More than seventy years ago, the first ever judicial process took place, in which the criminals who took possession of Germany and turned it into a weapon for committing terrible crimes were tried. This process was the first, since before that in legal practice there were no cases of trials of politicians who had committed military aggression against other countries. It was the Nuremberg trials. A few months later, a similar trial of Japanese war criminals took place in Tokyo.
Nuremberg
The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials of war criminals were not carried out on ordinary members of the armed forces from among the rank and file or officers, but on A. Hitler's most faithful assistants. They were tried for having launched the most significant and large-scale war, thereby tying many countries into it.
The first process was based on an agreement between allied states. As a result, the International Military Tribunal was formed. His goal was to bring justice to the main Nazis.
The duration of the Nuremberg trials was almost a whole year. On September 30, 1946, the tribunal began the announcement of the sentence, which was completed only the next day. Almost all the defendants who fell under the tribunal were sentenced to the highest limit of punishment - death. Individuals were lucky, they were sentenced to life imprisonment. Such associations as the SS and SD, the Gestapo and the highest ranks of the Nazi party of Germany were classified as criminals, and their members received severe punishment.
In total, 12 people were sentenced to death, among whom were Rosenberg, Ribbentrop, Goering, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner and others.
Tokyo
The Tokyo war criminals trial, just like the Nuremberg trial, administered justice to the offenders of World War II, but in the capital of Japan. It began on May 3, 1946, and its duration was an order of magnitude longer than the tribunal in Germany. The Tokyo process lasted more than two years and ended on November 12, 1948.
The international military tribunal for the Far East has sentenced the seven largest war criminals, including the Minister of War, the Prime Minister and the highest-ranking generals of the Land of the Rising Sun. For the other criminals, the Tokyo process brought various prison sentences, sixteen of which were life sentences.
Among the accusations made by the defendant, sounded such as preparing for war, starting a war, participating in it, destroying civilians, prisoners of war, as well as many other serious criminal crimes.
The Importance of Lawsuits in Nuremberg and Tokyo
The Tokyo process, like the trial in Nuremberg, was of tremendous importance to history. Both tribunals recognized and established that the aggressive war that Nazi Germany launched was a serious crime on an international scale.
In addition, the formation of the International Tribunal has become the source and basis for certain legal norms used in international law. The statutes of both tribunals themselves, as well as the sentences that they passed, were further approved by the United Nations, and, therefore, the principles of these documents, in accordance with which punishment was carried out and the elements of serious crimes were established, became generally recognized norms in the field of international law.
Process consequences
It is thanks to the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials that subsequently such important international acts as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were prepared . They also exerted tangible significance on various international covenants, including the Resolution against Racial Discrimination, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Military Conflicts, and many other significant documents.
In 1968, the UN Convention was adopted, according to which the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution does not apply to war criminals. Such a document was needed in connection with frequent attempts to stop the prosecution of individual Nazi criminals.
Conclusion
The international and historical significance of the trials that took place after the Second World War in the cities of Nuremberg and Tokyo can hardly be overestimated. During these processes, it was noted that they will go down in history. The material and information obtained as a result of their conduct will be so significant that in the future historians will refer to these results in order to find the truth. At the same time, the trials of the forties will be a kind of warning to politicians and the leadership of all states of the world.