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So they made it easier to justify attacks, and harder to prosecute such attacks as war crimes? In any case as to legitimacy[0]: In 1946 the Nüremberg Internati
by simonh 4y ago
So they made it easier to justify attacks, and harder to prosecute such attacks as war crimes? In any case as to legitimacy[0]:
In 1946 the Nüremberg International Military Tribunal stated with regard to the Hague Convention on land warfare of 1907: "The rules of land warfare expressed in the Convention undoubtedly represented an advance over existing International Law at the time of their adoption ... but by 1939 these rules ... were recognized by all civilized nations and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war" (reprinted in AJIL, Vol. 41, 1947, pp. 248-249). The International Military Tribunal for the Far East expressed, in 1948, an identical view.
[0] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/195 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/195
- nl 4y ago> So they made it easier to justify attacks, and harder to prosecute such attacks as war crimes? Yes. It's worth noting that the idea of "international law" really only became a thing with the Nuremberg trials. Before that it was assumed people would do the right thing, or something...
- simonh 4y agoI agree you could make a reasonable case that the allied bombing campaign on Dresden at al should have been war crimes, but the fact is they were not, and nobody at the time had any expectation that they could or would be. There would have been no legal basis, even a flimsy one, for prosecuting them as such.