Benjamin Ferencz, last Nuremberg prosecutor, is ‘still fighting’ for a peaceful world

The Guardian today runs a fascinating and timely interview with 97-year-old Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials.

Mr Ferencz, then 27, was chief prosecutor for the US in the Einsatzgruppen trial, the ninth of the twelve trials held in Nuremberg after World War II.

Speaking to The Guardian, he recalls the horrors he witnessed in the Nazi concentration camps and credits them as the reason he is “still fighting, to prevent that from happening again”.

In a stark warning to Prime Minister Theresa May, he said that withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights “may be good for the next election, but it’s shortsighted”.

And Mr Ferencz is also critical of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a body that might not exist without his important work paving the way.

He said: “You need laws in order to define what’s permissible and what’s not permissible, you need courts where people can be held accountable if they violate the laws, and you need a system of effective enforcement. Those are the three legs on which civilisation stands. But we only have the two legs, and they’re both a little bit wobbly; the third enforcement leg doesn’t even exist.”

Read Mr Ferencz’s full interview in full on The Guardian’s website.

Photo credit: Adam Jones, Ph.D.