Top Photo: Robert H. Jackson acting as Chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. November 20, 1945.

The London Agreement and Charter marked a turning point in international criminal law by establishing for the first time that individuals could be held accountable for war crimes. This principle of individual responsibility broke from previous international criminal precedence, which shielded state actors from prosecution for actions carried out in an official capacity. These two documents established the legal framework for the International Military Tribunal (IMT), also known as the Nuremberg Trials. The United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union signed the Agreement in London on August 8, 1945, making “to prepare, incite, or wage a war of aggression, or to conspire with others to do so…a crime against international society” and “to persecute, oppress, or do violence to individuals or minorities on political, racial, or religious grounds in connection with such a war”1  an international crime for the first time in history.

Robert H. Jackson, US Chief of Counsel for the IMT, explained in his opening statement that the IMT marked “the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world,”2 signaling that those responsible for such crimes would no longer enjoy impunity under international law.

In his final report to President Harry S. Truman on October 7, 1946, six days after the first of 13 total Nuremberg trials ended, Jackson quoted Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo: “The power of the precedent is the power of the beaten path.”3  But before the Nuremberg Trials, there was no such beaten path. That process began with the London Agreement and its accompanying Charter.

Origins and Context 

Prior to World War I, war criminals who were captured were tried under the military laws of their captors, but once the conflict was over, they could only be prosecuted under the laws of their own countries.4  However, during World War II, Allied leaders realized that the Axis powers were committing war crimes on a previously unseen scale. 

Allied discussions about how to hold Nazi leaders accountable began as early as 1941 with the Declaration of St. James Palace. In 1943, US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin signed the Moscow Declaration, stating that, at the time of an armistice, Nazis responsible for atrocities committed during the war would be sent back to the countries where they had committed the crime to be judged and punished according to those countries’ laws. Major war criminals, though, “would be punished by joint decision of the Allied governments.”5  However, how the Allies would punish such criminals was not established in 1943. Churchill and Stalin, at times, favored simply executing them. Roosevelt did not. 

The question remained unresolved until the war’s end in Europe in 1945, when the United States proposed trying major war criminals before a special international court. During the summer of 1945, representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union, whom Jackson called “the four dominant powers of the earth,”6 “attempted to reconcile their conflicting legal concepts and devise a workable procedure” for trying Nazi war criminals.7  For nearly two months, the Allies “conferred, drafted, debated and struggled to agree on a substantive plan to prosecute Nazi war criminals, but after weeks,” they remained far from an agreement.8 

Finally, on August 8, 1945, the four powers “reconciled the basic conflicts in Anglo-American, French, and Soviet procedures,” using a predominantly American model, by establishing “a few simple rules which assured all of the elements of fair and full hearing, including counsel for the defense.”9  These rules became the London Agreement and Charter, which established the International Military Tribunal to prosecute Nazi leaders responsible for World War II and for their war crimes. Though the delegations were beset with “difference and vexation,” Jackson acknowledged, the shared determination to make the trial a success ultimately “overcame transient irritations” and proved that international legal collaboration was possible.10 

The London Agreement and Charter

The London Agreement, drawing on the Moscow Declaration of 1943, accomplished several things. First, it established the IMT “for the trial of war criminals whose offenses have no particular geographical location whether they be accused individually or in their capacity as members of the organizations or groups or in both capacities.”11 Second, it placed the IMT in the American-occupied zone of Nuremberg, Germany, because Nuremberg was an important site of Nazi rallies before the war.12  Third, Jackson insisted that “German aggression,” later renamed “crimes against peace,” be dealt with in the same way as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Fourth, it adopted the charge of conspiracy to commit the crimes set forth in the Charter, which was theretofore unfamiliar in international criminal law. Finally, Jackson insisted that groups and organizations also be tried, as part of the broader de-Nazification of Germany.13

View of the defendants in the dock at the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
 

Annexed to the Agreement was the Charter, which established the framework for the IMT: “For the just and prompt trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis.”14  The Charter set the IMT’s jurisdiction and defined three new international crimes that held individuals, rather than states, responsible, thereby changing the landscape of international criminal law. The Charter gave the IMT “the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes”:15

1. Crimes against peace: Namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.
2. War crimes: Namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
3. Crimes against humanity: Namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.16 

The Charter also declared that “leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.”17 It established rules that assured a fair and full hearing, even including counsel, for the defendants.18  These documents introduced a formal, legal method for addressing Nazi wartime atrocities and helped define the principles of accountability, due process, and individual criminal responsibility during World War II. 

Conclusion 

The London Agreement and Charter laid the essential groundwork for the prosecution of Nazi leaders and marked a decisive evolution in international criminal law. By defining crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and by holding individuals, rather than states, accountable, the Agreement and Charter transformed the Allied pursuit of justice into a structured, legal process rooted in fairness and procedure. Though born out of compromise among four divergent legal systems, the Charter established enduring international criminal law principles: individual responsibility, due process, and the idea that certain crimes are so grave they transcend national sovereignty.

The documents’ impact extended beyond the International Military Tribunal, becoming the model for the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. The Charter not only shaped the outcomes at Nuremberg but also set a legal precedent that has guided international efforts to prosecute atrocity crimes ever since. As Robert Jackson wrote, the Agreement “represents the combined judgments of the overwhelming majority of civilized people” and serves as “a basic charter in the International Law of the future.”19 In bridging the gap between law and morality, the London Charter signaled a postwar commitment to the rule of law, one that transformed the landscape of modern international criminal law.

• 1

  Jackson, 342.

• 2

  Robert H. Jackson, “Opening Statement at the International Military Tribunal (21 November 1945),” Voices of Democracy, The U.S. Oratory Project, University of Maryland. Accessed August 1, 2025. http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/JACKSON_SPEECH-TEXT.pdf. 

• 3

  Robert H. Jackson, “Justice Jackson’s Final Report to the President Concerning the Nurnberg War Crimes Trial.” Robert H Jackson Center, October 7, 1946, 342. https://www.roberthjackson.org/speech-and-writing/justice-jacksons-final-report/. 

• 4

  Johannes Fuchs, Flavia Lattanzi, “International Military Tribunals,” Oxford Public International Law (2011). Accessed July 31, 2025. https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e312#. 

• 5

  “How were the crimes defined?” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. Accessed July 30, 2025. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/how-were-the-crimes-defined. 

• 6

  Jackson, “Final Report,” 342.

• 7

  “The London Conference, June 26–August 2, 1945,” Robert H. Jackson Center. Accessed July 25, 2025. https://www.roberthjackson.org/nuremberg-event/the-london-conference-june-26-august-2-1945//

• 8

  John Q. Barrett, “The Nuremberg Roles of Justice Robert H. Jackson,” Washington University Global Studies Law Review, Vol. 6, Issue 3 (2007), 519.

• 9

  Tessa McKeown, “The Nuremberg Trial: Procedural Due Process at the International Military Tribunal,” Victoria University of Wellington Law Review (June 2014), 112.

• 10

  Jackson, 343.

• 11

  “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. I, London Agreement of August 8, 1945,” Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Accessed July 30, 2025. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/imtchart.asp. 

• 12

  “The Nuremberg Trials,” The National WWII Museum. Accessed August 1, 2025. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/nuremberg-trials. 

• 13

  Fuchs and Lattanzi.

• 14

  “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. I, Charter of the International Military Tribunal,” Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Accessed July 30, 2025. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/imtconst.asp. 

• 15

  “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. I, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Article 6.”

• 16

  “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. I, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Article 6(b).”

• 17

   “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. I, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Article 6.”

• 18

  Jackson, 342.

• 19

  Jackson, 342.