Mr. Benjamin Ferencz is known worldwide as the Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1947. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1943, he joined the US Army where he was assigned to the artillery and served in every campaign from the beaches of Normandy to the final "Battle of the Bulge". In 1945, he was transferred to the headquarters of General Patton's Third Army to help set up a war crimes unit and assemble evidence of the crimes committed in the concentration camps. After having served in Nuremberg, he participated in various reparation and rehabilitation programs for victims of the Nazis, including negotiations between Israel and West Germany. As an advocate of the establishment of a peaceful world legal order and human rights, he later focused his efforts on the creation of an International Criminal Court and the criminalisation of "the supreme international crime" - war-making itself. From 1985 to 1996, he was Adjunct Professor of International Law at Pace University, NY. In 2011, he also delivered a part of the Prosecution’s closing arguments in the Lubanga trial at the ICC. He is the author of numerous articles and several books, including: Defining International Aggression (1975); An International Criminal Court (1980); Enforcing International Law (1983) and A Common Sense Guide to World Peace (1985).
Trying individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression