body: In a book that I'm reading about the Nuremberg Trials, I noted the following:
  
  
  
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  > A number of minority positions have been cited as representative of NMT, for example in The Presbyterian Church of Sudan vs Talisman Energy, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2009 relied solely on the Ministries Tribunal acquittal of Karls Rasche, the head of Dresdner Bank for the proposition that "International Law at the time of the Nuremberg Trials recognised aiding and abetting liability only for purposeful conduct.' In fact, Rasche was the only defendent in *any* of the trials held to this standard; not only did every other tribunal apply a knowledge standard for aiding and abetting, the Ministries tribunal did so for *other* defendents. Regardless, the purposive standard is the second circuits official standard, sounding what one scholar called 'the death knell for most corporate liability claims under the Alien Tort Statute.' 
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  To which the author notes:
  
  
  
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  > Had this study been available then the court may have reached a very different conclusion. 
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  This seems very strange, almost like a schoolboy error. I mean, *why* should the only defendent indicted upon economic crimes be held to a different standard to all the other defendents? It appears to be an outright example of bias, especially when the presiding judge in his report to President Truman in June 1945 emphasised the need to prosecute *individuals* in the 'financial, industrial and economic life of Germany who are proveable ... to be common criminals.'
  
  
  **Q. Why was Rasche held to a 'purposeful conduct' criteria unlike every other defendents in the trials who were held to a 'knowledge standard.' Was this, in fact, an example of bias by the judges?**
  
  
  **Q. What are the major differences between 'purposeful conduct' and a 'knowledge standard'?**
  
  
  **Q. Why has it been said that holding to such a standard 'sounds a death-knell to all corporate liability claims under the Alien Tort Statute'. Why in particular to the Alien Tort Statute and not more widely?**
  
  
  
title: What is 'purposeful conduct'?