law-not-war

[law-not-war]

The ‘Immoral’ Killing of the Iranian General

Ferencz says the American public deserves to know the truth. Read his letter to the editor at the New York Times here. 

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Just added to the Ferencz Nuremberg Legacy You Tube channel: Ferencz at the 1998 Rome Conference that established the International Criminal Court. 

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John Bolton Must Go

Dear friends:

It is not news to any of you that John Bolton, the National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump, has denounced the International Criminal Court as a purported threat to the interests of the United States, and to all Americans, including those in uniform. Unsurprisingly, his misleading and regressive public comments denouncing the Court have been repudiated by many, including Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, the Presiding judge of the ICC, the ACLU, and professionals in the field, including David Crane, former Chief Prosecutor of the Sierra Leone Tribunal. 16 years ago, I refuted all objections to the Court in an article “Misguided Fears about the ICC”.

For anyone who may not yet have seen it, I would draw your attention to an online post of 12 April 2018 on the website of Veterans Today by a blogger, John Z., who observed: “Bolton is a narcissistic bully, a dangerous psychopath, a degenerate and a threat to the people of this planet . . . Bolton must be removed from Washington ASAP. The consequences of him remaining there are too awful to bear.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Yesterday, an ICC judge, Christoph Flügge, resigned as a consequence of the current U.S. policy of threatening Court personnel and the rule of law itself.

In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower declared that “In a very real sense, the world no longer has a choice between force and law. If civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law.”           In the choice between Eisenhower and Bolton, I choose Eisenhower. Bolton must go!

Ben Ferencz

[law-not-war]

Link to MP3 download: http://wwgh1071.com/show-archives/benferencz111418.mp3

#lawnotwar justice

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Letter from Ben Ferencz re: Obama Farewell to Military

Dear Friends, 

On December 6, 2016, President Obama, as Commander in Chief, made his farewell address to the US Military.  Toward the closing, he made the following statement: "We are a nation that stands for the rule of law and strength in the law of war.  When the Nazis were defeated, we put them on trial.  Some couldn't understand that; it had never happened before.  But as one of the American lawyers who was at Nuremberg says, 'I was trying to prove that the rule of law should govern human behavior.'  And by doing so, we broadened the scope and reach of justice around the world.  Held ourselves out as a beacon and an example for others." Although the President did not mention my name, the citation is from an interview I gave on NPR, which aired on October 18, 2016.  It reminded me of the statement of my supreme commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who as a Republican President of the United States said, "In a very real sense the world no longer has a choice between force and law.  If civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law. (April 30, 1958)  We see, therefore, that the sentiments of two Presidents, one Republican and one Democrat, have shared my own views condemning the illegal use of military force.  It takes courage not to be discouraged.  I thank you all for the personal support you are giving to the pursuit of our common goals.  With warm greetings and best wishes to you all. 

Ben

[law-not-war]

President Obama quotes Ferencz in Farewell Address to Military

We are a nation that stands for the rule of law and strength in the law of war. When the Nazis were defeated, we put them on trial. Some couldn’t understand that; it had never happened before. But as one of the American lawyers who was at Nuremberg says, “I was trying to prove that the rule of law should govern human behavior.”  See full speech here.

#obama lawnotwar military nuremberg

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The improbable story of the man who won history’s ‘biggest murder trial’ at Nuremberg

The Washington Post recently published a story in which they featured Ben Ferencz and reviewed some of the achievements of his life thus far, and goals ahead. You can read it here. 

#ferencz lawnotwar

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America’s Endless Air Wars. Extensive US and Allied Aerial Bombardments across the Middle East

By Nicolas J. S. Davies, in GlobalResearch, July 6, 2015.

Excerpt (read full article here):

But U.S. war-making is not just dangerous and irrational. It is also a crime. The judges at Nuremberg defined aggression, attacking or invading other countries, as the “supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” The UN Charter goes one step further and prohibits the threat as well as the use of force.

Benjamin Ferencz, the only surviving member of the prosecution team at Nuremberg, is a fierce critic of illegal U.S. war-making. In response to U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, he dedicated the rest of his life to establishing an International Criminal Court (ICC) that could prosecute senior officials of any government who commit aggression and other war crimes.

Ferencz is hailed as the founding father of the ICC, but his vision of “Law Not War” remains unfulfilled as long as his own country, the United States, refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of either the ICC or the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

By rejecting the jurisdiction of international courts, the U.S. has carved out what Amnesty International has called an “accountability-free zone,” from which it can threaten, attack and invade other countries, torture prisoners, kill civilians and commit other war crimes with impunity.

Nuremberg ‘Exemption’?

U.S. government lawyers enjoy the privilege, unique in their profession, of issuing legally indefensible but politically creative legal cover for war crimes, secure in the knowledge that they will never be forced to defend their opinions before an impartial court.

Ben Ferencz very graciously wrote a preface to my book, Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, and he spoke at an event with me and David Swanson in 2011, just before his 91st birthday. Ben talked about Nuremberg and the ICC, and he compared U.S. justifications for its “preemptive” illegal war-making to the defense offered by SS Gruppenfuhrer Otto Ohlendorf at Nuremberg.

As Ben explained, “That Ohlendorf argument was considered by three American judges at Nuremberg, and they sentenced him and twelve others to death by hanging. So it’s very disappointing to find that my government today is prepared to do something for which we hanged Germans as war criminals.”

If we do not hold American war criminals accountable for their crimes, and accept the jurisdiction of international courts to do so if we do not, how else can we serve notice on those who come after them that they must never do this again?

#icc #nuremberg #ferencz #war #law

[law-not-war]

French Honors for an American Veteran of the ‘Monuments Men’

From The New York Times:

Another of the veterans honored by the French minister in his speech was Benjamin B. Ferencz, 96.

A Harvard Law School graduate, Mr. Ferencz served in an antiaircraft battalion in 1943, but was better known for his role after the war ended.

At age 27, Mr. Ferencz became the chief prosecutor for the United States in the Einsatzgruppen case of the Nuremberg trials. .

“Law, not war, is the solution to most of our problems,” said Mr. Ferencz, who lives in New Rochelle, N.Y.

He noted that while he believed Lafayette represented much of the early American ideals of liberty, he was not too pleased with the cannons on the Hermione because it reminded him too much of war.

“I would rather they have come with flowers and champagne,” Mr. Ferencz said with a laugh.

Read full article here.

#veterans nuremberg ferencz

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Ferencz shares wisdom during visit to the Ikeda Center

http://ikedacenter.org/thinkers-themes/thinkers/interviews/ferencz

#lawnotwar icc justice warcrimes genocide

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In a lecture on international criminal justice, Ben Ferencz recounted his part in what he called the biggest murder trial in history.

#ferencz humanitarian nuremberg

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Nuremberg prosecutor to speak at Holocaust remembrance

Wednesday 14 January '15

Helena Oliviero

Read article here.