THE NUREMBERG TRIALS OF CENTURY 21
           by R.A. Alba, CACHE Executive Director


     Communities and Congregations for the Human Environment
(CACHE) is an affiliate of Global Electronic Networks: News 
& Information Services (GENIS).  It serves the Americas as 
a volunteer clearing house and information center for the 
World Wildlife Fund Network on Ethics and Education, and 
the World Wildlife Fund Network on Conservation and Religion.

     CACHE is concerned with ERTHE: the Ethical Relationship 
of Theologies and Technologies to Habitat Earth.  In pursuit of
greater awareness of the responsibilities involved in planetary
stewardship, CACHE proposes that the American Bar Association
submit an informational report and recommendation with reference
to the United States National Report on the Environment at the
annual meeting this coming August.  

     We urge the American Bar Association to recommend in its
report that a policy statement be submitted to Working Group III,
establishing a legal precedent for the recognition of ecological
atrocities as Crimes Against Humanity and the applicability of
Nuremberg Principles to prosecuting corporate officials
responsible for despoiling the environment.  

     The fact that irresponsible and malicious behavior has
routinely been allowed to vandalize the common heritage of
mankind with impunity -- indeed, to threaten the biological
foundations upon which all life on Earth depends -- is itself
indicative that the ecological crisis constitutes a breakdown 
of the international legal process.  Sanctions instituted 
under a global equivalent of our federal and state RICO
(Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations) laws may
constitute the most satisfactory immediate remedy.  
In addition, the training and empowerment of a new category 
of multidisciplinary professionals charged with the task of
functioning as Coordinating Environmental/Ethics Ombudspersons
(CE/EOs) could help institutionalize a life-affirming paradigm
for how business will be conducted in the twenty-first century.

     The Nuremberg Principles enunciate strict international
prohibitions covering both commission and complicity in Crimes
Against Humanity.  These standards remain in force regardless 
of whether an act is permitted under national law, has been
ordered by a superior, or has been committed by a person having
institutional authority or political sovereignity.  Atrocities
and offenses that constitute inhumane acts against any civilian
population are specifically cited as subject to punishment 
under international law.  Even in wartime, plunder of private 
or public property, wanton destruction and devastation 
not justified by military necessity are expressly banned.
Group conspiracy in such acts is criminalized, as well as
individual complicity.  These principles were unanimously
affirmed by the United Nations General Assembly and have been 
an accepted component of United States law for over four and 
a half decades.

     CACHE urges that Nuremberg criteria be recognized 
as applying to the actions of corporate executives and
politicians who are proven responsible for the devastation 
of lives in the pursuit of profit, as surely as they have 
been applied to such actions when performed in the name of
military expediency.

     A civilization gone berserk with the quest for short-term
economic gain threatens to bring about an ecological holocaust 
on a scale unparalleled in all the sordid history of human
malfeasance.  Many of its leaders have become blatantly
meritricious in their lust to exploit our earthly surroundings
without regard to the sustainability of a viable habitat for our
fellow species or even our own.  The cost to humanity is written
high upon the polluted walls of the heavens and punctuated by 
the holes in the stratosphere that once cradled this planet in
its gentle, protective embrace.  The case for "The Nuremberg
Trials of Century 21" is advanced on behalf of our future
grand-children and god-children struggling to survive on
tomorrow's desecrated planet.  

     Underlying all of our human freedoms is the mother root 
of all rights: the integrity of life itself.  It is this 
basic foundation of existence that is now at stake.  Can it 
be that after reviewing the statistics and extrapolations of 
the last twenty years we would not muster the only non-violent
intervention our politically creative responsibility and common
religious concern for Creation arms us with?  All around us, 
we see the piracy and squandering of irreplaceable resources.  
We confront the visible and inhalable fact of global pollution,
and the equally palpable apathy that walls off public awareness
of the lack of satisfactory action by governments everywhere. 
This complacency runs parallel to and is comparable with 
the historical record of past genocides against races and
religions.  By undermining the life support systems of the
biosphere itself, the next genocidal outrage threatens 
the entire human race with extermination.  Will we claim 
that we knew nothing of this when our descendants demand 
an explanation of our inaction?

     In view of the widespread failure of the legislative
machinery for enacting & enforcing prevention of wanton
environmental damage and preventable catastrophic deaths, 
the international legal community has a moral imperative to 

back its universal bills of rights with the compelling force 
of international law.

     A precious opportunity exists to call this matter to the
attention of the international judicial community.  On May 17,
the American Bar Association will hold its twentieth annual
Conference on the Environment.  The main topic of discussion is
an examination of the role of law in the forthcoming United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development.  UNCED 1992
will constitute an influential forum where public interest
organizations could propose new mechanisms to enforce
international agreements.

     It should be noted that almost every governmental and 
non-governmental organization in the entire world is determined
to have its input considered by the UNCED. For example, the
International Council of Scientific Unions is meeting to draw up
an agenda for science.  The formulation of a policy statement 
by the ABA would focus the forces of world law and order on the
need to extrapolate the ethical concerns voiced by the trials 
at Nuremberg to the planetary crises at hand.  The ABA could 
take on a leading role by providing the international legal
community with the necessary body of theory for addressing these
controversies.  It would introduce a powerful legal deterrent 
on behalf of future generations, at a time when it is urgently
needed.

     The magistrates of world law are called upon by CACHE to
reform the Industrial Age's policy of selling "indulgences" 
to rapacious multinational corporations, and to stop granting
what amount to "royal charters" to other people's once-
sustainable habitats.

     Following in a familiar historical pattern, the newly-made
machine age monarchs have been backed by freshly minted banking
barons who freely hand out "legal" licenses to their favorites,
much as the queens of Spain and England once did with their own. 
The bankers have paved the way for a new breed of multinational
privateers to plunder the environment for immediate return on
investment ventures, yielding immense -- and, often, immorally
gotten -- profits for a few at the expense of all who co-inhabit
this fragile planet.  At the same time, they have undermined the
genetic diversity foundations of emerging industries based upon
biotechnology, which hold the promise of sustained wealth
creation and prosperity for all.  With no questions asked and no
quarter given, they have contrived a one-way economic harvesting
of other people's seedcorn, the exhausting of the world's 
food chains, the extinction of medicinally and materially
irreplaceable storehouses of endangered flora and fauna. 
They have looted resources and devastated a priceless heritage
rightfully belonging to our children and those of all future
centuries. 


     There are no more castles and moats, forts or frontiers 
to hole up in or to mum behind and hope to fend off the attack. 
The "invasion" now takes the form of climatic change on a scale
so vast that, like the Emperor's new clothes, we are at first
given to believe on blind faith alone that it seems highly
unlikely that Mother Earth has been disrobed and is about to be
raped and our home plundered.  The shocking fact is that these
electronically resourceful barbarians are not merely at the gate
-- they are already in the bedroom!

     The enemy is well ensconced within every nation's bulwarks. 
This collusion against Creation itself has been contrived by
powerful individuals as well as multinational corporations, 
many of them more powerful than the average country, as often 
as not with the connivance of the highest ranking leaders 
of state-regulated industries and members of government.  
The despoilers have become dominant over Earth's resources
through a technological totalitarianism that disregards the 
most basic needs of their fellow humans, Earth's other creatures
and the unforgiving fragile web of life itself.

     The protective thin gaseous ozone layer that enables the
growth of our daily bread has already been catastrophically
breached.  The damage has unwisely been allowed to accumulate,
and unjustly left for our children to worry about repairing
during the century ahead.  Earth may soon be rendered permanently
unsafe for future human occupancy.  Every (soon to be destroyed)
culture and every (never to be redeemed) people of the globe
should be making ready to expel that pathological cancer from
Earth's body and steer the future of this world away from the
ecological apocalypse that looms over human destiny.

     Through "inviting debate" at the level of the world's heads
of state, America's most prestigious body of legal professionals
can make known their expert opinion on what is both an issue 
of duty and law.  Under these circumstances, as a matter of
justice grounded upon the fundamental right of species survival,
it is their constitutionally crucial mandate to call for a 
timely judicial intervention.

     CACHE-concerned-with-the-ERTHE's proposal suggests that
America's unique experience with RICO is the legal means at hand
for meeting this challenge.  RICO has been fully field-tested 
in the United States.  It has the potential to serve as the
foundation document for an official convention of world-class
jurists to refine an international legal technology for enactment
and enforcement of timely global emergency measures.  CACHE-ERTHE
asks America's world class jurists and scholars to put aside
their preoccupations and band together in common concern 
for the long-term survival of Creation.  Our situation requires
meaningful United Nations' treaties -- delivering teeth, not 
lip service -- with sanctions enforced in an effective manner 
by the highest international tribunals.        

     Saddam Hussein is clearly indictable as a particularly
offensive example of this new breed of global terrorists.  
He, above all others in past history, has pushed -- if not the
nuclear button, which he surely would have if he could -- the
lever that unleashed an eco-catastrophe equivalent to the effects
of the Hiroshima bombing.  As such, without reservation, the
civilized world must indict Saddam Hussein by every available
legal means.  America has a unique and highly workable legal
instrument for dealing with such violators; initially federal,
now adapted into many of the states.  It would seem expedient 
to expand that American concept of RICO from the national into
the international arena, and use it to bring Saddam Hussein 
to justice.

     The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 
in concert with the judges of the courts of New York City, 
should act now to endorse CACHE-ERTHE's initiative before the
American Bar Association's annual meeting this August 12-14 
in Atlanta, Georgia.  Endorsement through a policy statement
inviting debate and reformation by the global law and order
community would entail emphasizing a need for the passage of
long-range, worldwide "environmental bills of rights."  It would
portray the appropriate use of RICO-like treaties and compelling
sanctions as a crucial responsibility and the duty of world
leaders.  An ad hoc committee should be formed by members of 
the ABA's House of Delegates to present this novel legal theory
at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED) scheduled for June 1-12, 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

     UNCED will be the largest gathering in history 
of heads of state under an "Earth Summit" global forum.  
An ABA policy statement would proclaim to the world's 
leaders that America's legal experts are of the opinion 
that unconscionable profiteering which jeopardizes the 
global community's future survival must be restrained by 
an international standard providing for legal intervention.  
That standard must provide the harshest possible criminal
sanctions, and most plausibly humbling civil sanctions against
those who jeopardize the sustainability of life on Earth. 

     Furthermore, in addition to swift intervention aimed 
at forestalling the imminent threat already cited, there is 
also a need to formalize the institutions of a new paradigm 
for global commerce; one that will assure long-term ecological
security as a guiding principle of standard business practice.

     To this end, CACHE-ERTHE proposes to train, under 
United Nations University auspices, an international body 
of civil servants acting as Coordinating Environmental/Ethics
Ombudspersons.  These officers would be assigned to advise and
assist the Board of Directors of multinational corporations in
complying with their ecological responsibilities.  The CE/EO
would routinely report to the board on a monthly basis and have
immediate access on an emergency basis.  
     Annual impact statements would henceforth be issued
detailing the cost/benefit projections of proposed corporate
policies that would incur liabilities to the global community. 
Those persons responsible for setting policy would always be
advised of the civil costs of restoring environmental damage, 
as well as the criminal penalties that would accrue from causing
irreparable harm.  No longer could it be claimed that they did
not know.

     The CE/EO would operate within the constraints of
professional confidentiality regarding proprietary information. 
He or she would be directly answerable to, and dischargeable 
by, the Board of Directors.  However, the cause for any such
discharge would be promptly investigated, in the interests 
of maintaining the office as a paragon of incorruptibility,
armored against both internal politics and external pressures. 
Obviously, the highest discretion  -- on a par with that demanded
from top-ranking diplomats -- is inherently part of the calling
to such a profession.  Institutionally, the position would be 
a cross between a tenured academic and an international civil
servant.  Conceptually, we hope to ordain the Coordinating 
Environmental/Ethics Ombudspersons as philosopher-guardians of
ecological wisdom, intended to function as priestly-gardeners 
of a thriving global estate.

     Such innovations might yet stay future generations from
cursing today's world leaders as the despised perpetrators of
their misery.  We will surely be judged by those who come 
after us according to how we respond to this emergency and what
remedies we undertake now on their behalf.  If we continue upon
our present course, our surviving grand- and god-children of the
21st century will surely be out to "serve papers" on our graves.
(That is, if acid rain hasn't eaten away our headstones by then!) 

     Perhaps the time is ripe to stage "The Nuremberg Trials of
the 21st Century" today, as a mock class action suit envisioned
on behalf of our descendants.  And will we not all -- especially
those who, as legal professionals, have the sworn duty to abide
the truth and uphold the law -- be justifiably indictable as
accomplices to the few ecologically genocidal and ultimately
suicidal "socio-pathetic" members of our species who now enjoy 
a destructive hegemony over the future of this world?

     Our creative resonance with having both the noblest range 
of compassion and the vilest range of cruelty of any species
brings us to the crossroads of what can only be a futuristic
trial of faith, in facing the species transmogrifying
evolutionary metamorphosis that will unfold during the new
millenium.  Will we choose to continue in the direction
stretching from Genghis Khan to Adolf Hitler to Saddam Hussein,
terminating as barbarian cyborgs?  Or will we decide to follow 
in the footsteps of Einstein's fundamental faith in freedom,
harmoniously armed with the gentle strength of Gandhi's belief 
in the ultimate power of a universal reverence for life? 
     For legal professionals to take a strong stand on this issue
is both a duty and an honor.  Indeed, by doing so, they might
simultaneously be reversing their nomination for an environmental
"Ignoble Prize" earned by their role thus far as power-brokers of
global pollution.  Redeemed by deeds as well as words, they would
establish a new category of secular sainthood who those, as heads
of state, pledge themselves and their people to become stewards 
of the "ERTHE" forevermore. 

s to present this novel legal theory
at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Devel