Why are the Nuremberg Trials important?
Despite their flaws and shortcomings, the Nuremberg trials were crucial in establishing the precedent that individual leaders and administrators, not only states, could be held accountable by the international community for actions that violated widely accepted, even universal, standards of conduct. The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and later American trials in occupied Germany also established legal principals and procedures that could serve as models for the future. In other words, the vast unregulated grey areas in international affairs and human rights between what was permissible and what was not were made less grey by the proceedings at Nuremberg. A corner had been turned. – Michael Hayse, Associate Professor of History, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
