Eichmann Trial Seen As Having ‘undesirable Effect’ on International Law

The allegation that Israel’s decision to try Adolf Eichmann in an Israeli court “had an undesirable effect on the development of international law” is made in a report issued today by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, which has been set up by the Fund for the Republic to clarify basic constitutional questions.

The report was prepared by Yosal Rogat, a specialist in constitutional law, who last year joined the staff of the Center. Previously he taught in the political science department of the University of California. In issuing the report, the Center emphasized that the author is responsible for his statements of fact and expressions of opinion, and the Center is responsible “only for determining that the material should be presented to the public as a contribution to discussion of the free society.”

Mr. Rogat argues that the Eichmann trial “should have been held before an international tribunal, if it should have been held at all.” He claims that “the very act of trying Eichmann in an international tribunal would have had desirable consequences for the development of international criminal law. Such a tribunal, he says, would in some sense have been a successor to the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal; it would, therefore, have been better able to assimilate Eichmann to the other Nuremberg defendants and to avoid focusing over specifically on Eichmann.”

Mr. Rogat feels that Israel, after preparing its case against Eichmann, should have asked for an international tribunal: then, in the event the request was denied, Israel would have had a clearer justification for conducting the trial herself. But the Israel Government “neither desired, nor even considered, such a solution,” declares the report.