Aron Naumovich Trainin Moshe Aron Naumovich Trainin Moshe Aron Nahimovich Trainin (russian: Аро́н Нау́мович Трайнин, Мовша-Арон Нау́мович Трайнин, Мовша-Арон Нохимович Трайнин, translit=Aron Naumovič Trajnin, translit-std=ISO, he, משה אהרן נחומאָוויטש טריינין) (, in
Vitebsk,
Russian Empire – 7 February 1957) was a Soviet
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
and
criminologist.
Trainin attended the of
Kalúga, graduating in 1903, the same year he
matriculated to
Moscow State University (), whence he graduated in 1908.
At university he participated in the russian: студе́нчество, translit="studénčestvo", translit-std=ISO, label=none, links=no, cat=no,
student activist movement, during the pivotal, though failed,
1905 Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
.
After graduation Trainin worked in the MGU Department of Criminal Law, on track for a professorship, but he would resign his position in 1912 in connection with the , in which a great many academics resigned out of solidarity with the targets of
Imperial Education Minister Lev Aristidovich Kasso.
From 1912 to 1918 he taught at the in Moscow.
From 1916 to 1917 he was an editor of the
Jewish newspaper
A Jewish newspaper is a newspaper which focuses on topics of special interest to Jews, although Jewish newspapers also include articles on topics of a more general interest as well. Political orientations and religious orientations cover a wide r ...
'', ru, Новый путь (газета), preserve=1.
He was a founding member of the Moscow chapter of the
Political Red Cross
Political Red Cross was the name borne by several organizations that provided aid to political prisoners in the Russian Empire and later in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union.
The first organization using this name was founded in St. Petersburg i ...
,
which was formed in 1918.
Trainin came to prominence in the inter-war years as critical of the
League of Nations for not doing enough to prosecute the those who waged war against peace. Scholars
Francine Hirsch
Francine Hirsch is an American historian, specializing in modern Europe with a focus on Russia and the Soviet Union. She is a recipient of the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize for her book, ''Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of t ...
of the
University of Wisconsin–Madison,
Kirsten Sellars of the
National University of Singapore
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in the c ...
, and Michelle Jean Penn of the
University of Colorado Boulder credit him with establishing the international legal concept of "
crimes against peace".
In 1937 Trainin published his 'The Defense of Peace and Criminal Law' in which he castigated the League of Nations for failing to make aggressive war a criminal offense and not providing for any sort of international court to punish aggressors. Along with
Major-General Iona Timofeevich Nikitchenko, who also served as a judge, Trainin was a signatory for the Soviet Union to the charter of the
Allies of World War II War Crimes Executive Committee which established the
Nüremberg International Military Tribunal for "the prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the
European Axis",
[Typed original]
at Truman Library
The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and resting place of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States (1945–1953), his wife Bess and daughter Margaret, and is located on U.S. Highwa ...
. known in Russian as the "London Agreement", ''.
Trainin played a central role in establishing the legal framework for the Nuremberg Trials. He proposed that a new legal concept, "the crime of aggression", be used to hold Nazi Germany's military and political leadership accountable for the numerous countries they invaded and occupied. Along with the other jurists involved in crafting the Nuremberg Charter, Trainin was influential in establishing the new legal field of international law.
Despite this foundational role, his contributions are often ignored or forgotten by Western scholars, largely as a result of Cold War perceptions of the Soviet Union. More recent scholarship has begun to acknowledge the influence of Soviet legal thought on international law, arguing that Trainin's contributions must be taken seriously, alongside an ongoing recognition of the crimes of the Soviet regime.
Trainin later became a Corresponding member of the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946). In 1947 and 1948 he served as vice-president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. His major works were ''On Complicity'' (1941) and ''Elements of a Crime According to Soviet Criminal Law'' (1951).
In 1945, in ''Fundamental Principles of Soviet Criminal Law'', he wrote,
Trainin was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor.
See also
*
History of the Jews in the Soviet Union
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trainin, Aron Naumovich
1883 births
1957 deaths
20th-century jurists
20th-century Russian lawyers
Criminology educators
Academics from the Russian Empire
Editors from the Russian Empire
Jews from the Russian Empire
Lawyers from the Russian Empire
Jewish educators
Jewish human rights activists
Jewish writers from the Russian Empire
Jewish journalists
Jewish non-fiction writers
Russian legal scholars
Russian newspaper editors
Russian professors
Soviet Jews
Soviet jurists
Moscow State University alumni
Moscow State University faculty
People from Kaluga
Writers from Moscow