Nuremberg Forty Years Later: The Struggle against Injustice in Our Time

300 Pages·1995·14.77 MB·English

by  Irwin Cotler

Nuremberg Forty Years Later
An international human rights conference marked the fortieth anni-
versary of the Nuremberg trials; this collection of its papers and
proceedings invites the reader to share in stimulating discussions by
some of the leading human rights scholars and advocates of our day.
Moving speeches by Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel and Chile-
an human rights activist Carmen Quintana are highlights of the
collection. Also included is the dramatic free speech/group libel/
pornography debate between celebrated US civil liberties lawyer
Alan Dershowitz, Judge Maxwell Cohen (Canada), lawyer Ram Jeth-
malani (India), and feminist legal theorist Kathleen Mahoney
(Canada). Other papers include those by then-Canadian Justice
Minister Ramon Hnatyshyn; former US Congresswoman Elizabeth
Holtzman and parliamentarians Svend Robinson (Canada) and
Greville Janner (United Kingdom); South African human rights
lawyer Arthur Chaskalson and UK Member of Parliament Paul
Boateng; and war crimes specialists Irwin Coder (Canada), litigator
David Matas (Canada), Australian Justice Michael Kirby, and Allan
Ryan Jr, former head of the US office of Special Investigations.
The conference was held in Montreal in 1987. An "addenda" to
the proceedings updates issues addressed at the conference and
includes the Fourth Raoul Wallenberg Lectureship in Human
Rights, given by Per Ahlmark, former Deputy Prime Minister of
Sweden, and a discussion of possibilities for a post-apartheid South
Africa by Albie Sachs.
IRWIN COTLER is Professor of Law and a member of the Institute of
Comparative Law, McGill University, and an international human
rights lawyer.
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Nuremberg Forty Years Later
The Struggle against Injustice
in Our Time
International Human Rights
Conference, November 1987
Papers and Proceedings
and
Retrospective 1993
Edited by Irwin Coder
Published for the Faculty of Law of McGill University
and InterAmicus
by McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Buffalo
© InterAmicus 1995
ISBN 0-7735-1239-x (cloth)
ISBN 0-7735-12500 (paper)
Legal deposit first quarter 1995
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper
McGill-Queen's University Press is grateful
to the Canada Council for support of its
publishing program.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
International Human Rights Conference (1987:
Montreal, Quebec)
Nuremberg forty years later: the struggle against
injustice in our time
ISBN 0-7735-1239-x (bound). -
ISBN 0-7735-1250-0 (pbk.)
1. Human rights - Congresses. 2. War crimes -
Congresses. I. Cotler, Irwin, 1940- II. McGill
University. Faculty of Law Ill. InterAmicus
(Association) IV. Title.
k3239.6.158 1987 341-4'81 C95-900008-9
Contents
Foreword
Irwin Coder ix
PART I: NUREMBERG FORTY YEARS LATER:
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST INJUSTICE IN OUR TIME
Remarks 3
Dean R.A. Macdonald
Irwin Coder
The Honourable David Crombie
The Honourable Herbert Marx
Opening Plenary:
The Raoul Wallenberg Forum on Human Rights 11
David Johnston
Elie Wiesel
Appreciation 23
Madame Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dube
Panel One: Nuremberg and Its Legacy 25
The Nuremberg Principles 26
Elizabeth Holtzman
Domesticating the Nuremberg Principles:
The Canadian "War Crimes" Legislation 33
The Honourable Ramon Hnatyshyn
Panel Two: Nuremberg Forty Years Later:
Bringing War Criminals to Justice in Our Time 45
The Honourable Jules Deschenes
Svend Robinson
vi Contents
Allan Ryan, Jr
Greville janner
Papers 73
Response to the Deschenes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals:
An Emergent Mythology and Its Antidote 73
Irwin Cotler
The Nazi War Criminal as Immigrant 86
David Matas
Panel Three:
The United Nations and Human Rights Forty Years Later 97
The Honourable Rosalie Abella
Benjamin Ferencz
Joe Stern
Panel Four: "Words that Maim": Freedom of Expression and
Freedom from Expression 115
Gisele Cote-Harper
Ram Jethmalani
Maxwell Cohen
Alan Dershowitz
Closing Plenary: Against Injustice 153
Andre Tremblay
Arthur Chaskalson
Paul Boateng
Michael Kirby
Presentation: The Robert S. Litvack Memorial Award
in Human Rights 175
Sylvia Litvack
Carmen Gloria Quintana
Gordon Echenberg
Irwin Cotler
PART II: THE NUREMBERG LEGACY - FIVE YEARS LATER
The Raoul Wallenberg Forum on Human Rights 187
Human Rights, Anti-Semitism, and the Wallenberg Legacy 187
The Honourable Per Ahlmark
War Crimes Justice - Five Years Later 201
Nuremberg Legacy: The United States Five Years Later 201
Elizabeth Holtzman
Contents vviii
War Crimes: An Australian Update 202
The Honourable Michael Kirby
War Crimes Legislation in the United Kingdom:
The Current Position, October 1992 209
The Honourable Greville Janner
Canada: Five Years Later 212
David Matas
Freedom of Expression and Freedom from Expression -
Five Years Later 221
Hate Speech: United States Update 221
Alan Dershowitz
Principles and Perspectives on Hate Speech, Freedom of Expression,
and Non-discrimination: The Canadian Experience as a Case Study in
Striking a Balance 222
Irwin Coder
Against Injustice 237
Perfectibility and Corruptibility: Towards a Post-Apartheid,
Non-Racial, Democratic South Africa 237
Albie Sachs
Conference Participants 277
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Foreword
A major International Human Rights Conference took place at the
Faculty of Law, McGill University, on 3-4 November 1987, on the
theme "Nuremberg Forty Years Later: The Struggle against Injustice
in Our Time." It was sponsored by the Faculty of Law of McGill
University, in association with InterAmicus, a Canadian and McGill-
based human rights centre.
The conference brought together a distinguished international
group of lawyers, law professors, judges, parliamentarians, govern-
ment officials, diplomats and students to discuss some of the more
compelling issues of our time at a uniquely symbolic, and significant,
moment. For the conference took place on the occasion of the
fortieth anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials; in the fortieth com-
memorative year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
reaffirmation by the United Nations of the Nuremberg Principles;
on the occasion of Canada's enactment in 1987 of "generic" war
crimes legislation that would prove historic not only in Canadian
terms but would have important precedential value in international
terms; on the occasion of the commencement in Canada of the most
celebrated hate speech litigation in the history of Canadian juris-
prudence - the Keegstra, Smith and Andrews, Taylor, Zundel, and Ross
cases, and at a critical juncture in the international struggle against
racism and Apartheid, involving "Nuremberg" in the double entendre
of that word, as both an exhortation against injustice and a place
which exemplifies racism.
Accordingly, the conference was organized around six major
themes. First, it recalled — and reaffirmed — the humanitarian and
inspirational legacy of Raoul Wallenberg- Canada's only Honourary
Citizen - that "Saint Just of the Nations," who is credited with saving
more Jews in the Second World War than any government. The