NPWJ contributes to Nuremberg Forum 2017 on “Peace and Justice: The Fight against Impunity at a Crossroad”

Nuremberg Palace of Justice, Nuremberg, 20–21 October 2017

In June 2007, high-ranking UN mediators, practitioners in the fields of transitional justice, criminal law and development, as well as civil society representatives from all parts of the world met in Nuremberg at a ground-breaking conference (“Building Peace and Justice”), organized by the Governments of Finland, Germany and Jordan as well as several civil society institutions (notably ICTJ and CMI), to analyse the synergies and tensions between the goals that need to be tackled in post-conflict situations: peace and security, justice, and (social) development. The conference decided to summarize its main findings in the “Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice” that was on the agenda of the UN General Assembly and the ICC Review Conference.

Ten years later, several trends can be observed: mechanisms to apply international criminal law (ICL) have multiplied and a considerable wealth of judicial practice has accumulated; at the same time, the global political context has changed, new crises have unfolded, and some fundamental tenets, spelled out in the Nuremberg Principles and in the agenda of the 2007 conference, are still not generally accepted, notably the avoidance of impunity, the need to promote peace, security, justice and development in tandem, and the need to involve victims in the quest for peace and justice as the bases for societies’ efforts to deal with the past and to achieve well-being for all.

In the Nuremberg Forum 2017, under the title “10 years after the Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice: The Fight against Impunity at a Crossroad”,  the International Nuremberg Principles Academy together with invited experts (including Alison Smith, Director Of International criminal Justice Program of NPWJ) want to elucidate developments since 2007, with a particular focus – in line with the Academy’s mandate – on analyzing progress and challenges in the application of international criminal and humanitarian law and related human rights, and in the fight against impunity.