Author

Robert H. Jackson

About Robert H. Jackson

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) was an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death. Earlier he had served as Solicitor General and Attorney General under Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1945–1946 he took leave from the Court to serve as the United States Chief of Counsel at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

On this site

Opening Statement at the Nuremberg Trial

21 November 1945 · Postwar Contemporary · Oratory

Robert H. Jackson's opening statement at Nuremberg, delivered on 21 November 1945, the second day of the trial of the major German war criminals before the International Military Tribunal, is one of the great speeches in the history of law. Jackson, a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, had helped negotiate the London Charter of August 1945, by which the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union created the Tribunal.