International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, guiding principles (1947 -- 1950) | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

The International Military Tribunal (IMT) was given authority to hear four counts of criminal complaints: conspiracy, crimes against peace, War Crimes, and crimes against humanity. Count I encompassed conspiracies to commit crimes against peace, whereas count II covered persons who committed such crimes in their individual capacities. Crimes against peace included the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of aggressive war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances. Crimes against peace differed from other war crimes, the tribunal said, in that they represented the "accumulated evil" of the Axis powers.

Count III consisted of war crimes committed in violation of the laws and customs of war as accepted and practiced around the world. This count aimed to punish those individuals who were responsible for issuing or executing orders that resulted in the plundering of public and private property, the wanton destruction of European cities and villages, the murder of captured Allied soldiers, and the Conscription of civilians in occupied territories for deportation to German labor camps.