Current Analysis Darfur and the International Criminal Court On March 31, 2005, the United Nations issued another response to the vast crisis in the Darfur region of far western Sudan, referring various conspicuous violations of international law to the International Criminal Court. Though there have been five previous UN Security Council resolutions bearing on Darfur, the response contained Eric Reeves • 12 min read
Current Analysis World Court's Ruling on Wall Speaks with Utmost Clarity The International Court of Justice has rendered its advisory opinion on "the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem." Though the near-term fate of the wall Nidal Sliman • 8 min read
Current Analysis Support for Wall Mocks International law What is most remarkable about the International Court of Justice decision on Israel’s “security barrier” in the West Bank is the strength of the consensus behind it. By a vote of 14-1, the 15 distinguished jurists who make up the highest judicial body on the planet found that the barrier is illegal Richard Falk • 3 min read
Current Analysis Torture and the Future There is a popular belief that Western history constitutes a progressive move from more to less torture. Iron maidens and racks are now museum exhibits, crucifixions are sectarian iconography and scientific experimentation on twins is History Channel infotainment. This narrative of progress deftly b Lisa Hajjar • 24 min read
Current Analysis The Guantánamo "Black Hole" Since January 2002, over 700 persons from 42 different countries have been detained without charge or right to counsel by the United States at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. While many detainees were captured by the US on battlefields in Afghanistan in late 2001, an unknown number of others were delivered Scott Cutler Shershow, Scott Michaelsen • 11 min read
MER Article Will Iraqis Find Justice in War Crimes Tribunals? Muhan Jabr al-Shuwaili no doubt knew the risks he faced when he ventured out of his house in Najaf on November 3, 2003. But the head judge of the Najaf governorate, member of a commission collecting evidence against former Iraqi officials possibly complicit in crimes against humanity, quickly discov Hassan Fattah • 5 min read
MER Article Does International Justice Have a Local Address? The principle of universal jurisdiction, if realized in practice, can play a crucial role in the international campaign against impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Encoded in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Laurie King-Irani • 14 min read
MER Article Reviving Global Justice, Addressing Legitimate Grievances Since its founding moments, the United States has been bedeviled by a morally self-congratulatory image of American exceptionalism, despite engaging in practices that violate the most fundamental precepts of human decency. This dualism, constituted by dynamics of denial and myth-making, has achieved a public posture of innocence throughout a national Richard Falk • 7 min read
MER Article From Nuremberg to Guantánamo All that is needed to achieve total political domination is to kill the juridical in humankind. -- Hannah Arendt, On the Origins of Totalitarianism In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the US, George W. Bush used terms like "punishment" and "justice" to assert Lisa Hajjar • 18 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Winter 2003) "If Saddam had nuclear weapons, Iraq's geographic location at the head of the Persian Gulf would allow him to threaten the destruction of a number of targets of great importance to the United States. The Saudi oilfields are a particularly worrisome target." These lines do not The Editors • 5 min read
Current Analysis Declining to Intervene In its annual report issued in July 2003, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) painted a familiar yet surprising picture of Israeli army maltreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. A wide range of army practices—from house-to-house searches in villages to "targeted killings" Jonathan Cook • 11 min read
Current Analysis On Settlement Trade, Europe Doesn't Stand Tall The transatlantic rift over the war in Iraq, and now post-war reconstruction, builds on growing European disenchantment with muscular US unilateralism. French and German opposition to the war—echoing the sentiments of a majority of the European Union's member states—highlighted seemingly growing dif Peter Lagerquist • 10 min read
