Is the Obama Administration pushing for the abandonment of the Nuremberg principles?

[Karmadillo]

http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=632

Paris, June 19, 2013 – The irresistible impulse to aggrandize power which has been evident in American foreign policy since (at least) the fall of the East-West bipolar system in 1991, was recently demonstrated by the NSA revelations of Edward Snowden. Now there is a new manifestation of apparent illicit power assertion revealed by a devastating front-page report in the International Herald Tribune on June 15.

Marlise Simons of The New York Times, for many years the paper’s indefatigable specialist on the Hague international courts, revealed that the Danish member of the UN war crimes tribunal has made a “blistering” protest against pressures exercised by the United States to bring about acquittals of several top Croat and Serb commanders accused of responsibility for war crimes atrocities during the Yugoslav succession wars of 1991-95.

These acquittals were justified by the court with a verdict that the accused had not specifically ordered or approved war crimes committed by subordinates. Among those acquitted were two Croat wartime generals, the Serbian army chief of staff, and the chief and deputy chief of the Serbian secret police.

This was a departure from the principle established in previous war crimes trials that commanders were implicated in their subordinates’ crimes as they had all been part of “joint criminal enterprises.” It also seemed an abandonment of the principle asserted – with the specific support, even insistence, of American authorities at the time -- at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders after World War II, declaring the personal responsibility of Nazi political and military officials for the crimes committed by Germany.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/23-5

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Recent acquittals of several top Croat and Serb commanders charged with atrocities committed by their players in the Yugoslav wars of 1991-95 is causing a ruckus in Europe. Why? Because judges on the tribunal say Team Obama brought pressure, forcing the not-guilty decisions, which contradict the U.S. stance at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. Marlise Simons, of the NY Times, broke the story in the International Herald Tribune. Her Trib colleague Willam Pfaff sees the significance of what happened this way:

It reflects the long-standing American (and Israeli) concern that their officers or government figures might one day find themselves before the court on charges of breaking international law or as bearing responsibility for war crimes…Most democracies are seen as threatening to these American and Israeli stands…They are the states which (can) challenge these efforts to destroy the established norms of international conduct, as proclaimed by the Nuremberg Tribunal – which amounts to an effort to abolish one of the principal moral achievements of the second world war.”

[geek tragedy]

1. Vicarious liability is a tricky issue, and one that implicates due process rights

of the defendant.

The Geneva Conventions' standard is:

the fact that a breach of the Conventions or of this Protocol was committed by a subordinate does not absolve his superiors from penal disciplinary responsibility as the case may be if they knew, or had information which would have enabled them to conclude in the circumstances at the time that he was committing or was going to commit such a breach and if they did not take all feasible measures within their power to prevent or repress the breach.

If the commander knew the subordinates were going to commit crimes, then there should be liability. If he didn't know, there should not be liability.

[JoeyT]

2. We abandoned those years ago.

We violate 1 and 3 for our pet war criminals.

Principle I states, "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

Principle III states, "The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."

For some reason we never really thought any of that silly stuff applied to us.

[ProSense]

3. Yes, Obama is trying to revive Nazism. n/t

[Karmadillo]

4. Link?

[Hydra]

5. Yes, next question?

Btw, I asked basically the same question during the Bush admin/DU2 and had my posts deleted without explanation.

This is one of the bigger Elephants in the room- were the Nuremberg Trials purely for show? Did we only mean these rules applied to other people?