The Nuremberg Laws and National Sovereignty

How important are human rights? Are they more important than national sovereignty? National sovereignty is the idea that nations have a right to exist and be free from interference. In other words, governments can do whatever they wish, to whomever they wish. Whatever happens inside their own borders is their business. That belief was challenged after the Second World War. A movement supporting human rights challenged the rights of governments. However, international laws that protect human rights often challenge national sovereignty. Two events in one German city show how the Second World War changed that debate.

On September 15, 1935, the Nazi Party staged a rally in Nuremberg, Germany. There, Nazi leaders enacted the Nuremberg Laws. They singled out Germany’s Jewish population. The laws mixed Nazi ideology, eugenics, and social Darwinism.1 Such ideas were popular with imperialists in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Nuremberg Laws defined German Jews not by their religion but by their ancestry. They were stripped of citizenship. Restrictions were put on where they worked and who they married.

By this time, Adolf Hitler ruled Germany. He used the Nuremberg Laws to portray Jews as the enemy of the German people. The laws provided the legal framework for ridding Germany society of anyone the Nazis felt was “undesirable.” The stage was set for the Holocaust in which more than 6 million Jews were murdered. The Nazis also put to death millions of disabled and gay people, Communists, and others. Anyone who did not fit their ideas about race and society was a target. The Nuremberg Laws enforced Hitler’s belief: He could do whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted inside his borders.

The United Nations and the paradox of human rights

The most destructive war in history ended in 1945. Afterward, the victorious allied powers wanted to build a peaceful world order. Nazi crimes convinced them to take international action. They hoped to prevent such acts and wars from happening again. Their actions were inspired in part by President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech in 1941. Human rights advocates spoke up. They argued that international recognition of human rights was necessary to ensure peace and security. Debates about these rights were central at the San Francisco Conference in 1945. There, the Allies met to create the United Nations. Its Charter was signed by 50 countries in June of 1945.

The UN Charter has a problem, though. The introduction and very first article state a “faith in fundamental human rights.” Article 2, though, guarantees national sovereignty. It forbids the United Nations from getting involved in any matters “within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.” These two articles present a paradox (contradiction). The United Nations claimed authority to prevent and punish human rights abuses. Countries, though, were still sovereign. Leaders supposedly could do whatever they wished inside their borders.

The Nuremberg trials had to confront these issues starting in November 1945. The United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France agreed to bring the surviving leaders of the Nazi party to trial. The trials took ideas about human rights and turned them into international laws. It was a historical first. The international community had never before prosecuted the leaders of a major power.

The Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg trials lasted until 1949. They were held in the same city where Hitler had declared the Nuremberg Laws ten years earlier.

The trials were something new: for the first time, leaders could be punished for crimes against their own citizens. The German officials on trial defended their actions on the grounds of national sovereignty. Hermann Goering, a top Nazi official, insisted: “That was our right! We were a sovereign state and that was strictly our business.” However, the Nuremberg trials rejected that principle.

In all, 161 defendants were found guilty. Thirty-seven were sentenced to death, including Goering. However, he killed himself in his jail cell the night before his execution.

International Law and human rights

The Nuremberg trials made the case for a set of rules that are more important than the laws of any one nation state. This is known as international law. It sets expectations for how nation states interact with each other.

The Nuremberg trials resulted in the Nuremberg Principles. These seven rules explain what a war crime is. They also make it clear that “I was just following orders” is no defense for war crimes. The Nuremberg Principles created new definitions of human rights. It also laid the foundations for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

The Nuremberg trials inspired the human rights movements that followed. There was a call for global standards about human rights. It presented a problem, though. What power did the international community have over human rights abuses within national borders? At its heart, the debate is about
the difference between human rights and civil rights. Civil rights are rights you are entitled to because you are a citizen of a country. The rights of French citizens differ from the rights of Chinese citizens, for example. Human rights, on the other hand, are rights that we have because we are human beings.

Historian Lynn Hunt argues that human rights require three qualities: “Rights must be natural (inherent in human beings); equal (the same for everyone); and universal (applicable everywhere).” Human rights should not depend on where you come from.

A victor’s peace and power over principles

The Nuremberg trials produced new understandings about human rights. People have used them to protect themselves from abuse by their governments. Individuals and groups may ask for international help. The European Court of Human Rights has delivered more than 10,000 judgements since 1959. Nuremberg also inspired the International Criminal Court. The ICC was created in 1998.

After the Second World War, many American politicians resisted calls for stronger support of human rights. Several senators argued that international agreements went too far. They might threaten the independence of the United States, they said. They did not want Americans to have to answer to the UN.

Eleanor Roosevelt led the committee that wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She had been First Lady to former President Franklin Roosevelt, who had died in April 1945. She wanted a binding treaty that would protect human rights around the world. President Harry Truman, however, instructed her against that. He asked her instead to draft a non-binding resolution (declaration or oath). She did as she asked. After its drafting, though, representatives of the British Empire ran a secret campaign. They did not want the UDHR widely translated into the languages of Britain’s colonies. They did not want their colonial subjects to read it. The United States and Great Britain had just won a war against the Nazis. They had held trials that confronted Nazi international crimes. Yet, both countries feared being held accountable by the United Nations.

Still, the Nuremberg trials changed the world. Their rulings offered a check on even the world’s superpowers. For instance, African American rights organizations appealed to the United Nations in the 1940s and 1950s. They asked for UN support in confronting racial inequality and segregation in the United States.

The principle of national sovereignty survived. The Nuremberg trials, though, brought much more attention to the issue of human rights. Advocates have used international law to confront national governments. They continue to challenge the idea that countries can do whatever they want inside their own borders.

1 Theories of Social Darwinism emerged in the nineteenth century. These theories attempted to take biological theories and apply them to society, especially the notion of “survival of the fittest.” Social Darwinism has been discredited as bad science and for its racist undertones.