The massive slaughter of civilians in the 1930s and 1940s and the accompanying horrors of World War II and the Holocaust produced a worldwide commitment to preserving peace, opening the way for the creation of the United Nations (UN) in 1944–1945. The United Nations was dedicated to world peace, and its charter affirmed that respect for human rights was fundamental to peace.

The United States was an early and forceful champion of domestic and international human rights law in the immediate aftermath of World War II. By leading the 1945 international tribunal at Nuremberg, which tried Nazis for crimes against humanity, the United States was breaking new ground in determining the role of international human rights law in the conduct of national politics. The Nuremberg trials established the criminality of those who violated basic rights, even when these violators were high government officials acting in their official capacities...