ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of World War II, with the defeat of the two main Axis powers, the governments of the victorious Allied nations agreed to establish special "international" courts at Nuremberg and Tokyo for the purpose of placing on trial some of the major Nazi and Japanese war criminals. Robert H. Jackson's view ultimately prevailed, even against the Russian view that held that a war crimes trial should only evaluate the punishment to be meted out to those in the Nazi leadership whose criminal actions had already been determined; the purpose of the trial was not to determine guilt or innocence. Official governmental declarations by the United States and Great Britain surely played a large role in publicizing the Nazi atrocities as they were occurring. In addition, the Nazis were shown to have committed atrocities and violations of accepted rules of war that all civilized nations have prohibited in their criminal law.
