MR. LAFOLLETTE: First, we believe that this Tribunal has the right and power to decide all questions of law, other than the “criminal nature” of those groups or organizations which the International Military Tribunal found to be criminal, and as distinguished from the ultimate facts set out in Ordinance No. 7, article X, as original questions of law which it has the right to decide, contrary to the decisions reached by the International Military Tribunal, if it is convinced that a proper interpretation of the Charter and Law No. 10, or of the ultimate facts to be inferred from the evidence in this case, require it logically, and therefore, by the exercise of intellectual integrity, to reach a contrary decision. We do not deny the persuasive authority of the decision and judgment of the International Military Tribunal, but we point out that between the International Military Tribunal and this Tribunal the relationship of a court of superior jurisdiction to that of one of inferior jurisdiction does not exist in fact or in law. Therefore the decision and judgment of the International Military Tribunal is not binding upon this Court; except to the extent fixed by said article X and the other provisions which are referred to. Second, from the standpoint of policy the prosecution believes it owes it not only to this Tribunal but to the world to establish the concurrent jurisdiction and therefore the equal dignity of this Tribunal and of the proceedings before it, with those before the International Military Tribunal, which preceded it. We try here war criminals charged with the commission of international crimes, codified as such, by the same nations which codified the crimes for which the International Military Tribunal tried the defendants indicted and arraigned before it. This is not an American side show, national in character. On the contrary, it is the avowed program of the Government of the United States to carry on the obligation assumed at Moscow in 1943 by living up to the inter-Allied agreements made at Potsdam in 1945. Finally, we assert the high character of this Tribunal and therefore of the proceeding before it, in order that we ourselves may understand the high judicial character of our actions and the obligations of candor and ethical conduct which these proceedings of necessity impose upon counsel appearing before this bar. We try these defendants, therefore, in a Court whose authoritative source and whose jurisdiction over subject matter and persons is equal to, and concurrent with, the International Military Tribunal (IMT). We try them for crimes, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, which were unlawful, as alleged in the indictment, when committed because they were in violation of the “universal moral judgment of mankind” as attested by the judicial decision of the International Military Tribunal.