Ginsburg: War Crimes Charges Against Bush Officials Unlikely

International Law

Ginsburg: War Crimes Charges Against Bush Officials Unlikely

Posted Jul 4, 2008, 03:48 pm CDT
By James Podgers

Prosecutions of Bush administration officials for their conduct of the fight against terrorism are unlikely, said speakers at a panel held today during the World Justice Forum in Vienna.

As George W. Bush's time as U.S. president nears its end and in the wake of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings rejecting the administration's treatment of suspected terrorists in the years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a number of commentators and legal experts have suggested that some of those policies violated international conventions prohibiting indefinite detentions and inhumane treatment of detainees.

The issue was raised by an audience member near the end of a program moderated by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But Ginsburg and Michael Posner, president of Human Rights First in New York City, responded that a likelier scenario than legal proceedings against President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and other top members of the administration would be some serious rethinking of U.S. policy since 2001.

The real question, Ginsburg said, is "Where do we go, what lessons can we learn from the past? The important thing is, what you can learn from the past and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Ginsburg said a revenge motive that may be fueling some of the calls for legal action against administration officials may help explain the U.S. government's continuing opposition to the International Criminal Court. The ICC is authorized by the 1998 Rome Statute to investigate and prosecute individuals for serious violations of international human rights laws and war crimes when national legal mechanisms don't exist to handle such cases. The U.N. Security Council also may refer cases to the ICC.

The Bush administration officially opposes the court on grounds it would put U.S. officials and military personnel at risk of prosecutions.

But Ginsburg also chided another audience member when he said the United States no longer offers the world a model for commitment to the rule of law because of its anti-terrorist policies.

"I would not judge our country by seven years," Ginsburg said. "It's had more than 220 years."

Posner acknowledged that there may be efforts in the United States and Europe to hold U.S. officials legally accountable. "But it's important to have another kind of accountability, a mechanism that looks at what happened, and why," he said.

Prosecutions would be legally and politically more complicated, Posner said. He said it's unlikely any administration would want to get involved in proceedings against leaders of a predecessor administration.

Another speaker at the program, Parvez Hassan, described the trauma in Pakistan when that country's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, tried to sack the country's chief justice and most of the judiciary in 2007 and suspended the constitution when it appeared the Supreme Court would reject his attempt to run for another term as president. Musharraf's actions led to widespread street marches and other protests by Pakistani lawyers.

Hassan praised lawyers in the United States and elsewhere for supporting their Pakistani colleagues. "Every time we heard or read about the American Bar Association marching on our behalf, that was a night we slept well," said Hassan, a human rights and environmental law activist.

"It hasn't always happened," Ginsburg said, "that the lawyers have stepped forward when a country is in turmoil as have the lawyers of Pakistan."

The ABA and other sponsors of the World Justice Project convened the forum this week to bring together an international roster of leaders of the legal profession and other disciplines to form a consensus on how to advance the rule of law as the foundations for societies of equity and opportunity. On Thursday, the WJP unveiled its Rule of Law Index, meant to measure how effectively countries have applied the rule of law.

Nearly 500 invited attendees from 15 disciplines will wrap up their work Saturday to seek to identify rule-of-law programs that can be implemented in various regions of the world.

More World Justice Project Headlines:

World Justice Project Reveals ‘Rule of Law Index’ (ABA Journal)

Experts unveil index to check nations' rule of law (Associated Press)

World's top legal experts unveil 'rule of law' index aimed at measuring how nations behave (Associated Press)

Leaders in Vienna Seek Consensus; Rate Country Effectiveness on Rule of Law (ABA Journal)

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Posted by Wilfred J Hallpern - 1 month, 3 weeks, 3 days, 16 hours, 12 minutes ago

United States no longer offers the world a model for commitment to the rule of law because of its anti-terrorist policies.

“I would not judge our country by seven years,” said Ginsburg. “It’s had more than 220 years.”
WRONG ANSWER. - President Bush’ response to terrorism was/is correct and should be supported. Ginsburg’s votes in recent weeks have been way off target. But not surprising. It is unfortunate that the ABA seems to position itself contrary to many of its members. Poklitics rules.
Posted by BiteMe - 1 month, 3 weeks, 3 days, 12 hours, 32 minutes ago

No politics does not rule, but paid insurgency does. Yes people and shills everywhere, not good.
PNAC and W’s administration subverted the entire gov and politcal process to get a result, that will fail in the long run and be past a pyhrric victory.
Right idea, way too greedy to get it done too fast. Similiar to KBR’s history.
When you couple the domestic abuses with foreign, its really disturbing.
Too bad W et all, you might have been mostly correct, but not right. You got to work within the system somewhat, especially in the start. From a W supporter and pro get stuff done type. GRR.
Posted by tom payne - 1 month, 3 weeks, 1 day, 21 hours, 53 minutes ago

Since when is it okay for a sitting justice of the US Supreme Court to comment on policy? For her comments, she should be removed from the bench.
Posted by J.D. - 1 month, 3 weeks, 1 day, 16 hours, 17 minutes ago

Repeat it with me: “The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land.”

International law is a figment of the imagination; an idea furthered only by people seeking absolute, unaccountable power.

And to Ginsberg: The only thing we should make sure “doesn’t happen again” is the DEATH OF 3,000 innocent people! Why is the Left so incapable of understanding this? The very policies they despise keep them alive. The ideology is a suicide one.
Posted by Steve Perkins - 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 2 hours, 32 minutes ago

... but does not the Constitution itself establish that international treaties (construed to include Executive agreements) constitute the “law of the land” alongside domestic legislation?
Posted by BC - 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 1 hour, 12 minutes ago

To J.D. - International law is a valuable asset to maintaining, or at least, attempting to maintain peace and decorum aroudn the world. And to answer your question, the Left does not want 3,000 innocent people to die again. I don’t think anyone wants that. But your comment emphasizes the point that the Right is out of touch with reality, and will follow blindly behind bad policies, so long as it is enacted by Right Wing people in power. The beautiful thing about America, our Constitution, and our Society is that we have the freedom to question our government without being persecuted. But now what we see is those of us that question our government’s policies and tactics are criticized for those questions. That is not right.
Posted by ABC - 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 10 minutes ago

The Supremes were wrong in their recent ruling re Gitmo. What will the justices who voted in the majority in this case say when some of the people released go on to kill in relentless pursuit of the Jehad? We are at war. the court should keep its nose out of issue such as this one. Trust me, if attacks inside this country were to resume, even most of the left wing of our society would turn against decisions such as this.
Posted by JSL - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 22 hours, 23 minutes ago

JD, I do not understand your comment. I agree that “The beautiful thing about America * * * is that we have the freedom to question our government without being persecuted. “ But then you complain about being criticised for asking questions. The criticism is for making wild, inaccurate or irresponsible charges (Bush lied about WMD or Bush has acted in war time as no other president has) and advocating irresponsible policies (e.g. extending habeas rights to POWs or enemy combatants), not for questioning the government. And since when is criticism tantamount to persecution? Is your position that our government and officials are not above criticism (and there I agree with you) but that their critics are?
Posted by djl - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 21 hours, 34 minutes ago

The way you “learn from the past and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” as Justice Ginsburg ought to know, is to prosecute the perpetrators, including those at the top who apparently authorized such criminality.
Posted by V - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 21 hours ago

It’s good to know that when the American government tortures people, kills a few hundred thousand of anonymous brown people, tramples on the Constitution and basic human rights, flushes our moral credibility down the toilet, that the best we can do is study what happened any why that happened - answer = because there is no acountability for the powerful (see telecom immunization for what would otherwise be an illegal conspiracy).
Posted by James Baker - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 20 hours, 22 minutes ago

I wonder how far Hirohito would have gotten if his best defense was that it was more important to examine “what happened and why”, rather than to prosecute him for his personal role in the crimes that “happened.” Or maybe he should have suggested we not judge him by the preceding seven years, but rather by his whole life. I guess Justice Ginsburg would have exonerated him for his crimes if she had sat in judgment then.
Posted by john - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 20 hours, 17 minutes ago

In response to J.D.: I for one would rather die than see the very freedoms that make us Americans eroded by those that tell us it is necessary to keep us safe. Every true American should feel the same way - that’s exactly what the patriots who fought the British felt, or they wouldn’t have risked life and limb to rebel. It is no coincidence that it was one of those patriots who said that those who would give up freedom for security deserve neither. If you are willing to trade away the very essence of what it is to be an American in order to stay alive, then you are a coward.
Posted by JSL - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 18 hours, 46 minutes ago

First, my apologies to JD. My comment should have been addressed to BC. To V, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have not been killed in Iraq. You are exaggerating the numbers considerably. Of those who died, the overwhelming number were killed by other “anonymous brown people” as you put it, who would prefer to see chaos rather than democracy. The number who have died is roughly one tenth of the number who would have been tortured to death by Saddam over the same period, given his past rate of brutality. “Tortured” in this case does not mean he would have deprived them of sleep, held them in stress positions or water boarded them—it means feeding them into wood chippers, immersed them slowly in acid, and the other charming methods of execution that were routine for offending the Hussein family.
Posted by George Sly - 1 month, 2 weeks, 11 hours, 23 minutes ago

To JD adn JSL. The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States and I swore an oath to uphold and defend it. I suggest you go back and read the fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. I would point out that the word used in the Constitution is person not citizen. I would also suggest you read in Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 282-85 (1936)
Forgetting for a moment the “ideological’ debate, there is a practical one. We are losing the propaganda war. Sixty Americans are under indictment in Italy and Germany for kidnapping citizens and residents of those countries and transporting them to a third country such as Syria where those persons were allegedly subjected to torture. The tactics the United States is accused of using are described as standard Soviet torture techniques by Alexander Solzhenytzin in Gulag Archipelago. They were briefly used by the British in Ulster in the early 1970s and abandoned because the British determined that such tactics were not productive . In additon such tactics worked as a recruiting tool for the IRA in that they confirmed the IRAs portrayal of the British and Protestants in Ulster as an occupying force subjugating the Catholic population.
The tactics you espouse have served to confirm Al Quada’s propoganda that America is waging a religious war to subjugate Muslims. If you’re tactics worked Osama Bin Laden would be in custody and Al Quada would be broken. The policies you advocate have failed. I lost friends on September 11, 2001 and I for one am tired of failure and tired of politicians and others who use my friends deaths for political gain. Finally if you really believe the principles you advocate and you are of military age, please enlist. Otherwise you should rethink your position, if you are not prepared to make the same sacrifices as those who serve.

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