50p
Annie B Takes the Commonwealth by Storm
Last year, students in my two AP English classes were sent adrift into international waters and tasked to respond to the Commonwealth essay competition. When I submitted my favourites in January, I did so with the confident smile of a gambler who knows he’s picked a winner; when summer came and went and I received no contact from the English judges, I fell into a fit of pique: if Annie’s essay did not win, then, said I shaking my fist at my indifferent family, I will never enter this competition again.
It turns out that the Commonwealth moves wisely, but slowly, like Aesop’s turtle, who dashed all the gamblers’ hopes.
Annie’s stunning essay on the 1945 Nurnburg Trials, attached, and worth your time, finished second in the Commonwealth. Kudos to her!
Mr. Paul Collis
The Frequency of Humanity by Annie B
In 1945, the floorboards of Courtroom 600 in the Regional Court Nurnberg-Furth were covered with electrical wires. Hundreds of them, held together in great thick bunches, meandering around the rows of benches and attorney tables, forming estuaries winding down from the jury box and the witness stands, streaming in rivulets of white and red and black towards a central source situated at the back of the room; a soundproof glass box, like a train compartment, filled with boards of controls, black plastic headphones and radio broadcasting equipment. Not only the first international tribunal passing judgment on those suspected of committing crimes against humanity, the Nuremberg Trials were also one of the earliest attempts at simultaneous international translation. The numerous cables and sets of headphones, issued to all present but the courtroom guards, gave the impression of a telephone exchange as opposed to a court of law, but despite this modern addition to the archetypical courtroom, the adjudications which started in ‘45 were arguably the most legitimate proceedings for the judgment for those accused of crimes against humanity.
Crimes of this nature, pertaining to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against civilian populations, in all their savage brutality, do not only victimize those directly persecuted but also, true to the name, victimize every member of the human race (source A). As such, humanity itself should lead the prosecution of those accused with crimes like these, an international jury, composed of not only adjudicators from the defendant’s own country, but of surviving victims, judiciaries from other nations, and international mediators. Pronouncing judgment on individuals charged with crimes against humanity is a job for the universal mass which defines humanity; the wires, microphones and radio broadcasts of the Nuremberg trials are a tribute to this idea, the idea that the world as a whole, connected through radio waves and linguistic translation, upholds and enforces the values of the human race.
Disregarding the poetic idea of universal jurisdiction for a moment, the notion of the world sitting in judgment collectively has its basis in pure logical necessity. In the aftermath of war and calamity, the national court of those accused, customarily in charge of judging crimes committed by its own citizens, may be incapacitated, unfit, or unable to provide judgment. Take Nazi Germany as an example: after years of war, the capital bombed to ruin, and the suicide of their political leader, the nation of Germany was crippled. Forcing the trials of the twenty-two accused Nazi leaders as well as entire groups such as the SS, the Reich Cabinet, the Gestapo, the SD, the SA, and the German High Command, all of which took over two hundred sessions to complete in an international court, onto solely German judges, lawyers and paralegals would have been not only irresponsible, but logistically illogical (source B). Disorganization and ruin is one hallmark of a nation susceptible to the execution of crimes against humanity; another is the complete political involvement evident in many of these cases. As the majority of the atrocities committed during World War II were in fact legal under the Third Reich’s regime, it would be impossible for justice to be served though the jurisdiction of the German Court, as numerous brutalities were, under Nazi definition, actually legal. The infamous Nuremberg Laws forbade the “marriages between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood”, the employment, by Jews, of “female citizens under the age of 45, of German or kindred blood, as domestic workers”, and “extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and subjects of the state of Germany or related blood”, among other things (source C). Stated directly below these laws in neat, legitimate lettering which nonetheless confutes the ideals of humanity like a tarry grease stain, are the consequences of breaking the newly instated laws: subjection to fines, hard labor, imprisonment and death. That the pillaging of charred remains for gold fillings and rings, the exhausting, drudging labor, and the smokestacks puffing out, day after day, the ashes of Jewish bodies was all justifiable under German law proves that German courts were unfit to condemn their own criminals of war. This phenomenon is not limited to Nazi Germany alone; because of the universal conditions from which crimes against humanity arise, it can be said that any country, regardless of its legal sovereignty, should not be permitted to judge such criminals by themselves; it is a matter of responsibility and justice that the burden of convicting these criminals be shared internationally.
Having third party adjudicators suggests a certain level of objectivity, which is acceptable and even mandatory to obtaining a just verdict in normal cases; with cases regarding crimes against humanity, however, judgment passed by those not directly involved in the situation may not encompass the full brutality of the crime. The actions in question are ones which contradict intrinsic human tendencies. A human must be horrified at the sight of a mass of bodies choked into a train compartment so tightly there is only room to stand perfectly motionless, the tight press of bodies allowing the corpses of those who died from heat or suffocation or hunger to remain upright, no room to fall to the floor, to jostle in perverse animation at each bump and bend in the track; to feel the abject and profound wrongness of heaving children, still alive, into a blasting furnace, because of a faulty gas supply; to be propelled by the innate connection that winds through us all and sprint to the controls, turn them off, and rescue, one by one, the small smoldering bodies from the brick oven. To allow these atrocities to occur is to negate humanity and human compassion. One might say the committer of actions such as these have passed the stage of deserving objectivity, and stepped into the realm of judgment fueled by emotion and fervor, the impassioned verdict almost compensation for the complete lack of humanity shown in the committing of the crimes initially. If not playing an active, legal role in passing judgment, the surviving victims of crimes against humanity deserve to testify, and in doing so share their story and their opinion on lawful punishment. This point might be disputed, under the argument that an individual who has undergone torture, rape, enslavement or forced labor by the hand of those being judged might arrive at a harsher punishment, and put forward an unrelenting call for imprisonment or death; however, this judgment would be equal to that which the victim was subject to. Those afflicted by the effects of crimes against humanity do not experience mercy at the hands of those who imprison, enslave or exterminate them – why should the criminals not feel the other side of the harsh and relentless blow of inclemency in equal measure?
In the ranks of this hypothetical jury, we now have the surviving victims of holocaustic ordeals and judges and lawyers of both international and local origins. What is missing – what the Nuremberg trials were missing – is the presence of an International organization with the power and authority to deliver just retribution. An organization such as this should have the international backing of as many countries as possible in order to form an international agreement concerning crimes against humanity, the ability to mediate between the different national courts represented and, much like the spools of electrical wires in Nuremberg, serve as a connection between the multitudes which represent humanity. Created in 2002, the International Criminal Court, or the ICC, is “the first permanent, treaty based, international criminal court established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community”, and is one such organization (source D). With a universally accepted definition of a crime against humanity delineated in the Rome Statute, a diverse leadership group, and separate offices responsible for examining and conducting investigations on cases, the ICC, as an independent organization, is capable of passing judgment on the most reprehensible criminals in the world today. A major downfall is the limited global acceptance the Court has; many countries such as The United States, China, Russia, Israel and India have yet to ratify the Rome statute, meaning the ICC lacks authority over criminals originating from such countries (source D). In order to achieve the intercultural and international connections needed to enable universal jurisdiction, the Rome statute must be accepted worldwide. A united stance opposing the atrocities of crimes against humanity is impossible without global cooperation, without a coalescence of all members of the human species.
Back to 1945. Back to the wood-paneled court room, and the men and women, shuffling papers and constructing defenses, struggling to make sense of a world so suddenly and unexpectedly filled with direst cruelty. Back to the horror stories, the accounts of burning children and locked trains, broadcasted over the radio to a stunned and silent audience. Back to the electrical wires: looped around chair legs, tangled underfoot, and coursing like veins through the tense, tender, soundless room. Comprised of the head-phoned and listening masses, all of humanity – the victims, the kinsmen, the enemies and the onlookers – deserve to stand in judgment against the crimes that compromise and threaten the cords that, in mutual compassion, connect us all.
Sources:
Source A:
“The Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race." Shoah Education Project-Web: Holocaust or Shoah Education for the Church and General Public: An Online Curriculum. Web. 16 Jan. 2011.
Source B:
Linder, Doug. "NurembergACCOUNT." UMKC School of Law. Web. 16 Jan. 2011. <http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/nurembergACCOUNT.html>.
<http://www.shoaheducation.com/nuremberglaws.html>.
Source C:
The Institute Henry Dunant. "Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis, and Charter of the International Military Tribunal, London, 8 August 1945." University of Minnesota. Web. 16 Jan. 2011. http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/1945a.htm.
Source D:
“About the Court.” ICC. Web. 17 Jan. 2001. <http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/About the Court/>
It turns out that the Commonwealth moves wisely, but slowly, like Aesop’s turtle, who dashed all the gamblers’ hopes.
Annie’s stunning essay on the 1945 Nurnburg Trials, attached, and worth your time, finished second in the Commonwealth. Kudos to her!
Mr. Paul Collis
The Frequency of Humanity by Annie B
In 1945, the floorboards of Courtroom 600 in the Regional Court Nurnberg-Furth were covered with electrical wires. Hundreds of them, held together in great thick bunches, meandering around the rows of benches and attorney tables, forming estuaries winding down from the jury box and the witness stands, streaming in rivulets of white and red and black towards a central source situated at the back of the room; a soundproof glass box, like a train compartment, filled with boards of controls, black plastic headphones and radio broadcasting equipment. Not only the first international tribunal passing judgment on those suspected of committing crimes against humanity, the Nuremberg Trials were also one of the earliest attempts at simultaneous international translation. The numerous cables and sets of headphones, issued to all present but the courtroom guards, gave the impression of a telephone exchange as opposed to a court of law, but despite this modern addition to the archetypical courtroom, the adjudications which started in ‘45 were arguably the most legitimate proceedings for the judgment for those accused of crimes against humanity.
Crimes of this nature, pertaining to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against civilian populations, in all their savage brutality, do not only victimize those directly persecuted but also, true to the name, victimize every member of the human race (source A). As such, humanity itself should lead the prosecution of those accused with crimes like these, an international jury, composed of not only adjudicators from the defendant’s own country, but of surviving victims, judiciaries from other nations, and international mediators. Pronouncing judgment on individuals charged with crimes against humanity is a job for the universal mass which defines humanity; the wires, microphones and radio broadcasts of the Nuremberg trials are a tribute to this idea, the idea that the world as a whole, connected through radio waves and linguistic translation, upholds and enforces the values of the human race.
Disregarding the poetic idea of universal jurisdiction for a moment, the notion of the world sitting in judgment collectively has its basis in pure logical necessity. In the aftermath of war and calamity, the national court of those accused, customarily in charge of judging crimes committed by its own citizens, may be incapacitated, unfit, or unable to provide judgment. Take Nazi Germany as an example: after years of war, the capital bombed to ruin, and the suicide of their political leader, the nation of Germany was crippled. Forcing the trials of the twenty-two accused Nazi leaders as well as entire groups such as the SS, the Reich Cabinet, the Gestapo, the SD, the SA, and the German High Command, all of which took over two hundred sessions to complete in an international court, onto solely German judges, lawyers and paralegals would have been not only irresponsible, but logistically illogical (source B). Disorganization and ruin is one hallmark of a nation susceptible to the execution of crimes against humanity; another is the complete political involvement evident in many of these cases. As the majority of the atrocities committed during World War II were in fact legal under the Third Reich’s regime, it would be impossible for justice to be served though the jurisdiction of the German Court, as numerous brutalities were, under Nazi definition, actually legal. The infamous Nuremberg Laws forbade the “marriages between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood”, the employment, by Jews, of “female citizens under the age of 45, of German or kindred blood, as domestic workers”, and “extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and subjects of the state of Germany or related blood”, among other things (source C). Stated directly below these laws in neat, legitimate lettering which nonetheless confutes the ideals of humanity like a tarry grease stain, are the consequences of breaking the newly instated laws: subjection to fines, hard labor, imprisonment and death. That the pillaging of charred remains for gold fillings and rings, the exhausting, drudging labor, and the smokestacks puffing out, day after day, the ashes of Jewish bodies was all justifiable under German law proves that German courts were unfit to condemn their own criminals of war. This phenomenon is not limited to Nazi Germany alone; because of the universal conditions from which crimes against humanity arise, it can be said that any country, regardless of its legal sovereignty, should not be permitted to judge such criminals by themselves; it is a matter of responsibility and justice that the burden of convicting these criminals be shared internationally.
Having third party adjudicators suggests a certain level of objectivity, which is acceptable and even mandatory to obtaining a just verdict in normal cases; with cases regarding crimes against humanity, however, judgment passed by those not directly involved in the situation may not encompass the full brutality of the crime. The actions in question are ones which contradict intrinsic human tendencies. A human must be horrified at the sight of a mass of bodies choked into a train compartment so tightly there is only room to stand perfectly motionless, the tight press of bodies allowing the corpses of those who died from heat or suffocation or hunger to remain upright, no room to fall to the floor, to jostle in perverse animation at each bump and bend in the track; to feel the abject and profound wrongness of heaving children, still alive, into a blasting furnace, because of a faulty gas supply; to be propelled by the innate connection that winds through us all and sprint to the controls, turn them off, and rescue, one by one, the small smoldering bodies from the brick oven. To allow these atrocities to occur is to negate humanity and human compassion. One might say the committer of actions such as these have passed the stage of deserving objectivity, and stepped into the realm of judgment fueled by emotion and fervor, the impassioned verdict almost compensation for the complete lack of humanity shown in the committing of the crimes initially. If not playing an active, legal role in passing judgment, the surviving victims of crimes against humanity deserve to testify, and in doing so share their story and their opinion on lawful punishment. This point might be disputed, under the argument that an individual who has undergone torture, rape, enslavement or forced labor by the hand of those being judged might arrive at a harsher punishment, and put forward an unrelenting call for imprisonment or death; however, this judgment would be equal to that which the victim was subject to. Those afflicted by the effects of crimes against humanity do not experience mercy at the hands of those who imprison, enslave or exterminate them – why should the criminals not feel the other side of the harsh and relentless blow of inclemency in equal measure?
In the ranks of this hypothetical jury, we now have the surviving victims of holocaustic ordeals and judges and lawyers of both international and local origins. What is missing – what the Nuremberg trials were missing – is the presence of an International organization with the power and authority to deliver just retribution. An organization such as this should have the international backing of as many countries as possible in order to form an international agreement concerning crimes against humanity, the ability to mediate between the different national courts represented and, much like the spools of electrical wires in Nuremberg, serve as a connection between the multitudes which represent humanity. Created in 2002, the International Criminal Court, or the ICC, is “the first permanent, treaty based, international criminal court established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community”, and is one such organization (source D). With a universally accepted definition of a crime against humanity delineated in the Rome Statute, a diverse leadership group, and separate offices responsible for examining and conducting investigations on cases, the ICC, as an independent organization, is capable of passing judgment on the most reprehensible criminals in the world today. A major downfall is the limited global acceptance the Court has; many countries such as The United States, China, Russia, Israel and India have yet to ratify the Rome statute, meaning the ICC lacks authority over criminals originating from such countries (source D). In order to achieve the intercultural and international connections needed to enable universal jurisdiction, the Rome statute must be accepted worldwide. A united stance opposing the atrocities of crimes against humanity is impossible without global cooperation, without a coalescence of all members of the human species.
Back to 1945. Back to the wood-paneled court room, and the men and women, shuffling papers and constructing defenses, struggling to make sense of a world so suddenly and unexpectedly filled with direst cruelty. Back to the horror stories, the accounts of burning children and locked trains, broadcasted over the radio to a stunned and silent audience. Back to the electrical wires: looped around chair legs, tangled underfoot, and coursing like veins through the tense, tender, soundless room. Comprised of the head-phoned and listening masses, all of humanity – the victims, the kinsmen, the enemies and the onlookers – deserve to stand in judgment against the crimes that compromise and threaten the cords that, in mutual compassion, connect us all.
Sources:
Source A:
“The Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race." Shoah Education Project-Web: Holocaust or Shoah Education for the Church and General Public: An Online Curriculum. Web. 16 Jan. 2011.
Source B:
Linder, Doug. "NurembergACCOUNT." UMKC School of Law. Web. 16 Jan. 2011. <http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/nurembergACCOUNT.html>.
<http://www.shoaheducation.com/nuremberglaws.html>.
Source C:
The Institute Henry Dunant. "Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis, and Charter of the International Military Tribunal, London, 8 August 1945." University of Minnesota. Web. 16 Jan. 2011. http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/1945a.htm.
Source D:
“About the Court.” ICC. Web. 17 Jan. 2001. <http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/About the Court/>