CONSERVATIVE
New Forest East

DEFENCE (FRONT BENCH) – ARMED FORCES BILL - 22 May 2006

DEFENCE (FRONT BENCH) – ARMED FORCES BILL - 22 May 2006

[Mr Angus MacNeil: ... We have the concept of just war, and importantly, we have the Nuremberg principles of the 1950s, which placed a responsibility on each person engaged in a war to assess for themselves exactly the orders that they receive.]

Dr Julian Lewis: This is the second time that the Nuremberg Law has come up, and the Hon. Gentleman ought to bear in mind the difference between waging an illegal war and doing illegal acts in the course of fighting a war. I do not think that anyone at Nuremberg suggested that any individual German soldier, sailor or airman was guilty of waging an illegal war, although many of them may have been guilty of war crimes in the context of that war, irrespective of whether or not it was legal.

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[Mr Gerald Howarth: ... I also welcome the Minister [The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tom Watson)] to his new position and congratulate him on his post. He has had something of a baptism of fire in having to deal straightaway with a 300-clause Bill, which has a huge amount of detail. We wish him well, and I am trying to assist him. Clearly, the fire is coming at him from his Benches rather than from the Liberal Democrat Benches, and it is certainly not coming from the Conservative Benches.]

Dr Lewis: Red on red!