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10 October 2026, Nuremberg

Whose rights count? 80 years since the Nuremberg Trials – Current struggles for justice & solidarity

Nuremberg
10 October 2026, 2:00 pm
Center for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN)
Andreij-Sacharow-Platz 1 90403 Nürnberg

Eighty years ago in Nuremberg, a regime responsible for wars of aggression and mass crimes stood trial before an international court for the first time – a historic turning point that shaped modern international law and established the principle that even state power cannot stand above the law.

But whose rights matter today? Wars, border regimes, geopolitical interests, and authoritarian rule all play a role in determining whose suffering is acknowledged – and whose is not. Anyone who takes Nuremberg seriously must focus precisely on these power dynamics.

At the same time, survivors, civil society organizations, and countries of the Global South are fighting to make the law a tool for justice: this year, the International Criminal Court opened two cases for which survivors’ organizations from the Philippines and refugees from Libya had long fought. In Belgium, the murder of Congo’s first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, is being addressed, and executives of the construction materials company Lafarge were convicted in France of financing terrorism in the Syrian civil war.

What is the current state of international law, what attacks is it facing – and what new paths to justice are emerging? We will explore these questions together

You can find the detailed program and information about our guests below.

The event will be held in English.
Simultaneous translation into German will be provided.

Please register via this link.

Panels
Participation in the panels is free of charge.
Location: CHREN | Andreij-Sacharow-Platz 1 | 90403 Nuremberg
Accessibility information: The venue is accessible by elevator. If you require sign language interpretation or other assistance, please contact us.

Film Mein illegales Leben (My Illegal Life)
Admission: € 12,50
Tickets: im CINECITTA'
Kino: CINECITTA' | Gewerbemuseumsplatz 3 | 90403 Nuremberg

Organized by: medico international, ECCHR, and the Center for Human Rights Erlangen-Nuremberg (CHREN)

 

Program

2:00 – 2:30 p.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks

Prof. Dr. Markus Krajewski, CHREN

2:30 – 3:30 p.m. A Chance for Justice or the Decline of the International Legal Order?

International law has never been neutral – its framework still bears traces of colonialism and imperialism to this day, and realpolitik continually challenges it. Despite this ambivalence, survivors of the most severe human rights crimes worldwide invoke this law – particularly in the Global South, where its emancipatory potential is recognized just as much as its weaknesses.

One example: With ECCHR, the migrant organization Refugees in Libya is representing survivors of torture camps in Libya in proceedings before the International Criminal Court. For those affected, this means recognition of their suffering and brings to light the responsibility of European actors.

David Yambio, Refugees in Libya
Dr. Miriam Saage-Maaß, ECCHR
Moderator: Musa Okwonga, author, radio host, poet and musician.

3:30 – 4:00 p.m. BREAK

4:00 – 5:00 p.m. The Political Mandate of Nuremberg

“War of aggression is the greatest crime” – with these words, Nuremberg’s chief prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz went down in history, for it is war of aggression that makes other crimes such as murder, robbery and destruction possible in the first place. The newly established international criminal law was intended to ensure that wars and their crimes would no longer go unpunished in the future and to protect human dignity and freedom. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the logical consequence. Even though it never applied to everyone in practice, international law and human rights remained the benchmark against which demands for accountability were measured.

How can this political mandate from Nuremberg be defended and carried forward today – through which forms of self-organization, which transnational alliances, and which kinds of solidarity beyond European self-absorption? Which voices are being overlooked? And what would it mean to view Nuremberg not as a moral legacy to be preserved, but as an open-ended mandate: to defend universal human dignity against disenfranchisement and organized irresponsibility?

Prof. Dr. Nikita Dhawan, Universität Dresden
Charlotte Wiedemann, Journalist
Hadi Marifat, Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO)
Moderator: Dr. Imad Mustafa, medico international

5:00 p.m. Closing Remarks

Prof. Dr. Christoph Safferling, International Nuremberg Principles Academy

5:15 – 7:00 p.m. Evening Reception

7:30 p.m. Film Mein illegales Leben (My Illegal Life) & Discussion with Esther Dischereit, poet and essayist

Winter 1942: Hella Zacharias holds the Gestapo’s deportation order in her hands – and goes into hiding in Berlin with her 5-year-old daughter Hannelore. What follows are months of hiding, denunciations, and frantic escapes. In 1944, living under a false name in Sorau / Żary in what is now Poland, she is rescued by railroad worker Fritz Kittel: He hides Hella in his apartment and passes Hannelore off as his niece – all while his employer, the Deutsche Reichsbahn, sends millions to their deaths.

After the war, Hella Zacharias has another child: Esther Dischereit, who goes on to become one of the most significant German-Jewish writers after the Holocaust. She knows the name Fritz Kittel from her childhood – though she has never met him. Together with her daughter Chana, she sets out in search of her family’s rescuer and the missing pieces of her own history.

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