About Us

While established as a national institution based in Nuremberg, the mandate and focus of the Academy have a clear international outlook and reach. 

We provide a forum for dialogue by convening international conferences and expert meetings, conduct interdisciplinary and applied research, engage in specialised capacity strengthening for practitioners of international criminal law and further human rights education.The Academy supports the fight against impunity for universally recognised core international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. Our work responds to the needs of practitioners, scholars and civil society representatives. We enable timely and credible access to best practices from groundbreaking institutions and scholarship and to diverse and trusted insights from leading figures working in international criminal justice.

With a vision of fostering sustainable peace through justice, furthering knowledge and building societal awareness, our work empowers the capacities of those involved in the judicial process in relation to core international crimes. The Nuremberg Academy upholds the spirit of the Nuremberg Principles by reinforcing the efforts of holding perpetrators accountable for international crimes and victims fighting for justice and recognition. Today, the rule of law is under threat in various settings. There is an ever-growing need to empower international law and architectures that support justice, accountability and a rules-based international order. Our programmes support actors who strengthen the rule of law and improve public understanding of international criminal law.

The Academy is located in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, the venue where the Nuremberg trial was held. In a pioneering process before the International Military Tribunal (1945–1946) constituted by the four allied nations, the surviving leadership of the National Socialist regime was brought to trial. The subsequent trials before the United States Military Tribunals (1946–1949) were also located here. At Nuremberg, leading Nazi representatives were held personally accountable for crimes under international law. It has been more than 75 years since Robert H. Jackson, the United States Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg described the trial as one of the “most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason”. He noted the importance of putting “forces of international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace”. 

The most significant principles of international law represented in the Nuremberg Charter and the Judgment are now known as the Nuremberg Principles. In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed the principles of international law recognised by the Charter and Judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Trygve Lie, the first Secretary-General of the United Nations had called for these principles to be made “a permanent part of international law” citing the need “to protect mankind against future wars”. Four years later, in 1950, the International Law Commission formulated seven “Nuremberg Principles” after being entrusted with this responsibility by the General Assembly. Fulfilling the aspirations ingrained in the Nuremberg Principles and securing their even and worldwide enforcement would be worthy manifestations of Justice Jackson´s message.