Wielding International Law as a Sword: The Growing Case for Prosecuting Ahmadinejad for Inciting Genocide

I just saw this report from last week released by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs laying out the legal case for seeking the prosecution of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for inciting genocide against Jews and Israel. The report has some impressive names attached to it, most notably to me anyway, is Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel (hat tip Jeff Jacoby)

Based on the facts in the report and in the public sphere, I am confident that there is a good case against Ahmadinejad. I do think there are some dangers to this strategy. First, as I noted before, if folks want the International Criminal Court to act, it almost certainly needs to act via a Security Council Resolution. Good luck.

Moreover, as a strategic matter, Israel’s supporters would open up Israel to similar legal tactics. This is not to say that there is moral equivalence between Ahmadinejad’s ravings and statements made by any prominent Israelis, but I’m not as confident in the ability of existing international legal institutions to sort out this equivalence.

Still, the whole report is worth a read as an effective blend of legal analysis and moral condemnation. I’m skeptical this type of blend can succeed, but this is certainly a pretty good effort.