'Under the current laws of war, if you know you are going to impact civilians, you must provide warning, and you must take precautions to avoid harming civilians to the extent possible. 'There is no question that a dropping of a large nuclear weapon amongst the civilian population is a war crime,' Harvard Law School professor Gabriella Blum says.

Some prominent experts in the law of war are also reexamining the Hiroshima attack. 'Using nuclear power to wage war is today, more than ever, a crime,' the pontiff declared, adding it was immoral even to possess nuclear weapons. Pope Francis took a more critical stance during a November visit to that same memorial in Hiroshima. 'That memory allows us to fight complacency. 6, 1945, must never fade,' Obama told a crowd gathered near the shell of the sole building left standing where the bomb exploded. He offered condolences, but pointedly did not offer apologies.

And as they collapsed, their stomach burst open.'įour years ago, President Barack Obama became the first American head of state to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. 'Parts of their bodies were missing, and some were carrying their own eyeballs in their hands. 'They were covered with blood and burned and blackened and swollen, and the flesh was hanging from the bones,' the atomic blast survivor recalled. Parallels A Survivor's Tale: How Hiroshima Shaped A Japanese-American Family

Atomic bomb on japan