The more devastating number of deaths were sustained at the hands of the Einsatzgruppen and collaborative efforts of citizens in the occupied countries, as well as deaths in the ghettos and other concentration camps throughout Europe. Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, , by the Soviet Red Army. On May 8, , the war was over but the aftermath of the events that took place continues to affect the present.
This is especially the case as scholars and people continue to struggle with how this could have taken place and how the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators have been repeated through acts of mass violence and other genocides throughout the world. The Jewish population of Germany prior to WWII as of was , people out of a total population of 67 million, making them less than 0.
By the end of the Holocaust, six million European Jews were murdered. In addition to the murder of European Jews, the Nazi government was responsible for the persecution of several other groups of people. Poles, Sinti, and Roma were viewed as racially inferior to the Aryans and were subjected to death and labor camps. Homosexuals, specifically men, were viewed as a hindrance to the preservation of the German nation and were therefore subjected to concentration camps.
In total, five million non-Jews were killed. Genocide means the physical dismemberment and liquidation of people on large scales, an attempt by those who rule to achieve the total elimination of a subject people. Preventing and Punishing Crimes Against Humanity The punishment of Nazi crimes — a watershed in international criminal law The foundations for the development of international criminal law were laid by the trials and judgments of the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo after the Second World War.
Since the Treaty of Westphalia in , there had been a doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of other nations. Now, some years later, the atrocities committed by the Nazis, their allies and collaborators, were held to be so heinous as to constitute crimes against humanity: crimes that could be judged in the first ever international criminal courts.
These trials, which attracted worldwide attention, demonstrated for the first time in history that any individual, regardless of rank, could be held responsible for crimes under international law, and this could be enforced at the international level.
In particular the Nuremberg Tribunal brought to justice major German war criminals, including leading State officials and Nazi leaders, for crimes under international law. The prosecutions at Nuremberg were significant not only for the development of international humanitarian law but also of the law of individual criminal responsibility: this was the first time that crimes of an international dimension and perpetrated as part of a state policy were prosecuted by an international tribunal.
The process of establishing international criminal law was further developed in with the legal defining of the separate crime of genocide. What is the role of the International Criminal Court and other international tribunals? After the establishment of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals and the UN Genocide Convention, a long period elapsed until further steps were taken to develop and to enforce international criminal law.
These steps, however, were notable: in response to massive human rights violations and as a measure to re-establish international peace and security, the UN Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in and, in , the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
The creation of these tribunals and, subsequently, other judicial bodies for Sierra Leone, Cambodia and Lebanon, reflected increasing determination among the international community that such crimes were no longer to be tolerated. However, in each case, separate bodies were established for specific situations and so all were limited in scope.
The desire for a court with the power to try crimes against international law wherever they were committed led to the creation of the International Criminal Court ICC in Endorsed by over nation states and with several ongoing cases and investigations, the ICC has become an important instrument to ensure that the perpetrators of heinous crimes and mass atrocities do not escape prosecution and punishment. How do these international judicial bodies operate?
The International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and for Rwanda both have the authority to prosecute persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law.
These include crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. Numerous persons accused of genocide have been tried by these tribunals and both have delivered important judgments with regard to genocide. States are under an obligation to co-operate with the respective international tribunal in the investigation and prosecution of persons accused of committing serious violations of international humanitarian law. The tribunals were established by the UN Security Council under its powers to maintain peace and to take military and non military action to "restore international peace and security".
Decisions taken by the Security Council are legally binding for all UN member states. The duty of nation states to cooperate with these courts prevails over all other obligations and includes the execution of arrest warrants, extradition, and providing access to evidence. The International Criminal Court has also been given jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of international concern: genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Recently it was also decided to include the crime of aggression into the remit of the ICC, but this has yet to enter into force. Nations that have signed up to the ICC are obliged to cooperate fully with the Court in its investigation and the prosecution of crimes.
This obligation becomes a universal one whenever a situation is referred to the Court by the Security Council. The Court will only act if a case is not investigated or prosecuted by a national judicial system or where the national proceedings are not effective. In addition, the ICC only tries those accused of the gravest crimes. In this regard, the ICC is not only a court of last resort, but also contributes to the strengthening of national measures to enforce individual responsibility for international crimes.
Has nothing changed? When learning about the history of the Holocaust, it is not uncommon for students to reflect upon subsequent and continuing acts of genocide and crimes against humanity around the world and to feel that nothing has changed. However, while the world is still scarred by such crimes, and while the mechanisms to prevent them are not yet effective enough, still there has been a sea-change in how the international community perceives and responds to these atrocities.
The international courts and tribunals are important in combating impunity and in preventing future violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. They play an important role for creating a sense of justice for victims and affected communities and for encouraging national measures of reconciliation. Moreover, they have developed a considerable deterrent effect. Numerous completed cases demonstrate to the international community that even highest-ranking political and military leaders can, irrespective of their possible immunity, be charged for the most serious crimes.
Learn more about genocide: Useful links to further information and advice. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provides historical information on the Holocaust, contemporary genocide, and advice on teaching. Human Rights Watch offers a discussion on a wide variety of human rights issues broken down by geographical location.
UN's human rights page outlines policies and treaties regarding human rights. Web Genocide Documentation Centre In addition to documents regarding particular genocides, it also provides information on legal statutes and laws on genocide. Genocide Watch provides an overview of various genocides since Lemkin later set out to come up with a term to describe Nazi crimes against European Jews during World War II , and to enter that term into the world of international law in the hopes of preventing and punishing such horrific crimes against innocent people.
After the Nuremberg trials revealed the horrible extent of Nazi crimes, the U. General Assembly passed a resolution in making the crime of genocide punishable under international law. The convention entered into force in and has since been ratified by more than countries. Senate did not ratify it until , when President Ronald Reagan signed it over strong opposition by those who felt it would limit U.
Though the CPPCG established an awareness that the evils of genocide existed, its actual effectiveness in stopping such crimes remained to be seen: Not one country invoked the convention during to , when the Khmer Rouge regime killed some 1. In , the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia, and Bosnian Serb leaders targeted both Bosniak Bosnian Muslim and Croatian civilians for atrocious crimes.
This resulted in the Bosnian Genocide and the deaths of some , people by In , the U. Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ICTY at The Hague, in the Netherlands; it was the first international tribunal since Nuremberg and the first to have a mandate to prosecute the crime of genocide. In its more than 20 years of operation, the ICTY indicted individuals of crimes committed during the Balkan wars.
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