Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
- PART II CONFLICT OF LAWS: 1500–1766
- PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
- PART IV THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
- 28 ‘The Martyrdom of Adolph Beck’ and the Creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal
- 29 Liberty Sacrificed to Security
- 30 Nuremberg and Norman Birkett
- 31 Wrongs and Rights
- 32 Deprave and Corrupt: Blasphemy, Obscenity and Oscar Wilde
- 33 Hanging in the Balance
- 34 A Murder in Catford
- 35 The Rule of Law under Threat?
- Bibliography
- Index
30 - Nuremberg and Norman Birkett
from PART IV - THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
- PART II CONFLICT OF LAWS: 1500–1766
- PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
- PART IV THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
- 28 ‘The Martyrdom of Adolph Beck’ and the Creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal
- 29 Liberty Sacrificed to Security
- 30 Nuremberg and Norman Birkett
- 31 Wrongs and Rights
- 32 Deprave and Corrupt: Blasphemy, Obscenity and Oscar Wilde
- 33 Hanging in the Balance
- 34 A Murder in Catford
- 35 The Rule of Law under Threat?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
One comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in ‘the law’ as something above the state and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, but at any rate incorruptible … The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root.
George Orwell, ‘The Lion and The Unicorn’Let them have a trial, and let them have justice. That's one of the things me and my mates fought for.
A British guard at Nuremberg (Bowker, Behind the Bar)Perhaps the gravest threat to the rule of law came during the twentieth century, and in an international context, when brutal totalitarian regimes, in particular Hitler's and Stalin's, passed unconscionable laws, subverted legal safeguards, corrupted the independence of the judiciary, and instigated show trials. The law was made subject to naked evil. After the horrors of the Second World War, swift and brutal revenge could have been exacted on the beaten foe, Nazi Germany, especially by its equally vicious adversary, Soviet Russia. Churchill himself initially expressed a preference for summary execution with the use of an Act of Attainder to circumvent legal obstacles. Instead, post-war Europe oversaw two remarkable developments. The first was the creation, very much along common law principles, of the Nuremberg Tribunal to try the Nazi war criminals. The second was the drawing up of the European Convention on Human Rights, again largely devised by common law lawyers, led by Britain's main prosecutor at Nuremberg.
The trial of the major war criminals, held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946 at Nuremberg, the cradle of Nazism, was unique. For the first time the surviving leaders of a defeated nation were put on trial for Criminal Conspiracy (Count 1), with specific counts alleging Crimes against Peace (Count 2), War Crimes (Count 3), and Crimes against Humanity (Count 4).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law, Liberty and the ConstitutionA Brief History of the Common Law, pp. 276 - 284Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015