MER Article No Buying Off the Past Since King Mohammed VI ascended the throne in 1999, Morocco has created various bodies to pay cash awards to Moroccans "disappeared," imprisoned or tortured for their political beliefs under the reign of his king father. But there have been no trials of the jailers and torturers. Former prisoners co Susan Slyomovics • 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 Paying the Price of Injustice Around 30 soldiers invaded my home at 2:30 am on August 17, 2001. They searched the home and messed up our belongings, breaking the windows and confiscating our telephone agenda. They took me to the roof of the house for two hours and asked me about people they wanted. Catherine Cook, Adah Kay, Adam Hanieh • 14 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 Edward Said: A Tribute On September 25, 2003, many people across the globe lost a dear friend. Edward W. Said was and remains our friend, brother and comrade. He was a scholar, a humanist and an untiring advocate of Palestinian rights. Without him we feel adrift, even helpless, but we must resist this feeling. In and thro Nubar Hovsepian • 5 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
MER Article Editor's Picks (Fall 2003) Barzilai, Gad. Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003). Cortright, David, et al. Toward a Strategy for Success in Iraq (Goshen, IN: Fourth Freedom Forum, August 2003). Dallal, Marwan. October 2000: Law and Politics Before the Or Commission Inquiry (Shafa (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article Seeking a "Social Contract" for Saudi Arabia For most of its history, the royal family of Saudi Arabia has maintained public order by exercising absolute, at times brutal, control over the people of the country. The House of Saud has tolerated neither resistance nor the questioning of its authority. But in the mayhem of 2003, with war Toby Jones • 19 min read
MER Article Fragile Glasnost on the Tigris Sitting in Baghdad’s packed Café Shahbandar on a Friday afternoon in June of 2003, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of open discussion and genuine freedom. Drawn by the open-air used book market on nearby al-Mutanabbi Street, the patrons -- old journalists, professors and hip artists with shoulder-length hair Keith Watenpaugh • 9 min read
MER Article A Clean Slate in Iraq Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves, but before the 2003 war its human development indicators placed it only just ahead of Sudan and Bangladesh. [1] The war and its ongoing aftermath have left Iraq further shattered. At the most basic level, diseases of poverty are again sweeping Colin Rowat, Justin Alexander • 14 min read
