The Prosecution Argument Sample Clauses

The Prosecution Argument. Xxxxxx entered his oral argument with three objectives. First, in response to the argument made in the defense motion, he had to demonstrate that Article II(1)(c) applied to pre-war crimes against humanity even though it did not contain Article 6(c)‟s “before or during the war” language. Second, he had to establish that the drafters of Law No. 10 had, in fact, intentionally removed the nexus requirement. Third, he had to show that nexus-less crimes against humanity would not violate the principle of non-retroactivity. The first objective was the easiest to satisfy. Article II(5) of Law No. 10 provided that “[i]n any trial or prosecution for a crime herein referred to, the accused shall not be entitled to the benefits of any statute of limitation in respect of the period from 30 January 1933 to 1 July 1945.” As Xxxxxx pointed out, that provision made no sense if the drafters of Law No. 10 wanted to limit the prosecution of crimes against humanity to those committed after the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939.45 Xxxxxx devoted most of his argument to the second objective, which was obviously much more complicated. He began by claiming that the IMT had wrongly interpreted Article 6(c) of the London Charter. In his view, the “in connection with” language was not intended to limit the prosecution of pre-war crimes against humanity to those that were actually connected to war crimes or crimes against peace, but was designed “to make it clear that the definition was not meant to embrace private or occasional crimes or local xxxxx persecutions but only such wholesale campaigns of eradication.”46 That was a bold argument – and one that directly contradicted the drafting history of Article 6(c), which indicates that the drafters included the nexus because they believed that the connection to crimes against peace was necessary to distinguish a domestic crime from an international crime against humanity.47 Perhaps recognizing the weakness of his interpretation, Xxxxxx also argued that the IMT‟s interpretation of the nexus requirement was irrelevant to the defendant‟s motion, because “[j]ust as the IMT was bound by the definitions in the London Charter, so… this Tribunal is bound by the definition of Law No. 10.” Law No. 10 had been enacted by the Control Council and was “the fountain of jurisdiction” of the 44 Id. at 80-81, Defense Argument. 45 Id. at 93-94, Prosecution Argument. 46 Id. at 92. 47 Xxxxx, in GINSBURGS & XXXXXXXXXXX, 187-88.