- Person
- Benjamin Ferencz
- Lived
- 1920–2023
- Field
- International law
- From
- American
The story
Benjamin Ferencz spent decades campaigning for a permanent international criminal court. In his first book, Defining International Aggression (1975), he argued for one, and he kept making the case through books, articles and speeches for more than 25 years. In July 1998 a diplomatic conference in Rome adopted the Rome Statute, and on July 1, 2002, when it entered into force, the International Criminal Court came into being in The Hague. It was the first permanent court with power to try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Its first case was against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a militia leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lubanga had founded the Union of Congolese Patriots, one of the main armed groups in the Ituri conflict, and human rights groups said he had used thousands of children as fighters. In March 2006 he became the first person arrested under an ICC warrant. He was tried for the war crime of conscripting and enlisting children under the age of fifteen and using them to take an active part in hostilities. His trial opened in January 2009.
In 2011 Ferencz, then in his early nineties, presented a closing statement for the prosecution in the Lubanga trial. More than six decades after his opening statement at Nuremberg in 1947, the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor stood before the new court he had spent so long advocating, linking the first international war crimes trials with the first case of their permanent successor.
Lubanga was found guilty on March 14, 2012, the first person ever convicted by the ICC, and in July 2012 he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Two days after the verdict, Ferencz wrote to The New York Times hailing it as a milestone in the evolution of international criminal law. For him the case proved a point he had argued all his life: that those who commit atrocities, including against children, can be held personally responsible under law.
The court that convicted Lubanga has since grown to 125 member states and has opened investigations into more than a dozen situations around the world. Ferencz's appearance in its first trial remains a powerful symbol of continuity, showing how the principles established at Nuremberg were carried forward into a permanent institution.
Why it matters
Ferencz's presence linked the Nuremberg trials directly to the first verdict of the permanent court that carries their principles forward, including the protection of children from being forced to fight.
About Benjamin Ferencz
At 27, in his first case, chief prosecutor of the Einsatzgruppen trial at Nuremberg; he spent the rest of his 103 years campaigning for an International Criminal Court.
More about Benjamin Ferencz
- Ben Ferencz gave up his law practice to work for peaceAfter 13 years in private practice, and moved by the Vietnam War, Ben Ferencz quit to campaign full time for an international criminal court and laws against aggression.
- Ben Ferencz called his case a plea of humanity to lawOpening his Nuremberg case in 1947, Ben Ferencz said vengeance was not the goal: the case was a plea of humanity to law, a theme that guided the rest of his life.
- Ben Ferencz rushed into liberated camps to save evidenceIn 1945 Ben Ferencz joined the US Army's new war crimes branch and entered camps such as Buchenwald and Mauthausen, sometimes within hours of liberation, to secure Nazi records.
- Ben Ferencz taught international law at Pace UniversityFrom 1985 to 1996 Ben Ferencz was an adjunct professor of international law at Pace University in White Plains, New York, passing on the lessons of Nuremberg.
- Ben Ferencz, 27, won the "biggest murder trial in history"At 27, in his first case, Ben Ferencz was chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Einsatzgruppen trial, then spent decades campaigning for an International Criminal Court.
- Ben Ferencz gave his savings to prevent genocideBen Ferencz donated $1 million to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's genocide prevention work and pledged to leave his life savings to genocide prevention initiatives.
- Ben Ferencz stayed in Germany to win restitution for victimsAfter Nuremberg, Ben Ferencz spent a decade in Germany setting up programs to return looted property and compensate victims of Nazi persecution, and helped shape the 1953 restitution law.
Sources
- Benjamin B. Ferencz Wikipedia
- Thomas Lubanga Dyilo Wikipedia
- International Criminal Court Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.