chapter ten

Building Anew

O

ne of the more colorful salutes to the rule of law in international

aff airs appeared in the February 7, 1940, issue of Look magazine in the

United States. Superman, the famous comic book action hero, is shown

valiantly capturing both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. As he fl ies through

the air with the two rulers (literally) in hand, a terrifi ed Hitler inquires anx-

iously of their fate. “Next stop— Geneva, Switzerland,” announces the Man

of Steel. As good as his word, Superman delivers his captives to the League

of Nations. Th ere, a judicial- looking fi gure (i.e., an aged white man in black

garb seated behind a high bench with a gavel on it) solemnly pronounces the

chastened ex- leaders to be “guilty of modern history’s greatest crime—

unprovoked aggression against defenseless countries.” Superman observes

from the background— suitably deferential before the rule of law. Strength

was at the ser vice of justice.

Before too long, life came passably close to imitating “art.” In 1946, the

leaders of Nazi Germany were placed on trial— though Hitler was deceased

at the time, and Stalin had the good fortune to be numbered among the

victors. No immigrants from the planet Krypton were present at the

Nuremberg Trials (or at least not recorded). But there was a vivid display of

superpowers— of a sort— at work. Th is was the power of international law to

override, in eff ect, the laws of individual nation- states and to deliver national

leaders of the highest rank to the hangman. Th e effi cacy of international law

has oft en been doubted, but the twenty- one defendants at Nuremberg felt its

hand very heavily upon them.

International law in the post– World War II era was, in short, off to a spec-

tacular start. But the momentum was not sustained. A Cold War between