The International War Crimes Tribunal thus concluded: … that in subjecting a civilian population and civilian objectives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to intensive and systematic bombing, the United States has committed a war crime.
Beyond the condemnation of this crime as a whole, the Tribunal is firm in stating that fragmentation bombs of type CBU, whose only reason for existence is to strike the civilian population at a maximum, must be considered as weapons forbidden by the laws and practices of war.
Confronted with the resistance of a people which intends to peacefully and freely exercise its right to complete independence and territorial integrity (United Nations resolution of December 14, 1960), the United States Government has given these war crimes, by their extensiveness and their frequency, the character of crimes against humanity (Article 6 of the charter of Nuremberg).
These crimes cannot merely be considered as the consequences of a war of aggression of which they condition the pursuit.
Because of their systematic use in order to check the fundamental rights of the Vietnamese people, their unity and will for peace, the crimes against humanity of which the United States Government has rendered itself guilty become a fundamental element of the crime of aggression, supreme crime including all the others, according to the terms of the sentence of Nuremberg.—International War Crimes Tribunal, 1966
