In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Kevin Jon Heller

15 Aug

John McCain on Guantanamo Bay, during a question-and-answer session with Walter Isaacson: it may be one of the nicest places in the world to live in. Hyperbole or not, shouldn't comments like that disqualify someone from being president? ADDENDUM: This is a pretty good one, too, concerning Russia's invasion of Georgia: My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally...

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15 Aug

Last October, Col. Morris Davis resigned as chief prosecutor of the military commissions, claiming that Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann had interfered with the prosecutor's office, pressured him to use classified evidence -- requiring sessions to be conducted behind closed doors -- and encouraged the use of evidence obtained through waterboarding.  Col. Davis filed a formal complaint at the time, but...

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14 Aug

Our friend John Boonstra at UN Dispatch calls attention to a little-used provision of the UN Charter that requires members of the Security Council to abstain from voting on substantive matters when they are a party to a dispute.  Here is the text of Article 27(3): Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative...

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14 Aug

According to Interfax, Russia is considering referring the situation in South Ossetia to the ICC. It quotes Russia's Prosecutor General, Yury Chaika, as saying that he "doesn't think setting up a special [international] court is necessary. Complaints and applications from our citizens which will be referred to the International Criminal Court would suffice."  That's an interesting statement, given that Russia...

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07 Aug

Salim Hamdan has been sentenced to 66 months in prison, far short of the 30 years-to-life sentence the prosecution requested.  Good news for Hamdan? Probably not, as Colonel Morris Davis -- the third chief prosecutor of the military commissions, who resigned because of political interference by the Pentagon -- pointed out in the comments to my ex post facto post: The...

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02 Aug

Last week, reflecting on the effusive welcome he received in Germany, Obama said the following to a group of House Democrats: It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol of the possibility of America returning...

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30 Jul

I have no idea what you people are talking about.  Congress has no intention of standing on the sidelines while the Supreme Court micromanages Guantanamo Bay, as Rep. Lewis Gohmert (R-Tex)'s new H.R. 6615 proves beyond even the smallest shadow of a doubt.  Here is the title: To provide for the transport of the enemy combatants detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...

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29 Jul

My apologies for implying that Ben is a neoconservative, but I think that the title of my last post -- "Damning International Tribunals With Faint Praise" -- is accurate. Stray or not, Ben's comment praises the international tribunals for (ostensibly) not offering defendants the same kinds of protections that defendants enjoy in U.S. civilian courts.  The belief that the Rome...

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28 Jul

I had planned to lurk on the sidelines until the discussion of Ben's fascinating book moved to the "need" for a new interrogation statute -- I, for one, am more than happy to have "interrogation laws that operate only at the highest altitude (nothing cruel or inhumane, nothing that causes severe pain or suffering) but never come down to earth,"...

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