Editing Universal jurisdiction (section)

==History==
[[File:381px-Grotius de jure 1631.jpg|thumb|Title page from the second edition (Amsterdam 1631) of ''[[De jure belli ac pacis]]''. First published in 1625, Grotius advances a system of principles of [[natural law]], which are held to be binding on all people and nations regardless of local custom.]]

[[File:The defendants at Nuremberg Trials.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.00|Defendants at the [[Nuremberg trials]] listening to translated evidence through headphones]]
The ''[[Institutes of Justinian]]'',<ref>''Institutes of Justinian'', Book I, Title II, "Concerning Natural Law, the Law of Nations, and the Civil Law".</ref> echoing the ''Commentaries'' of [[Gaius (jurist)|Gaius]],<ref>Gaius. ''Commentaries on the Roman Law'', Book I, Chapter I, "De Jure Gentium et Civili".</ref> says that "All nations ... are governed partly by their own particular laws, and partly by those laws which are common to all, [those that] natural Reason appoints for all mankind."<ref>{{cite book| last =Maine| first =Sir Henry Sumner| title =Ancient Law: Its Connection With the Early History of Society and Relation to Modern Ideas| year =1861| publisher =John Murray| location = London | edition = 1861 first| page = 46| url = https://archive.org/stream/ancientlawitsco18maingoog#page/n58/mode/2up}}</ref> Expanding on the classical understanding of universal law accessible by reason, in the seventeenth century, the Dutch jurist [[Grotius]] laid the foundations for universal jurisdiction in modern international law, promulgating in his ''De Jure Praedae'' (''Of the Law of Captures'') and later ''[[De jure belli ac pacis|Dē jūre bellī ac pācis]]'' (''Of the Law of War and Peace'') the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] view that there are universal principles of right and wrong.<ref>{{cite book |last=Grotius|author-link=Grotius |title=De jure praedae : (Of the Law of Captures)|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=London |year=1604 |pages=xviii }} (discussing in introductory notes Grotius' account of universal principles of right and wrong derived from reason and divine Will, the underpinning of much modern international law).</ref>

According to [[Henry Kissinger]], at about the same time, international law came to recognize the analogous concept of ''[[hostes humani generis|hostēs hūmānī generis]]'' ("enemies of the human race") applying to pirates or hijackers whose crimes took place outside of nation-state territories, while universal jurisdiction subjecting senior officials or heads of states as criminal subjects was new.<ref name="HK-2001">{{cite news |last=Kissinger |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Kissinger |date=July–August 2001 |title=The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction |url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20010701faessay4996/henry-a-kissinger/the-pitfalls-of-universal-jurisdiction.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114024521/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20010701faessay4996/henry-a-kissinger/the-pitfalls-of-universal-jurisdiction.html |archive-date=14 January 2009 |work=[[Foreign Affairs]]}}</ref> 

From these premises, representing the Enlightenment belief in trans-territorial, trans-cultural standards of right and wrong, derives universal jurisdiction.<ref>{{cite book |author= Anthony Pagden|title=The Enlightenment, and Why It Still Matters |year=2013 |publisher=Random House |quote= [I]f there does exist some concept of universal justice, if even the most powerful states on occasion feel compelled to abide by the demands of international law, that we owe to the Enlightenment. |isbn=978-1-4000-6068-9 }}</ref>

Perhaps the most notable and influential precedent for universal jurisdiction were the mid-20th century [[Nuremberg Trials]]. U.S. Justice [[Robert H. Jackson]] then chief prosecutor, famously stated that an [[International Military Tribunal]] enforcing universal principles of right and wrong could prosecute acts without a particular geographic location, Nazi "crimes against the peace of the world"—even if the acts were perfectly legal at the time in Fascist Germany. Indeed, one charge was Nazi law itself became a crime, law distorted into a bludgeon of oppression.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/jackson.html |title=Justice Jackson's Opening statement for the Prosecution |author=Jackson, Robert, U.S. Supreme Court Justice  |date=21 November 1945 |work= Proceedings, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal|publisher=International Military Tribunal |access-date=3 November 2012}}</ref> The Nuremberg trials supposed universal standards by which one nation's laws, and acts of its officials, can be judged; an international rule of law unbound by national borders.<ref>{{cite news |author=Jack Goldsmith |title=The Shadow of Nuremberg |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/books/review/justice-and-the-enemy-nuremberg-9-11-and-the-trial-of-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-by-william-shawcross-book-review.html |quote=The compromises of 1945 came to be seen as imperfect but essential progress toward international rule of law and the foundation for modern international criminal tribunals. |work=[[The New York Times]] |date= 20 January 2012|access-date=2016-03-17 }}</ref>

On the other hand, even at the time, the Nuremberg trials were criticized as [[victor's justice]], revenge papered over with legal [[simulacrum|simulacra]]. US Supreme Court Chief Justice [[Harlan F. Stone|Harlan Fiske Stone]] remarked that his colleague Justice Jackson acting as Nuremberg Chief prosecutor was "conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg. I don't mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas."<ref>[[Alpheus T. Mason]], Harlan Fiske Stone: Pillar of the Law (New York: Viking, 1956), p. 716.</ref>

[[Kenneth Roth]], the executive director of [[Human Rights Watch]], argues that universal jurisdiction allowed Israel to try [[Adolf Eichmann]] in Jerusalem in 1961. Roth also argues that clauses in treaties such as the [[Geneva Convention]]s of 1949 and the [[United Nations Convention Against Torture]] of 1984, which requires signatory states to pass [[municipal law]]s that are based on the concept of universal jurisdiction, indicate widespread international acceptance of the concept.<ref name="KR-2001">{{cite news |last=Roth |first=Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Roth |date=September–October 2001 |title=The Case for Universal Jurisdiction |url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20010901faresponse5577/kenneth-roth/the-case-for-universal-jurisdiction.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090121044713/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20010901faresponse5577/kenneth-roth/the-case-for-universal-jurisdiction.html |archive-date=21 January 2009 |work=Foreign Affairs}}</ref>