy necessarily involves the proposition that such a war is illegal in international law; and that those who plan and wage such a war, with its inevitable and terrible consequences, are committing a crime in so doing."
In 1945, the United Nations Charter, Article 2 Clause 4, reiterated the principles of the KelloggBriand Pact, stating, "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." Article 39 established the authority of the Security Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to "decide what measures shall be taken."
The U.S. Supreme Court was asked in Mora v. McNamara (1967) to rule on the case of a conscientious objector who claimed that the U.S. war against Vietnam was an illegal war of aggression. In this case, the court cited only the Kellogg-Briand Pact, Article 39 of the UN Charter, and the London Treaty (which established the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal) as the relevant body of international law regarding cases of aggressive war, so it is reasonable to examine the legitimacy of the war in Iraq based on those same treaties.
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