The Legacy of Ben Ferencz: Prosecute the Crime of Agression
The man who was responsible for the last death sentences on German soil against the Nazis in Nuremberg, became a leading advocate of humanity, for the International Criminal Court, and for prosecuting the crime of aggression in order to end wars.
Ben Ferencz at The Justice Gala by Cinema for Peace in New York
by Jaka Bizilj / Cinema for Peace & The Court of the Citizens of the World
NUREMBERG - Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials in Germany that brought Nazi war criminals to justice after the second world war, has left us the at age of 103.
His final mission was the patronage for the creation of THE COURT OF THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, which convicted Vladimir Putin in February 2023 in a role-model trial in The Hague on „the Crime of Aggression“ and which asked the international community and the ICC to issue an arrest warrant. According to the Ukrainian Nobel Peace Price laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk and legal experts, this motivated the official ICC arrest warrant for Putin a few weeks later - but on a different legal base because the "crime of aggression" can not be prosecuted by the ICC. Even worse in the 21st century: leading wars is not forbidden by many constitutions, as they are rooted in times when it was considered fair to give a neighboring country a three months notice before an invasion.
Ben Ferencz conducted in Nuremberg the biggest murder trial in history. What is little known: On his way to Nuremberg his plane caught fire, and he jumped out of the plane with a parachute, even though he had never used one before. It took some time to find the 27-year-old, who had to fight for the existence of the trial. Telford Taylor, the principal prosecutor of high Nazi officials and leading German industrialists at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, had no resources and no prosecutors left. Ben Ferencz told us at his home in New Rochelle after his daily 100 situps a few years ago: "I said to him: the biggest murderers in history can not go unpunished!" Taylor checked Ben`s law degree from Harvard and declared to the 27-year-old: "Then you will have to prosecute them yourself." Taylor appointed Ferencz chief prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Case - Ferencz’s first case ever. All of the 22 men on trial were convicted; 13 of them received death sentences, of which four were eventually carried out. Apart from East Germany, they were the last executions performed on German soil.
After the war Ben Ferencz fought for many years for Jewish reparations by Germany, German chancellor Adenauer used Ben`s pen to sign for major payments. A second turning point in the life of the centenarian influenced history: when he had a heart attack at the age of nearly 50 and had to wait for hours for treatment in a less developed country, he gave an oath to himself: if he would survive, he would dedicate the rest of his life to international criminal justice. The immigrant child from Transylvania, who had entered a school in Hells Kitchen in New York without speaking a single word of English, became the worlds leading advocate for the rule of law and for the creation of an International Criminal Court.
When we honored Ben Ferencz with Cinema for Peace in 2010 in Kampala with the Justitia Award alongside UN SG Ban Ki-moon at the ICC review conference, the over 90-year-old held the most passionate speech of all participants, warning of the horrors of war and asking to include "the crime of aggression" in the ICC statutes. Instead, the ICC came up with an ineffective compromise to prosecute the crime of aggression if both parties agree, meaning that the aggressor had to agree to the victim country`s demand to prosecute the attacking country.
A year later we accompanied Ben with a film team to the ICC`s first historic closing statements and verdict in the Lubanga case, who was convicted of enlisting child soldiers as proven among others with documentary film material. Nuremberg was his first trial, The Hague his second and last. The 91-year-old small man was welcomed by the prosecution team around Luis Moreno Ocampo and the likes of Angelina Jolie before he got his robe and proved to be the greatest man of justice the world had seen alive in the new millennium:
"What makes this Court so distinctive is its primary goal to deter crimes before they take place by letting wrongdoers know in advance that they will be called to account by an impartial International Criminal Court.“
Ben Ferencz‘s life mission was to make wars illegal and to punish the perpetrators by creating accountability and courts with a mandate. His life credo was:
"The force of law instead of the law of force."
Introduction to Ferencz Address of Kampala Conference on ICC
Ferencz Addresses Kampala Conference on ICC (Part I)
Ferencz Addresses Kampala Conference on ICC (Part II)
Speech of Mr. Benjamin Ferencz at Closing of Lubanga Case
September 11, 2011
"This is a historic moment in the evolution of international criminal law. For the first time, a permanent international criminal court will hear the closing statement for the Prosecution as it concludes its first case against its first accused Mr. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo.
I witnessed such an evolution. As an American soldier, I survived the indescribable horrors of World War II and served as a liberator of many concentration camps. Shortly thereafter, I was appointed a Prosecutor at the Nuremberg War crimes trials which mapped new rules for the protection of humanity. I was 27 years old then. I am now in my 92nd year, having spent a lifetime striving for a more humane world governed by the rule of law.
I am honored to represent the Prosecutor and to share some personal observations regarding the significance of this trial. The most significant advance I have observed in international law has gone almost unnoticed; it is the slow awakening of the human conscience. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed inalienable, fundamental rights of “all members of the human family as a foundation of freedom peace, and justice in the world.” Countless human rights declarations have been made over many years by many dedicated persons and organizations. But legal action to enforce the promises has been slow in coming.
In Rome in 1998, when the Statute that binds this Court was overwhelmingly approved, over a hundred sovereign states decided that child recruitment and forcing them to participate in hostilities were among “the most serious crimes of concern for the international community as a whole.” Punishing perpetrators was recognized as a legal obligation.
What makes this Court so distinctive is its primary goal to deter crimes before they take place by letting wrongdoers know in advance that they will be called to account by an impartial International Criminal Court. The law can no longer be silent but must instead be heard and enforced to protect the fundamental rights of people everywhere.
The Prosecutor’s Office spoke at length meticulously detailing grim facts establishing the responsibility of the accused for the crimes alleged. The evidence showed that waves of children, recruited under Mr. Lubanga’s command, moved through as many as 20 training camps, some holding between eight and sixteen hundred children under age 15.
Words and figures cannot adequately portray the physical and psychological harm inflicted on vulnerable children who were brutalized and who lived in constant fear. The loss and grief to their inconsolable families is immeasurable. Their childhood stolen, deprived of education and all human rights, the suffering of the young victims and their families left permanent scars. We must try to restore the faith of children so that they may join in restoring the shattered world from which they came.
Imagine the pain of mothers crying and pleading at the door of the camps still suffering and wondering what happened to their children. Picture the agony of the father who said: “[…] he is my first son. All of my hopes were laid on him. […]the child was ruined. […] Today he can do nothing in his life. He has abandoned his education. And this is something which affects me greatly.”
All of the girls recruited could expect to be sexually violated. All of these events which the Prosecution has carefully presented have been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Once again, “the case we present is a plea of humanity to law.” It was a call for human beings to behave in a humane and lawful way.
The hope of humankind is that compassion and compromise may replace the cruel and senseless violence of armed conflicts. That is the law as prescribed by the Rome Statute that binds this Court as well as the UN Charter that binds everyone. Vengeance begets vengeance. The illegal use of armed force, which is the soil from which all human rights violation grow must be condemned as a crime against humanity. International disputes must be resolved not by armed force but by peaceful means only. Seizing and training young people to hate and kill presumed adversaries undermines the legal and moral firmament of human society.
Let the voice and the verdict of this esteemed global court now speak for the awakened conscience of the world.“
Click to watch the trailer for "Prosecuting Evil" by Barry Avrich