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Horst H. Freyhofer. The Nuremberg Medical Trial: The Holocaust and the Origin of the Nuremberg Medical Code. Studies in Modern European History, vol. 53. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. viii + 209 pp. $35.95 (paperbound, 0-8204-6797-9).
The Doctors' Trial was the first of the "subsequent trials" held by the Americans at Nuremberg after the International Military Tribunal (IMT), the major trial of Nazi war criminals. Since the mid-1990s, the academic community has dramatically increased attention to both the Doctors' Trial and the Nuremberg Code. That attention is, I think, related primarily to a renewed interest in the origins of the concept of human rights, the origins of American medical ethics, and the protection of research subjects in the context of the globalization of medical research. For anyone interested in the first two of these issues, Horst H. Freyhofer's book provides a solid and well-researched overview and introduction, concentrating as he does on the legal theory of the trial itself, and the specific roles and views on medical ethics of the three physicians who aided the prosecution.
The IMT was the world's first multinational trial in which judges from a variety of nations (in this case, the major allied powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, England, and France) applied international law to judge violations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace. That landmark trial resulted in the articulation of the "Nuremberg Principles," which have become a cornerstone of international law: (1) there are such things as war crimes and crimes against humanity (e.g., murder, torture, slavery, genocide); (2) individuals can be held personally...