On 11 December 1946 the United Nations General Assembly, meeting at Lake Success in New York, adopted Resolution 95(I), affirming the principles of international law recognised by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and by the Tribunal’s judgment of 1 October 1946. The resolution was a single sentence: the General Assembly affirmed the principles. It did not enumerate them. It did not discuss them. It instructed the International Law Commission, which would be formed three years later, to formulate the principles in a single working document. The Commission’s formulation, completed in July 1950 under the rapporteurship of the Cambridge professor Jean Spiropoulos of Greece, gave the world a seven-point text known thereafter as the Nuremberg Principles. The seven principles run, in their entirety, to fewer than five hundred words. They are, by general subsequent assessment, the foundational document of postwar international criminal law. Every major international tribunal established since 1950, and every substantial national prosecution under universal jurisdiction frameworks, has rested on the framework the Principles set out. The text is short. The framework is the substantive law of postwar international criminal accountability. The seven principles are, in their drafting and their subsequent application, the legacy of the Nuremberg proceedings of 1945 to 1946 transformed into operational international law.
The seven principles
The Principles, in the wording adopted by the International Law Commission in 1950, are:
Principle I. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle II. The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III. The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle V. Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.
Principle VI. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law: (a) Crimes against peace; (b) War crimes; (c) Crimes against humanity.
Principle VII. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
What each principle established
Principle I established the substantive proposition that international law has criminal jurisdiction over individual human beings, not only over states. The proposition was the central operational innovation of the Nuremberg framework. The pre-1945 international legal order had been substantially focused on relations between states; individuals had been the objects of international law only indirectly, through the actions of their states on their behalf. The Nuremberg framework, formalised in Principle I, established that individuals are direct subjects of international criminal law. The proposition has been the foundation of every subsequent international criminal proceeding.
Principle II established that the absence of a domestic criminal prohibition does not relieve the individual from responsibility under international law. The proposition addressed the specific Nazi defence that the killing of European Jewry had been authorised under German law and that the defendants had therefore not been criminals under the law that had applied to their conduct at the relevant time. The Tribunal had rejected this defence on the basis that international law operated independently of, and in some respects above, domestic law, and that domestic legal authorisation of acts that violated international law did not provide a defence to international criminal proceedings.
Principle III established the absence of head-of-state or governmental-office immunity for international crimes. The proposition addressed the specific argument that senior state officials enjoyed immunity from criminal proceedings on the basis of their official positions. The Tribunal had rejected this argument on the basis that the official position of a defendant could not be a defence to international crimes. The Principle has been applied in subsequent international proceedings against, among others, Slobodan Milosevic (charged at the ICTY in 1999, died during proceedings 2006), Charles Taylor (convicted at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2012), Omar al-Bashir (indicted by the ICC in 2009, never apprehended), Hissène Habré (convicted in Senegal in 2016), and the various Khmer Rouge leadership at the Cambodia tribunal.
Principle IV is the principle that has been the subject of the most sustained subsequent debate. The principle establishes that the existence of a superior order does not, by itself, relieve the individual from responsibility, but allows for the defence in cases where moral choice was not in fact possible. The Tribunal at Nuremberg had developed the moral choice test in detail in its application to specific defendants, particularly in the Einsatzgruppen Trial of the Subsequent Proceedings, where the bench had taken the unusual step of investigating empirically what had actually happened to SS personnel who had refused to participate in the killings (the answer being that they had been transferred to other units rather than executed). The current operational doctrine, reflected in Article 33 of the Rome Statute, retains the substance of Principle IV with some adjustments to the specific formulation. (See the separate page The Defence of Following Orders for the fuller treatment.)
Principle V established the procedural right of the defendant to a fair trial. The principle was a recognition that the substantive innovations of the Nuremberg framework (individual criminal responsibility, the absence of immunity, the limits of the superior orders defence) were operationally legitimate only if they were applied through procedures that met the standards of fair trial. The Tribunal at Nuremberg had taken procedural fairness seriously: the defendants had been provided with counsel of their choice, with access to the documents introduced against them, with the right to call witnesses, and with the right to make closing statements. Three of the twenty-two defendants had been acquitted. The procedural framework had been the foundation of the eventual legitimacy of the proceedings. Principle V codified the procedural commitment for subsequent international criminal law.
Principle VI enumerated the substantive crimes within the scope of international criminal law: crimes against peace (the planning and waging of aggressive war), war crimes (violations of the laws of armed conflict), and crimes against humanity (specified inhumane acts committed against civilian populations). The enumeration was the substantive scope of the Nuremberg Charter. It has been progressively extended in subsequent international criminal law: the 1948 Genocide Convention added genocide as a fourth category; the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998 covers the four categories of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The four-category framework is now the operational scope of international criminal law.
Principle VII established that complicity in the relevant crimes is itself a crime under international law. The principle has been the operational basis for the prosecution of persons who provided material assistance to the principal perpetrators without themselves being among the principal perpetrators. The application of Principle VII has been particularly important in the prosecutions of corporate executives, financial intermediaries, and government officials who provided material support to the principal perpetrators. The IG Farben directors at the Subsequent Proceedings, the bankers and financial intermediaries who handled looted assets, the railway officials who organised the deportations, the civil servants who drafted the legislation that authorised the killings, were all prosecuted under doctrines that derive from Principle VII.
The application in the ad hoc tribunals
The four major ad hoc international criminal tribunals established between 1993 and 2003 (the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) all rest on the Nuremberg Principles framework.
The ICTY, established by Security Council Resolution 827 in May 1993, applied the Principles framework to the prosecution of approximately 161 individuals indicted in connection with the Yugoslav wars of 1991 to 1999. The Tribunal produced approximately 90 convictions before its closure in December 2017. The most significant single judgment was the conviction of Radislav Krstic for genocide at Srebrenica on 1 August 2001, the first conviction for genocide by an international tribunal in Europe.
The ICTR, established by Security Council Resolution 955 in November 1994, applied the Principles framework to the prosecution of approximately 93 individuals indicted in connection with the Rwandan genocide of April to July 1994. The Tribunal produced approximately 60 convictions before its closure in December 2015. The most significant single judgment was the conviction of Jean-Paul Akayesu on 2 September 1998, the first conviction for genocide by any international tribunal.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone, established by a 2002 agreement between the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone, applied the Principles framework to the prosecution of the senior figures of the Sierra Leonean civil war of 1991 to 2002. The Court produced 9 convictions, including the conviction of Charles Taylor (the former President of Liberia) on 26 April 2012 for war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the Sierra Leonean conflict.
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, established by a 2003 agreement between the United Nations and the government of Cambodia, applied the Principles framework to the prosecution of the senior figures of the Khmer Rouge regime of 1975 to 1979. The Chambers produced 3 convictions: Kaing Guek Eav (Duch) in 2010, Nuon Chea in 2014 and 2018, and Khieu Samphan in 2014 and 2018. The proceedings closed in 2022.
The International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court, established by the Rome Statute of 17 July 1998 and operational from 1 July 2002, is the permanent international criminal court that the Nuremberg Principles framework had implicitly anticipated. The Rome Statute incorporates the substantive content of the Principles with some refinements. The Statute’s Article 25 establishes individual criminal responsibility (Principle I); Article 27 establishes the absence of immunity for senior officials (Principle III); Article 33 addresses the defence of superior orders (Principle IV); the substantive crimes provisions (Articles 5 to 8 bis) cover genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression (an extended Principle VI); and the various complicity provisions cover Principle VII.
The Court has, as of 2026, produced approximately 11 convictions and 4 acquittals across its operational period. The conviction count is small against the operational expectations the Court’s founders had set. The Court has been substantially constrained by the absence of major-power participation: the United States, China, Russia, India, and several other significant states have not ratified the Rome Statute and are not subject to the Court’s jurisdiction. The constraint is operationally significant. The Court has been most effective in cases involving small or medium African states and has been substantially less effective in cases involving the major powers.
The Court’s most significant recent indictments have been the March 2023 indictment of Vladimir Putin in connection with the deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied territory; the March 2024 indictment of senior Russian military officials in connection with strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine; and the November 2024 indictment of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant in connection with the conduct of military operations in Gaza, alongside the indictment of senior Hamas officials. The indictments have produced sustained political controversy. Their operational consequences depend on the future cooperation of the relevant national authorities, which has not been forthcoming in any of the major recent cases.
The national applications
The Principles framework has also been applied in national prosecutions under universal jurisdiction frameworks, principally in Western European states. The Spanish prosecutions of Argentine and Chilean officials in the late 1990s under the Audiencia Nacional’s universal jurisdiction; the Belgian prosecutions of Rwandan officials in the early 2000s; the German prosecutions under the Federal Code of Crimes against International Law (CCAIL) since 2002, including the 2021 conviction of Taha al-Jumailly for the genocide of the Yazidi; the Dutch prosecutions of Syrian officials since 2019; the French prosecutions of Rwandan officials, including the 2019 conviction of Pascal Simbikangwa; and the various other national prosecutions that have built on the Spanish and Belgian models, all rest on the Nuremberg Principles framework.
The aggregate national-court convictions under universal jurisdiction frameworks now substantially exceed the ICC’s convictions. The future operational direction of international criminal law is likely to be increasingly through national-court universal jurisdiction proceedings rather than through international tribunals as such. The Principles framework, which establishes the substantive law on which the national-court proceedings rest, has been operationally durable across the diverse national contexts in which it has been applied.
The persistent gaps
The Principles framework has substantial persistent gaps that have not been closed in the seventy-eight years since the General Assembly’s affirmation of 1946. The principal gaps are five.
The major-power problem. The principal political constraint on the operational effectiveness of the Principles is the participation of the major powers. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. China is not a party. Russia is not a party. India is not a party. The non-participation of these states substantially limits the operational reach of the international criminal law that has been built on the Principles. The proceedings against Putin, against the Israeli leadership, and against various American military and political figures over the postwar period have all been substantially limited by the major-power problem.
The selectivity problem. The operational practice of international criminal proceedings has been criticised as selective. The proceedings against African defendants at the ICC, the proceedings against the senior figures of small or medium states, and the relative absence of proceedings against the senior figures of major powers, have together produced a pattern that has been criticised as evidence of selective application of the Principles framework. The criticism has reasonable force on the empirical merits.
The enforcement problem. The international criminal law system has limited enforcement capacity. The ICC depends on national authorities to apprehend its indictees. The various ad hoc tribunals have depended on similar arrangements. The Principles framework establishes the substantive law of international criminal accountability but does not, by itself, produce the operational enforcement capacity to give the law effect. The enforcement gap remains the largest practical limitation on the system.
The crime of aggression. The ICC has had jurisdiction over the crime of aggression in principle since the 2010 Kampala amendments to the Rome Statute, but the operational scope of the jurisdiction is substantially limited by the negotiated provisions of the amendments. The Court has not produced any convictions for the crime of aggression. The crimes against peace category, which had been the principal Allied charge at the IMT in 1945 to 1946, has been operationally largely dormant in the postwar period.
The state responsibility gap. The Principles framework focuses on the criminal responsibility of individuals. The state responsibility for international crimes has been addressed principally through the parallel framework of the International Court of Justice’s contentious jurisdiction and through the limited state-responsibility provisions of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The integration of individual and state responsibility is incomplete and remains the subject of ongoing academic and political debate.
What the Principles have produced
The Nuremberg Principles, considered as a complete operational framework, have produced the substantive law of postwar international criminal accountability. They have been the foundation of every major international criminal proceeding since 1950. They have been the basis of the substantial body of national-court universal jurisdiction proceedings. They have shaped the operational practice of the international human rights system. They have established the principle that individuals are subjects of international criminal law and that senior state officials do not enjoy immunity from criminal proceedings for international crimes.
The Principles have not, however, prevented international crimes from being committed. The killings in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Syria, Myanmar, Ukraine, Gaza, and elsewhere in the postwar period have all occurred under the formal applicability of the Principles framework. The framework has produced the eventual legal accounting after the fact in many of these cases. It has not, in any of them, produced the prevention that its drafters had hoped for.
The wider lesson is the lesson of legal frameworks against the persistence of state-organised atrocity. The Principles had been intended both to prosecute and to prevent. They have, in operation, been substantially more successful at the former than at the latter. The gap between the substantive law and the operational reality is the gap that the international system has not been able to close. The Principles establish what the law is. The operational practice has not, in many cases, produced the law’s intended effects. The Principles will continue to operate as the foundational framework. The operational effects will continue to be uneven. The framework remains the law. The law remains imperfectly enforced. The eventual reckoning, when it comes, will continue to draw on the framework. The Principles are, in their continuing operational use, the most durable single product of the postwar attempt to make state-organised atrocity legally answerable.
See also
- Universal Jurisdiction
- Crimes Against Humanity, a New Concept in International Law
- The Genocide Convention 1948
- IG Farben
- The Defence of Following Orders
- The Einsatzgruppen Trial
Sources
- United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 95(I), Affirmation of the Principles of International Law Recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 11 December 1946
- International Law Commission, Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, Yearbook of the International Law Commission, vol II, 1950
- Charter of the International Military Tribunal, 8 August 1945
- International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol I (judgment), Nuremberg, 1947
- Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998
- Antonio Cassese, International Criminal Law, Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 2013
- William A. Schabas, The International Criminal Court: A Commentary on the Rome Statute, Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2016
- Yves Beigbeder, Judging War Criminals: The Politics of International Justice, Macmillan, 1999