[Mb-civic] The lessons of Nuremberg - Martha Minow & Margot Stern Strom - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

The lessons of Nuremberg

By Martha Minow and Margot Stern Strom  |  November 3, 2005

THE INTERNATIONAL Military Tribunal at Nuremberg opened its doors 60 
years ago this month. No one then imagined that the use of criminal 
trials to respond to mass atrocity would become a familiar and even 
expected feature of international relations. Yet trials at the 
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the 
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Special Court for 
Sierra Leone are underway, and the International Criminal Court recently 
issued its first arrest warrants for senior leaders of the Lord's 
Resistance Party in Uganda.

With the end of the Cold War, resistance to international criminal 
trials subsided. The model offered by the post-World War II trials of 
Nazi leaders and collaborators inspired increasing reliance on criminal 
prosecution and punishment following mass atrocities. The United States, 
while opposed to the International Criminal Court, nevertheless invoked 
that court's criminal justice powers in joining the other nations on the 
UN Security Council to investigate the situation in the Darfur region of 
Sudan. How should US citizens understand these developments?

The answer is complicated. To impose a criminal justice model on mass 
atrocity is intended to break cycles of violence and revenge through the 
aspirations of the rule of law. This locates responsibility in 
individuals rather than nations or ethnicities and holds individuals 
accountable for their actions. This effort can also record what happened 
and summon condemnation from nation states and ordinary people.

The criminal justice response to mass atrocity can break silences 
produced by fear or repression. Hence, criminal justice initiatives by a 
prosecutor in Spain and investigations in England dramatically ended the 
impunity experienced by Augusto Pinochet -- first internationally and 
then at home in Argentina. Advances in international law have emerged in 
the tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, including recognition 
of rape as a war crime.

Yet these elaborate and formal trials can be problematic. They often 
occur far away from the survivors and relatives of victims most affected 
by the violence. Most troubling, the international criminal trials have 
not deterred genocide, mass atrocity, and crimes of aggression. The 
trials have not notably curtailed the patterns of aggression and cruelty 
that accompany ethnic conflict. The seeds for the next catastrophe are 
too often produced with each last one.

To prevent mass violence and genocide, we need more. We will need to 
summon the hopes and commitments of new generations around the world. 
Here, education in schools and in broad public venues holds the best 
promise. Students can learn about the failures of democratic 
accountability that so often precede atrocity. Communities can learn 
about the dangers of blind obedience (and the power of bystanders to 
become what author Samantha Power calls ''upstanders," speaking out 
against hatred and violence). Discussions about these topics can be 
difficult. Yet people can learn to confront the past openly and with 
critical understanding.

Quality civic education demands thoughtful curriculums, teacher 
education, and support from all sectors of society -- business, 
government, and the independent sector. The lessons about human rights 
that are taught in the classrooms in this country, in Rwanda, in Serbia, 
can strengthen respect for the dignity of all and prevent future 
atrocities. Armed with knowledge about the past, a new generation can 
generate the vigilance that makes democracy strong and prevents 
scapegoating and violence.

Prosecutors, journalists, and observers of the Nuremberg trials will 
join this week with prosecutors from the current tribunals, human rights 
activists, educational and political leaders, and students to ask 
whether and how law can be coupled with education to pursue human 
dignity, not only after but before mass violence. Harvard Law School 
joins with the international education organization, Facing History and 
Ourselves, to convene not only lawyers but also educators and students 
from around the world in a two-day conference to address how education 
can promote respect for human dignity.

The bold step of the Nuremberg trials challenges us to be as bold in 
pursuing dignity in our dangerous time. It will take much imagination 
and sustained effort to address the cycle well-described by Yolande 
Mukasana's words on the wall of the National Genocide Museum in Kigali, 
Rwanda: ''There will be no humanity without forgiveness. There will be 
no forgiveness without justice. There will be no justice without humanity."

Martha Minow is a professor at Harvard Law School. Margot Stern Strom is 
executive director and cofounder of Facing History and Ourselves.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/03/the_lessons_of_nuremberg/
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