War Crimes

As Aaron Veith pored over transcripts of testimony from Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals last winter, daily newspapers were carrying accounts of atrocities in Kosovo. The connection was inescapable, and the final chapter of Veith's 132-page Independent Study made that clear.

Referring in his final paragraphs to the "Nuremberg Precedent," which holds that individuals can be held accountable for criminal acts in an international legal system even though these acts might be legal domestically, Veith concludes that this principle cannot stand by itself. He writes:"For justice in the world, noble efforts such as Nuremberg in some sense need to be backed by force. Without military power behind the judiciary, it is often impossible to carry out the sentences of those who have been convicted of violating human rights."

Veith goes on to refer directly to violations of international law by members of the Tusi-controlled Rwanda government in 1994 and by Serbian militia leaders in the Balkan War of the 1990's. Not too many days after Veith completed his study, NATO planes dropped the first bombs on Serbia. And several weeks after he graduated, stories began to break about the indictment of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes.

"For me, the parallel between what was happening in Kosovo and what I was studying about Nuremberg was fascinating," says Veith. "Nuremberg set the stage for trials of this sort. Until then, no nation had attempted to establish a trial system and put leaders of another nation on the stand as occurred at Nuremberg.

"It's a noble effort, but unless someone is willing actually to go in and arrest these people, the international legal system can't do anything to them."

Veith, a double major in history and philosophy, had a dual interest in his subject. As a philosophy major, he was fascinated by the debate between two schools of thought - natural law theory and legal positivism- about the legal issue of legality and morality. He wanted to determine how each of these theories would respond to the Nuremberg trials and, in turn, what implications the trials would have for the two theories.

As a history major, he was curious about whether or not that philosophical debate had any influence on the actual events in Nuremberg, Germany. From 1945 through 1949, 13 trials were staged there, including the one held by the International Military Tribunal in which 19 of 22 alleged Nazi war criminals were found guilty. Twelve were sentenced to death.

In his junior year, Veith had studied at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and used a holiday to travel in Europe. One of the stops on his tour was Dachau.

"Ever since taking a jurisprudence course from Professor (Henry) Kreuzman, I had been thinking about the relationship between legality and morality," says Veith. "Visiting [Dachau] made these issues more personal and engaging to me than reading about the Holocaust in a textbook or seeing photographs. It made me realize how important these ideas are. I really felt that I wanted to study them."

Working with Kreuzman in philosophy and Peter Pozefsky in history, Veith examined the charge that Nazi Germany provides a clear illustration of the inherent unacceptability of legal positivism and provides proof that any legitimate legal system must be grounded in natural law.

As Veith explains, natural law theory asserts that law and morality are not in separate domains. A valid law is one that squares with the law of God or is rooted in natural law. By contrast, legal positivism claims that law and morality are two separate domains and that a valid law is one established by a society in accordance with the procedures specified by that society.

"It has been argued that Nazi Germany provided a clear illustration of the inherent unacceptability of legal positivism and provided proof that any legitimate legal system must be grounded in natural law," explains Kreuzman. "Aaron provided a creative defense of legal positivism."

Indeed, Veith's position was that, while morality and legality are separate in the legal positivism theory, the utilitarian roots of legal positivism would lead to a solution that would bring the best result to society. "In circumstances such as the Nuremberg trials," he argues, "morality can be held above legality."

And, as both Kreuzman and Veith observe, the debate is as relevant as this morning news. Will Milosevic be held accountable for war crimes? How does the international community justify holding a trial for a head of state?

In his research, Veith was fortunate that the College libraries have a complete set of transcripts of the Nuremberg trials. With the support of the Henry Copeland Fund for Independent Study, Veith was awarded a grant to go to the Holocaust Museum in Washington where he gathered additional material.

"One of the reasons that I came to Wooster in the first place was the Independent Study program," notes Veith. "I thought it would be an interesting opportunity, and it was. I think that, working intimately with this project, I really was able to develop intellectually."

Veith will study at the Centre for Politics, Las and Society at University College in London, before entering law school. "In some ways, I suppose, it's a curious combination - philosophy and law," Veith says. "Philosophy always is trying to get to some sort of truth while the law, by and large, involves carrying forth an argument to make the best of the situation with the law as it is. Through this project, though, I found that I began to think much more critical. Dr. Kreuzman and the other members of the philosophy department like to say that you start as a philosophy student and are suppose to end up as a philosopher. I hope that I was able to do that."