Pope Benedict XVI's address at the United Nations General Assembly last week is definitely worth a read for anyone concerned about human rights. Here is an interesting excerpt on the natural law underpinnings of all human rights: This reference to human dignity, which is the foundation and goal of the responsibility to protect, leads us to the theme we are...
Since being unanimously acquitted by the ICTR Appeals Chamber in 2006, Andre Ntagerura has lived as a virtual prisoner in a UN safehouse in Arusha, unable to find a country that will take him. Last November, he filed a motion asking the ICTR to order Canada, his first choice, to grant him asylum. On Wednesday, the Court decided...
I realize that Bluebook bashing is something of a varsity sport among legal academics. And yes, much of the Bluebook's arcana is profoundly annoying. But you know what? I'll take that arcana over social science citation any day. I've been writing another "cognitive psychology of [insert concept here]" essay — mens rea, this time — and...
Last week State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger delivered an important speech at Vanderbilt Law School on Alien Tort Statute litigation. The speech was a fascinating analysis of the future of ATS litigation, particularly its costs and benefits. To my knowledge, the speech is the first comprehensive statement ever by a senior Administration official, Republican or Democratic, about...
I am indebted to Professor Gregory Gordon not only for his comments now, but for his own published work on incitement to genocide, and for fruitful debates that we are continuing here. As he knows, I disagree with his contention that the ICTR jurisprudence has identified or even “gleaned” as he puts it, a four-part test for incitement to genocide....
[Gregory Gordon is Professor of Law, University of North Dakota School of Law.] I would like to begin by thanking Opinio Juris for inviting us to have this important discussion here about the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide. I would also like to congratulate Susan Benesch on her excellent article regarding this verbal harbinger and...
Professor Mark Drumbl has put his finger on a key conundrum: that early, “entrepreneurial” speech offers the best opportunity for genocide prevention because it is the speech that primes a society for genocide, but it is also far more difficult to define than blatant incitement, uttered on the brink of genocide. The problem was beautifully captured in metaphor by a...
[Chimène Keitner is Associate Professor of Law, UC Hastings Law School.] I’m delighted to join this conversation about Susan Benesch’s analysis of the international crime of incitement to genocide. As Susan’s title indicates, she seeks to distinguish this crime from the exercise of free speech rights guaranteed under U.S. law. Viewed in this light, her project forms part of an ongoing...
[Mark Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law.] Susan Benesch’s VJIL article is timely, thoughtful, and important. She insightfully sets out the catalytic relationship between hate propaganda and genocide. Her comparison of the methodological similarities between the Rwandan and Nazi German contexts is instructive. The mainstreaming of hate-mongering is a condition...
Many thanks to Opinio Juris for the invitation to blog, to the Virginia Journal of International Law for publishing my article "Vile Crime or Inalienable Right: Defining Incitement to Genocide," and to Mark Drumbl, Chimène Keitner, and Gregory Gordon for commenting. The article argues that incitement to genocide demands keen attention because it is a precursor to genocide, and may be...
Many thanks once again to Kevin Heller for his thorough review of the article, for his kind compliments, and for his very insightful comments. Kevin is highly qualified to evaluate the article, and I can already see that I am benefitting from this exchange. I am very pleased that he believes the article to be useful and that...
Check out this article from Sunday's Washington Post. It describes a lawsuit by a company employee alledgedly waterboarded by his supervisor and sales teammates as part of a team-building exercise. Even though both the supervisor and the victim/employee disclaim any knowledge that they were involved in waterboarding, the whole event frightens me on multiple levels. First off,...
