Glueck Declares Nuremberg Trial Triumph of Law

Following the pronouncement of sentences in the trial of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg yesterday, Sheldon Glueck, professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the Law School, expressed the opinion that the "judgment of the International Tribunal at Nuremberg should convince even the most skeptical that justice has been done in the best legal tradition."

Long an expert on the problems of the war crimes trial, Glueck has written two books on the subject, defending the legal right and the value of holding such trials. In his statement yesterday, he said that many lawyers had considered the whole proceedings as hypocritical and the judgment a foregone conclusion, but that the outcome, in its careful discrimination between the defendants, showed that honest consideration had been given to them.

"For the first time in history a distinguished panel of judges representing the aspirations of mankind for justice on an international plane, has solemnly declared that there is such an offense as a crime against the peace of the world," he added, expressing the opinion that the cause of international law had been greatly forwarded by the undertaking.

Professor Glueck was the advisor to Justice Robert H. Jackson when he met the representatives of England, France, and Russia at the four-power war crimes conference in London in June 1945. At that time Professor Glueck's book, "War Criminals: Their Prosecution and Punishment," was one of the few authoritative works on the subject and, according to Justice Jackson, was of considerable help to the conference.

In his most recent book, "The Nuremberg Trial and Aggressive War," he took issue with those who claimed that the trial was based on ex post facto laws and was not legitimate. Professor Glueck argued that international law is to be compared to common law, which exists without written statue, and that, therefore, there is ample precedent on which to base the indictment of the German war leaders.

"At long last," he concluded, "wars, other than legitimate self-defense, that is, wars of aggression, have been outlawed, not merely by high sounding but empty international treaties, but by law--law with teeth in it.