1. Why would it be partially correct to say that the reputation of the IMT trials at Nuremberg at the end of the Second World War will remain largely a positive one? (200 words)
Although the Nuremburg trials have been criticised as victors justice, and as illegal in that they did not comply with the non-retrospective principle of justice, they have contributed immensely to the development under international law of the following:
a- Criminalisation of gross human rights violations by making crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity offenses under international law.
b- Establishing individual responsibility for human rights crimes and rejecting defences of superior orders and sovereign immunity.
c- Setting a precedent that international tribunals will swiftly be established in the aftermath of gross human rights violations to persecute those responsible. Thus the ICTY and the ICTR were established following Balkan and Rwanda violations in the mid 1990s.
d- Established customary international norms for dealing with gross human rights violations.
e- Codified prohibited crimes under international law.
