Nuremberg's Citizen Prosecutor and the Birth of International Justice

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The Annual Marian and Byron Strug Memorial Lecture

Nuremberg's Citizen Prosecutor: Benjamin Ferencz and the Birth of International Justice

On September 29, 1947, in Courtroom 600, before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, twenty-seven-year-old Benjamin Ferencz approached the lectern to deliver the prosecution’s opening statement against Hitler’s brutal henchmen of the Einsatzgruppen—the SS killing units responsible for more than 1.5 million deaths during the Holocaust—in what the Associated Press dubbed “the biggest murder trial in history.” As the field of international criminal justice was being born in the aftermath of World War II, only Ferencz led in all its phases: investigation, prosecution, and restitution—an extraordinary feat given his humble origins as an impoverished immigrant escaping antisemitic persecution in Eastern Europe and growing up in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. A Harvard Law scholarship student, Ferencz had been General Patton’s lead war crimes field investigator before becoming a chief prosecutor at Nuremberg. Horrified by what he encountered, he dedicated his career to Holocaust survivors, pioneering key restitution efforts and helping negotiate the landmark reparations treaty between West Germany, Israel, and Jewish civil society. Later, he became a peace advocate and driving force behind the creation of the International Criminal Court, remarkably joining the prosecution for the Court’s first trial as the last living Nuremberg prosecutor.

Prof. Gregory Gordon, an expert on international criminal law and a former war crimes prosecutor, is Professor of Law at Peking University School of Transnational Law. The first scholar with full access to Benjamin Ferencz’s personal papers, he is the author of Nuremberg's Citizen Prosecutor: Benjamin Ferencz and the Birth of International Justice (2025), the first major biography of the Nuremberg prosecutor in English. Gordon's book reveals fascinating missing links running through Ferencz’s career which shed new light on his landmark achievements.

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Please contact Tracy Snyder at tsnyder3@tulane.edu at least two weeks in advance of the event if you have accessibility needs and need a disability-related accommodation to participate.

This event will be held inside Woldenberg Art Center's Freeman Auditorium on Tulane University's Uptown campus (50 Newcomb Pl).