Benjamin B. Ferencz
Encyclopedia
Benjamin Berell' Ferencz (born March 11, 1920) is a Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

. He was an investigator of Nazi war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...

s after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and the Chief Prosecutor for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial
Einsatzgruppen Trial
The Einsatzgruppen Trial was the ninth of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S...

, one of the twelve military trials
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve U.S...

 held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Later, he became a vocal advocate of the establishment of an international rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...

 and of an International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...

. From 1985 to 1996, he was Adjunct Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of International Law at Pace University
Pace University
Pace University is an American private, co-educational, and comprehensive multi-campus university in the New York metropolitan area with campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York.-Programs:...

.

Biography

He was born in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

, from where his family immigrated into the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 when he was ten months old. According to his own account, the family left Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

 to evade the persecution of Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 Jews after Hungary had ceded the territory where they lived to Romania after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The family settled in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where they lived in the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

 in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

.

He studied crime prevention at the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...

 and won a scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

 for the Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

 with his criminal law exam. At Harvard, he studied under Roscoe Pound
Roscoe Pound
Nathan Roscoe Pound was a distinguished American legal scholar and educator. He was Dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936...

 and also did research for Sheldon Glueck
Sheldon Glueck
Sheldon Glueck was a Polish-American criminologist. Born in Poland, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1920...

, who at that time was writing a book on war crimes. Ferencz was graduated from Harvard in 1943. After his studies, he joined the U.S. Army, where he served in the 115th AAA Gun Battalion, an anti-aircraft artillery unit. In 1945, he was transferred to the headquarters of General Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...

's Third Army, where he was assigned to a team tasked with setting up a war crimes branch and collecting evidence for such crimes. In this function, he was then sent to the concentration camps as they were liberated by the U.S. army.

On Christmas 1945, Ferencz was honorably discharged from the Army with the rank of Sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....

. He returned to New York, but was recruited only a few weeks later to participate as a prosecutor in the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve U.S...

 in the legal team of Telford Taylor
Telford Taylor
Telford Taylor was an American lawyer best known for his role in the Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, his opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, and his outspoken criticism of U.S...

. Taylor appointed him Chief Prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Case—Ferencz's first case. All of the 22 men on trial were convicted; 14 of them received death sentences, of which four were eventually carried out.

In a 2005 interview for the Washington post he revealed some of his activities during his period in Germany by way of showing how different military legal norms were at the time:
"I once saw DPs
Displaced person
A displaced person is a person who has been forced to leave his or her native place, a phenomenon known as forced migration.- Origin of term :...

 beat an SS man and then strap him to the steel gurney of a crematorium. They slid him in the oven, turned on the heat and took him back out. Beat him again, and put him back in until he was burnt alive. I did nothing to stop it. I suppose I could have brandished my weapon or shot in the air, but I was not inclined to do so. Does that make me an accomplice
Accomplice
At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery...

 to murder?"

"You know how I got witness statements?" "I'd go into a village where, say, an American pilot had parachuted and been beaten to death and line everyone one up against the wall. Then I'd say, 'Anyone who lies will be shot on the spot.' It never occurred to me that statements taken under duress would be invalid."


Ferencz stayed in Germany after the Nuremberg Trials, together with his wife Gertrude, whom he had married in New York on March 31, 1946. He participated in the setup of reparation and rehabilitation programs for the victims of persecutions by the Nazis, and also had a part in the negotiations that led to the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany
Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953...

 signed on September 10, 1952 and the first German Restitution Law
German Restitution Laws
The German Restitution Laws were a series of laws passed in the 1950s in West Germany regulating the restitution of lost property and the payment of damages to victims of the Nazi persecutions....

 in 1953. In 1957, the family—they had four children by then—returned to the U.S., where Ferencz entered private law practice as a partner of Telford Taylor.

But the experiences made just after World War II left a defining impression on Ferencz. After thirteen years, and under the impression of the events of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, Ferencz left the private law practice and henceforth worked for the institution of an International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...

 that would serve as a worldwide highest instance for issues of crimes against humanity and war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...

s. He also published several books on this subject. Already in his first book published in 1975, entitled Defining International Aggression-The Search for World Peace, he argued for the establishment of such an international court. From 1985 to 1996, Ferencz also worked as an Adjunct Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of International Law at Pace University
Pace University
Pace University is an American private, co-educational, and comprehensive multi-campus university in the New York metropolitan area with campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York.-Programs:...

 at White Plains, New York
White Plains, New York
White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...

.

An International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...

 was indeed established on July 1, 2002, when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court . It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of 13 October 2011, 119 states are party to the statute...

 entered in force. Under the Clinton administration, the U.S. did sign the treaty, but did not subsequently ratify it, and furthermore, under the administration of George W. Bush, "unsigned" the treaty and concluded a large number of bilateral agreements with other states that would exclude U.S. citizens from being brought before the ICC.. Under the administration of Barack Obama, this policy was reversed.

Ferencz has repeatedly argued against this procedure and suggested that the U.S. simply join the ICC without reservations, as it was a long-established rule of law that "law must apply equally to everyone", also in an international context. In this vein, he has suggested in an interview given on August 25, 2006, that not only Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

 should be tried, but also George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 because the Iraq War had been begun by the U.S. without permission by the UN Security Council.

On May 03 2011, two days after the death of Osama bin Laden
Death of Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, then head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit....

 was reported, Ferencz published a letter in the New York Times reminding readers that "illegal and unwarranted execution - even of suspected mass murderers - undermines democracy."

Selected bibliography

  • Ferencz, B.: New Legal Foundations for Global Survival: Security Through the Security Council, Oceana 1994; ISBN 0379212072.
  • Ferencz, B.; Keyes, K. Jr.
    Ken Keyes, Jr.
    Ken Keyes, Jr. was a personal growth author and lecturer, and the creator of the Living Love method, a self-help system...

    : Planethood: The Key to Your Future
    PlanetHood
    PlanetHood: The Key to Your Future was written by Benjamin B. Ferencz and Ken Keyes, Jr. in 1988. This non-copyrighted work was written to advance the argument for a system of international law complete with courts, enforcement, and an international congress.The authors start by highlighting some...

    , Vision Books 1988. Reprint 1991; ISBN 0915972212.
  • Ferencz, B.: A Common Sense Guide to World Peace, Oceana 1985.
  • Ferencz, B.: Enforcing International Law: A Way to World Peace, Oceana 1983.
  • Ferencz, B.: Less Than Slaves: Jewish Forced Labor and the Quest for Compensation, Harvard 1979. Reprint 2002, Indiana University Press & USHMM; ISBN 0253215307.
  • Ferencz, B.: An International Criminal Court: A Step Toward World Peace, Oceana 1980. ISBN 0379203898.
  • Ferencz, B.: Defining International Aggression: The Search for World Peace, Oceana 1975. ISBN 037900271X.

See also

  • International Criminal Court
    International Criminal Court
    The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...

  • The International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of Iraq
    The International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of Iraq
    The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court reported in February 2006 that he had received 240 communications in connection with the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 which alleged that various war crimes had been committed. The overwhelming majority of these communications came from...

  • Review Conference of the International Criminal Court Statute
    Review Conference of the International Criminal Court Statute
    A Review Conference of the Rome Statute took place from 31 May to 11 June 2010, in Kampala, Uganda to consider amendments to the treaty that founded the International Criminal Court....

  • United States and the International Criminal Court
    United States and the International Criminal Court
    The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court . The ICC is a permanent international criminal court, founded in 2002 by the Rome Statute to "bring to justice the perpetrators of the worst crimes known to humankind - war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide",...

  • War crimes committed by the United States
    War crimes committed by the United States
    The United States of America has been accused of committing war crimes at various points throughout its history. Most, but not all contemporary war crimes are defined by the International Criminal Court , the Geneva Conventions, and the associated laws of war under international law...


External links

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