In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Criminal Law

20 Apr

Still holding out hope that the Obama administration will prosecute the architects of the torture regime?  Stop: The Obama administration opposes any effort to prosecute those in the Justice Department who drafted legal memos authorizing harsh interrogations at secret CIA prisons, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said yesterday. Some analysts and lawmakers have called for investigations and possible prosecution of...

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20 Apr

Words of wisdom from Tommy Crocker at The Faculty Lounge: Comments today by Gen. Michael Hayden make clear a further reason why the Obama Administration should name a special prosecutor to investigate potential war crimes in light of everything we know, and have recently learned, about CIA interrogations of "high value al Qaeda detainees."  Gen. Hayden has played a vocal role...

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18 Apr

More evidence that the CIA interrogators did not rely in good faith on the OLC memos: Bradbury's 30 May 2005 memo acknowledges (p. 37) that the CIA Inspector General's report found that the CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah 83 times in August 2002.  That regime far surpasses the CIA's own internal guidelines...

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17 Apr

I'm not particularly surprised, but I'm still disappointed. Israel's ostensible justification is that the UNHRC resolution that created the fact-finding mission is biased, because it only asked Goldstone to investigate Israeli war crimes. That was a ridiculous move on the UNHRC's part, to be sure -- but one of the very first things Goldstone did was to make...

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16 Apr

I argued below that "good faith reliance" on OLC opinions does not justify promising CIA interrogators that they will not be prosecuted for their criminal acts.  With regard to waterboarding, it is important to note that it seems clear some of the interrogators cannot even argue good faith reliance.  Consider the following footnote from Bradbury's May 10, 2005, memo, discussing...

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16 Apr

I mentioned a couple of days ago that the case against the Bush Six was likely to go forward.  Unfortunately, rumors of the case's survival turn out to be somewhat exaggerated: Spain's attorney general said he'll seek dismissal of an investigation of Bush administration officials for alleged torture of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prisoners. Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido said Thursday the claim against...

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15 Apr

I in no way believe that Deb exhibits “virtually pathological level of tribal loyalty and monumental intellectual dishonesty,” and I doubt that Glenn does either.  That said, I am not sure that Deb's (clearly initial) thoughts on the Obama administration avoids Glenn's basic critique -- that Obama supporters justify his increasingly Bush-like policies by de-emphasizing substance in favor of personality...

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14 Apr

In his new book Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror, Mahmood Mamdani claims that, "in its present form, the call for justice is really a slogan that masks a big power agenda to recolonize Africa."  There is more than a grain of truth to that; I think my friend Tony Anghie's seminal work Imperialism, Sovereignty, and...

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14 Apr

This according to the ever-reliable Scott Horton: Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced...

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10 Apr

Many thanks to Derek Jinks for his kind words on the article and deeply incisive comments. I will do my best to reply sequentially to the provocative issues he’s raised. 1. I agree that conceptual overlap of ad bellum and in bello does not necessarily pose a problem for IHL. Indeed, as Jinks says, some discrepancy based on the nature of the...

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