Following the rules established for the Nuremberg trials, accused “Class A” war criminals were held accountable for committing “crimes against peace” and “crimes against humanity” that had no precedent in international law. B. V. A. Röling, the Dutch judge at the Tokyo trials, later acknowledged the many “unfair features” and “grave errors” of these proceedings, but still expressed faith that the trials contributed “to a legal development that mankind urgently needed.”
