Russian leaders call for international investigation into US atomic bombings of Japan

[KingCharlemagne]

33. I knew about Geneva and its proscriptions wrt POWs and refugees. I was referring instead

to the great crime known as "The Final Solution" and suggesting that the statutory authority under which the leading Nazis were tried and convicted for it was cooked up after the war was over. I agree with you that prosecutors could instead have chosen any individual homicide or group thereof and prosecuted under existing statutes. But the Allies chose not to.

Because the Final Solution was sui generis, conveners of the Nuremberg Tribunals could feel justified in creating a governing statutory authority after the fact. The Nazi regime's behavior was so odious as to offend the decent opinion(s) of mankind. But the conveners did so after the fact, let us not forget.

So, wrt to the topic at hand in the OP, the question becomes whether the dropping of fission weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki likewise is sui generis and so offensive to the decent opinion(s) of mankind, as to override the general rules against ex post facto law. While dropping the atomic bomb may indeed be the former, there are many reasons why it could, would and should not be the latter, especially if the decent opinion(s) of mankind include the opinions of the peoples of Asia's mainland and non-Japanese archipelagos. Japanese imperial militarism had to be smashed and, whether that smashing came from a long, drawn-out conventional campaign or a short and shocking nuclear campaign, to me matters as much or more as validating delicate sensibilities about the horrors of nuclear weapons. (I get huge amounts of shit from some of my Socialist and Communist comrades for this position, as you can probably imagine.)