Today marks the 60th anniversary of the prosecution's closing statements at the trial of the principal surviving Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, Germany. On July 26th, 1946, Justice Robert H. Jackson, originally of Spring Creek, Pennsylvania, Frewsburg and Jamestown, stood before a court of international judges and condemned with uncommon vigor and poignancy the crimes of the 21 men seated in the prisoners' dock in the Palace of Justice. In that courtroom in Nuremberg, Germany, Jackson wrote himself and the Nuremberg Trial into the history of international law with his masterful closing statement.

It has been my honor to work this year as the Eugene C. Gerhart Scholar at the Robert H. Jackson Center. While working at the Jackson Center, I have had the opportunity to meet several individuals who were present at the Nuremberg Trials and to visit the city of Nuremberg in November of 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the opening statements of the Nuremberg Trial. For Whitney R. Harris, a Nuremberg prosecutor who was often at Justice Jackson's right hand, the Nuremberg Trial experience launched a career of international law advocacy. For Father Moritz Fuchs, Justice Jackson's bodyguard, the Nuremberg Trial helped lead him down the path to the ministry. Both of these men I have come to know well during this past year, and I have found that despite the difference in age and experience among us, we share a common reverence for Robert H. Jackson.

I first became aware of Justice Jackson through my studies as an undergraduate not as the chief prosecutor of Nazi war criminals, but as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. During my year at the Jackson Center, however, I have come to appreciate more the importance of Jackson's role both on the Supreme Court and at Nuremberg. Without Robert H. Jackson at the helm at Nuremberg, the trial certainly would not have been as successful, if it would have even occurred at all. His advocacy for international law during the war years, the negotiations he led in London to establish the charter of the International Military Tribunal (the court that was set up and charged to conduct the Nuremberg Trial), and, of course, his prosecutorial work during the trial itself were essential to the success of the Nuremberg Trial.

In a year that has seen the death of Slobodan Milosevic, the indicted war criminal and former Yugoslavian leader, before justice could be achieved, and the recent death of another imprisoned leader of the infamous Khmer Rouge awaiting trial in Cambodia, the expediency and effectiveness of the Nuremberg Trial deserves new appreciation. Almost exactly one year after being served with their indictments, the condemned Nuremberg defendants were executed in the early morning hours of October 16, 1946. In the United States today, it is rare to have a civil trial last less than a year, much less a trial with as much import to the future of international law as did the Nuremberg Trial. Even with the relative brevity of the trial, Jackson and the prosecution team took meticulous steps to ensure fairness to the defendants during the proceedings, however, there was no shortage of critics of both the duration and equity of the Nuremberg Trial during Jackson's time, and some of these criticisms continue today. Of the hundreds of Jackson's speeches I have read during my year at the Jackson Center, the following lines from his Christmas Eve 1945 address from Nuremberg stand out to me as a timeless and compelling response to these critics:

"Like all human efforts, the attempt to measure the conduct of the defeated by moral standards is an imperfect one – I have no disposition to claim it faultless. But I do say that the utter and irreparable collapse of the doctrine that might makes right is the most significant feature of the Nurnberg trials. Whatever other shortcomings we representing the victors may have – and they are numerous – we do not adhere to the doctrine that because we have power we can do no wrong. If we did, there would be no trial. We are patiently – too patiently many think – examining the acts of the Nazi leaders. We are trying dispassionately – too dispassionately many think – to test those acts by the principles which must prevail in a sound and peaceful international order, principles by which hereafter the conduct of the victors, no less than of the vanquished, will be tested by world opinion.

"Once again, the world is proceeding on a basis that power and might are subject to moral responsibility. There may be – there are many deviations from the principle and many failures to live up to the ideal. But at least the teaching of our times has returned to the Christian ideal that the strong, no less than the weak, must answer to the moral forces of the world and again demonstrate that right will generate the might to vindicate itself."

The legacy of the Nuremberg Trials is tied directly to the legacy of Robert H. Jackson, who considered Nuremberg the greatest work of his life. A man from Western New York and Pennsylvania, with humble roots and great aspirations, with a brilliant intellect and a forceful pen, Robert H. Jackson and his ideas will continue to live on in our hearts and minds. As Jackson said, the powerful and the mighty have a moral responsibility in our world, and so it is up to the American people, citizens of the most powerful and mighty country in the world to do what is right. Thank you to the Robert H. Jackson Center for helping to preserve the Jackson legacy.

By Eric A. Larson, the Eugene C. Gerhart Scholar at the Robert H. Jackson Center

Jamestown, New York

July 26, 2006