Nuremberg Trials, War Crimes and International Law by chief counsel for the prosecution in the Nuremberg trials Telford Taylor - dedicated copy by author: "Jeff, in memory of the days we worked hard together". Booklet from the International Conciliation series, published by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, New York 1949.
Insights from the series of trials against the greatest war criminals in history - the Nuremberg trials from the perspective of the person who was involved in the daily proceedings in court - Telford Taylor, chief counsel for the prosecution in the Nuremberg trials. Here Taylor discusses the many substantial legal issues that arose in the Nuremberg trials on how the universal legal system dealt with the inadequacy of existing international law in dealing with an unprecedented scale of criminals. Taylor writes here from the perspective of both a lawyer and historian who played a central role in this fateful period. In the booklet he elaborates on the dilemmas faced by the court on issues such as legal definitions of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, sources of international law, debates around whether the Nazi war criminals should have been executed without trial, the importance as the judges saw it of holding the trials for future generations, the prosecution's strong desire to create a "show trial" that would deter criminals of future generations and the steps taken in court to achieve the best outcome, efforts to collect evidence for convicting the defendants during the trial itself, attempts to link all defendants to what was called the "Nazi master plan" in addition to the individual crimes of each of them by gathering highly classified information from several European countries, behind-the-scenes discussions regarding the validity of what was defined as a "military tribunal", the need created during the trial to redefine what constitutes "conditions of slavery" which crossed all limits known to humanity until the outbreak of the Holocaust, the dilemmas of the court in the "Einsatzgruppen trial" which opened in September 1947 when the bench of judges was reduced, as well as many unknown details about Nazi crimes, war criminals who were not prosecuted, Nazis who participated in mass murder of Jews and were not prosecuted, and many other fascinating issues discussed here by Taylor.
Telford Taylor (1908-1998) is renowned for his role as chief counsel for the prosecution of war criminals after World War II in the Nuremberg trials, Taylor served as chief counsel for the prosecution in 12 of the Nuremberg trials, as part of Robert H. Jackson's team, helping to draft the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which constituted the legal basis for the Nuremberg trials. Taylor worked hard to consider the German Armed Forces High Command and the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces as criminal organizations. He saw the Nuremberg trials as a success because they created a precedent and defined a legal basis for crimes against peace and humanity.
241-371 (page numbering continues from the previous booklet in the series). Very good condition.
