“Rwanda’s Genocide: More Complicated Than We Thought?”

Who triggered the genocidal slaughter of nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994?
Convictions by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda confirm that the genocide was planned in
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“The United States: Shaming Ourselves at Guantanamo”

The damage done to America’s standing in the world by Bush Administration lawlessness at
Guantanamo is incalculable and – for years and perhaps decades – irreversible. Our country has
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“Iraqi Refugees: American Responsibility”

One of the least publicized consequences of the Administration’s misadventure in Iraq is also one
of the few that we can still make right: the plight of Iraqi refugees. On humanitarian, moral and
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“Liberty: Where and for Whom?”

The fundamental rights of a Bradley University student imprisoned by the military for the last
four years have won a ringing rhetorical vindication by a panel of one of the most conservative
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“Saving Darfur: No Saviour in Sight”

Welcome to the post-superpower era. If confirmation be needed, witness the humbling spectacle
of the fruitless American efforts to end the slaughter in Darfur. In the last four years, hundreds of
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“Saving the Children: Mission Possible”

For many Americans, the “right to life” brings to mind the debate over abortion. The same
phrase provokes other listeners to ponder the death penalty. But the right to life is equally at
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“Chavez’ Vision for Venezuela: Adios to Human Rights”

What to say about democracy and human rights in the Venezuela of President Hugo Chavez?
The short answer is, “Adios.”

The most prominent news on Venezuela this week is that the government has raised its ownership
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“Farewell to Free Press in Moscow and Caracas”

“This is not the U.S.S.R.,” Sunday’s New York Times quotes a researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center. In the Soviet Union, “every print or broadcasting outlet was preliminarily censored.” Read More

“Guantanamo: Still a Law Free Zone”

The imprisonment of suspected terrorists at the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo
threatens our national security and our national interests. So say the Secretary of Defense and the
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“Dueling Human Rights Reports: China and the United States”

The United States and China this month celebrated their annual ritual of issuing public reports on each other’s human rights performance. Once again, their mutual critiques read like ships passing in the night: each country stresses issues where it looks good and the other looks bad. Once again, in denouncing each other’s human rights shortcomings, they are both mostly right. Read More

“Genocide by Proxy – The World Court Weighs In”

When is a nation legally responsible for atrocities carried out by armed groups it supports in another nation? And what are the consequences?

These questions are not merely theoretical. In 1986 the International Court of Justice (also known as the World Court) ruled that the United States was not generally liable for human rights violations committed by the Contras in Nicaragua. Even though the US created, funded and trained the Contras, the Court ruled that the US was not responsible for most of their actions, because Washington did not have “effective control of the military or paramilitary operations in the course of which the alleged violations were committed.” Read More

“Targeted Killings – What We Don’t Know”

One day last month several men – the number is disputed — were incinerated in a hamlet in
Pakistan. The Pakistani military called them Al Qaeda terrorists. Local villagers said they were
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“God’s Human Rights Lawyer – Father Robert Drinan”

We shall not again see the likes of Father Robert Drinan, who died this week at age 86.
Professionally he was one of a kind. Bob – or Bawb, as the former Massachusetts Congressman
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“Guantanamo Prisoners: ‘First, Let’s Punish All the Lawyers’”

Every so often a public servant makes a statement so foolish that it deserves to be recorded in the
annals of American idiocy. My personal favorite is the former Virginia congressman who once
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“Saddam: How Not to Try a Tyrant”

Few people outside Saddam Hussein’s base among Iraqi Sunnis will mourn the bloody
dictator’s passing. But Americans may come to regret our government’s complicity in
putting him to death after a patently unfair trial. For some observers, we will have
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“Human Rights: Candor from the Departing UN Secretary-General”

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a decent man, is tasked to administer an
inherently indecent – albeit indispensable – organization. The UN is run by and for 192
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“Prohibiting Propaganda: Pointless or Pernicious”

War propaganda is as old as the pleas made by Athenians and Spartans to justify killing each
other in the Peloponnesian War over two millennia ago. But our own era has been plagued as
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“Congo: Turning Point?”

The world’s worst arena of atrocities is also one of the least known. Attracting far less media
attention than Darfur and Chechnya, three million people have perished from war and war crimes
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“Darfur: No Time to Delay Action”

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has made a career of not stepping on
diplomatic toes, is not a man given to alarmist outcries. His latest warnings on the plight of the
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“Pursuing Peace with Justice: Lessons from Uganda”

“If you want peace, work for justice.” These words of wisdom of Pope Paul VI are sewn into two
imposing, multicolor, quilted banners, which dominate the main hall of the Notre Dame law
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Senator McCain’s Compromise: Unconscionable Military Trials

Is America looking for a way to create martyrs and push more angry recruits into Al Qaeda’s
bloody embrace? If so, our solution is at hand: put prisoners at Guantanamo to death, after
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“Trying Terrorists”

Hats off to Republican Senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsay Graham for insisting on
critical improvements to the President’s bill to authorize military commission trials for unlawful
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“Offending Islam ”

On the morning of August 10, as news broke that British police were arresting suspects in
a plot to bomb flights to the US, I was in a New York airport, stuck in the longest
security line I have seen since 9/11, under strict orders to jettison my tooth paste and
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“The American Society of International Law: A Rare Rebuke”

No one could accuse the American Society of International Law of being an activist organization. Founded a century ago, its first President was Secretary of State Elihu Root. Its Centennial meeting in Washington this month was addressed by Root’s successor, Condoleeza Rice, and by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Read More

“Prosecuting Charles Taylor: The Hague as Safety Valve”

If more evidence were needed to make the case for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it can be found in current efforts to prosecute former Liberian leader Charles Taylor, accused of fomenting a bloody guerrilla war in the neighboring country of Sierra Leone. Read More

International Criminal Court Arrests First Defendant

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“Women’s Rights: First Case Under New UN Treaty”

Some 182 nations – the United States is among only ten hold-outs — have now joined the United Nations Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women. In the quarter century since its adoption this treaty – infelicitously known as “CEDAW” – has proved useful in stimulating governments to reform discriminatory laws and to focus official attention on moving toward equality for women. Read More

“American Ports: Arabs Need Not Apply”

President Bush is right to resist the bipartisan political pandering against the purchase, by a
company headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, of rights to operate container terminals in
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“Eavesdropping on Americans: Implausible Deniability”

Professors David Cole of Georgetown and Curtis Bradley of Duke agree on little in the
law. Cole, an ardent defender of immigrants and civil liberties, is a darling of the left.
Bradley, a skeptic about international law and champion of national sovereignty, is a
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“Genocide on Our Watch?”

Racism, at its worst, leads to genocide – the attempt to wipe out an entire racial, ethnic, national
or religious group, in whole or large part. Despite post-Holocaust calls for “Never Again,” the
United Nations and the international community generally have failed to prevent genocide in
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