I have been juggling several things, and failed to register that you were drawing from Nuremburg. I am very sorry. I do think, though, that the legal basis was the Geneva Accords and similar treaties, to which Germany and Japan were signatory, and my analysis of the legal status of the actions stands on those grounds. Nuremburg implicitly draws from the Just War tradition, and mixes legal and moral ideas, as flowing from Natural Justice. On that basis, I still think that there was a defense based on military exigency. However, you are right that the issue should have been addressed by the tribunal, or the language should not have been so stark.
Incidentally, when I mention Dresden, I am referring to a better candidate as an Allied war crime than Hiroshima and Nagasaki......... |
