Charter of the International Military Tribunal

The Charter of the International Military Tribunal was the founding legal document of the Nuremberg trials, annexed to the London Agreement signed on August 8, 1945 by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. It defined the crimes the tribunal would prosecute against surviving Nazi leaders: crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, the last defined to include murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts. It established a court with two judges from each of the four Allied powers, one holding a vote, and barred defendants from claiming sovereign immunity or superior orders as a defense. Trials under the charter ran from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, prosecuting twenty two surviving Nazi leaders and declaring six German organizations, including the SS, the Gestapo and the Nazi Party Leadership Corps, to be criminal.