I agree with all you said there, but instead of prosecuting the Nazis for offences under German law or established international law a special set of laws was created for prosecuting only Axis offenders.
The deterrent effect for future generations might have been no more than to learn the lesson that they had better not lose a war and be subjected to victor’s justice (which as you say is a whole other issue, that we should leave alone here).
Article 6.
The Tribunal established by the Agreement referred to in Article 1 hereof for the trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes.
…
(b) WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity …
If the Allies were subject to the same laws their bombing campaigns in Europe might have fallen within:
wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity …
Quite possibly.
But why did the Allies need to bring the Nazis to account for crimes against humanity, being the extermination of the Jews, when the Allies knew full well what was going on during the war and had the ability but not the inclination to do anything to stop it?
Agreed.
But the Nuremberg Trials were still not equivalent to anything the Western nations then had in their legal systems, either in the crimes prosecuted or the processes used.
I think that might reflect a general perception but perhaps not an accurate view of how the court system worked overall.
I’m not sure that the show trials represented how the courts worked on a day to day basis.
I think I posted something ages ago about the agony of decision a German judge experienced under the Nazis, which reflected the fact that not all German courts were mere puppets of the Nazis.
But this is the constant problem in international law: recognition of states and governments which come into existence and to power by irregular means.
As indeed did the USA after its War of Independence.
How many ‘lawless’ states have the major powers recognised since WWII?
All true.
But the Nuremberg trials also lacked some of the principal features of the justice systems of the Western powers which conducted them, notably by allowing retrospectivity and selectivity of application.
Again, I agree fully.
And the failure to indict the cunts who ran that system from the top, while entirely predictable and understandable for reasons of political pragmatism, merely reinforces my general point that there is no such thing as an essential system of law which applies across the board even in Western countries and that whatever laws apply can always be bent to achieve whatever political or other objectives are desired by those who have the power to make the laws.
Kurt Westergaard sheltered in a safe room with his grandchild as the attacker raged outside. Photograph: Preben Hupfeld/EPA