A World of Peace Under the Rule of Law: The View from America

These remarks address a world of peace, the rule of law, and the view from America. In order to have a peaceful world, you need three basic components. You need laws to define what is permissible and impermissible. You need courts to settle disputes amicably or to hold wrongdoers accountable. And, you need a system of effective enforcement. Those three components—laws, courts, and enforcement—are the basic foundations for every society, whether it be a city, or a town, or a village, or a nation, or the world. If you didn’t have laws, or courts, or enforcement, you would have total chaos. And in the international arena, all of these component parts are very weak. The laws are uncertain and ambiguous. International courts, such as the International Court of Justice, have no independent enforcement powers. The new International Criminal Court (“ICC”) and other similar international tribunals are all part of a burgeoning evolutionary process. We live in a world that is just beginning to be put together on an international level that contains the vital component parts for a more civilized world community. Insofar as we succeed in putting the missing parts in place, the world will be more tranquil. To the extent that we don’t have those components, the world will be less peaceful

International Law Association Panel Discussion On The Holocaust As Catalyst For International Justice : Summary of Extemporaneous Remarks

After more than 40 million persons had been killed in war, there was an overwhelming determination to prevent the recurrence of such tragedies

A Nuremberg Legacy: The Crime of Aggression

In 1945, with the world still reeling from World War II, the trial of the major German war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg began. Nuremberg prosecutors, myself included, tried and convicted 161 of the defendants in the IMT and Subsequent Nuremberg Trials for crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. About a half century later, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was given jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. The progress, however, has been slow. The ICC is a prototype, and it is just beginning. Just as the first computer occupied most of a room and now you carry it in your pocket, so it will be for international criminal law. If you believe in the rule of law as I do, then you must seek to find a way to try to stop this horrible thing called war. We must continue to build on the Nuremberg legacy and the progress of the ICC to strengthen the rule of law through a more effective and robust international criminal legal system