11.5.09

TFPO column: guantanamo detainees and the nuremberg trials' legacy

The more I read about the Nuremberg trials, the more I am struck but how much the world has changed in such a relatively short period of time. Of course, 50+ years can be a lifetime, and I wasn't born during or even immediately after WWII. Yet, on reading Justice Jackson's opening statement, or essays on the nature and impact of Nuremberg written by witnesses to the trial or academic experts, it seems clear that the paradigm has shifted. Perhaps it is precisely because we have no direct experience of the horrors of WWI and WWII.

I am reminded of a time in university when I spent an evening with acquaintances. It was an unusual evening in many respects, but the conversation was lively. At one point, when I was ready to call it a night, I wearily suggested that truth and justice were, if not identical, than related. That didn't go over too well, for whatever reason, yet I don't think it was a particularly revolutionary or special observation. Indeed, justice and truth must go hand and hand, whether for other people's behaviour or our own.

Guantanamo Detainees and the Nuremberg Trials' Legacy

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