Book Symposium on ‘Nuremberg’s Citizen Prosecutor’: Humanising the Law Through Exquisite Narrative Depiction

[Natasha Gooden is an assistant professor at the University of Birmingham.]

Nuremberg’s Citizen Prosecutor: Benjamin Ferencz and the Birth of International Justice is a fascinating book that intrigued me from the very first page to the very last. Professor Gregory Gordon expertly blends the development of international criminal law (ICL) and history through the lens of Benjamin Ferencz’s life and legacy in an informative yet thoroughly captivating manner. What really stands out, in that regard, is how beautifully the book is written—its powerful prose sometimes verging on poetry.

And this brings the book alive in ways that conventional legal scholarship cannot. What Professor Gordon’s finely wrought narrative ultimately demonstrates is that ICL is not merely a system of abstract norms, but a lived practice shaped by human agency, contingency, and moral imagination. By foregrounding Ferencz’s personal experience, the book illuminates how legal principles—such as individual criminal responsibility, the prohibition of crimes against humanity, and the duty to investigate mass atrocity—emerged through concrete human encounters rather than purely doctrinal evolution. And those encounters often become powerfully cinematic through Gordon’s narrative craft.

Within this piece, I share three passages that are focal in demonstrating Gordon’s masterfully written and captivating narrative, and how it links human experience and emotion to the development and application of the law. 

To situate these passages, I should mention that the book is alliteratively divided into six Parts: Prelude (Ferencz’s earliest years); Preparing (law school and combat service in World War II); Probing (his work as a war‑crimes investigator); Prosecuting (his Nuremberg work); Providing (his achievements in Holocaust reparations); and Preventing (his peace advocacy and role in reviving ICL after the Cold War). This piece focuses on passages from Preparing, Prosecuting, and Providing. 

Ferenz Arrives on Omaha Beach: Reminders of D-Day

Firstly, in the ‘Preparing’ section of the book, which recounts Ferencz’s experience as a soldier, Gordon depicts Ferencz’s arrival on Omaha Beach in Normandy: 

‘Before them, about one hundred yards inland, rose a large hill, into whose sides the German defenders had burrowed to fend off the Allied onslaught. Now the enormous hummock was a “shell-scarred mess.” Its expertly concealed positions had been blown to smithereens. But one enormous concrete pillbox stood out—its camouflage had been blasted away, and its steel reinforcement protruded “like a shattered skeleton.” Just then, a summer thunderstorm “tore the heavens open” while the men of the 115th marched single file up the hill. [S]hambling up that mucky footpath…While catching  his breath atop the peak, Ben could hear the truck engines churn on their slip-slide climb up the river-of-mud road. And looking down, he could see the other soldiers plodding along either side of the vehicles, absorbing the wet, brown earth splattering from the tires while, all at once, getting washed under the heavy sheets of rain.” (p 82)

This intensely visual storytelling immerses readers into what it would have been like for Ferencz arriving on the Normandy beach; the sights, the sounds, and the projection of what he was thinking and feeling, conjuring up the image of the mud-covered truck struggling up the hill, symbolizing the incredible obstacles that ultimately needed to be overcome in investigating Nazi mass atrocity. 

Gordon goes on to describe the view further down the beach as Ferenz, 

“beheld the spectacle of the barrage balloon flotilla, each nondirigible blimp tethered to a ship and floating steadily in the rain-soaked skies, seemingly in defiance of the downpour. Looking behind, farther along the top of the massive muddy knoll, a landing strip had been constructed, and he could see a steady stream of ascending and descending P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber planes leaving on patrol and coming back.” (p 82)

This detailed imagery paints the sombre consequences of the D-Day beach landings and their aftermath, prompting reflection on just how much human sacrifice occurred.

But these depictions are not merely atmospheric; once again, they foreshadow the evidentiary and investigative burdens that would later define Ferencz’s role as a war‑crimes field investigator. The physical conditions Gordon describes—mud, chaos, exhaustion—mirror the operational realities under which early atrocity‑crime investigations were conducted. In doctrinal terms, they underscore the fragility of what we now call the ‘duty to investigate’ under international humanitarian law: a responsibility that, in 1945–46, depended almost entirely on the creativity and perseverance of individual investigators, like Ferencz, rather than institutionalised mechanisms.

By situating Ferencz’s arrival in Normandy within this sensory landscape, Gordon implicitly highlights the foundational tension in ICL between the ideal of comprehensive accountability and the practical constraints of post‑conflict fact‑finding.

The Einsatzgruppen Trial

The Einsatzgruppen trial is prominent for being, as the AP put it, the ‘biggest murder trial in history’, and many who have studied it are primarily aware of Ferenz’s eloquent and thought-provoking opening statement, encapsulated by Ferenz’s ‘plea of humanity to law’. This undoubtedly echoed throughout the trial and continues to resonate today. But there was more to it than the words themselves. Gordon powerfully captures the full context of that moment, and the ones that followed, allowing a richness and insight that readers would not have experienced before. 

He starts by highlighting how Ferenz “sat down and, for the first time that morning, could generally concentrate on his immediate surroundings. The great courtroom seemed alive with the kind of electricity he had never experienced before.” (p 200) This brief quote encapsulates Ferencz’s heightened emotion and the moment’s impending significance for the trial and its ripple effects globally. This level of detail would likely be omitted in legal texts, which typically focus on the plea itself rather than the surrounding human perspective. 

Gordon then follows by powerfully recounting more of Ferenz’s perception of the courtroom, with 

‘the chamber’s somber mahogany panelling, its thick, white-veined Brunswick-green marble arches framing the entryways (the one on the east wall supporting, on its apex, two statues kneeling with swords of justice), its large ornamental plaques propped atop the upper wainscoting with symbols of mortality/morality (a winged hourglass, Eve offering Adam the apple, and the Ten Commandments), and the almost otherworldly glow of the overhead fluorescent lamps, bathing all in hot, white, bright light. These sights were so familiar. But now, somehow, they seemed different. Before he had only gazed at them passively, from afar; now he was part of them, enveloped by them.” (p 200-201) 

Readers are drawn in to the significance of the colours, the ‘otherworldly glow’ of the lights and the weight of the biblical symbols. This allows them to appreciate, on a more visceral and thematic level, the momentous nature of the trial for the international community.

Moreover, the immediacy of Gordon’s description of Ferencz sitting down after his opening statement invites readers to consider the jurisprudential stakes of that moment. The Einsatzgruppen trial was not only ‘the biggest murder trial in history’; it was a crucible for the articulation of legal doctrines we are now inured to, but that were novel then, and that would later become pillars of ICL—most notably the recognition of systematic mass murder as a crime against humanity and the rejection of collective guilt in favour of individual criminal responsibility.

By drawing attention to Ferencz’s acute awareness of the courtroom’s physical space, Gordon subtly underscores how the trial itself constituted a performative act of legality. The architecture, the lighting, the solemnity—all contributed to the transformation of atrocity into adjudicable fact. This is central to understanding the trial’s legacy: it demonstrated that, within the right juridical setting, even crimes of unprecedented scale could be subjected to appropriate evidentiary scrutiny and judicial reasoning.

The narrative detail also reveals a doctrinal shift occurring in real time. Ferencz’s essential plea, that ‘law must be responsive to humanity’, anticipated later debates about the teleology of ICL—whether its purpose is strictly punitive or carries a broader expressive function aimed at reaffirming the dignity of victims and the moral boundaries of the international community.

Gordon’s human‑centred portrayal thus complements the legal significance of the case: the trial operationalised emerging norms prohibiting crimes against humanity, including extermination and persecution, and it did so through the work of a young prosecutor whose emotional and psychological experience shaped the way those norms were presented, understood, and developed.

Negotiating the Luxembourg Agreement in Wassenaar

A further passage which Gordon renders with such care and attention is Ferenz’s 1951 arrival in Wassenaar (just outside The Hague) in his ‘Providing’ section. The grounds would be the setting of the negotiation for a landmark 1952 reparations treaty between West Germany and Israel/Jewish Civil Society known as the Luxembourg Agreement (based on where the document was eventually signed). 

Gordon initially describes the scene as 

‘an isolated, sylvan setting’ (p 288), the grounds of a palace situated in a ‘lush, green copse bordered by a lake, the stately structure’s crow-stepped-gable façade was topped by a pyramidal “stork’s nest” tower rising above the castle’s arched central structure. Below the tower’s apex was a gilded clock, to either side of which, on the building’s wings, were circular turrets crowned by cupolas’. (p 289) 

Here, Gordon parachutes readers into the setting of the negotiations, describing a quiet harmony between humanity and nature, yet one clearly shaped by human boundaries. 

Gordon then takes readers inside the palace itself, where 

‘via the arcaded entrance, delegates walked on to the Great Hall’s exquisite black-and-white marbled floor, splashed with colour from an overhead stained-glass atrium and rimmed by tessellated borders. A grand staircase led to a vaulted mezzanine overhead’. (p 289) 

Whilst reading, the audience feels the palatial splendour, which is in grave contrast with the discussion of atrocities on the table. Gordon emphasizes that the ‘spectacular palace and grounds starkly contrasted with the gruesome subjects on the negations agenda’. (p 298) 

In other words, the pairing of the detailed scenic imagery stands in palpable tension with the momentous background of the legal developments. On the surface lies the façade of a fairytale setting; yet beneath it lurks something seemingly drawn from the darkest Grimm Brothers lore. This is where Gordon’s writing truly becomes alive and exudes its human-centred force. 

From another perspective, the calm backdrop of the Wassenaar grounds set against the seriousness of the negotiations inside the palace reflects a core feature of treaty‑making in the ICL context: the attempt to craft universal norms regarding horrific violence in spaces designed to symbolise international harmony. Gordon’s depiction might serve well to remind readers that the Rome Statute negotiations over 45 years later were not abstract diplomatic exercises. Rather, they were deeply contested efforts to put human suffering into penal parameters, define the scope of international criminal jurisdiction, state cooperation obligations, and strike a balance between sovereignty and accountability.

The contrast between the palace’s grandeur and the ‘gruesome subjects’ on the agenda underscores a central paradox of ICL: its aspiration to civilise the response to mass bloodshed through legal formality, even as it confronts the darkest aspects of human behaviour.

Taken together, these narrative moments reveal how Gordon’s evocative biographical method enriches our understanding of ICL’s evolution. By embedding doctrinal milestones within a rich and almost painterly portrayal of Ferencz’s lived experience, the book demonstrates that legal norms arise not only from texts and tribunals but from the human stories that animate them. This interplay between colourful narrative and evolving normativity is precisely what makes the biography an invaluable contribution to both legal scholarship and the broader historiography of international justice.