Language: en
Meaning: (ethics,international law,idiomatic)Anexplanationofferedas anexcuseforbehavingin acriminalorwrongfulmanner,claimingthat oneactedin this way because one wasorderedby others (particularlysuperiors) to do so.Synonyms:lawful orders,superior orders1970September, R. R. Baxter, “‘Nuremberg Defense’ Beclouded[letter]”, in Richard B. Allen, editor,ABA Journal: The Lawyer’s Magazine, volume56, Chicago, Ill.:American Bar Association,→ISSN,→OCLC,page818, column 2:“‘Nuremberg defense’, universally pleaded in war crimes trials,” is in actuality the Nuremberg nondefense, universally rejected in war crimes trials. It is a pity that the law of the Nuremberg Tribunal is so little understood after the passage of nearly a quarter of a century.1978, Stephen M. Kristovich, “United States v. Barker: Misapplication of the Reliance on an Official Interpretation of the Law Defense”, inCalifornia Law Review[1], volume66, number44, Berkeley, Calif.:University of California School of Law,→DOI,→ISSN,→OCLC, archived fromthe originalon4 September 2018,page840:Recognition of the reliance on an official interpretation of the law defense for government officials and private citizens may initially seem to be the same as theNuremberg defenseof “I was just following orders.”2005January 6, Laura Parker, “Court-martial begins for Abu Ghraib figure”, inUSA Today[2], archived fromthe originalon21 May 2019:“It seems like he's [Charles Graner's] wanting to do theNuremberg defense: ‘I was following orders,’” says Thomas Moran, a Houston attorney and a former military lawyer.; (USlaw,by extension)An explanation offered as adefenseto criminal or wrongfulbehavior, claiming that one isjustifiedin notobeyingagovernmentalorderor adomesticlawbecause the order or law is itselfunlawful.1967, “The Nuremberg Defense”, inCongressional Quarterly Weekly Report, volume25, part 2, Washington, D.C.:Congressional Quarterly,→ISSN,→OCLC, page936, column 1:A relatively novel legal issue was raised by dissenters who contended that they did not so much oppose war in general as the Viet Nam war in particular. This contention, which became known as theNuremberg defense, was raised by some young men who did not qualify as conscientious objectors and who were prosecuted for refusing to submit to induction.1980January, Gary Komarow, “Individual Responsibility under International Law: The Nuremberg Principles in Domestic Legal Systems”, inThe International and Comparative Law Quarterly, volume29, number 1, London: British Institute of International and Comparative Law,→DOI,→ISSN,→OCLC, page28:InUnited Statesv.Berrigan, a Federal court in Maryland laid down a legal blueprint for the treatment of war protest cases where an attempt was made to invoke the "Nuremberg defence." Father Philip Berrigan and three others stood charged with injuring the property of the United States Government, mutilating records filed in a public office of the United States, and hindering the administration of the Military Selective Service Act.1985October, Jules Lobel, “The Limits of Constitutional Power: Conflicts between Foreign Policy and International Law”, inVirginia Law Review, volume71, number 7, Charlottesville, Va.:Virginia Law Review Association,→DOI,→ISSN,→JSTOR,→OCLC, footnote 452, page1158:Even during the Vietnam War, in the Pentagon Papers case, a standing objection would not have barred the assertion of aNuremberg defenseby those who committed the civil disobedience.1989January, Frank Lawrence, “The Nuremberg Principles: A Defense for Political Protestors”, inHastings Law Journal[3], volume40, number 2, San Francisco, Calif.:Hastings College of the Law,University of California,→ISSN,→OCLC, archived fromthe originalon5 January 2019, part II (The Modern Nuremberg Defenses),pages413–414 and 416:[pages 413–434] The modernNuremberg Defensesare the antithesis of the original defense: criminal defendants today build a defense based on the reasoning and principles used by the Allied nations to convict Germans at Nuremberg. There are essentially two modernNuremberg Defenses: the Citizen's Duty and the Citizen's Privilege. [...] Under the Citizen's Duty defense, defendants assert that they could be held liable for complicity with international crimes if they fail to take action to prevent such crimes. [...] [page 416] Under the Citizen's Privilege formulation of the Defense, the Nuremberg Principles are joined with the statutory and common law privileges allowing citizens to prevent crime. This then creates a "citizen's privilege" to break domestic law.1991fall, Matthew Lippman, “Nuremberg: Forty Five Years Later”, inConnecticut Journal of International Law, volume 7, number 1, Hartford, Conn.:Connecticut Journal of International Law Association,→ISSN,→OCLC, page 1; republished in Guénaël Mettraux, editor,Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial, Oxford:Oxford University Press,2008,→ISBN, part IX (Lowering the Procedural Barriers: Recognizing the Nuremberg Defense for Political Protestors),page539:The American judiciary's narrow interpetation of the standing requirement under the Nuremberg Principles has eviscerated theNuremberg defenseand limited its application to a narrow range of cases. [...] The judiciary, in rejecting defendants' standing to raise theNuremberg defense, ignores the recognized privilege of citizen intervention to prevent the commission of a crime.2004, María José Falcón y Tella, “The Positive Aspect”, in Peter Muckley, transl.,Civil Disobedience(Monographs on International Law and Human Rights; 7), Leiden:Martinus Nijhoff Publishers,→ISBN,page216:An area in which one may indeed use the international defence, like theNuremberg defence, though with little success, is opposition to nuclear weapons and other situations where civil disobedients set themselves against military combat. [...] Therefore, civil disobedients' interference in the production of weapons is not criminally culpable, but rather clearly excusable as avoiding the violation of a more serious law. Although this defence has had little success so far, it is worth brandishing and counts amongst the defences preferred by civil disobedients.
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