The mistakes ICTY and the ICC of the Nuremberg war crimes trials Essay

The mistakes ICTY and the ICC of the Nuremberg war crimes trials - Essay Example The Nuremberg war crimes trials of 1945-1946 were also known as the IMT. These trials put in the trial the most prominent German leaders who were still surviving for their crimes against humanity. Apart from the primary trials, the Nuremberg trials had other twelve secondary trials that were conducted between 1946 and 1949. The first forty years after the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the world witnessed a period of slow progress in the development of the international criminal law. However, it is agreeable that in recent years, the international criminal law has developed tremendously.   To a greater extent, it has been argued that the Nuremberg war crimes trials formed a fundamental basis upon which the international criminal law and courts were developed. These trials established that the whole humanity would be guarded by the international legal shield and that prominent persons including the head of states would be held criminally responsible if they commit crimes against human ity. There is a common ground among many international legal practitioners and scholars that the right of humanitarian intervention that is aimed at putting the end to crimes against humanity gradually emerged from the principles of Nuremberg and affirmed by the United Nations.  After the Nuremberg trials, there were evident inadequacies and mistakes that were committed during the trials. Also, the awareness of the inadequacy of the law and the need for something to be done to enforce new war crime trials emerged.... The first forty years after the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the world witnessed a period of slow progress in development of the international criminal law. However, it is agreeable that in recent years, international criminal law has developed tremendously.3 To a greater extent, it has been argued that the Nuremberg war crimes trials formed a fundamental basis upon which the international criminal law and courts were developed. These trials established that the whole humanity would be guarded by international legal shield and that prominent persons including head of states would be held criminally responsible if they commit crimes against humanity. There is a common ground among many international legal practitioners and scholars that the right of humanitarian intervention that is aimed at putting the end to crimes against humanity gradually emerged from the principles of Nuremberg and affirmed by the United Nations.4 After the Nuremberg trials, there were evident inadequacies and m istakes that were committed during the trials. Also, the awareness of the inadequacy of the law and the need for something to be done to enforce new war crime trials emerged. There was evident failure by the international community to develop international criminal law that was binding in 1946; the UN committees that were charged with this responsibility were slow in developing statutes to try perpetrators of the crimes against humanity.5 The slow development of these laws led to the flourishing of international crimes. It is estimated that about 170 million civilians were subjected to crimes against humanity in the twentieth century and some of these crimes were committed after the formation of the UN.