On Feb. 22, 1942, Stefan Zweig, an Austrian writer who escaped Nazi atrocities in Europe by finding refuge in Brazil, died by suicide alongside his wife. The day before, he had completed his memoir “The World of Yesterday.” The book is a touching history of his life, but – more broadly – of the Europe Zweig left behind, where Germany’s march across the continent was unleashing a bloody torrent of atrocities. His suicide note, albeit very short, conveyed the pain he felt having lost his “spiritual homeland, Europe”:
I send greetings to all of my friends: May they live to see the dawn after this long night. I, who am most impatient, go before them.
When Zweig took his life, the world was indeed going through one of its darkest chapters. The Nazis and their Axis allies were at the height of their power, relentlessly grinding nations to the ground with their war machine and implementing industrialized genocide as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
What Zweig could not know, consumed by his total despair, was that in three years his “long night” would come to an end. The Nuremberg Trial, held in Germany in 1945-46, helped cast it away. As Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals at an international tribunal, the shield of sovereign impunity was finally broken. The highest-ranking state officials could no longer feel untouchable in the commission of heinous acts.
As the world marks the 80th anniversary of the Trial, its legacy remains complicated. The principle of legality conspicuously took a marginal role, as victor’s justice was in the air after World War II. The charges levied against German officials for crimes against peace concerning the invasion of Poland conveniently ignored the crime’s joint design and perpetration with the Soviet Union, which invaded in parallel from the East. The partisanship of Nuremberg is therefore best understood as international criminal law’s necessary evil, the moment which had to happen, but should never happen again. The magnitude of atrocities required to give life to the Trial left a permanent scar on the world. The Trial’s partisan approach could only be seen as permissible as one world order broke and another sought to emerge.
For international criminal law to remain a compelling set of norms, however, the central principles that formed Nuremberg must be vigorously defended. These tenets – that use of armed force is no longer a sovereign prerogative, but a criminally punishable act, and that no one can escape responsibility for international crimes – comprise the initial thread from which the modern international order was woven. Violations of these principles have accelerated recently, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Israel’s desecration of humanitarian norms in Gaza. But perhaps a more pernicious threat to these principles, yet no less inconsequential, is the fall from grace of a previously foundational proponent of the international order: the United States.
Early Hope
World War II left in its wake a world beyond comprehension. The scale of atrocity – numerically and geographically – had hitherto never been seen. There was a pervading sense amongst the Allies that severe personal consequences should be meted out to all those responsible, with Germany at the top of the list among the defeated Axis powers. Yet it was far from inevitable that a criminal justice model would be used to secure accountability. Without the United States’ leadership, it would have likely never happened. Britain strongly opposed the notion of criminal trials for responsible Nazi officials. Winston Churchill made clear that he preferred summary executions. The Soviet Union wanted show trials with clearly predetermined outcomes. Only the United States, under the leadership of President Harry Truman, took a stand to “determine the innocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as the times and the horrors … will permit.” This vision of justice was the catalyst for the establishment of the International Military Tribunal (and its counterpart: the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which prosecuted Japanese war criminals). American determination that fair justice was necessary for peace was central to the emerging international system, which would restrict the use of force and strive for accountability for international crimes.
Long Decline
American integrity would not last long, however. In the wake of the trials, the United States had already concluded that national security advantages could sometimes trump accountability, actively leveraging former Nazis as intelligence agents to counter the emerging Soviet bloc. These contemptible actions set the stage for decades of American foreign policy that eroded the international norms it had just sought to entrench. This decline in moral leadership accelerated when the United States cast aside the prohibition on foreign intervention. Throughout the Cold War, the United States pursued an often-violent interventionist foreign policy aimed at securing pliable allies across the globe.
As the confrontation with the Soviet Union evaporated in the 1990s, a fleeting moment of hope arose. The United States intervened to defend Kuwait’s sovereignty from Iraq and provided robust support for the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It supported the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and signed its foundational Rome Statute in 2000, though never ratified it.
This brief American foray into collective self-defense and international criminal justice would meet its end after 9/11 and the commencement of the United States’ so-called Global War on Terror. Following the somewhat justifiable invasion of Afghanistan, the United States embarked on an unlawful invasion of Iraq. It complemented these actions with a state-sponsored program of enforced disappearances and torture, for which there was never any real accountability. In 2001, a fearful United States even adopted a law authorizing the use of military force to secure the release of any U.S. or allied military personnel detained in relation to ICC proceedings. U.S. policy also gradually deviated in other ways from recognized principles of international law; much later, for example, under the first Trump administration, approval of annexation crept its way into official U.S. policy through formal recognition of Israel’s unlawful occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights.
There were, however, a few last glimmers of hope. Although the United States failed to respond robustly to Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, it unequivocally condemned and supported resistance against Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022 and it has continued to do so – that is, until lately.
The End of all Reason
From Gaza to Ukraine, American foreign policy is now lurching toward a narcissistic pursuit of pyrrhic peace. In support of allies and adversaries alike, it is demonstrating an intent to undermine the precedents of unmitigated responsibility for international crimes, including aggression, set by Nuremberg.
Current U.S. initiatives explicitly challenge responsibility and liability for punishment of individuals for international crimes (Nuremberg Principle I). The recently proposed “peace initiative” for Ukraine, apparently authored by American envoy Steve Witkoff with input from Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev and others, advocated for “full amnesty for […] actions during the war.” Regardless of this provision’s outcome in a final document, the very fact of its proposal suggests U.S. permissibility of international crimes so long as the perpetrator isn’t defeated on the battlefield. Russia’s commission of the worst mass atrocities on European soil in decades is being met with a forgiving embrace. Regarding the war in Gaza, the United States has provided immense quantities of weaponry directly tied to Israel’s international crimes and lashed out against those who credibly allege Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Trump administration is also applying sanctions as a punitive weapon to scare off independent institutions such as the ICC from holding officials accountable for grave crimes.
The “prestigious” mantle of leadership, no matter how soaked in blood, now creates an impression that one can perpetrate international crimes without consequences. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warmly applauded by U.S. lawmakers and dotingly defended by President Donald Trump. Russian President Vladimir Putin was given the literal red-carpet treatment on American soil when he visited Alaska in August. Other countries feel emboldened to follow suit. For example, Hungary brazenly advertised itself for a state visit by Putin and hosting Netanyahu, two leaders wanted by the ICC. Instead of accountability for all responsible (Nuremberg Principle III), the world is returning to a time when the most senior orchestrators of criminal plans and policies can use their official position to protect themselves from punishment.
The central crimes that Nuremberg cast into international law (Nuremberg Principle VI) – war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression – are being bludgeoned into meaningless political words. Instead of being the most serious crimes of concern to all humanity, they are reforged as tolerable misbehavior or the permissible spoils of war. In Ukraine, the crime of aggression now appears to reward the perpetrator. The so-called peace initiative for Ukraine envisages the illegally occupied and annexed territories of Ukraine to be “recognized as de facto Russian” and “belong to the Russian Federation.” The war crimes and crimes against humanity that accompanied Russian brutality are being met with a callous shrug.
The seriousness of international crimes is being minimized even with issues traditionally seen as “untouchable.” In a recent vote on a normally consensual draft United Nations General Assembly’s triennial resolution condemning torture, the United States stood among the only three States in opposition, alongside Israel and Argentina.
Actions taken by the United States begin to look like active complicity with international crimes. The most obvious case relates to Gaza. Unflinching supply of armaments and intelligence to Israel – when joined with overwhelming evidence of Israeli forces committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide – means clear liability in aiding or assisting manifestly illegal actions targeting Palestinians (ARSIWA, Art. 16). More surreptitiously, American attempts to strongarm Ukraine and cajole Russia into halting its invasion also begin to increasingly seem like aid or assistance for Russia’s illegal conduct. Of course, good faith attempts to secure cessation of hostilities and an end to uncontrolled bloodshed through political or economic manoeuvring are certainly not unlawful per se. However, the line demarcating complicity is crossed when a peace process is used as an attempt to orchestrate broad support for a perpetrator’s act of aggression. Freezing an invasion by giving material or financial support with a view to facilitating ongoing occupation and annexation will constitute aid or assistance to another state’s commission of these continuing acts of aggression (ARSIWA Commentary, 66). The proposed Witkoff-Dmitriev “peace initiative” provided for factual recognition of Russian control linked to measures that seemingly pave the way for eventual full legal recognition. This is hinted at in the planned process of sanctions removal and economic investment – with no clear limitation toward activities linked to occupied territories – and equally in the use of the terms “internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation” for the demilitarized buffer zone. These aspects suggest an intention to normalize occupation to the point that would cross into aid or assistance toward Russia’s aggression. It is more demonstrable in the United States’ political jockeying for recent U.N. General Assembly and Security Council resolutions about Russia’s invasion. The United States has pointedly fought back against references to the illegality of Russia’s actions, providing a vital lifeline for international endorsement of such conduct. In the backdrop, Trump has not hesitated to remark that Russia “fought and … won certain property” that they are seemingly entitled to take. This is the bleeding edge of complicity.
As a final undoing of Nuremberg, the United States now considers itself entitled to use armed force as a political tool. Deeply entrenched jingoism has given rise to an administration that genuinely believes it can commit violence (or threaten to do so) with impunity. The Trump administration routinely threatens annexation of territories in Panama, Greenland, and Canada. Extrajudicial killings of alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific, under attempts to invent a non-existent armed conflict, are used to advance a political agenda. Under the cover of wars against terror and drugs, it has even become a pretext to threaten military action against countries in Central and South America that provoke the ire of Trump. In its most recent flagrantly illegal act, the United States has committed aggression against Venezuela by bombing and invading the country, and kidnapping its head of state. The prohibition of the use of force, the sacrosanct principle of international law’s post-World War II order, has been turned into leverage for crude bargaining.
The World of Tomorrow
States complicit in attacks against the foundations of the world order must be called out for it. And this applies to the United States, which now stands in opposition to the Nuremberg principles. If the United States cannot rectify its behavior, remedying failures of the past and present by holding itself accountable, other States must stand strong in opposition to these attacks on the international order. Faustian peace projects which perceive justice as an impediment to safety and security must be rejected, prioritizing just peace in harmony with international law.
Nuremberg showed that there are certain principles that should define our shared humanity. We know that the world is imperfect (to say the least). We all feel exactly where the system is failing, where the cracks in the international security architecture lie, and who is responsible for them. But this battered hope cannot cause the abandonment of principles that safeguard justice for the world’s worst atrocities. To forsake the Nuremberg principles means to return to the world of yesterday, where power forgave brutality and perpetrators never worried about the prospect of punishment.
We are writing these lines from Kyiv, where people are recovering after yet another murderous Russian attack conducted in the middle of “peace negotiations.” The dead and injured are counted, the power and heating are out, and mournful reflections persist. Here, the long night continues unabated and two options remain: despair or look for the light scattered in the dark.
Yet history delivers a hopeful message: future visions remain deceitful. When Zweig wrote his suicide note observing the decline of Europe in 1942, he could not see the future end of Nazi rule. And yet, the Nuremberg trials occurred. In 1994, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines broadcasters in Rwanda finished their call for the elimination of Tutsis by proclaiming that “if [they] exterminate all the cockroaches, nobody will judge [them] because [they] will be the winners.” And yet, the perpetrators faced prosecution before an international tribunal. In 1995, the BBC’s documentary “The Death of Yugoslavia” featured Serbian President Slobodan Milošević comfortably ensconced in his presidential chair and brazenly sharing his account of the horrific wars he himself was instrumental in conducting. At the time, he did not foresee his life ending in a Dutch prison cell while on trial for international crimes a decade later.
“The Agony of Peace” is the last chapter in Zweig’s “World of Yesterday.” However, even in the agony of peace, Zweig writes in his concluding sentence, “in the last resort, every shadow is also the child of light, and only those who have known the light and the dark, […] war and peace, rise and fall, have truly lived their lives.”
Authors note: Opinions expressed in the blog are solely the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organisations and institutions they work with.
