Article 17. The Tribunal shall have the power:
| (a) | to summon witnesses to the Trial and to require their attendance and testimony and to put questions to them, |
| (b) | to interrogate any defendant, |
| (c) | to require the production of documents and other evidentiary material, |
| (d) | to administer oaths to witnesses, |
| (e) | to appoint officers for the carrying out of any task designated by the Tribunal including the power to have evidence taken on commission. |
Article 18. The Tribunal shall:
| (a) | confine the Trial strictly to an expeditious hearing of the issues raised by the charges, |
| (b) | take strict measures to prevent any action which will cause unreasonable delay, and rule out irrelevant issues and statements of any kind whatsoever, |
| (c) | deal summarily with any contumacy, imposing appropriate punishment, including exclusion of any defendant or his counsel from some or all further proceedings, but without prejudice to the determination of the charges. |
Article 19. The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value.
Article 20. The Tribunal may require to be informed of the nature of any evidence before it is offered so that it may rule upon the relevance thereof.
Article 21. The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof. It shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United Nations, including the acts and documents of the committees set up in the various Allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and the records and findings of military or other Tribunals of any of the United Nations.
Article 22. The permanent seat of the Tribunal shall be in Berlin. The first meetings of the members of the Tribunal and of the Chief Prosecutors shall be held at Berlin in a place to be designated by the Control Council for Germany. The first trial shall be held at Nuremberg, and any subsequent trials shall be held at such places as the Tribunal may decide.
Article 23. One or more of the Chief Prosecutors may take part in the prosecution at each trial. The function of any Chief Prosecutor may be discharged by him personally, or by any person or persons authorized by him.
The function of counsel for a defendant may be discharged at the defendant’s request by any counsel professionally qualified to conduct cases before the Courts of his own country, or by any other person who may be specially authorized thereto by the Tribunal.
Article 24. The proceedings at the Trial shall take the following course:
| (a) | The Indictment shall be read in court. |
| (b) | The Tribunal shall ask each defendant whether he pleads “guilty” or “not guilty”. |
| (c) | The Prosecution shall make an opening statement. |
| (d) | The Tribunal shall ask the Prosecution and the Defense what evidence (if any) they wish to submit to the Tribunal, and the Tribunal shall rule upon the admissibility of any such evidence. |
| (e) | The witnesses for the Prosecution shall be examined and after that the witnesses for the Defense. Thereafter such rebutting evidence as may be held by the Tribunal to be admissible shall be called by either the Prosecution or the Defense. |
| (f) | The Tribunal may put any question to any witness and to any defendant, at any time. |
| (g) | The Prosecution and the Defense shall interrogate and may cross-examine any witnesses and any defendant who gives testimony. |
| (h) | The Defense shall address the Court. |
| (i) | The Prosecution shall address the Court. |
| (j) | Each Defendant may make a statement to the Tribunal. |
| (k) | The Tribunal shall deliver judgment and pronounce sentence. |
Article 25. All official documents shall be produced, and all court proceedings conducted, in English, French, and Russian, and in the language of the defendant. So much of the record and of the proceedings may also be translated into the language of any country in which the Tribunal is sitting, as the Tribunal considers desirable in the interests of justice and public opinion.
VI. JUDGMENT AND SENTENCE
Article 26. The judgment of the Tribunal as to the guilt or the innocence of any defendant shall give the reasons on which it is based, and shall be final and not subject to review.
Article 27. The Tribunal shall have the right to impose upon a defendant on conviction, death or such other punishment as shall be determined by it to be just.
Article 28. In addition to any punishment imposed by it, the Tribunal shall have the right to deprive the convicted person of any stolen property and order its delivery to the Control Council for Germany.
Article 29. In case of guilt, sentences shall be carried out in accordance with the orders of the Control Council for Germany, which may at any time reduce or otherwise alter the sentences, but may not increase the severity thereof. If the Control Council for Germany, after any defendant has been convicted and sentenced, discovers fresh evidence which, in its opinion, would found a fresh charge against him, the Council shall report accordingly to the Committee established under Article 14 hereof, for such action as they may consider proper, having regard to the interests of justice.
VII. EXPENSES
Article 30. The expenses of the Tribunal and of the trials, shall be charged by the Signatories against the funds allotted for maintenance of the Control Council for Germany.
11 Comma substituted in place of semicolon by Protocol of 6 October 1945.
PROTOCOL RECTIFYING DISCREPANCY
IN TEXT OF CHARTER
Whereas an Agreement and Charter regarding the Prosecution of War Criminals was signed in London on the 8th August 1945, in the English, French, and Russian languages;
And whereas a discrepancy has been found to exist between the originals of Article 6, paragraph (c), of the Charter in the Russian language, on the one hand, and the originals in the English and French languages, on the other, to wit, the semicolon in Article 6, paragraph (c), of the Charter between the words “war” and “or”, as carried in the English and French texts, is a comma in the Russian text;
And whereas it is desired to rectify this discrepancy:
NOW, THEREFORE, the undersigned, signatories of the said Agreement on behalf of their respective Governments, duly authorized thereto, have agreed that Article 6, paragraph (c), of the Charter in the Russian text is correct, and that the meaning and intention of the Agreement and Charter require that the said semicolon in the English text should be changed to a comma, and that the French text should be amended to read as follows:
| (c) | LES CRIMES CONTRE L’HUMANITE: c’est-à-dire l’assassinat, l’extermination, la réduction en esclavage, la déportation, et tout autre acte inhumain commis contre toutes populations civiles, avant ou pendant la guerre, ou bien les persécutions pour des motifs politiques, raciaux, ou religieux, lorsque ces actes ou persécutions, qu’ils aient constitué ou non une violation du droit interne du
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