"Chucky" Taylor, son of former Liberian President (and current war crimes defendant) Charles Taylor, was convicted Friday in Florida federal court of committing torture when he was with his father in Liberia. What makes Taylor's conviction news (although only news overseas, apparently, since it didn't make any of the leading U.S. newspapers) is that it is the first conviction under the...
Obama has an aunt who is present in the United States in violation of the immigration laws. So what? Lots of American citizens and legal immigrants have undocumented alien family members. See this report from the Urban Institute on so-called mixed-status families, that is, nuclear families in which some members are citizens, some not. For example, the study estimates that...
At risk of exhibiting the same cynicism of which Stendhal himself was accused, a famous passage on politics and newspapers and literature from The Red and the Black, Book Two, chapter 52, "The Discussion": Here the author would have liked to insert a page of dots. 'That will not look pretty,' says the publisher, 'and for so frivolous a work not...
Interested in how popular culture constructs narratives about torture? Fascinated by the ticking time-bomb scenario? Like Battlestar Galactica and/or 24? Then do I have an essay for you, written by my friend and colleague John Ip: This article is about two different narratives or accounts of torture. Each narrative signifies a certain view about the legality and wisdom of employing torture...
As part of its ongoing efforts to educate Americans about the national shame that is Guantanamo Bay, Amnesty International is touring the country with a replica of David Hicks' cell: AIUSA’s prison cell replica includes a steel toilet, florescent lights and a sliding metal door. In addition, visitors may record a 30-second reaction video that will be posted on youtube.com and...
I have posted a substantially rewritten version of my essay "Situational Gravity Under the Rome Statute" on SSRN. Here, again, is the abstract: The ICC is often derided as the "African Criminal Court." That criticism cannot easily be dismissed: all of the Office of the Prosecutor's (OTP) current investigations focus on African states -- Uganda, the Central African Republic, the Democratic...
