For a list of our 2015 2016 2017 2018. Official US Congress Records About the Oil And Drug Cartel as Organizers of WWII. Military Goverment Report on IG Farben Cartel (Bernstein Report) The Key Records of Congress; Supporting Records of Congress. Proceedings of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. CONSTITUTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL Article 1. In pursuance of the Agreement signed on the 8th day of August 1945 by the Government of the United States of. Find out more about the history of Nuremberg Trials, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com. Many volumes of documents, trial transcripts, and summaries relating to the International Military Tribunal trial of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, Germany are being laboriously digitized and made available. Charter of the International Military Tribunal. Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. Charter of the International Military Tribunal. In pursuance of the Agreement signed on the 8th day of August 1. Government of the United States of America, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, there shall be established an International Military Tribunal (hereinafter called . The Tribunal shall consist of four members, each with an alternate. One member and one alternate shall be appointed by each of the Signatories. The alternates shall, so far as they are able, be present at all sessions of the Tribunal. In case of illness of any member of the Tribunal or his incapacity for some other reason to fulfill his functions, his alternate shall take his place. Neither the Tribunal, its members nor their alternates can be challenged by the prosecution, or by the Defendants or their Counsel. Each Signatory may replace its members of the Tribunal or his alternate for reasons of health or for other good reasons, except that no replacement may take place during a Trial, other than by an alternate. The principle of rotation of presidency for successive trials is agreed. If, however, a session of the Tribunal takes place on the territory of one of the four Signatories, the representative of that Signatory on the Tribunal shall preside. The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility: CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing; WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill- treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill- treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity; CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated. Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan. The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment. The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determines that justice so requires. At the trial of any individual member of any group or organization the Tribunal may declare (in connection with any act of which the individual may be convicted) that the group or organization of which the individual was a member was a criminal organization. After the receipt of the Indictment the Tribunal shall give such notice as it thinks fit that the prosecution intends to ask the Tribunal to make such declaration and any member of the organization will be entitled to apply to the Tribunal for leave to be heard by the Tribunal upon the question of the criminal character of the organization. The Tribunal shall have power to allow or reject the application. If the application is allowed, the Tribunal may direct in what manner the applicants shall be represented and heard. In cases where a group or organization is declared criminal by the Tribunal, the competent national authority of any Signatory shall have the right to bring individual to trial for membership therein before national, military or occupation courts. In any such case the criminal nature of the group or organization is considered proved and shall not be questioned. Any person convicted by the Tribunal may be charged before a national, military or occupation court, referred to in Article 1. Charter, with a crime other than of membership in a criminal group or organization and such court may, after convicting him, impose upon him punishment independent of and additional to the punishment imposed by the Tribunal for participation in the criminal activities of such group or organization. The Tribunal shall have the right to take proceedings against a person charged with crimes set out in Article 6 of this Charter in his absence, if he has not been found or if the Tribunal, for any reason, finds it necessary, in the interests of justice, to conduct the hearing in his absence. The Tribunal shall draw up rules for its procedure. These rules shall not be inconsistent with the provisions of this Charter. Each Signatory shall appoint a Chief Prosecutor for the investigation of the charges against and the prosecution of major war criminals. The Chief Prosecutors shall act as a committee for the following purposes: to agree upon a plan of the individual work of each of the Chief Prosecutors and his staff, to settle the final designation of major war criminals to be tried by the Tribunal, to approve the Indictment and the documents to be submitted therewith, to lodge the Indictment and the accompany documents with the Tribunal, to draw up and recommend to the Tribunal for its approval draft rules of procedure, contemplated by Article 1. Charter. The Tribunal shall have the power to accept, with or without amendments, or to reject, the rules so recommended. The Committee shall act in all the above matters by a majority vote and shall appoint a Chairman as may be convenient and in accordance with the principle of rotation: provided that if there is an equal division of vote concerning the designation of a Defendant to be tried by the Tribunal, or the crimes with which he shall be charged, that proposal will be adopted which was made by the party which proposed that the particular Defendant be tried, or the particular charges be preferred against him. The Chief Prosecutors shall individually, and acting in collaboration with one another, also undertake the following duties: investigation, collection and production before or at the Trial of all necessary evidence, the preparation of the Indictment for approval by the Committee in accordance with paragraph (c) of Article 1. Defendants, to act as prosecutor at the Trial, to appoint representatives to carry out such duties as may be assigned them, to undertake such other matters as may appear necessary to them for the purposes of the preparation for and conduct of the Trial. It is understood that no witness or Defendant detained by the Signatory shall be taken out of the possession of that Signatory without its assent. In order to ensure fair trial for the Defendants, the following procedure shall be followed: The Indictment shall include full particulars specifying in detail the charges against the Defendants. A copy of the Indictment and of all the documents lodged with the Indictment, translated into a language which he understands, shall be furnished to the Defendant at reasonable time before the Trial. A preliminary examination of a Defendant and his Trial shall be conducted in, or translated into, a language which the Defendant understands. The Tribunal shall have the power to summon witnesses to the Trial and to require their attendance and testimony and to put questions to them to interrogate any Defendant, to require the production of documents and other evidentiary material, to administer oaths to witnesses, to appoint officers for the carrying out of any task designated by the Tribunal including the power to have evidence taken on commission. The Tribunal shall confine the Trial strictly to an expeditious hearing of the cases raised by the charges, take strict measures to prevent any action which will cause reasonable delay, and rule out irrelevant issues and statements of any kind whatsoever, deal summarily with any contumacy, imposing appropriate punishment, including exclusion of any Defendant or his Counsel from some or all further proceedings, but without prejudice to the determination of the charges. The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and nontechnical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to be of probative value. The Tribunal may require to be informed of the nature of any evidence before it is entered so that it may rule upon the relevance thereof. The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof. It shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United Nations, including the acts and documents of the committees set up in the various allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and of records and findings of military or other Tribunals of any of the United Nations. The permanent seat of the Tribunal shall be in Berlin. The first meetings of the members of the Tribunal and of the Chief Prosecutors shall be held at Berlin in a place to be designated by the Control Council for Germany. The first trial shall be held at Nuremberg, and any subsequent trials shall be held at such places as the Tribunal may decide.
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