The Nuremberg Trials

My goal for this round is to address my opponent's arguments on a point by point basis and then to address them holistically in the conclusion. Defenses: C1: The Hague Convention of 1899 does ban the killing of civilians and POWs, but those were not the only crimes the Germans were charged with. I refer specifically to the first and second indictments (1). These are: Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War and Waging Aggressive War (or "Crimes Against Peace"). Nations have been and continue to commit these crimes, and there was absolutely no legal precedent for the charges. The third and fourth indictments were illegal and the Germans did deserve to be tried for them, but I will address the problems surrounding those charges later. The Geneva Conventions are also not a relevant example since the first Geneva Convention was in 1949 (2). C2: There were no laws restricting aerial warfare. However, the Hague Conventions (3) do restrict the intentional killing of civilians. Whether they are killed from bombs that are fired from the ground or dropped from above does not seem particularlly important. Section II, Chapter I, Act 25 of the Hague Convention of 1899 states that, "The attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations or buildings which are not defended, is prohibited." There is no mention of any specific means of bombardment. C3: My opponent seems to have conceded this point. If some of the judges were not clean, that is a major flaw in the trial. The fact that "most judges' records were fairly clean" is not enough to make the circumstances of the trial adequate, especially when some of the other judges have a specific history of running sham trials. C4: The Strategic Hamlet Project could be it's own debate so I'm going to try to avoid going too far into it. However, the number of deaths due to the poor management and unreasonable circumstances placed on civilians by the program resulted in a number of civilian deaths in the hundred thousands (4). It was no Holocaust but it was a Crime Against Humanity and a War Crime. The other examples of violations of the indictments by victorious powers go on and on. The US invasion of Vietnam in and of itself would have been considered Waging Aggressive War by the very harsh definitions of the Nuremberg Trails, as would the recent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It don't hear many people calling for the hanging of US officials, however. Rebuttals: C1: Retributive justice is a theory of justice, but it is not a valid theory of justice and it does not work well within the definition used for this debate. The reason that you cannot simply weigh the costs and benefits should be fairly obvious. Would it be just to take all of Bill Gates' money and distribute it equally to every person in the world? Billions of use would gain more money, a substantial amount by the standards of some. Only one person would be hurt. However, this is obviously unjust because the point of justice is to do what is reasonable and fair for ALL, not just the majority. Also, calling retributive justice a valid form of justice because it is a form of morality is equally unreasonable. I can scrawl the Holy Book of Grapism on a napkin and proclaim it is just to kill and eat other humans. That would be an idea of morality but by itself that does not make it an acceptable form of justice. It would also have to be fair and rational and obviously it is not. C2: Above, I mentioned several examples of victorious nations waging aggressive war. I will maintain that the events following the trials are perfectly valid evidence in this debate. Seeing how the precedents of the trials were follows after provides clear evidence about their intent. Specifically, the indictments were meant to be applied to Germany and not to anyone else, which is exactly what happened. C3: The utilitarian moral theory is in interesting one, but so is the deontological moral theory, and numerous other theories that are all subject to criticism. Just because something benefits the most number of people does not make it just. This argument breaks down to absurdity so quickly it is almost impossible to argue against it without resorting to argument ad absurdum. In any case, I already presented the argument that punishing the Nazi leaders did not maximize welfare. The horrible sufferings that they were responsible for cannot be assuaged by punishing them. The welfare of people was not improved significantly by the trials. If the Nazi leaders were beaten, tortured, and shot with no trial would that also be just because it might make a few people feel a little better? Conclusion: The utilitarian moral theory handles justice very poorly because it does maximize welfare for all, it only seeks to maximize total net welfare. This approach is actually very unjust. My opponent's definition of justice clearly does not apply to to Nuremberg trials. I have also provided amply historical evidence to satisfy his concerns in that regard so far. The definition of justice can be twisted and convoluted to include of sorts of things, but the concept remains immutable. It must be reasonable and logical, it must apply to ALL, and it must be fair to ALL. It cannot be changed and shifted continuously based on what we feel is convenient at the time or it is no system of justice at all. The reason for the idea of justice is to prevent exactly what my opponent is suggesting: doing what is most beneficial for most people at that time on a case by case basis regardless of what is fair, reasonable, logical, or equitable. Sources: (1) http://www.law.umkc.edu... (2) http://www.icrc.org... (3) http://avalon.law.yale.edu... (4) Propaganda and the Public Mind (Noam Chomsky)