In an era of wars and massacres with impunity, from Ukraine to the Middle East, passing through Sudan and other parts of the planet, the edifice of international justice that was born in Nuremberg is showing severe cracks. If the people who have suffered horror in Ukraine, in Sudan, in Israel on October 7, and in Gaza, in Palestine, ask themselves what international law has done for them, they will answer that it hasn't done much, says jurist and writer Philippe Sands by telephone.
* "If you kill this witness, the case will be dismissed," advised attorney. Man, these MPRE hypos are getting super easy. [ Toronto Star] * Trump signs bill to release the Epstein files. Unclear if he drew a woman's curves around it before signing this time. [ Reuters] * Texas governor demands action on Sharia Law, so you know it's a bad news cycle for him. [ KXAN]
A psychiatrist is tasked with analyzing Hermann Göring and other Nazis as they fight for their lives during the Nuremberg trials. These men orchestrated the deaths of over 6 million Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, and political opponents. Did they feel remorse, guilt, or nothing at all? It is such a great concept for a story and plot, but, in Nuremberg, they really blew it.
Here is a movie promising the juiciest of real-life stories from history. Before the Nazi war-crime trials at Nuremberg that started in November 1945, an obscure US army psychiatrist called Dr Douglas Kelley was ordered to interview the prisoners, chief among whom was Hermann Goring. This was supposedly to establish their fitness for trial, but was really intended to gain inside information as to how they would conduct their defence.
Taft's critique centered on a bedrock legal principle: ex post facto law. The charges brought at Nuremberg-particularly "crimes against peace" and "conspiracy to wage aggressive war"-were not established crimes under international law when the defendants allegedly committed them. The tribunal represented victor's justice dressed in legal robes, establishing retroactive criminality to punish the vanquished. As Taft argued in an October 1946 speech, "The trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial no matter how it is hedged about with the forms of justice."
Welcome back for another week of The Atlantic 's un-trivial trivia, drawn from recently published stories. Without a trifle in the bunch, maybe what we're really dealing with here is-hmm-"significa"? "Consequentia"? Whatever butchered bit of Latin you prefer, read on for today's questions. (Last week's questions can be found here.) To get Atlantic Trivia in your inbox every day, sign up for The Atlantic Daily.
