Robert Jackson

May I please your honors... The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because we cannot survive their being repeated. In the prisoner's dock sit 20 odd broken men. We will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. Civilization can afford no compromise by dealing ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom these forces now precariously survive. Wars are no longer local. All modern wars become world wars, eventually. And none of the big nations can stay out. But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars in a system of international lawlessness is to make statesmen responsible for the law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, it must condemn aggression by any other nation including those who sit here now, in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law.