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all. immediately after the second world war. the. questions linger about just.

the multinational battle against russia's wildfires makes headway cutting the area ablaze by two thirds over recent days. but tomic countdown to russia says iran's first nuclear power plant will launch on august twenty first and that the project does not conflict with the recent united nations sanctions against tehran. to commanders are to be given their marching orders after a video of a massive brawl at a military base in the moscow region finds its way onto the internet. those are the headlines next we look back at some of the most robust encounters from peter lavelle's debate right here on r.t. .

hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter level immediately after the second world war major nazi leaders were put on trial for crimes there is no question that such crimes were committed however questions linger about just victor's justice what was what is the legitimacy i'm sorry legacy of nuremberg. to discuss the trial and its implications i'm joined by richard evans in cambridge he's a professor of modern history at the university of cambridge in london we have geoffrey robertson a distinguished jurist member at the united nations internal justice council in tallahassee we cross to robert dallek to a professor of history at florida state university and here in the studio with me is jeffrey roberts they head of the school school of history at the university college cork in ireland and another member of our cross talk team on the hunger all right first of all i'd like to go to richard evans in cambridge. was justice served

in nuremberg grave grave crimes were committed during the second world war nazi leaders were put on trial they were. put on trial sentenced and some of them put to death was justice served. yes on the whole i think it was have to remember that initially churchill and stalin both wanted to just kill the doubts the leaders so they were persuaded eventually to put them on trial and the trial was very carefully prepared and it presented an enormous amount of evidence which of course was shown to the german people so they could realise what exactly they'd been supporting so on the whole of course justice is seldom perfect and the nuremberg trials weren't perfect either i do think justice was served ok on that too it geoffrey robinson very important precedent for the future ok and what i will i will talk about the present usually happens and go ahead. you know you can take issue

with the fact of ended with the death penalty we don't do that these days there was no appeal and there should have been there were problems like that but we're very lucky to have had it as richard said churchill was diabetic did opposed to it he thought hitler would use the doctors and so box he wanted he drew up a list of the top seventy five nazis one of them shot given six hours to say their prayers and then shot and it was truman and jackson who said look this wouldn't sit well of me american conscience to kill them without hearing their side of the story in the end of course it was joe stalin who who loved show trial so long as everyone got shot in the end who voted with with the americans and so we got nuremberg but it has left a legacy an important legacy that those who are guilty of hideous crime of horrific crimes crimes against humanity because it knows us all as human beings to think that other human beings can conceive and commit them that they will be punished

here on earth. if i go to tallahassee robert but there's a lot of people that criticize the legal process of the nuremberg trials. basically coming up with. crimes defy. crimes after the crimes that they claim they were committed in and don't get me wrong i mean i don't there's very few people that deny the terrible crimes that the nazis committed but for a lot of jurists it's a lot more complicated than that i mean we can all agree that bad people were judged and rightly judged but was the process is we should be just as proud of the process as the outcome. well there are two schools of. jurisprudence on this and the school that prevailed was the pragmatics school of natural law and basically it says that whilst there was no law on the books that these people broke for the most part when they committed the crimes the

crimes were so egregious that humanity had to do something to protect itself from those things happening again so. we also should also note that since the first world war in particular with germany and also with turkey there had been attempts to bring these people to trial. as far as turkey is concerned with respect to the armenian genocide they these processes came to nothing what was done in nuremberg was innovative there were people who wrote after the war for you know volumes of essays about how it was not it was nothing but bitters justice but in fact of course what it was supposed to do was to set a precedent the fact is it of course was victor's justice no doubt about that but was it something more and i would argue that it was indeed something more than that

and set a very important precedent not only that but when we look at the alternatives that were being mooted at the times some of which were mentioned by colleagues but in fact it was only until the last minute the negotiations were going on behind the scenes in the united states and britain it was only at the last minute that the decision was made and to go for genuine trials and before that there were just of stalin for example suggested that tehran that something of the order of between fifty and one hundred thousand might be shot. roosevelt was mildly shocked at that but put it back down to forty nine thousand. later on. discussions went on behind the scenes and we had the morgenthau plan and there he came up with the figure of shooting twenty five hundred and so these are the options that rather table it was only really secretary of war the seventy six year old henry stimson of

the united states who said that this would be unsatisfactory no one would do it it would set a terrible precedent and something had to be done to bring this into into the legal spear and in spite of all its flaws i think that it was a good thing that the trials were held and it did set a precedent which to be short took fifty years to follow but nevertheless i think it was a worthwhile thing not only that i think it's very important richard mentioned the importance of showing the german people this evidence i think it was very important that historians also got a chance to study what it was like inside a fallen dictatorship and we could really look at the mechanisms of how that system worked and of course that was a an important step in its own right the problem with many of the dictatorships we we see now we don't really get inside them anymore we don't really get the truth or it takes forever to come out ok. you know we only got only got the truth we only

got the truth is that the prosecutor said because of the teutonic habit of writing everything down they had signatures on the night and fall degrees and could cross-examine him i've been part of the nuremberg legacy and running a court in sierra leone where of course we have to draw inferences from mass graves we have to use informers we don't have the wealth of evidence that was one of the reasons why you were succeeded and one of the reasons why did bring on its legacy today is a lot more difficult than it was in that city of nine hundred forty six ok jeff in the studio with me here i mean what we just heard is the process the decision making. assess how do you try try these not you work on a sunday there's a lot of political expediency involved in there i mean it is that part of the process as well i mean i grit was justice was done notwithstanding the fact that it was victor's justice it was a show it was a show it was

a show trial and the process was it was deeply flawed i mean you know tentative to the nuremberg trial was expected to judicial executions on program so in a sense nuremberg actually contained the punishment of nazi war criminals a controlled i think brought a sense of closure to the second world war so i thought extent i think nuremberg was a very good thing i'm not so sure about its legacy not so sure about the precedents itself think that they did the as to nuremberg in the form of the current war crimes tribunals and so on i think there are a lot of question marks you know for those. you know just come in there just for just i go right ahead because of the nuremberg trials did did not invent the offenses that they convicted the defendants from they referred back to the laws of war established in the geneva convention they established they are referred back to the not you know seven hague agreement to which germany has a signature e which further govern the laws of war and how wars to be conducted and the

nineteen twenty eight scale ground pacts again which germany agreed to which outlawed essentially outlawed declaring war so there were a number of presidents against which the defendants could be conduct could be measured and these are these are war crimes trials so let's remember that three and a third million soviets soldiers were deliberately killed by the nazis and not kept involved conditions in prisoner of war camps and there's many other crimes for which there were already conventions and laws which to deal with as i did. really on president point i mean if you read your president i worked for a very balanced against you know running around i didn't really know it's good we have some rules here i've just real quickly here it's always a very and the main charge against the nazis to make a nazi war criminals anyway was that they would kill to have crime skits police and of conspiracy to plot an aggressive war the war crimes element and the crimes

against humanity was search lee secondary subsequently of course war crimes and crimes against humanity became you know perceived as being the main charge in europe which i don't i don't think it was because the president of nuremberg said it wasn't that there were such things as war crimes or even crimes against humanity but the the notion of these crimes will be judged by some kind of international international tribunal or or international legal system and i think that's where the problem lies but we can talk about that maybe in the second half of the program but there had been attempts before to set up an international tribunal the british went to with the desire to have the car use a broad group. for an international tribunal it was the americans who laid him off on the basis of head of state of unity but there is still only allied tribunal i think you know this talk of victor's justice what does it mean victory produced the opportunity to do justice to people who were guilty of heinous offenses in the losers justice if you like was it like after the first world war

where nine hundred german war criminals including captains of submarines who'd machine gun sailors in the water and so on were put on trial eight or eight hundred ninety were acquitted and the other ten were allowed to escape so beware of losers justice and what's wrong with victor's justice if the procedure is correct if the correct if if it does justice to those who do so i can use a regular issue i going to justice was done it no but what it meant and victor's justice was it was only nazi war criminals who were brought to justice i mean there were their world war crimes where the rush from only i like i know on the allies that's what it's specifically right now i'm not suggesting it could have been otherwise i think that that was inevitable but the concept of picture justice does have a real meaning all right gentlemen we're going to take a short break here but when we return we'll continue our discussion on the nuremberg trial stay with our.

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communicate with. test yourself and become free and. see what nature can give you. welcome back to crosstalk i'm peter lavelle to remind you we are discussing the nuremberg process and its implications for modern international law. but first let's see what russians think about those who question its justice the

pivotal role played by the soviet union in the victor although not in germany is indisputable yet there are those who contest this history president medvedev took a stand against such historical revisionism while lawmakers in the state duma advocated punitive measures for those denying or approving crimes established by the nuremberg tribunals the russian public opinion research center asked what russians think of introducing criminal liability for their denial of the us a victory over germany sixty percent said they support their nation twenty six percent disapproved of the idea back to peter or it before we went to the break here i know that robert and tell house he wanted to say something is very lively discussion go ahead. yes there is one thing about that is quite unprecedented about the trials and that is the way in which the prosecutors had to prove that

there was a conspiracy to commit all these these are the three main offenses and the notion of a conspiracy like this that there was this conspiracy to commit wars against peace . conspiracy to commit. war crimes and so on this is the in my opinion one of the most slippery aspects of the case because because you have to prove a conspiracy but that the defense then has to say all they have to say is that they were ignorant of it and prove that they were ignorant but the more important point is that and this brings up the political aspect of the trials is that of course we were talking about a conspiracy against peace and a conspiracy to bring about war as the nuremberg trials did well i'm afraid that then that brings up the nazi soviet pact that was signed by ribbentrop and volatile it all gets nine hundred thirty nine and if ever there was

a conspiracy to bring about war then surely this was this would have should have been indicted so jeffrey roberts point there that this was only indicting losers so to speak is quite correct i realize i could just point problematical if i could just jump in there's some of this written a lot about the nazis not some but was a conspiracy by hitler to bring about what he's done his point of view the pact was about keeping the so you know keep neutral and that sense i don't think it was was and was a aggressive conspiracy in the sense that you'll suggest you know but what you're a big stand i'm going to you know i was i'm no secretary and i'm really common that has a more against i mean this was mass murder and we have used the nuremberg precedent really they were terrible. we're talking about mass murder look we're. talking about genocide we're talking about widespread and systematic torture we're talking about killing people for their race or because they're political opponents on

a very wide scale that use water quite simply mass murder law is now the law good use practice student be caught soon yugoslavia and sierra leone in cambodia and so forth ok richard evans he's ok i just i just come into yes i mean it's flawed because it's flawed among other things because all the participant nations in a terrible trials had themselves of course committed war crimes if you look at the british and americans they had bombed german cities killing about this is exactly what i want to hear yes yes he was against the war the laws of war as established at the hague which said that attacks on civilians are deliberate killing of civilians should not be should not be undertaken and was illegal and i just wait one more one one more votes were a quick point and that is i do think it is absolutely wrong for any state to outlaw opinions about the past i think one state start interfering in what historians can

say and people can say about history it's a very slippery slope and you end up with the absurd situation that in france it's illegal to deny the armenian genocide of nine hundred fifteen and in turkey it's illegal to say it happened ok jeff you know more jeff in the studio you brought up here in it also was brought up just a second ago dresden for example when you look at an international tribunals that is there to perfect example and i'm not i'm not saying it should have been with the heart of your gender but people will say look this is a victory is justice in and some a lot of people say victor's justice is wrong that's why the term exists go ahead it wasn't an international tribunal and you say it was me who tried to you know get your tribe was really just in the studio at your home i mean we do we. believe that i'll go to you next interview for the audio you. i did it willingly try it was a troy big you know who's going to finish please it was a tribe you know of the occupying powers in germany and they're all far from the

unconditional surrender of germany at the end the segment or so in a sense it was actually an international try to be on it was cool that it was actually a national drug on the national government mr gates in this case was the other look you pose now richard why the point about the must bombing campaign is an interesting point there's no i don't say that i wouldn't say that the anglo american bombing campaign was a walk i think it was militarily justified but nevertheless it's a fact that the british americans killed more than civilians that the soviet union did this result six hundred unit six hundred first german civilians died as a result of that mass form by a million japanese as a result of the american bombing campaign of japan so if we're trying to look way up in a historical deal who's responsible for this is responsible and we need to have a fair. balance sheet and not just think it's all a question of just alan who was a criminal and everyone else was was innocent could gentlemanlike then we have to be there we have be very clear what we mean by we're going to go ahead robert a very care that there are war crimes war crimes be clear war crimes means going

beyond what is necessary for victory that is so if you if you're going beyond what is necessary for victory now i don't know if you can prove that the united states when it bombed hiroshima and nagasaki if you look at the decision making as i have done and look at it very closely nobody in the united states nobody in the united states military that i've been able to found all the way up to the white house. they may have been some people of so harry truman was jovial when he heard about the second bomb and this that the other thing but the fact of the matter is that after the two bombs and after the continuation of. fire bombing of japan and after the soviet union entered the war against japan between the two bombings that there was a coup in japan with a. attempt by military men to topple the emperor and to continue the war

so. as far as. exceeding what is necessary to win the war i think of be a very difficult case to prove that the that these bombings were the germans were not giving in doesn't mean that the united states and the allies didn't commit war crimes and as far as i know a lot of these crimes when they were caught are brought to justice by military courts but. that's why we were in agreement that there is that nuremberg was a flawed instrument it was an imperfect creation and that however in spite of its imperfections in view of the times and the emotion of the times the public opinion in the united states or in britain the public wanted all these people executed en masse i mean there was there was blood on people's minds and that someone is for the german peace they. want to people who were acquitted to be killed and i think the did use an important point to make but what you got to understand you had wins

the day the nuremberg legacy is being carried on without those fools without the discrimination what we're doing in sierra leone we accused of mass murder and torture forces of all kinds including the government forces that restore democracy its leaders were prosecuted for child soldiers them for torture you know if you know. there are lot of people would say it again k.l.a. but gentlemen a lot of people would say that you know look at the war crimes alleged war crimes that israel commits but it's not being brought to trial yugoslavia was brought up a far more serbs are put on trial in him in prison where we're not you know it's you know there yet ok and i resign are you there yet to kill the trip. boone all those that have been set up in particular countries are now out of voiding the era

if you like of nuremberg and not discriminating in fact prosecuting war criminals on all sides of course at this stage in human history inevitably we proceed in failed states we proceed in states that are powerful we do not hold powerful states or indeed their clients to do justice we're getting there we're creating precedents that one day may even trip the president of the united states but we've got a long way to go ok what about that present we're running out of time if we go to richard evans was it a good is it a good president nuremberg. yes i do think it was an international tribunal or a number of different countries involved ok they were the victor countries but now with us in france was established that the international community behind it united nations freshly in the process of being created then should actually bring to trial

people who represent national states who have committed war crimes and of course since then in the numerous decades since then the whole question is geoffrey robertson it's been said a whole method held approach has been refined is being developed now we have a much stronger much wider more effective international justice system that is operating as you see it in the case of yugoslavia ok robert in tallahassee what do you think a good precedent for the for the present. it is that it is a very it is a very good precedent and i'm very proud of the work that jeffrey is doing and other people like him. there is a stumbling block as far as the international criminal court is concerned though i teach courses on genocide modern genocide and all my students there near their safety are one hundred students in a class and they are very strongly opposed to genocide let me tell you and what i find interesting is that they are they all want to say in fact that genocide occurs

far more often than i believe i believe it's a relatively rare event but nevertheless there are mass crimes and there are all kinds of other things but what is interesting is because when the when it really gets pushed gets the shot by asking this question you see the united states i say has not signed on to the international i'm not point here robert i'm afraid we're going to how many i'm afraid we're going to have to let it go here i want to thank all of you gentlemen for a very interesting discussion. ok all right many thanks to my guests today geoffrey robertson richard evans robert and geoffrey roberts and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember cross talk rules. soon.