It sounds like you're saying that the Nuremberg trials amounted to lynching; this isn't true. Western jurisprudence has always recognized rights and obligations

It sounds like you're saying that the Nuremberg trials amounted to lynching; this isn't true. Western jurisprudence has always recognized rights and obligations that arise from the natural law, and take precedence over any written law. This was the case even in Roman times -- think of the unwritten "jus gentium" in the international context. (China, by the way, also had the same understanding -- although the state was stronger in China, and so was more often able to defy the natural law and get away with it. Look at the long history of Chinese censors, who risked torture and death to remind the emperors of their duties.) And as for "laws that are so obvious they need not be stated anywhere," what's common law if not that?