week2_357_final.docx GOV 357 Natural versus Positive Law Grand Canyon University: GOV 3

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week2_357_final.docx GOV 357 Natural versus Positive Law Grand Canyon University: GOV 357 Natural versus Positive Law The Nuremberg Tribunal was a series of trials held by the Allied forces to en... force international law and laws of war against several of Germany™s high command at the conclusion of World War II. D™Entrèves states that the trials were overstepping the limits of positive law. Positive law, defined as a law that has been enacted by a duly authorized legislature, court or other institution to hold citizens of that body accountable for statutes passed. This is where the trials themselves come into question. How could a fair and impartial Tribunal hold accountable Nazi leadership for war crimes, when these violations of law did not yet exist? The acts that the public saw as criminal and demanded justice for were not crimes but rather acts of war. This created a problem in that ex post facto laws, laws that are created after the fact and change the consequences or the punishment of the accused, are not part of a democratic legal system. A system of ex post facto laws is dangerous in that any indictment can be made into law and would be difficult to defend against in a democratic system. The public following the end of World War II wanted œjustice, but how could this be possible if there were no laws (positive laws) broken? The men on trial did things during the war under the direction of military authority that were incompressible. Yet to people on the outside looking in it was e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . [Show More]

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