Comment on "Judgment without borders"

Hard to find consensus when usually found paddling backwards furiously while reserving the right to unilaterally overturn any progress.

lescaine @ 11:06 PM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

So who 'writes' the law under which 'universal jurisdiction' is invoked? Despite all the shortcomings, moral and otherwise, of modern Western democracies, at least there is a social contract within their borders ... again, regardless of how imperfectly implemented or executed. Those who short-sightedly espouse the desirability of such propositions better not blink when some adherent of 'sharia' law or Sino antidemocratic rule, for examples, invoke their 'rights' to snatch anyone outside their borders and bring them home to hold them accountable. How absurd.

D F Tweedie @ 9:12 PM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

Realpolitik is for the here and now. >Our sons-of-bitches are prisoners of the intersection between American and internal interests that deny upward mobility there. >The challenge to policy makers here is commercial development that transfers the huge unearned incomes of the elites so that the common [wo]man can rise.. Everybody makes more money that way. A short-term outlook that embraces the seeming infinite means Castro-ization.

alex bourbaki @ 7:10 PM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

I can see why the Bush regime would want to stop other countries from charging them for war crimes because our own would not.

jojo ranting @ 3:29 PM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

Isn't "universal jurisdiction" something of an oxymoron? "Jurisdiction" would appear to suggest a specific power that has been granted from some authority, thereby further suggesting some limits on the same. "Universal jurisdiction," on the other hand, suggests no limits on power.

will d @ 2:09 PM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

I wonder if the authors of this opinion piece bothered to read the Spanish indictment. A large part of it is devoted to testimony about the murders of Spanish priests by the Tutsi-led RPF. Certainly, this is not, as the authors claim, misuse of a domestic criminal justice system to achieve "foreign policy ends." Nor does it constitute "freelance" use of courts by wayward magistrates. How do the authors suggest bringing the Rwandan killers of Spanish civilians to justice? If not Spanish courts, which courts?

hous0116 @ 1:02 PM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

Intriguing commentary. Thank you for highlighting this issue.

Laura Morefield @ 9:15 AM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

What the authors describe is not anarchy but how the less powerful actors can press for a level playing field. Gen. Pinochet was not initially prosecuted in Chile, despite his many crimes, because of the country's precarious balance of powers. Judge Baltazar Garzón did what the Chilean judiciary could not and would not. Yes, there was an international standoff -- was this so bad? -- and Pinochet returned to Chile. Pinochet's arrest and the international attention given the case eventually made it possible to bring charges against him in Chile. Pinochet avoided judgment only by dying first. Score: one slightly more level playing field.

James Wessman @ 7:10 AM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

The only thing more amazing than the perceptiveness of Rivkin and Casey with regard to judicial activism is their failure to have noticed this impudent trend in the UK, the Hague and Belgium with regard to actions by Israelis and the lawfare that Arab elites engage in to suppress publications documenting their funding of terror. But of course the USA also operates an "imperial judiciary", as the capture and imprisonment of the Panamanian dictator shows.

paul2 @ 4:53 AM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

That's the problem, activist judges who set about changing the world. Most nations have a three part system of government, Executive, Legislative and Judicial how well they work to keep each other honest is a subject for much debate, but when one becomes all powerful, there is usually hell to pay. We've already seen attempts by other nations to force change in our own country through their legal system using the claim of "universal justice". We need to be very careful, once we except the idea just this once, it becomes much harder to resist the nest time.

Gary @ 4:52 AM PDT, Oct 6, 2008

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