Nuremberg

THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIAN PERSONS IN TIME OF WAR OF AUGUST 12, 1949, ARTICLE 30 -- APPLICATION TO PROTECTING POWERS AND RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS, PARAGRAPH 1. -- RIGHT OF COMMUNICATION, 1. PRINCIPLE, p. 174...

Jews were banned from universities; Jewish actors were dismissed from theaters; Jewish authors’ works were rejected by publishers; and Jewish journalists were hard-pressed to find newspapers that would publish their writings.

The judges at Nuremberg, although they realized the importance of Hippocratic ethics and the maxim primum non nocere, recognized that more was necessary to protect human research subjects. Accordingly, the judges articulated a sophisticated set of 10 research principles centered not on the physician but on the research subject.

On August 19, 1947, the judges delivered their verdict in the "Doctors' Trial" at Nuremberg against 23 defendants. They also delivered their opinion on medical experimentation on human beings. Several of the accused had argued that their experiments differed little from pre-war ones and that there was no law that differentiated between legal and illegal experiments. In April of the same year, Dr. Leo Alexander had submitted to the Counsel for War Crimes six points defining legitimate medical research. The trial verdict adopted these points and added an extra four. The ten points constituted the "Nuremberg Code". Although the legal force of the document was not established and it was not incorporated directly into either the American or German law, the Nuremberg Code and the related Declaration of Helsinki are the basis for Health Canada and US Regulations.

For this reason, both civil libertarians and unionists should be concerned. Bill 195 is power seeking, but it may be only the beginning. If these intrusions into our rights are not resisted, we may be at the beginning of a new policy cycle that seeks even longer term and larger changes that further limit our rights. Emergency powers should apply only during emergencies, and any attempt to extend them beyond must be described as nothing more than a power-grab.