On 6 July 2023, the Nuremberg Academy welcomed a group of 20 legal professionals from Spain and Latin America from the study programme Derechos Humanos, Relaciones Internacionales y Liderazgo Público Democrático run by the Berg Institute, for a session on international criminal law held entirely in Spanish. Deputy Director Dr Viviane Dittrich officially welcomed the participants and highlighted the mandate of the Academy and the significance of the Nuremberg Principles. Project Officer Dr Pablo Gavira Díaz presented the role and work of the Nuremberg Academy in detail as well as its main activities and events. This was followed by a compelling discussion on the various acute challenges that international criminal justice is experiencing today. The group showed great interest in discussing alternatives to circumvent the restrictive jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in respect of the crime of aggression and war in Ukraine. In this respect, the limitations of the Rome Statute, a potential reform of some of the organs of the United Nations and the relevancy of the universal jurisdiction principle were the subject of a lively debate among the participants.
The visit of the group to the Nuremberg Academy was the last station of a two-week high-level programme with study visits in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxemburg, The Netherlands and Spain, which previously led them, inter alia, to the International Criminal Court, the Peace Palace and the European Court of Human Rights. In Nuremberg, they had the opportunity to visit the Memorium Nuremberg Trials and Courtroom 600.
During the session, Professor Dr. Joaquín González Ibáñez highlighted the importance of the Nuremberg trials and Professor Dr. Luis Arroyo Zapatero gave a lecture on the significance of the Nuremberg trial and Nuremberg principles in terms of the further development of international criminal law.