> > NPR's Michele Kelemen reports on the new trend toward "universal
> > jurisdiction," in which any country can try anybody for war crimes
> committed
> > anywhere. Prime Minister Sharon of Israel has put off plans to visit
> Belgium
> > because of a case in the works there that alleges Sharon allowed a
> massacre
> > of Palestinians 20 years ago. And several countries want to question
> former
> > US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about the US role in Chile 25
> years
> > ago. Kissinger says he's not a criminal. (7:30)
> > <<
> >
> > Didn't America actually start this trend back in the 1790s or early
> 1800s?.
>
> > I don't know about the U.S., but Israel
> > is certainly on the hook for this, in
> > light of the kidnapping and trial of
> > Eichmann.
> >
> > mbs
> =========
> This stuff has got to be driving the various factions in the American
> Bar Association and the American Society for International Law
> slightly crazy; their Kantian premises are gonna haunt 'em....
>
> Ian
Doubt it. As an ex-member of the ASIL (I quit the moment I had to pay the dues out of my own pocket rather than that of my ex-partners), can't say I ever remember any activity other than honing the arguments used by the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser to justify whatever the US had just done. The general level of argument gave specious casuistry a bad name, like Nathan on an offday ("all the Palestinians have to do is convert to Judaism"). A recent reminder was reading an old courtroom opponent (Ruth Glushien Wedgwood, now Professor If Int'l Law at Yale) arguing that the Chinese should not enter the downed spyplane because it was "US territory." They'll crank it out on demand. It will however be fun to watch the judiciary squirm when Henry Kissinger gets sued in Federal District Court.
john mage