Question:
Using drones blurs the distinction between war and peace.

The use of drones further blurs the already worryingly indistinct line between a state of war and a state of peace. The drone attacks are taking place in countries where the United States does not have any legal authority. The United States is not officially at war with Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia, yet has launched hundreds of attacks on these countries and their citizens. The assumption is that a state can be at war with a non-state actor such as a terrorist group and therefore is free to target them wherever this group may be found. This means that the US is prosecuting a war in which only it thinks it is at war while sovereign countries like Pakistan are targeted despite believing they are at peace. It is the use of drones that makes it easy to circumvent sovereignty and attack targets on another country’s soil so creating the ambiguity.

Equally worryingly is the blurring of the distinction between civilian and combatant. Firstly the U.S. has decided to define any adult male in the target area as a terrorist when many are most likely nothing of the sort. [1] Secondly the Geneva conventions and their 1977 additions at their heart have the assumption that civilians cannot engage in a war – they are innocent bystanders. This however has been changed by the use of drones; it is a civilian agency, the CIA, which controls the drones and pulls the trigger. This makes the CIA combatants so breaking the obligation not to engage as soldiers. This means that U.S. civilians lose their protected status and the U.S. can’t complain if U.S. citizens are targeted in retaliation as the terrorists can no longer distinguish between those who are targeting them and those who are not. [2]

[1] Hammond, Jeremy R., ‘The Immoral Case for Drones’, Foreign Policy Journal, 16 July 2012.

[2] Hallinan, Conn, ‘CIA’s Drone Wars Blurs Distinction Between Military and Civilian Combatants’, Foreign Policy In Focus, 6 October 2011.

This is a conflict situation, a war, pure and simple. While this is a new kind of conflict; when the opponent is a non-state actor states have to be able to strike at these groups that intend to attack them even when they are sheltering in other states. Such attacks should also not include the state where those groups are sheltering unless that state is supporting that group as was the case in Afghanistan.

Yes the distinction between civilian and combatant is blurred by this conflict but this is something that happens regardless of whether the United States uses UAVs. It is the terrorists themselves who through their horrific attacks by ‘civilians’ on civilian targets that strip away the distinction. The United States has to be able to respond with whatever method is most likely to prevent more of these terrorist attacks.

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Decriminalisation will protect practitioners of sadomasochism

The criminalisation of S&M removes legal protection from individuals who suffer an abuse of consent while submitting to sadistic practices. Where a dominant partner ignores safe words or pushes a session too far, the criminal status of S&M may lead to a victim being prosecuted alongside a perpetrator. Alternately, victims may be disincentivised from approaching the police altogether.

Although it is not possible to be prosecuted for being the victim of a crime, individuals who are harmed during sadomasochistic sex many not be able to engage in a rational assessment of their own criminal liability. Even though laws against sadomasochistic acts pin liability only on the sadistic partner, they also serve to criminalize the act itself. Victims of abuses of consent may therefore become wary of informing the police that they have participated in such activity, for fear that they will be publicly stigmatized or subjected to police investigation themselves.

The only time S&M can be problematic is when someone does not listen to their partner when they withdraw their consent and ask for the session to end. Individuals will not stop engaging in S&M simply because the state says so, but victims of over-aggressive partners will lose recourse or protection under the law if they try to approach the police about such an incident. Where an S&M session goes awry, victims of an abuse of consent will have to admit to engaging in a criminal act. In the same way prostitutes have no real protection from assault and rape due to the criminality of their acts, victims of assault and rape in S&M are no longer protected.

The opposition may attempt to claim that there will be a clear distinction between a sadistic “criminal” and a submissive “victim” whenever a complaint is raised. This is not true. Many sadomasochistic relationships are based around fluctuating and interchangeable roles. Both partners may engage in sadistic acts at different times.

Victims of any form of crime, regardless of their life choices, are free to come to the police for protection and will be provided with the same protections as anyone else. The fact that people who commit crimes may feel less comfortable going to the police to avoid self-incrimination is not a reason to remove those laws.

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Sadomasochistic practices should be legal between informed, consenting adults.

It is sufficient for the decriminalization of sadomasochism that each participant is aware of the hazards inherent in the fetishes they will be exploring and consents to them. No law prohibits people from refusing to wear a condom during sexual intercourse, notwithstanding the peril of infection.

Furthermore, all cases where an individual withdraws their consent for the activity can be arbitrated and prosecuted like every other situation of consensual sex where an individual withdraws consent and their partner does not respect that wish. The police and courts will investigate it in the same way and will prosecute those who commit rape under the guise of S&M just as they prosecute those who commit rape under the guise of consensual intercourse.

The notion of consent cannot apply to a practice in which participants lack the ability to withdraw at any given time. Rape cases are easier to prosecute as it is clear and evident that the victim did not consent to the activity. The legalization of sadomasochism would create situations in which consent has been given beforehand but cannot be withdrawn during the activity.

There may be genuine confusion between participants in a situation where one party wishes to withdraw their consent but is unable due to the activities already underway. In that case, it would appear unreasonable to prosecute despite the victim’s anguish. To spare such horrible situations arising, the practice must remain illegal.

Finally, a number of criminal cases, including the English case of R v Dica, have held that intentionally or recklessly exposing a partner to a sexually transmitted infection by refusing to wear a condom can be a criminally action. Where an individual is aware that certain sexual interactions carry a risk of harm, and he does not obtain his partner’s full and informed acknowledgment of that risk, in English law at least, he commits a crime [i] .

If a man forces sex on a woman who has rejected his advances on the basis that he will not wear a condom, a rape is committed. If a man deceives a woman into having unprotected sex by lying about his sexual health, the decision in R v Dica will hold him liable for any resulting harm.

[i] R v Dica [2004] QB 1257

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
The criminalisation of sadomasochism infringes on individual liberty

Control of one’s own body is the most fundamental of human rights. No government should be permitted to define how its citizens can express themselves. The distinction between the permissible and the impermissible should be drawn at the line of consent. This is not a novel distinction. Your property cannot be stolen from you if you agree to give it away. You have no legal remedy if your property is damaged by another with your consent, or if you damage it yourself. Why should there be a moral difference when this property is flesh and blood? Paternalism in this instance only protects those who do not want to be protected.

The prohibition of sadomasochism is simply inconsistent with the liberty that governments already permit their citizens to exercise to injure each other and themselves. When people are entitled to risk pain, serious injury, or even death in sporting activity, why should they not also be permitted to suffer some discomfort in consensual sexual activity? The same piercing of flesh which attracts criminal liability in a fetishistic context can be performed legally in a chemist’s shop or tattooist’s parlor. The distinction between the rugby scrum, the bungee tower and the bedroom is an arbitrary one.

Some of the pleasure that is inherent in contact sports is derived from the adrenal thrill of flirting with injury. It is widely known that a significant proportion of individuals find jeopardy and danger as enjoyable as decadence. A sport purged of all risk would be unwatched and unplayed. Comparably, a corpus of law that did not acknowledge or protect the diversity of human sexual experience would needlessly limit individual sexual freedom, and would probably be ignored.

Every government has a duty to protect the moral and physical health of all its citizens. Firstly, the defining characteristic of sadomasochism is that it does harm to others. The activity has a victim. It is not a simple question of one individual being permitted to harm himself. Secondly, the fact of the victim’s consent is immaterial. The use of seatbelts is mandatory because citizens should not be allowed to risk their bodies for such a nugatory freedom. Citizens are allowed to lose or jeopardize their material assets through foolishness, since the assets are replaceable, or at least not critical to survival. Paternalism exists to protect people from themselves.

As noted below, governments are able to exercise varying degrees of regulation over potentially harmful activities according to the contexts that they occur in. Under these circumstances, the beneficial aspects of contact sports, risky performance arts and non-essential medical procedures can be balanced against the harms they might cause. Dangerous sporting activities invariably occur in public, are supervised by coaches and referees, and are subject to rule-sets agreed on by players and overseen by professional bodies. Under such circumstances, it is possible for the state to be satisfied that risk to the individual has been minimized as far as possible, and that there can be no confusion over which risks an individual consents to.

Where altercations on the sports field result in criminal prosecutions, much discussion is focused on the risks that the victim foresaw he would be exposed to. Hockey players have previously been held to have implicitly accepted the possibility that they might be deliberately struck with a hockey stick in the course of a match [i] . A recent English case ruled that a rugby player does not impliedly consent to run the risk that another player might bite and tear at his ear during a match [ii] .

[i] R v Green (1971) 16 DLR 93d) 164

[ii] R v Johnson (1986) 8 Cr App R (Sentencing) 343

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Western ideals of beauty already permit individual to endure intense physical pain in order to achieve sexual gratification

The idealization of physical beauty within American and European culture has created a demand for increasingly interventionist forms of cosmetic enhancement. Women and men are prepared to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to have their faces, breasts and genitals maimed and modified by surgeons, to have their skin bleached or their facial muscles temporarily paralyzed by “beauticians” and to be badgered, bullied and blackmailed into complying with restrictive diets and extensive regimes of physical exertion by domineering personal trainers. Except in the most extreme and obvious cases of emotional or psychological disturbance, adults are automatically assumed to be capable of consenting to these acts.

Further, the western ideal of physical beauty is closely associated with the cultural norms that influence and control sexual attraction, compatibility and enjoyment. The erotic is almost inextricably linked with the aesthetically idealized. The intense pain and extensive physical injuries that individuals endure in the pursuit of physical beauty are also endured in the pursuit of sexual gratification.

The risks inherent in invasive cosmetic treatments are poorly explained. The expense of these products and services and the pervasiveness of idealized physical forms combine to create parallel markets comprising cheaper, poorly regulated forms of “beauty enhancement”, including intensive tanning and skin bleaching lotions.

The ultimate objective of these physically painful and dangerous activities is sexual pleasure. Even if the heightening of sexual pleasure that results from physical modification is less direct than in a sadomasochistic encounter, many cosmetic surgery patients find the aesthetic pleasure attendant on successful surgery to be satisfying too.

It seems hypocritical and perverse for a supposedly liberal system of law to allow individuals who are openly pursuing a sexual objective to consent to the harms and risks of cosmetic surgery, while limiting the legality of sadomasochistic acts. Both activities have the same underlying purpose, and both produce dangerous externalities. Rational, consenting adults should have as much freedom to engage in S&M play as they currently have to submit to cosmetic surgery.

When less painful but equally effective variations on existing beauty treatments enter the market, they quickly assume a position of dominance. Women and men who want to enhance their physical appearance do not automatically seek out the most painful way of doing so.

The proposition conflates a means of achieving sexual gratification with the gratifying act itself. A masochist finds erotic pleasure in being subjected to pain, irrespective of the ultimate purpose of that pain. Likewise, a sadist will inflict pain to achieve pleasure, without feeling that his actions require further justification or purpose.

A surgeon will design his procedures so that a patient will suffer an absolute minimum of pain and discomfort. A medical professional would likely be subjected to professional disciplinary measures if it were to become apparent that he derived gratification from the unavoidable pain sometimes endured by his patients. The consequences of a medical intervention sometimes mean that a patient will experience pain, but this is not evidence for the existence of underlying sadomasochistic motives.

Put simply, individuals with more typical sets of sexual desires regard cosmetic treatments as a means of achieving gratification, not the end in itself. Pain and infirmity take on great significance when an individual decides whether he wants to undergo cosmetic enhancement. The psychological screening that cosmetic surgeons employ is likely to detect individuals for whom pain and sexual pleasure have become interchangeable.

As side opposition’s third point will demonstrate, states permit individuals to consent to dangerous cosmetic procedures precisely because the risks inherent in these practices can easily be subjected to third party scrutiny.

Cosmetic surgery and beauty products exist in public, and are open to regulation and oversight. The bedroom, the basement and the private members club are, by contrast, concealed and secretive.

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
It is not possible to meaningfully consent to sadomasochistic sex

Meaningful consent requires both that the person is informed and of age when consenting, but also requires the ability to withdraw consent at any point in time. Sadomasochism does not afford this crucial requisite of consent to the individual, and therefore no individual can legitimately and fully consent to the act.

Safe words are ludicrously impractical. Their utility is dependent upon their actually being agreed and committed to memory in advance and their declaration being heeded by the individuals who are under the influence of intense sexual desire. The passive ‘victim’ might be subject to the physical constraints, characteristic of bondage, that make speech or even flight impossible. It might be difficult to distinguish between an injunction to cease and an exclamation of pain, which presumably is a relatively regular occurrence.

Even where a number of individuals are able to demonstrate that their sadomasochistic encounters are conducted on a safe, regulated and consensual basis, it is not possible to give a concurrent guarantee that S&M is generally safe and cannot be used to perpetrate rape or abuse. The existence of a group of individuals able to interact safely in a sadomasochistic context does not mean that S&M does not present a risk to the wider population, nor that ordinary individuals are not excessively vulnerable to harm when engaged in S&M activities.

Sadomasochism need not be rendered completely free of risk. It is sufficient that each participant is aware of the hazards and consents to them. Moreover, no government can legislate for the most reckless of its citizens. If an individual is so disturbed as to place a plastic bag over his head for the purpose of sexual stimulation, the contrary opinion of the law will not be a great deterrent. [i]

Nevertheless, Sadomasochism can be rendered relatively free of physical risk for its participants. ‘Safe words’ can be agreed in advance, and then announced to end an S&M session immediately. Where participants are restrained or prevented from speaking, movement signals or the dropping of a marble held in the hand can be used to indicate withdrawal of consent. This simple device ensures that participants continue to agree to the terms on which their encounters take place.

It is patronizing to assume that participants in S&M scenarios have not considered the possibility that expressions of pain and reluctance will be a regular occurrence during such activity. Deliberately quixotic ‘safe words’ and stop signals are used in order to avoid inadvertent abuses of consent.

[i] Annette Houlihan, ‘When “No” means “Yes” and “Yes” means Harm: Gender, Sexuality and Sadomasochism Criminality’ (2011) 20 Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality: A Review of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Legal Issues 31

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
The right to privacy counterbalances the state's obligation to ban sadomasochistic sex

y the proposition, those who want to engage in violent sexual activities will do so, irrespective of laws to the contrary. Without undermining core liberal concepts of privacy and freedom of association, the state will be unable to regulate private sexual interaction. This being the case, when is violent activity most likely to be detected and prosecuted under the status quo? When such acts become too visible, too public or too risky. When the bonds of trust and consent that (as the proposition has agreed) are so vital to a sadomasochistic relationship break down.

Liberal principles of privacy and autonomy allow individuals to engage in consensual activities that may fall outside established boundaries of social acceptance. In this way individual liberty is satisfied, while the risk of others being exposed to harmful externalities is limited. In the words of the anthropologist and lawyer Sally Falk-Moore, “the law can only ever be a piecemeal intervention in the life of society” [i] .

The prosecution of a large and organized community of sadomasochistic homosexual men in the English criminal case of R v Brown was in part motivated by the distribution of video footage of their activities [ii] . Doubts were also raised at trial as to whether or not some of the relationships within the group were entirely free of coercion. Their activities had become too public, and the bond of consent between the sadistic and masochistic partners too attenuated for the group to remain concealed.

Individuals break the law, in minor and significant ways, all the time. Due to the legal protection of private life, due to an absence of coercion, due to a consensual relationship between a “perpetrator” and a “victim”, such breaches go entirely undetected. The general right to privacy balances out the obligation placed on the state to ensure that individuals who encounter abuse and exploitation within sadomasochistic relationships can be protected.

The protection afforded by privacy incentivizes individuals engaged in S&M activities to ensure that they follow the highest standards of safety and caution. Arguably, where “victims” have consented to being injured, but have then been forced to seek medical treatment due to their partner’s incompetence or lack of restraint, complaints to the police by doctors and nurses have helped to identify and halt reckless, negligent or dangerous sadomasochistic behavior.

Correctly and safely conducted, a sadomasochistic relationship need never enter the public domain, and need never be at risk of prosecution. However, without the existence of legal sanctions the state will have no power to intervene in high-risk or coercive S&M partnerships.

[i] “Comparative Law in a Global Context: The Legal Systems of Asia and Africa”, Werner Menski, Cambridge University Press, 2006

[ii] Annette Houlihan, ‘When “No” means “Yes” and “Yes” means Harm: Gender, Sexuality and Sadomasochism Criminality’ (2011) 20 Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality: A Review of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Legal Issues 31

It should first be observed that accidents and inadvertent harm can befall S&M practitioners irrespective of the level of caution that they exercise. It is unacceptable to require responsible adults to run the risk of prosecution whenever they engage in a consensual act of sexual expression.

Further, relationships, even sadomasochistic relationships, can break down and become acrimonious. There is a risk that an embittered partner who formerly consented to prohibited S&M activity might try to use that fact to blackmail or persecute his or her ex-lover.

The opposition state that the freedom to dissent from laws regulating one’s private conduct begins to break down when the number of people engaging in a “private” activity grows. Why should the freedom to engage in a particular sexual activity imply a trade off against the freedom to choose how many people we engage in that activity with? Interacting with multiple sexual partners is not, in itself, illegal in the majority of western liberal states, but it does not exclude other sexual fetishes, such as S&M. The opposition is disguising a further limitation on sexual freedom- the freedom to engage in group S&M- as a concession to liberalism.

Finally, the awareness that a particular activity is proscribed can affect an individual’s ability to enjoy that activity. The pleasure inherent in free expression of sexual identity is compromised by the knowledge that discovery will lead to prosecution and stigmatization. As numerous accounts by those involved in the LGBT liberation movement have demonstrated, knowing that one’s sexuality is seen as something immoral and socially destructive is inhibiting and upsetting, even in private contexts.

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
The pursuit of pain for the purpose of achieving pleasure is an immoral act

Not only does the state have the right and obligation to uphold the morals of society and stop deviant behavior, but it also has an obligation to prevent escalation of deviance. Acts such as sadomasochism are good indicators of the propensity for escalation to further deviant acts.

With the passing of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 [i] in the UK, a legal precedent has been established where the government has the right and obligation to tackle minor deviant behavior as it can be a precursor to larger and more harmful deviance in the future. Even if S&M was “victim-less”, it demonstrates a propensity to inflict pain to gain pleasure and thus indicates high risk for developing a craving for infliction of pain of higher magnitude and scope in the future, which could be even more damaging to society.

[i] Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003." legislation.gov.uk. The National Archives, n.d. Web. 20 Jun 2011. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/38/contents

The state has no right to decide what is “moral” or “immoral” for society. Each and every individual through their freedom of conscience is allowed to determine for themselves what a moral act would be as the government has no way of determining that with any certainty.

Moreover, there is no evidence that suggests any link between S&M and propensity or escalation of criminality. Simply because someone enjoys the infliction or the feeling of pain does not mean that they will become a criminal who inflicts pain on other, un-consenting people in the future. Further, it could be argued that allowing people a consensual outlet for such urges reduces the probability that such escalation and criminality will occur.

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
The state permits individuals to risk harming themselves only where such risks can be independently scrutinised and regulated

A distinction should be made between socially legitimatized recreational violence- such as rugby or boxing- and stigmatized recreational violence- such as S&M [i] . Rugby, ice hockey or motor racing must, of necessity, occur in public. Each of these events incorporates large numbers of competitors and is regulated by a referee. It is not possible for a Rugby player to be forced to play a match against his will, nor will he be prevented from leaving the field if he is injured or feels threatened. Indeed, referees can force players to withdraw if they believe they are at risk.

Where violent sports events take place without any form of official sanction or oversight, their size makes them easy to detect, and legal principles such as negligence and ineffective consent make them easy to prosecute.

Society permits violent public events such as rugby, while condemning violent private entertainments such as S&M partly because consent, capacity and safety are much easier to determine in a public context.

In short, individuals are allowed to consent to the risks inherent in participating in a rugby match because the state- and society at large- is satisfied that sufficient safeguards exist to ensure that players’ consent is informed – that the risks they will be exposed to are foreseeable. This level of control and accountability cannot be generally guaranteed within individuals’ private sexual relationships.

Although S&M practices, when properly conducted, do not carry a risk of permanent harm and are not likely to result in non-consensual activity, oversight of participant’s behavior is simply not possible. Sexuality is inherently private and individual sexual acts are closed off from public discussion.

[i] Farrugia, Paul, ‘The Consent Defence in Sport and Sadomasochism’ (1997) Auckland University Law Review, 8 (2), 472

Where should the line between sadomasochistc and “conventional” sexual activity be drawn? The English appeal case of R v Slingsby [i] concerned the accidental death of an individual who had consented to an inherently risky sexual act (the insertion of her partner’s fist into her anus) that was considered “vigorous” but not masochistic. As noted above, conventional sexual interaction is just as susceptible to subversion as S&M encounters, and can just as easily collapse into a non-consensual act.

In effect, “normal” sexual expression is as difficult to regulate, and as likely to incorporate violence (or “vigorous activity” as the judge in Slingsby would have it) and to cause harm, as sadomasochism. Society at large does not demand that all private sexual activity is as tightly regulated as professional sport, nor does it attempt to outlaw sexual activity. Instead, it is acknowledged that personal freedom outweighs the occasional harms that private sexual relationships produce. Existing legal safeguards are seen as providing victims of abusive conventional relationships with adequate protection and recompense.

Indeed, the dangers that accompany conventional sex may be less obvious to the participants in a relationship than the dangers posed by a poorly tied knot or an inexpertly wielded crop. Sexually transmitted infections, concealed personality disorders, infidelity or jealous former partners all constitute significant and easily overlooked sources of harm.

[i] R v Slingsby [1995] Crim LR 570

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Would mean Ukraine signing up to the ICC

Having the ICC prosecute Yanukovych currently faces a major difficulty; Ukraine has not ratified the Rome statute. [1] It is therefore outside the jurisdiction of the court. Technically this means the parliament can’t ask for ICC prosecution as there is no State Party to refer the situation to the prosecutor. [2] Clearly there is an easy solution to this; Ukraine should ratify the statute. This would have the benefit of reaffirming international criminal law, showing that it can be beneficial in a crisis, and increasing it as an accepted norm.

[1] ICC, ‘The States Parties to the Rome Statute’, icc.cpi.int, accessed 28/2/2014, http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/asp/states%20parties/Pages/the%20states%20parties%20to%20the%20rome%20statute.aspx

[2] Rome Statute, Article 14

The ICC has itself said that “No country in the world has a right to ask the ICC to prosecute certain people” and highlighted that even after ratification “only the court’s prosecutor can decide whether there is sufficient ground for conducting an investigation”. Once ratified Ukraine may ask, but the ICC is not bound to prosecute him because of the request. [1]

[1] ITAR-TASS, ‘Ukraine not able to prosecute Yanukovych through International Criminal Court’, en.itar-tass.com, 26 February 2014, http://en.itar-tass.com/world/720981

Religious extremism is not currently considered ‘legitimate’. The community at large have a great disdain for terrorism and similar activity and mainstream religions desperately try to disassociate themselves from extremism, all the while condemning it. [1]

The opposition believes that this good will be so barely perceptible that it does next to nothing to outweigh all the harms that this legislation will bring.

[1] Iannaccone, Laurence R. “Religious extremism: Origins and consequences” Contemporary Jewry. Volume 20. 1996.

An international norm is being breached one way or the other the only question is which one is to be breached. Those in favour of intervention consider that lives saved is worthwhile compared to the problems the breach of a norm against humanitarian intervention might create. All of these norms are there with the intention of saving lives; that is what a norm of preventing any infringement of sovereignty without UN approval is supposed to prevent – conflict and the lives lost this causes. But Internal conflict and genocide has since become much more the problem than aggression between states requiring a rebalancing of which norms are kept.

After war, the primary need of the affected community is to regain day-to-day functionality, create prosperity and achieve reconciliation. While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission might help to air grievances with positive purpose, trials only serve to rake up old hatreds and prolong social divisions.

A just state regularly abrogates people's rights when they intrude upon the rights of others. By sentencing people to prison, for instance, the state takes away rights to movement, association, and property rights from convicted criminals. The right to life should be no different. When you commit certain heinous crimes, you forgo your right to life. This does not devalue life, but rather affirms the value of the innocent life taken by the criminal. Certain crimes are so heinous that the only proportionate sentence is execution. As for the executioners themselves, there are methods of execution that involve multiple executioners which might reduce the associated psychological burdens. At any rate, no one is forced to become an executioner, and people who choose to take on that role do so with full awareness of the risks involved.

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

The ICC is an unnecessary intrusion on national sovereignty. It should be up to each state to determine its own legal system as to how criminal matters should be prosecuted.

The principle of complementarity is no guarantee as it is up to the ICC itself to determine if the state is unable or unwilling, meaning it could take over a case for its own ends.

The fact that Spain never formally renounced sovereignty is irrelevant – when Britain asserted its territorial claim Spain acquiesced.

Additionally if Spain’s claim did not lapse when it evacuated its colony then surely neither did Britain’s. Nor is it obvious that Argentina should have inherited the Spanish claim to the Falklands – they lie 250 miles off the coast of mainland South America.

Britain was of course not going to immediately contest the 1816 claim as she did not yet recognise Argentina so far as Britain was concern the Argentines were not sovereign and did not have sovereignty over any of their territory – at the time the UK recognised Spanish sovereignty over the mainland that Argentina claimed.

While some sex market transactions are more consensual than others, all sex markets treat people like objects to be used and exploited by others. Sex should not be turned into work or a business from which some people profit, even when the labor is allegedly voluntary.

Moreover, it is not evident that the proliferation of legal sex businesses would involve the proliferation of sex businesses that acted ethically and responsibly. If sex businesses could operate in a more lax and permissive environment, many abuses would go undetected. Because of the already noxious aspects of this industry, abuses such as fraud, deception, and coercion are intolerable.

The reason why the death penalty is so expensive – 13 executions since 1978 in California costing around $4bn [1] - is the “super due process” that is necessary in capital cases, especially with the large flaws in the US justice system.

Blacker makes no coherent proposal on how he would modify the appeals system. Removing or reducing it would make it very likely that more innocent people would be executed.

To accuse people who want to prevent criminals deaths of wasting money is more or less victim blaming.

[1] Alarcon, Arthur and Mitchell, Paula, “Executing the will of the voters? A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle”, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2011, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/LoyolaCalifCosts.pdf

A Truth and Reconciliation process provides a national forum for facing up to the past. It places responsibility for resolving the tensions latent in post conflict scenarios in the hands of the parties to that conflict [i] . The ICC, by contrast, represents an international intrusion into the moral discourses of post conflict societies.

War crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda have taken years to achieve a very small number of convictions. They can often appear to have been hijacked by international bodies such as NATO or the UN, in an attempt to impose a solution from outside (to salve consciences in the west) without providing a real understanding of the particular circumstances of the individual nation.

[i] “The voice of ‘Prime Evil’”, BBC News Online, 28 October 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/truth_and_reconciliation/143668.stm

No person would sell sex unless they were desperate. To have sex with someone for reasons other than sexual attraction, desire, and affection is repulsive to any sane and mentally competent adult.

People who sell sex are not exercising sexual autonomy, but are giving up their right to sexual autonomy in order to support themselves and their families. Instead of legalizing sex markets, societies should provide other means of employment and a basic standard of living to all members, so that no one has to resort to prostitution to survive.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim