Legal Clarity. Clearly defined water property rights provide legal certainty for users, reducing conflicts over water access and usage. This clarity is essential for planning and investment in water-dependent activities.
Legal Clarity. The third, and related, cluster of excuses concerned the clarity of the law that governed a defendant’s actions. Although the Hostage tribunal condemned the Nazis execution of civilians hostages and reprisal prisoners, it also criticized “[t]he failure of the nations of the world to deal specifically with the problem of hostages and reprisals by convention, treaty, or otherwise, after the close of World War I.” The resulting legal uncertainty, according to the Tribunal, “mitigate[d] to some extent the seriousness of the offense.”104 The Flick tribunal, by contrast, focused on domestic law instead of international law. It held that although the maxim ignorantia legis nihil excusat applied to both international and domestic law, a defendant’s failure to understand the domestic law of a state other than his own – in this case, Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxx’x knowledge of French property law – could be considered in mitigation.105 97 High Command, XI TWC 567 (xxx Xxxxxxxx); Hostage, XI TWC 1280, 1299 (Xxxxxx, Xxxxxx); Xxxx, Supplemental Judgment, V TWC 129 (Xxxxxxxxxx).
