This year, the Nuremberg Academy´s Second Annual Forum commemorates the adoption of the seven Nuremberg Principles by the United Nations General Assembly by resolution 95 (I) on 11 December 1946 on the initiative of the United States delegation. The seven principles, which were teased out of the Charter and Judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT at Nuremberg), now form the bedrock of modern international criminal law and justice. Although the effort to adopt a universally agreed code of international crimes failed in succeeding years, in part due to the intervention of the Cold War, the Nuremberg principles received a new lease of life in the Statutes of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and are now concretized in the Rome Statute, which establishes the permanent International Criminal Court. The ad hoc international tribunals and the mixed/hybrid tribunals that preceded or coincided with the creation of the ICC further developed many of these principles, some of which had been subject of debates, advocacy and norm development in the human rights movement at global and regional level between 1945 and 1990. In this regard, the Genocide Convention, the Convention Against Torture were adopted in 1948 and in 1984 while other human rights treaties contained protections for different groups, including women, children, victims and the accused. At the same time, international humanitarian law, the bulk of which is contained in the Geneva Conventions (1949) and the Additional Protocols (1977) developed the law of war crimes. The framework of state responsibility on which human rights treaties anchored entailed obligations on the state to provide effective remedies for human rights violations, including prosecution of perpetrators of at least the most serious violations.
In the 70 years since the Nuremberg Principles were affirmed by the UNGA, the legislative, advocacy and adjudicative activity has occurred in multiple sites, in particular around tribunals established to prosecute perpetrators of international crimes. These processes have developed, and enriched the Nuremberg principles beyond their skeletal formulation in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and Tokyo. Indeed, part of the development of the law has been a response to trenchant critiques of both tribunals, which for instance had excluded a focus on sexual crimes. In addition to the groundbreaking jurisprudence generated by the ad hoc international tribunals in the 1990s, advocacy activity by civil society shone the light on this darker side of Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals.
This year's conference will deal with specific aspects in respect of each of the seven Nuremberg Principles. Indeed, while the contours of some of the principles can be regarded as 'settled', controversy continues to rage on the interpretation or application of specific aspects of the principles. The principle on immunities is one such principle. The Forum will offer space for leading academics and practitioners to analyse, debate, critique developments and to chart a trajectory for the future of each of the principles.