A night like no other.

This weekend, I attended a 2 day symposium commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials. Before I write anything else, I just want to make clear, from the onset that this post will come nowhere near describing what I actually feel and what I have personally experienced. It will fail to express the sensations and the emotions that ran high the past two days and it will be but a sorry shadow of what I really am dying to write.

The nuremberg trials, for the uninitiated, was where the leaders of Nazi germany were tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes. It is significant for 2 reasons (at least in my opinion):
1. it was the birthplace of the UN Charter and the UDHR, it was the first time, world leaders came forward and together, crafted a common international law that was to be binding on all countries. It was the birthplace of the modern concept of human rights.
2. It was the triumph of the force of law over the law of force.

The first reason is self-explanatory; with the horrors of the Third Reich, and because so much of these atrocities were committed against its own citizens, the world, led largely by the United States, rallied behind that notion that every single human being had certain basic inalienable rights that even its government could not violate under the guise of state sovereignty (recognising that at that time, state sovereignty was paramount). Therefore, where such a violation occurred, and where this violation was so egregious, the states of the world would be empowered to act against the violating state.

The second reason, and the more significant of the two, considering the present context is that the trial was not a form a victor's justice. It was an attempt at, and in many ways, an accomplishment of, admirable restraint where the allies, recognising that they could not trumpet the cause of human rights if they denied the nazi leader's the same, tried their best and I think, managed to give these leaders a fair trial, eventually acquitting 3 of them (i forget which 3).

On Thursday, Congress passed the detainee bill which essentially strips the lower federal courts of their power to review the rights of detainees, prohibits the use of international law in domestic courts and authorises the president to interpret the content of international law. it also defines certain international crimes and exempts individuals acting for the state from liability for certain acts which otherwise may qualify as international crimes. (does this sound frighteningly familiar?) And therein lies its significance, that on the 60th anniversary of the day in which the United States led the world towards greater solidarity against inhuman crimes and, more importantly, by leading by example in refusing to simply summarily execute those defendant leaders, the current administration should decide to pass a bill that stands in diametric opposition to everything the Nuremberg Trials stood for.

What was reiterated over and over again and which I fully agree, is that in order for us to judge the horrific acts committed by terrorists against innocents, we need to have the moral highground to justfiy such judgement and this can only arise by treating these people with the justice, fairness and grace they denied us. To play on their playing field is to taint our hands with the same blood that taints theirs. During the opening statement of the trial, the Justice Jackson of the American Supreme Court, in his role as Chief Prosecutor said:

"The record on which we judge these defendants today, is the record on which history judges us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to drink from it ourselves".

These are words of an enlightened generation, a generation that lived through some of the darkest periods of humanity and who saw, through the darkness, that quite rightly, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind and thus chose, against the thirst for vengeance, justice for even the most heinous of criminals.

It's been an amazingly inspiring 2 days, sitting amongst giants and trying my best to glean as much knowledge and wisdom as I can off them. I've never felt more narrow-minded, stupid and ignorant than I have in the past 48 hours, and yet I've also never felt as if I wanted to learn even more. This my friends, is what law is about. It is about using the power and force of law, to better the lives of the downtrodden, the innocent and the victimised. More than that however, it is about justice, yes, even to the Saddams, Hitlers and Osama's of the world, not vengeance.

Just a taste of who was there:
1. Ben Ferencz, Whitney Harris and Henry King, 3 original Nuremberg Prosecutors, living history, real real real people and completely devoid of pretenses and airs. I asked Ben if he ever had the feeling, while trying the Nazi leaders that they truly believed in the goodness of their cause. Without hesitation he said, beyond a doubt and I asked him how he dealt with what must obviously be a very traumatic 1 year. He said, it channeled itself into a quiet rage, I didn't want to mutilate these people like they had to million others, i didn't want to attack them or fight them, I just wanted to see justice done. And that end was what kept me sane that 1 year. He had tears in his eyes when he said this. 60 years after.

2. Philippe Kirsch, President of the International Criminal Court, who said, with regards to the war on terrorism and the imminent threat of global closure, we have had 1 chance, we will not have another, this must work.

3. David Crane, Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

4. Senator Christopher Dodd, who painted a much better picture of the united states than the current administration is doing, who said, of the detainee bill, we spent 50 years trying to get the world to walk with us [on the path towards an international legal order], why are we walking away from them now. He acknowledged that precisely because the US was the only world power, an enormous burden to lead by example rested squarely on its shoulders and that one should never deal with terrorists the way they dealt with the world.

5. Richard Goldstone, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South africa, Chief Prosecutor of the united Nations International Criminal Tribunal for teh former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

I don't think i've recovered from the stimulus of the last 2 days yet, I most certainly haven't organised my thoughts as well as I would have liked to. I kid you not when I say that throughout most of the dinner last night, there were tears in my eyes.