The Erosion of Nuremberg's Legacy: How We're Forgetting the Foundation of International Justice

The Historical Foundation

The Nuremberg trials established unprecedented legal precedents that fundamentally reshaped international relations and human rights protection. Conducted between 1945 and 1946, these trials represented humanity’s collective determination to hold perpetrators accountable for crimes that shocked the global conscience. The proceedings established crucial principles that crimes against humanity and war crimes must face justice, regardless of the perpetrators’ positions or nationalities. This marked a revolutionary departure from traditional notions of national sovereignty and impunity for state actors.

Personal Connections to History

The personal dimension of this history comes alive through firsthand accounts like those of Mae Ness, who witnessed these historic proceedings while working with the Office of Strategic Services. Her experience, shared with her child through documents, photographs, and stories, created a living bridge to this pivotal moment in history. The detailed memories of specific sentences - executions of Julius Streicher, Alfred Rosenberg, and Hermann Goering’s cheating of justice through suicide,Albert Speer’s 20-year sentence, Admiral Doenitz’s 10-year term for machine-gunning British sailors - demonstrate how deeply these events became embedded in family narratives and collective memory.

The Evolution of International Standards

The Nuremberg principles catalyzed remarkable progress in international human rights protection. Within two years of the trials, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, establishing foundational principles binding on all member states. This framework supported crucial advancements from refugee assistance to amplifying anti-colonial struggles across Africa and Asia. The declaration provided moral and legal ammunition for movements fighting ethnic discrimination and oppression worldwide, including the American civil rights movement that drew international attention to injustices in places like Selma, Alabama.

Labor Rights and Global Progress

The Nuremberg legacy inspired generations of human rights advocates working across diverse fronts. Throughout the 1990s to late 2010s, significant advances occurred in labor rights globally. Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers organized unions supported by International Labor Organization conventions. The most universally ratified ILO Convention on child labor helped reduce child labor worldwide by 38 percent between 2000 and 2025, representing one of history’s most successful labor campaigns that rescued tens of millions of vulnerable children.

Contemporary Challenges and Erosion

Today, we face alarming regression from these hard-won standards. The Trump administration’s actions - including ICE raids, dismantling Labor Department enforcement capabilities, military actions against civilian vessels, and defunding USAID leading to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths - represent a fundamental rejection of Nuremberg’s lessons. As Yale professor Oona Hathaway notes, the erosion of international standards began with the “war on terror,” undermining prohibitions on force that had maintained relative global peace.

The Global Pattern of Regression

This regression follows a disturbing pattern worldwide. As noted in Foreign Policy in Focus, right-wing authoritarian movements consistently attack basic civil liberties, with child labor serving as the “canary in the coal mine” for broader labor rights violations. This trend aligns with Nelson Mandela’s profound observation that a society’s soul is revealed through how it treats its children. The current global descent into nationalism, racism, and tribalism represents a wholesale abandonment of the international cooperation principles established at Nuremberg.

The Psychological Dimension of Accountability

The new film “Nuremberg” highlights the psychological battle between psychiatrist Douglas Kelley and Hermann Goering, raising uncomfortable questions about guilt, impunity, and complicity that remain relevant today. These questions extend beyond individual perpetrators to encompass societal complacency and collective responsibility for maintaining justice systems.

The Way Forward

Preserving Nuremberg’s legacy requires renewed commitment to international law and human rights principles. We must resist historical amnesia and political manipulation that seeks to undermine these foundational standards. The work continues through supporting labor rights, protecting vulnerable populations, and maintaining pressure on governments to uphold their international obligations. As we confront contemporary challenges, we would do well to remember that the principles established at Nuremberg weren’t abstract legal concepts but hard-won lessons from humanity’s darkest chapter - lessons we forget at our collective peril.