Subsections
The Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion publishes two distinct scholarly subsections—The Nuremberg Project and New Developments—each designed to advance rigorous academic dialogue at the intersection of law, history, policy, and religion.
The Nuremberg Project showcases scholarly commentary on documents from the Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection at Cornell Law Library. For each note, the Journal selects a historical document and invites experts from any discipline to analyze it. The project connects original Nuremberg records with modern legal and ethical perspectives, offering readers a direct dialogue between history and contemporary scholarship.
New Developments provides timely analysis of significant legal changes from the past year, with a focus on their impact on religion and the law. Topics have ranged from employment discrimination and domestic violence to trademark issues, judicial trends, and global policy shifts. This section helps readers track current events and emerging legal debates.
The Nuremberg Project
The Nuremberg Project is a collection of scholarly articles analyzing and commenting on The Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection. The Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion chooses one of the several thousand documents housed within the collection and asks scholars to write a comment on the article. The scholar can be from any area of academia or the legal profession. It is an exciting opportunity for collaboration between historical documents and modern thought.
The Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection is housed at the Cornell University School of Law Library. The documents from the collection consist of nearly 150 bound volumes of Nuremberg Trial transcripts and other documents from the personal archives of General William J. Donovan (pictured below), who served as special assistant to the Chief Counsel during the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg. The tribunal was convened after World War II to hold the principal perpetrators of the atrocities of the war accountable for their actions. The collection contains evidentiary analyses prepared by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), trial briefs of various defendants, translations of Nazi orders and so much more. The collection is an incredibly rich assortment of documents that details the events of that time.
By agreement, the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion can choose any article from the collection as the basis for scholarly debate. Next, the journal editors will solicit comments from scholars based on the chosen article. Once complete, the scholarly articles will be published on the journal website. Each set of articles is called an Installment and within each Installment, a link is provided to the base document that is housed at the Cornell Law Library. This format allows readers to read the original article as well as all the comments pertaining to it, giving the reader the full effect of the written debate.
The educational and scholarly opportunities contained within the collection are innumerable. Even in today’s changing world, there are significant lessons to be learned from studying this history. The Journal of Law and Religion is excited to promote and facilitate this debate.
Find more information on the Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection at Cornell University Library Digital Collections
New Developments
New Developments features timely commentary and analysis on significant legal changes from the past 12 months. These pieces are ideal for examining shifts under new presidential administrations, broader trends in global policy, and the impact of current events on religion and the law.
Past submissions have explored developments at the intersection of religion and domestic violence, employment discrimination, trademark law, judicial composition, and cannabis regulation. New Developments has also served as a forum for discussing the evolution of social issues, religious practices, and global political dynamics.
For more information on the Nuremberg Project or the New Developments Subsections, please contact:
Dalton Guillory at dkg62@scarletmail.rutgers.edu