Question:
Tribunals are adequate replacements that maintain respect for detainees' rights.

The denial of normal legal processes does not automatically confer the absence of legal processes altogether. Though a normal public trial is not possible for security reasons, detainees' rights are still respected during the internment process. Safeguards are built into the internment process so that each case can be considered fairly, with the suspect represented before a proper tribunal and given a right to appeal to a higher authority. At Guantanamo Bay, President G. W. Bush introduced military tribunals made up of five U.S. armed force officers and presided over by qualified military judges to handle the legal ambiguities of suspects held in the facility 1 . The accused still have the presumption of innocence and proof of guilt has to be beyond that of a reasonable doubt 2. If such a trial is provided (often to standards of evidence and procedure higher than in normal courts in many countries around the world) and a sentence properly passed, then this is not internment as it has been practised in the past.

1. The Telegraph. (2007, March 16). Q&A: US Military Tribunals at Guantanamo Bay. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from The Telegraph

2.Ibid

Tribunals do not respect detainees’ rights, but in fact require the undermining of those rights. Regardless of the procedures with which internment is dressed up by embarrassed authorities, it is open to abuse because trials are secret with the executive essentially scrutinising itself. Often there is not a free choice of lawyer to represent the suspect (detainees before US Military Commissions can only choose lawyers approved by the executive). Trials are held in secret with crucial evidence frequently withheld from the accused and his defence team, or given anonymously with no opportunity to examine witnesses properly. Appeals are typically to the executive (which chose to prosecute them), rather than to an independent judicial body. In such circumstances prejudice and convenience are likely to prevent justice being done.

Acting due to a change of government is not the prerogative of another state. Putin is within his rights not to recognise that government and to grant asylum to former president Yanukovych but not to take action within the Ukraine to change the situation.

The coup however was not a coup but an abdication. “Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership.” It was therefore Yanukovych who essentially decided that he was no longer in charge by leaving Kiev and not making any statements for several days. [1] Moreover the Ukrainian constitution (both 2004 and 2010 versions) gives the right to impeach the President to Parliament [2] this is what the Parliament has done.

[1] Psaki, Jen, ‘Daily Press Briefing’, U.S. Department of State, 28 February 2014

[2] Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85 (7 & 10), wikisource, 2004 , 2010

A politician who has to constantly concern himself with reelection has a much greater likelihood of being beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists than one who is term-limited so will actually engage in more corruption. While a term-limited legislator may suffer to a degree from lame duck status, the need to continuously seek electoral support is far more damaging to his ability to do what is right for the nation. Politicians who are not term-limited will spend more time doing what is popular than what is necessary. It is far better to have a representative who has only a limited time to enact the policies he envisions, so that he actively seeks to implement his vision, rather focusing on the short-term goal of reelection.

Far from being a unifying force the Schengen Area has already led to disagreements between individual countries. Italy and France were involved in a major political dispute after Italy abused the spirit, if not the terms, of the Schengen Agreement to offload thousands of North African migrants onto France. In April 2011, French police even went so far as to stop an Italian train carrying migrants and prevent it from crossing the border [1] . France took the rare decision to temporarily re-establish border controls, adding more than 300 police to patrols monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory, along with inspecting rail traffic [2] . It issued instructions stating that an immigrant who wishes to cross the French border must “hold a valid travel document recognised by France” and a “valid residence document,” “show proof of having sufficient resources—that is, €31 per day if the person has accommodations, and €62 otherwise [3] . France’s unilateral decision to restore border controls and stretch the boundary of the Schengen Agreement underlines the extreme fragility of the legal basis of the European Union. Further, Romania was angry at attempts to exclude them from the Schengen area, a move led by France and Germany, after accessing to the EU and technically meeting all the border conditions for the passport-free zone, calling it “discrimination” [4] .

[1] ‘France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty’, BBC News, 26th April 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

[2] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[3] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[4] Waterfield, Bruno, ‘Romania accuses France and Germany of discrimination over Schengen exclusion’, The Daily Telegraph, 22nd December 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8219933/Romania...

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. [1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. [2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The fact that the prison system is not designed to be punitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. Retributive justice demands that criminals are punished. Prison should do that, and it should fit the crime, by having more than one category of punishment based on the offence. It is understandable that prison services themselves do not consider their task to be to punish; they claim that is done by the judge or jury that hands out the sentence. This however in effect means that no one takes responsibility for punishing those who have done wrong. Instead each stage of the criminal justice system becomes solely an attempt to prevent future crime without consideration to past victims.

The ICC does not infringe upon national sovereignty because it only has jurisdiction if the national justice system is either ineffective or unable to prosecute the criminal.

National courts still have the responsibility and ability to prosecute their own criminals, and the ICC is only meant to be used as a last resort in case these national measures fail; there is no contradiction between the two.1 Sovereignty only exists if the state has internal control, and the ICC will only have jurisdiction in cases where the national justice system has proven that for some reason, it will not prosecute the criminal.

1 Nanda, Ved P. "The Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court: Challenges Ahead." Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, May 1998, 413-428.

Although religions supported the anti-gay law, it is not solely a religious issue; the majority of Ugandans believe that homosexuality is contrary to their traditional values and all the anti-gay protests were inclusive regardless of religious denominations. It is therefore wrong to assert that the law was passed as a religious initiative. A separation of church and state does not mean the government should never run policies that the religious want simply that the government should not be favouring a particular religion.

There are procedural ways of mitigating this concern that are less severe than eliminating the jury altogether. Possible ways of dealing with jury intimidation/tampering include 1) having retrials in cases where jury tampering occurred, 2) attempting to increase the degree of juror anonymity, for example by seating jurors where they cannot be seen, and 3) by having higher penalties for jury tampering and intimidation. The second way is probably the most effective, and American courts have found that in cases where jury tampering poses a serious threat, it does not interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial.1 1Laura K. Donohue, "Terrorism and Trial by Jury: The Vices and Virtues of British and American Criminal Law"

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

The AIVD example shows exactly that judicial and political control is not enough: the judicial control is control after the fact, so it didn’t prevent the AIVD from listening in to journalists conversations in the first place. Moreover, a regulatory committee judged that the Minister of Internal Affairs, who is supposed to be the a priori control, had given permission too easily, which is to be expected when a Minister faces a lot of requests like this, and has to decide in between the regular work of actually governing. [1] It is the lack of initial oversight which is anti-democratic, citizens expect their government and courts to prevent the intelligence agencies from infringing on privacy not simply demand an apology later when the intelligence agency is found out. How many more cases are there which are not caught?

[1] NIS News Bulletin, ‘Press Sector Sues State for Eavesdropping Telegraaf Journalists’ 9/07/2009 http://www.nisnews.nl/public/090709_1.htm

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


Question:
Internment without trial undermines democratic values.

Rights are needed to protect the few as well as the many, otherwise there would be no need for them in a democracy. Indefinite detention and lack of a normal public trial undermine the key values of habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution enshrines the principle that ‘no person shall be deprived of his liberty without due process’1. As such, suspects should be tried if there is evidence, deported if they are foreign nationals, but most importantly released if a proper case cannot be made against them. Internment in Northern Ireland was also said to be aimed only at a tiny minority, but thousands passed through the Long Kesh detention camp in the four years it operated. Similarly, the internment of Japanese-Americans from 1942 onwards led to a belief in the post-war environment that they were ‘radically predisposed to acts of disloyalty’1 undermining the democratic values of inclusion and multi-culturalism that the US particularly likes to attribute to itself.

1 Davis, F. (2004, August) Internment Without Trial: The Lessons from the United States, Northern Ireland and Israel. Retrieved June 23, 2011

Internment without trial does not undermine either democracy or its values. Tough measures are aimed only at very few suspects; only 11 are currently detained in Britain, only a few hundred at Guantanamo Bay. Exceptional circumstances call for special measures, but these are so limited in scope that they do not threaten our democratic values. Similarly, until the cessation of hostilities, the suspension of habeus corpus for ‘enemy combatants’ is not unlike the holding of prisoners of war until an armistice, whereby it is not legally necessary to provide recourse to judicial process. As Dick Cheney notes, ‘in previous wars we’ve always exercised the right to capture the enemy and then hold them until the end of the conflict. The same principle ought to apply here’ 1.

1. Trott, B. (2008, December 15). Don't Close Guantanamo until terror war ends: Cheney. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from Reuters:

Acting due to a change of government is not the prerogative of another state. Putin is within his rights not to recognise that government and to grant asylum to former president Yanukovych but not to take action within the Ukraine to change the situation.

The coup however was not a coup but an abdication. “Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership.” It was therefore Yanukovych who essentially decided that he was no longer in charge by leaving Kiev and not making any statements for several days. [1] Moreover the Ukrainian constitution (both 2004 and 2010 versions) gives the right to impeach the President to Parliament [2] this is what the Parliament has done.

[1] Psaki, Jen, ‘Daily Press Briefing’, U.S. Department of State, 28 February 2014

[2] Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85 (7 & 10), wikisource, 2004 , 2010

A politician who has to constantly concern himself with reelection has a much greater likelihood of being beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists than one who is term-limited so will actually engage in more corruption. While a term-limited legislator may suffer to a degree from lame duck status, the need to continuously seek electoral support is far more damaging to his ability to do what is right for the nation. Politicians who are not term-limited will spend more time doing what is popular than what is necessary. It is far better to have a representative who has only a limited time to enact the policies he envisions, so that he actively seeks to implement his vision, rather focusing on the short-term goal of reelection.

Far from being a unifying force the Schengen Area has already led to disagreements between individual countries. Italy and France were involved in a major political dispute after Italy abused the spirit, if not the terms, of the Schengen Agreement to offload thousands of North African migrants onto France. In April 2011, French police even went so far as to stop an Italian train carrying migrants and prevent it from crossing the border [1] . France took the rare decision to temporarily re-establish border controls, adding more than 300 police to patrols monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory, along with inspecting rail traffic [2] . It issued instructions stating that an immigrant who wishes to cross the French border must “hold a valid travel document recognised by France” and a “valid residence document,” “show proof of having sufficient resources—that is, €31 per day if the person has accommodations, and €62 otherwise [3] . France’s unilateral decision to restore border controls and stretch the boundary of the Schengen Agreement underlines the extreme fragility of the legal basis of the European Union. Further, Romania was angry at attempts to exclude them from the Schengen area, a move led by France and Germany, after accessing to the EU and technically meeting all the border conditions for the passport-free zone, calling it “discrimination” [4] .

[1] ‘France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty’, BBC News, 26th April 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

[2] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[3] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[4] Waterfield, Bruno, ‘Romania accuses France and Germany of discrimination over Schengen exclusion’, The Daily Telegraph, 22nd December 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8219933/Romania...

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. [1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. [2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The fact that the prison system is not designed to be punitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. Retributive justice demands that criminals are punished. Prison should do that, and it should fit the crime, by having more than one category of punishment based on the offence. It is understandable that prison services themselves do not consider their task to be to punish; they claim that is done by the judge or jury that hands out the sentence. This however in effect means that no one takes responsibility for punishing those who have done wrong. Instead each stage of the criminal justice system becomes solely an attempt to prevent future crime without consideration to past victims.

The ICC does not infringe upon national sovereignty because it only has jurisdiction if the national justice system is either ineffective or unable to prosecute the criminal.

National courts still have the responsibility and ability to prosecute their own criminals, and the ICC is only meant to be used as a last resort in case these national measures fail; there is no contradiction between the two.1 Sovereignty only exists if the state has internal control, and the ICC will only have jurisdiction in cases where the national justice system has proven that for some reason, it will not prosecute the criminal.

1 Nanda, Ved P. "The Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court: Challenges Ahead." Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, May 1998, 413-428.

Although religions supported the anti-gay law, it is not solely a religious issue; the majority of Ugandans believe that homosexuality is contrary to their traditional values and all the anti-gay protests were inclusive regardless of religious denominations. It is therefore wrong to assert that the law was passed as a religious initiative. A separation of church and state does not mean the government should never run policies that the religious want simply that the government should not be favouring a particular religion.

There are procedural ways of mitigating this concern that are less severe than eliminating the jury altogether. Possible ways of dealing with jury intimidation/tampering include 1) having retrials in cases where jury tampering occurred, 2) attempting to increase the degree of juror anonymity, for example by seating jurors where they cannot be seen, and 3) by having higher penalties for jury tampering and intimidation. The second way is probably the most effective, and American courts have found that in cases where jury tampering poses a serious threat, it does not interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial.1 1Laura K. Donohue, "Terrorism and Trial by Jury: The Vices and Virtues of British and American Criminal Law"

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

The AIVD example shows exactly that judicial and political control is not enough: the judicial control is control after the fact, so it didn’t prevent the AIVD from listening in to journalists conversations in the first place. Moreover, a regulatory committee judged that the Minister of Internal Affairs, who is supposed to be the a priori control, had given permission too easily, which is to be expected when a Minister faces a lot of requests like this, and has to decide in between the regular work of actually governing. [1] It is the lack of initial oversight which is anti-democratic, citizens expect their government and courts to prevent the intelligence agencies from infringing on privacy not simply demand an apology later when the intelligence agency is found out. How many more cases are there which are not caught?

[1] NIS News Bulletin, ‘Press Sector Sues State for Eavesdropping Telegraaf Journalists’ 9/07/2009 http://www.nisnews.nl/public/090709_1.htm

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


Question:
Internment without trial exacerbates the antagonism of enemies and subsequent risk to civilians.

To intern without trial, for prolonged periods, the believed enemies of a state is to offer them and their supporters added reason to be antagonistic. In Northern Ireland, “violence soared following the introduction of internment and the British government imposed ‘direct rule’” 1. Moreover, Guantanamo Bay, the central symbol of the growth of executive power in United States’ war on terror, has been described by Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, as ‘a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment and harmful to our national security’ 2. Armando Spataro, a senior Italian prosecutor, has remarked ‘Muslims around the world are asking why there is so little international opposition to the U.S. policy of internment without trial. The collateral damage of Guantanamo is incalculable’ 3. It appears difficult to argue that the extension of executive power in the war on terror has had any effect on the security of innocent civilians other than increasing their risk of harm.

1 Davis, F. (2004, August) Internment Without Trial: The Lessons from the United States, Northern Ireland and Israel. Retrieved June 23, 2011 from:

2 Rhee, F. (2009, January 22). Obama orders Guantanamo Bay closed, bans torture. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from Boston:

3 Greening, K. J. (2007, February 12). 8 Reasons to Close Guantanamo Now. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from In These Times:

improve this

To intern without trial, for prolonged periods, the believed enemies of a state is to offer them and their supporters added reason to be antagonistic. In Northern Ireland, “violence soared following the introduction of internment and the British government imposed ‘direct rule’” 1. Moreover, Guantanamo Bay, the central symbol of the growth of executive power in United States’ war on terror, has been described by Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, as ‘a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment and harmful to our national security’ 2. Armando Spataro, a senior Italian prosecutor, has remarked ‘Muslims around the world are asking why there is so little international opposition to the U.S. policy of internment without trial. The collateral damage of Guantanamo is incalculable’ 3. It appears difficult to argue that the extension of executive power in the war on terror has had any effect on the security of innocent civilians other than increasing their risk of harm.

1 Davis, F. (2004, August) Internment Without Trial: The Lessons from the United States, Northern Ireland and Israel. Retrieved June 23, 2011 from:

2 Rhee, F. (2009, January 22). Obama orders Guantanamo Bay closed, bans torture. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from Boston:

3 Greening, K. J. (2007, February 12). 8 Reasons to Close Guantanamo Now. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from In These Times:

The period of internment, however long, does not serve to exacerbate antagonisms inherent in adversaries. If anything, the period of reflection acts as a punitive measure designed to force the suspect to weigh up his choices and potentially disavow his beliefs. If innocent, they may develop antagonisms towards their captors, but that does not automatically place them in the throes of their suspected associates. Furthermore, even if this were true, the antagonism held towards their captors would not be permitted to lead to further violence for they would be interned until the conclusion of the war.

Acting due to a change of government is not the prerogative of another state. Putin is within his rights not to recognise that government and to grant asylum to former president Yanukovych but not to take action within the Ukraine to change the situation.

The coup however was not a coup but an abdication. “Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership.” It was therefore Yanukovych who essentially decided that he was no longer in charge by leaving Kiev and not making any statements for several days. [1] Moreover the Ukrainian constitution (both 2004 and 2010 versions) gives the right to impeach the President to Parliament [2] this is what the Parliament has done.

[1] Psaki, Jen, ‘Daily Press Briefing’, U.S. Department of State, 28 February 2014

[2] Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85 (7 & 10), wikisource, 2004 , 2010

A politician who has to constantly concern himself with reelection has a much greater likelihood of being beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists than one who is term-limited so will actually engage in more corruption. While a term-limited legislator may suffer to a degree from lame duck status, the need to continuously seek electoral support is far more damaging to his ability to do what is right for the nation. Politicians who are not term-limited will spend more time doing what is popular than what is necessary. It is far better to have a representative who has only a limited time to enact the policies he envisions, so that he actively seeks to implement his vision, rather focusing on the short-term goal of reelection.

Far from being a unifying force the Schengen Area has already led to disagreements between individual countries. Italy and France were involved in a major political dispute after Italy abused the spirit, if not the terms, of the Schengen Agreement to offload thousands of North African migrants onto France. In April 2011, French police even went so far as to stop an Italian train carrying migrants and prevent it from crossing the border [1] . France took the rare decision to temporarily re-establish border controls, adding more than 300 police to patrols monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory, along with inspecting rail traffic [2] . It issued instructions stating that an immigrant who wishes to cross the French border must “hold a valid travel document recognised by France” and a “valid residence document,” “show proof of having sufficient resources—that is, €31 per day if the person has accommodations, and €62 otherwise [3] . France’s unilateral decision to restore border controls and stretch the boundary of the Schengen Agreement underlines the extreme fragility of the legal basis of the European Union. Further, Romania was angry at attempts to exclude them from the Schengen area, a move led by France and Germany, after accessing to the EU and technically meeting all the border conditions for the passport-free zone, calling it “discrimination” [4] .

[1] ‘France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty’, BBC News, 26th April 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

[2] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[3] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[4] Waterfield, Bruno, ‘Romania accuses France and Germany of discrimination over Schengen exclusion’, The Daily Telegraph, 22nd December 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8219933/Romania...

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. [1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. [2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The fact that the prison system is not designed to be punitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. Retributive justice demands that criminals are punished. Prison should do that, and it should fit the crime, by having more than one category of punishment based on the offence. It is understandable that prison services themselves do not consider their task to be to punish; they claim that is done by the judge or jury that hands out the sentence. This however in effect means that no one takes responsibility for punishing those who have done wrong. Instead each stage of the criminal justice system becomes solely an attempt to prevent future crime without consideration to past victims.

The ICC does not infringe upon national sovereignty because it only has jurisdiction if the national justice system is either ineffective or unable to prosecute the criminal.

National courts still have the responsibility and ability to prosecute their own criminals, and the ICC is only meant to be used as a last resort in case these national measures fail; there is no contradiction between the two.1 Sovereignty only exists if the state has internal control, and the ICC will only have jurisdiction in cases where the national justice system has proven that for some reason, it will not prosecute the criminal.

1 Nanda, Ved P. "The Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court: Challenges Ahead." Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, May 1998, 413-428.

Although religions supported the anti-gay law, it is not solely a religious issue; the majority of Ugandans believe that homosexuality is contrary to their traditional values and all the anti-gay protests were inclusive regardless of religious denominations. It is therefore wrong to assert that the law was passed as a religious initiative. A separation of church and state does not mean the government should never run policies that the religious want simply that the government should not be favouring a particular religion.

There are procedural ways of mitigating this concern that are less severe than eliminating the jury altogether. Possible ways of dealing with jury intimidation/tampering include 1) having retrials in cases where jury tampering occurred, 2) attempting to increase the degree of juror anonymity, for example by seating jurors where they cannot be seen, and 3) by having higher penalties for jury tampering and intimidation. The second way is probably the most effective, and American courts have found that in cases where jury tampering poses a serious threat, it does not interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial.1 1Laura K. Donohue, "Terrorism and Trial by Jury: The Vices and Virtues of British and American Criminal Law"

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

The AIVD example shows exactly that judicial and political control is not enough: the judicial control is control after the fact, so it didn’t prevent the AIVD from listening in to journalists conversations in the first place. Moreover, a regulatory committee judged that the Minister of Internal Affairs, who is supposed to be the a priori control, had given permission too easily, which is to be expected when a Minister faces a lot of requests like this, and has to decide in between the regular work of actually governing. [1] It is the lack of initial oversight which is anti-democratic, citizens expect their government and courts to prevent the intelligence agencies from infringing on privacy not simply demand an apology later when the intelligence agency is found out. How many more cases are there which are not caught?

[1] NIS News Bulletin, ‘Press Sector Sues State for Eavesdropping Telegraaf Journalists’ 9/07/2009 http://www.nisnews.nl/public/090709_1.htm

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


Question:
Internment without trial fails to make society safer.

Giving the government the power to detain suspects without due process of law will not in fact make society any safer. The proposition's arguments rely upon the accuracy of secret intelligence, which supposedly identifies individuals planning terrorist acts, but which cannot be revealed in open court. Past examples suggest that such intelligence is often deeply flawed. For example, when internment was introduced in Northern Ireland in 1971 over 100 of the 340 original detainees were released within two days when it was realised much of the Special Branch intelligence that had been used to identify them was incorrect 1. Recent intelligence failures in the campaign against Al-Qaeda point to the difficulties western intelligence services have in penetrating and understanding non-white groups, while intelligence on Iraq's weapons programmes was also clearly flawed. So not only will many of the wrong people be unjustly locked up, many dangerous ones will be left at liberty.

1 West, C. (2002, January 2). Internment: methods of interrogation. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from BBC News:

It is essential to reach an appropriate balance of rights and freedoms. Everyone recognises the importance of protecting rights and liberties, but this cannot be done at any cost. There is a wider duty on politicians to protect society from harm, and their voters will rightly hold them to account if they fail in this responsibility. As the UK's Home Secretary, David Blunkett has written: "How best to protect ourselves effectively while maintaining the maximum freedoms is one of the biggest issues facing all democratic governments in the aftermath of September 11… I am willing to take whatever critics may throw at me, as long as history does not judge that our Labour government failed to do its best to protect us against those who would destroy our lives and our democracy.1"

1. Blunkett, D. (2001, November 20). This is not internment. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/nov/20/britainand911.uksecurity

Acting due to a change of government is not the prerogative of another state. Putin is within his rights not to recognise that government and to grant asylum to former president Yanukovych but not to take action within the Ukraine to change the situation.

The coup however was not a coup but an abdication. “Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership.” It was therefore Yanukovych who essentially decided that he was no longer in charge by leaving Kiev and not making any statements for several days. [1] Moreover the Ukrainian constitution (both 2004 and 2010 versions) gives the right to impeach the President to Parliament [2] this is what the Parliament has done.

[1] Psaki, Jen, ‘Daily Press Briefing’, U.S. Department of State, 28 February 2014

[2] Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85 (7 & 10), wikisource, 2004 , 2010

A politician who has to constantly concern himself with reelection has a much greater likelihood of being beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists than one who is term-limited so will actually engage in more corruption. While a term-limited legislator may suffer to a degree from lame duck status, the need to continuously seek electoral support is far more damaging to his ability to do what is right for the nation. Politicians who are not term-limited will spend more time doing what is popular than what is necessary. It is far better to have a representative who has only a limited time to enact the policies he envisions, so that he actively seeks to implement his vision, rather focusing on the short-term goal of reelection.

Far from being a unifying force the Schengen Area has already led to disagreements between individual countries. Italy and France were involved in a major political dispute after Italy abused the spirit, if not the terms, of the Schengen Agreement to offload thousands of North African migrants onto France. In April 2011, French police even went so far as to stop an Italian train carrying migrants and prevent it from crossing the border [1] . France took the rare decision to temporarily re-establish border controls, adding more than 300 police to patrols monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory, along with inspecting rail traffic [2] . It issued instructions stating that an immigrant who wishes to cross the French border must “hold a valid travel document recognised by France” and a “valid residence document,” “show proof of having sufficient resources—that is, €31 per day if the person has accommodations, and €62 otherwise [3] . France’s unilateral decision to restore border controls and stretch the boundary of the Schengen Agreement underlines the extreme fragility of the legal basis of the European Union. Further, Romania was angry at attempts to exclude them from the Schengen area, a move led by France and Germany, after accessing to the EU and technically meeting all the border conditions for the passport-free zone, calling it “discrimination” [4] .

[1] ‘France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty’, BBC News, 26th April 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

[2] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[3] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[4] Waterfield, Bruno, ‘Romania accuses France and Germany of discrimination over Schengen exclusion’, The Daily Telegraph, 22nd December 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8219933/Romania...

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. [1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. [2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The fact that the prison system is not designed to be punitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. Retributive justice demands that criminals are punished. Prison should do that, and it should fit the crime, by having more than one category of punishment based on the offence. It is understandable that prison services themselves do not consider their task to be to punish; they claim that is done by the judge or jury that hands out the sentence. This however in effect means that no one takes responsibility for punishing those who have done wrong. Instead each stage of the criminal justice system becomes solely an attempt to prevent future crime without consideration to past victims.

The ICC does not infringe upon national sovereignty because it only has jurisdiction if the national justice system is either ineffective or unable to prosecute the criminal.

National courts still have the responsibility and ability to prosecute their own criminals, and the ICC is only meant to be used as a last resort in case these national measures fail; there is no contradiction between the two.1 Sovereignty only exists if the state has internal control, and the ICC will only have jurisdiction in cases where the national justice system has proven that for some reason, it will not prosecute the criminal.

1 Nanda, Ved P. "The Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court: Challenges Ahead." Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, May 1998, 413-428.

Although religions supported the anti-gay law, it is not solely a religious issue; the majority of Ugandans believe that homosexuality is contrary to their traditional values and all the anti-gay protests were inclusive regardless of religious denominations. It is therefore wrong to assert that the law was passed as a religious initiative. A separation of church and state does not mean the government should never run policies that the religious want simply that the government should not be favouring a particular religion.

There are procedural ways of mitigating this concern that are less severe than eliminating the jury altogether. Possible ways of dealing with jury intimidation/tampering include 1) having retrials in cases where jury tampering occurred, 2) attempting to increase the degree of juror anonymity, for example by seating jurors where they cannot be seen, and 3) by having higher penalties for jury tampering and intimidation. The second way is probably the most effective, and American courts have found that in cases where jury tampering poses a serious threat, it does not interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial.1 1Laura K. Donohue, "Terrorism and Trial by Jury: The Vices and Virtues of British and American Criminal Law"

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

The AIVD example shows exactly that judicial and political control is not enough: the judicial control is control after the fact, so it didn’t prevent the AIVD from listening in to journalists conversations in the first place. Moreover, a regulatory committee judged that the Minister of Internal Affairs, who is supposed to be the a priori control, had given permission too easily, which is to be expected when a Minister faces a lot of requests like this, and has to decide in between the regular work of actually governing. [1] It is the lack of initial oversight which is anti-democratic, citizens expect their government and courts to prevent the intelligence agencies from infringing on privacy not simply demand an apology later when the intelligence agency is found out. How many more cases are there which are not caught?

[1] NIS News Bulletin, ‘Press Sector Sues State for Eavesdropping Telegraaf Journalists’ 9/07/2009 http://www.nisnews.nl/public/090709_1.htm

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


Question:
Internment without trial encourages the bad behaviour of other states.

Compromising our usual high standards of human rights encourages bad behaviour by other countries. Governments with less concern for rights are reassured by the apparent failure of liberal democracy to address a terrorist threat, and feel justified in tightening up their own measures against individuals and groups perceived as a threat. Western governments, meanwhile, lose their moral ability to criticise abuses elsewhere. Overall, the cause of freedom suffers everywhere. This can be seen clearly in the actions of governments around the world since September 11 2001, where existing repressive measures have been justified in new ways as part of the war on terror, or new ones introduced in apparent response to it. India, for example, has been using repressive measures in Kashmir for twenty years, however it still exploited the war on terror as a pretext for international support for its latest crackdowns 1.

1. Shingavi, S. (2010, July 14). India's new crackdown in Kashmir. Retrieved July 14, 2011, from CETRI:

Internment without trial does not justify the bad behaviour of other states, for it is justifiable under norms of international law. For example, the measures taken by the UK government to detain foreign nationals identified by intelligence as a serious threat to Britain are justified by conflicting priorities. In normal circumstances such people would be deported to their home countries, but asylum rules prevent the forced deportation of people to countries which might persecute them. Those detained in the UK are in fact free to leave if they can find a country to take them 1. Those who cannot are in effect choosing to remain in detention here. Rather than removing completely the government's power to deport foreign nationals who pose a threat, this is the best solution from a human rights point of view.

1 Kelly, D. (2010, February 20). UK Border Agency response on 'migrant detainees'. Retrieved May 12, 2011 from Immigration Matters

Acting due to a change of government is not the prerogative of another state. Putin is within his rights not to recognise that government and to grant asylum to former president Yanukovych but not to take action within the Ukraine to change the situation.

The coup however was not a coup but an abdication. “Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership.” It was therefore Yanukovych who essentially decided that he was no longer in charge by leaving Kiev and not making any statements for several days. [1] Moreover the Ukrainian constitution (both 2004 and 2010 versions) gives the right to impeach the President to Parliament [2] this is what the Parliament has done.

[1] Psaki, Jen, ‘Daily Press Briefing’, U.S. Department of State, 28 February 2014

[2] Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85 (7 & 10), wikisource, 2004 , 2010

A politician who has to constantly concern himself with reelection has a much greater likelihood of being beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists than one who is term-limited so will actually engage in more corruption. While a term-limited legislator may suffer to a degree from lame duck status, the need to continuously seek electoral support is far more damaging to his ability to do what is right for the nation. Politicians who are not term-limited will spend more time doing what is popular than what is necessary. It is far better to have a representative who has only a limited time to enact the policies he envisions, so that he actively seeks to implement his vision, rather focusing on the short-term goal of reelection.

Far from being a unifying force the Schengen Area has already led to disagreements between individual countries. Italy and France were involved in a major political dispute after Italy abused the spirit, if not the terms, of the Schengen Agreement to offload thousands of North African migrants onto France. In April 2011, French police even went so far as to stop an Italian train carrying migrants and prevent it from crossing the border [1] . France took the rare decision to temporarily re-establish border controls, adding more than 300 police to patrols monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory, along with inspecting rail traffic [2] . It issued instructions stating that an immigrant who wishes to cross the French border must “hold a valid travel document recognised by France” and a “valid residence document,” “show proof of having sufficient resources—that is, €31 per day if the person has accommodations, and €62 otherwise [3] . France’s unilateral decision to restore border controls and stretch the boundary of the Schengen Agreement underlines the extreme fragility of the legal basis of the European Union. Further, Romania was angry at attempts to exclude them from the Schengen area, a move led by France and Germany, after accessing to the EU and technically meeting all the border conditions for the passport-free zone, calling it “discrimination” [4] .

[1] ‘France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty’, BBC News, 26th April 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

[2] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[3] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[4] Waterfield, Bruno, ‘Romania accuses France and Germany of discrimination over Schengen exclusion’, The Daily Telegraph, 22nd December 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8219933/Romania...

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. [1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. [2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The fact that the prison system is not designed to be punitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. Retributive justice demands that criminals are punished. Prison should do that, and it should fit the crime, by having more than one category of punishment based on the offence. It is understandable that prison services themselves do not consider their task to be to punish; they claim that is done by the judge or jury that hands out the sentence. This however in effect means that no one takes responsibility for punishing those who have done wrong. Instead each stage of the criminal justice system becomes solely an attempt to prevent future crime without consideration to past victims.

The ICC does not infringe upon national sovereignty because it only has jurisdiction if the national justice system is either ineffective or unable to prosecute the criminal.

National courts still have the responsibility and ability to prosecute their own criminals, and the ICC is only meant to be used as a last resort in case these national measures fail; there is no contradiction between the two.1 Sovereignty only exists if the state has internal control, and the ICC will only have jurisdiction in cases where the national justice system has proven that for some reason, it will not prosecute the criminal.

1 Nanda, Ved P. "The Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court: Challenges Ahead." Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, May 1998, 413-428.

Although religions supported the anti-gay law, it is not solely a religious issue; the majority of Ugandans believe that homosexuality is contrary to their traditional values and all the anti-gay protests were inclusive regardless of religious denominations. It is therefore wrong to assert that the law was passed as a religious initiative. A separation of church and state does not mean the government should never run policies that the religious want simply that the government should not be favouring a particular religion.

There are procedural ways of mitigating this concern that are less severe than eliminating the jury altogether. Possible ways of dealing with jury intimidation/tampering include 1) having retrials in cases where jury tampering occurred, 2) attempting to increase the degree of juror anonymity, for example by seating jurors where they cannot be seen, and 3) by having higher penalties for jury tampering and intimidation. The second way is probably the most effective, and American courts have found that in cases where jury tampering poses a serious threat, it does not interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial.1 1Laura K. Donohue, "Terrorism and Trial by Jury: The Vices and Virtues of British and American Criminal Law"

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

The AIVD example shows exactly that judicial and political control is not enough: the judicial control is control after the fact, so it didn’t prevent the AIVD from listening in to journalists conversations in the first place. Moreover, a regulatory committee judged that the Minister of Internal Affairs, who is supposed to be the a priori control, had given permission too easily, which is to be expected when a Minister faces a lot of requests like this, and has to decide in between the regular work of actually governing. [1] It is the lack of initial oversight which is anti-democratic, citizens expect their government and courts to prevent the intelligence agencies from infringing on privacy not simply demand an apology later when the intelligence agency is found out. How many more cases are there which are not caught?

[1] NIS News Bulletin, ‘Press Sector Sues State for Eavesdropping Telegraaf Journalists’ 9/07/2009 http://www.nisnews.nl/public/090709_1.htm

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


Question:
The war on terror is not an armed conflict, and therefore internment without trial is illegal.

The war on terror is not like past, conventional conflicts, and the government should not be able to take wartime powers simply on its own declaration. The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 were horrific, but they did not threaten the entire life of the American nation - the economy has rebounded surprisingly quickly and no one believes that even a successful attack on the White House or Congress would have ended American democracy. Separate from warfare therefore, interment without trial is clearly illegal – as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states, ‘everyone has the right to liberty and security of the person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention’1. If it can be agreed upon that human rights are universal, internment without trial outside of the protocols on warfare is illegal. Furthermore, the war on terror is not winnable - there is no likely endpoint at which we will be able to declare an enemy to have been defeated and so allow detained "enemy combatants" to go home - so these harsh but supposedly temporary wartime measures will become the norm.

1. Davis, 2004. p4

The war on terror is not like past, conventional conflicts but that does not prevent its classification as an armed conflict; soldiers are still dying in fire-fights, territory is still being fought over and the threat to homeland security is very real and visceral. According to the Bush administration, the war on terror represents a new ‘paradigm of war’, whereby the civilians directly engaged in hostilities, ‘enemy combatants’, are not permitted to enjoy the privileges of international humanitarian law. Prisoner of war status is ‘reserved (for) members of the armed forces of a party to an international armed conflict…who must distinguish themselves from the civilian population in order to be entitled to POW status upon capture’ 1. Regarding the ICCPR, it has a specific derogation clause that states ‘in times of public emergency’, the states may excuse themselves from the strict provisions of the covenant. This would, in the context of threats to the safety of civilians, permit states to intern without trial enemy combatants.

1. International Committee of Red Cross, 2005

Acting due to a change of government is not the prerogative of another state. Putin is within his rights not to recognise that government and to grant asylum to former president Yanukovych but not to take action within the Ukraine to change the situation.

The coup however was not a coup but an abdication. “Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership.” It was therefore Yanukovych who essentially decided that he was no longer in charge by leaving Kiev and not making any statements for several days. [1] Moreover the Ukrainian constitution (both 2004 and 2010 versions) gives the right to impeach the President to Parliament [2] this is what the Parliament has done.

[1] Psaki, Jen, ‘Daily Press Briefing’, U.S. Department of State, 28 February 2014

[2] Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85 (7 & 10), wikisource, 2004 , 2010

A politician who has to constantly concern himself with reelection has a much greater likelihood of being beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists than one who is term-limited so will actually engage in more corruption. While a term-limited legislator may suffer to a degree from lame duck status, the need to continuously seek electoral support is far more damaging to his ability to do what is right for the nation. Politicians who are not term-limited will spend more time doing what is popular than what is necessary. It is far better to have a representative who has only a limited time to enact the policies he envisions, so that he actively seeks to implement his vision, rather focusing on the short-term goal of reelection.

Far from being a unifying force the Schengen Area has already led to disagreements between individual countries. Italy and France were involved in a major political dispute after Italy abused the spirit, if not the terms, of the Schengen Agreement to offload thousands of North African migrants onto France. In April 2011, French police even went so far as to stop an Italian train carrying migrants and prevent it from crossing the border [1] . France took the rare decision to temporarily re-establish border controls, adding more than 300 police to patrols monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory, along with inspecting rail traffic [2] . It issued instructions stating that an immigrant who wishes to cross the French border must “hold a valid travel document recognised by France” and a “valid residence document,” “show proof of having sufficient resources—that is, €31 per day if the person has accommodations, and €62 otherwise [3] . France’s unilateral decision to restore border controls and stretch the boundary of the Schengen Agreement underlines the extreme fragility of the legal basis of the European Union. Further, Romania was angry at attempts to exclude them from the Schengen area, a move led by France and Germany, after accessing to the EU and technically meeting all the border conditions for the passport-free zone, calling it “discrimination” [4] .

[1] ‘France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty’, BBC News, 26th April 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

[2] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[3] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[4] Waterfield, Bruno, ‘Romania accuses France and Germany of discrimination over Schengen exclusion’, The Daily Telegraph, 22nd December 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8219933/Romania...

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. [1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. [2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The fact that the prison system is not designed to be punitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. Retributive justice demands that criminals are punished. Prison should do that, and it should fit the crime, by having more than one category of punishment based on the offence. It is understandable that prison services themselves do not consider their task to be to punish; they claim that is done by the judge or jury that hands out the sentence. This however in effect means that no one takes responsibility for punishing those who have done wrong. Instead each stage of the criminal justice system becomes solely an attempt to prevent future crime without consideration to past victims.

The ICC does not infringe upon national sovereignty because it only has jurisdiction if the national justice system is either ineffective or unable to prosecute the criminal.

National courts still have the responsibility and ability to prosecute their own criminals, and the ICC is only meant to be used as a last resort in case these national measures fail; there is no contradiction between the two.1 Sovereignty only exists if the state has internal control, and the ICC will only have jurisdiction in cases where the national justice system has proven that for some reason, it will not prosecute the criminal.

1 Nanda, Ved P. "The Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court: Challenges Ahead." Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, May 1998, 413-428.

Although religions supported the anti-gay law, it is not solely a religious issue; the majority of Ugandans believe that homosexuality is contrary to their traditional values and all the anti-gay protests were inclusive regardless of religious denominations. It is therefore wrong to assert that the law was passed as a religious initiative. A separation of church and state does not mean the government should never run policies that the religious want simply that the government should not be favouring a particular religion.

There are procedural ways of mitigating this concern that are less severe than eliminating the jury altogether. Possible ways of dealing with jury intimidation/tampering include 1) having retrials in cases where jury tampering occurred, 2) attempting to increase the degree of juror anonymity, for example by seating jurors where they cannot be seen, and 3) by having higher penalties for jury tampering and intimidation. The second way is probably the most effective, and American courts have found that in cases where jury tampering poses a serious threat, it does not interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial.1 1Laura K. Donohue, "Terrorism and Trial by Jury: The Vices and Virtues of British and American Criminal Law"

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

The AIVD example shows exactly that judicial and political control is not enough: the judicial control is control after the fact, so it didn’t prevent the AIVD from listening in to journalists conversations in the first place. Moreover, a regulatory committee judged that the Minister of Internal Affairs, who is supposed to be the a priori control, had given permission too easily, which is to be expected when a Minister faces a lot of requests like this, and has to decide in between the regular work of actually governing. [1] It is the lack of initial oversight which is anti-democratic, citizens expect their government and courts to prevent the intelligence agencies from infringing on privacy not simply demand an apology later when the intelligence agency is found out. How many more cases are there which are not caught?

[1] NIS News Bulletin, ‘Press Sector Sues State for Eavesdropping Telegraaf Journalists’ 9/07/2009 http://www.nisnews.nl/public/090709_1.htm

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


Question:
Term limits create more competitive elections for public office that empower new leaders and ideas:

Incumbency provides a huge election advantage. Politicians almost always win reelection. The frequency with which they win varies over time and between states, but incumbency is always a powerful advantage. This is seen most visibly in the United States Congress of the past 30 years, in which it has become virtually impossible to unseat an incumbent legislator. Legislators are reelected because they have better name recognition both with the electorate and with lobby groups. People have a tendency to vote for whom they recognize, and firms tend to support past winners who will likely continue to benefit their interests. Term limits actually increase voter choice by making elections more competitive and encouraging more candidates to run. In areas where term limits have been instituted there is far higher turnover amongst legislators, giving voters far more choice in who should represent them. In California, the institution of term limits on state legislators caused a rush of retirements, which led to 50 percent more candidates than would otherwise have been expected, as well as a marked increase in the diversity of the backgrounds of those elected [1] . Ultimately, old legislators using election machines to retain power do their country and constituents a disservice. Power is best used when it changes hands over time in order to allow for dynamic new solutions to be mooted in a changing world.

[1] Bandow, Doug. 1995. "Real Term Limits: Now More Than Ever". Cato Institute Policy Analysis.

Term-limiting legislators insults the intelligence of the electorate. Individuals can make prudent decisions about who to vote for, and it so happens that that decision is often to keep incumbents in power. If the reason for such high reelection rates is due to an uneducated or disaffected electorate, then the problem is not be solved by simply instituting term limits. Rather, such results mean an effort must be made to educate voters and to fight voter apathy. Neither of those things is accomplished by limiting the choice of the voters.

Acting due to a change of government is not the prerogative of another state. Putin is within his rights not to recognise that government and to grant asylum to former president Yanukovych but not to take action within the Ukraine to change the situation.

The coup however was not a coup but an abdication. “Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership.” It was therefore Yanukovych who essentially decided that he was no longer in charge by leaving Kiev and not making any statements for several days. [1] Moreover the Ukrainian constitution (both 2004 and 2010 versions) gives the right to impeach the President to Parliament [2] this is what the Parliament has done.

[1] Psaki, Jen, ‘Daily Press Briefing’, U.S. Department of State, 28 February 2014

[2] Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85 (7 & 10), wikisource, 2004 , 2010

Far from being a unifying force the Schengen Area has already led to disagreements between individual countries. Italy and France were involved in a major political dispute after Italy abused the spirit, if not the terms, of the Schengen Agreement to offload thousands of North African migrants onto France. In April 2011, French police even went so far as to stop an Italian train carrying migrants and prevent it from crossing the border [1] . France took the rare decision to temporarily re-establish border controls, adding more than 300 police to patrols monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory, along with inspecting rail traffic [2] . It issued instructions stating that an immigrant who wishes to cross the French border must “hold a valid travel document recognised by France” and a “valid residence document,” “show proof of having sufficient resources—that is, €31 per day if the person has accommodations, and €62 otherwise [3] . France’s unilateral decision to restore border controls and stretch the boundary of the Schengen Agreement underlines the extreme fragility of the legal basis of the European Union. Further, Romania was angry at attempts to exclude them from the Schengen area, a move led by France and Germany, after accessing to the EU and technically meeting all the border conditions for the passport-free zone, calling it “discrimination” [4] .

[1] ‘France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty’, BBC News, 26th April 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

[2] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[3] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[4] Waterfield, Bruno, ‘Romania accuses France and Germany of discrimination over Schengen exclusion’, The Daily Telegraph, 22nd December 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8219933/Romania...

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. [1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. [2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The fact that the prison system is not designed to be punitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. Retributive justice demands that criminals are punished. Prison should do that, and it should fit the crime, by having more than one category of punishment based on the offence. It is understandable that prison services themselves do not consider their task to be to punish; they claim that is done by the judge or jury that hands out the sentence. This however in effect means that no one takes responsibility for punishing those who have done wrong. Instead each stage of the criminal justice system becomes solely an attempt to prevent future crime without consideration to past victims.

The ICC does not infringe upon national sovereignty because it only has jurisdiction if the national justice system is either ineffective or unable to prosecute the criminal.

National courts still have the responsibility and ability to prosecute their own criminals, and the ICC is only meant to be used as a last resort in case these national measures fail; there is no contradiction between the two.1 Sovereignty only exists if the state has internal control, and the ICC will only have jurisdiction in cases where the national justice system has proven that for some reason, it will not prosecute the criminal.

1 Nanda, Ved P. "The Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court: Challenges Ahead." Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, May 1998, 413-428.

Although religions supported the anti-gay law, it is not solely a religious issue; the majority of Ugandans believe that homosexuality is contrary to their traditional values and all the anti-gay protests were inclusive regardless of religious denominations. It is therefore wrong to assert that the law was passed as a religious initiative. A separation of church and state does not mean the government should never run policies that the religious want simply that the government should not be favouring a particular religion.

There are procedural ways of mitigating this concern that are less severe than eliminating the jury altogether. Possible ways of dealing with jury intimidation/tampering include 1) having retrials in cases where jury tampering occurred, 2) attempting to increase the degree of juror anonymity, for example by seating jurors where they cannot be seen, and 3) by having higher penalties for jury tampering and intimidation. The second way is probably the most effective, and American courts have found that in cases where jury tampering poses a serious threat, it does not interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial.1 1Laura K. Donohue, "Terrorism and Trial by Jury: The Vices and Virtues of British and American Criminal Law"

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

The AIVD example shows exactly that judicial and political control is not enough: the judicial control is control after the fact, so it didn’t prevent the AIVD from listening in to journalists conversations in the first place. Moreover, a regulatory committee judged that the Minister of Internal Affairs, who is supposed to be the a priori control, had given permission too easily, which is to be expected when a Minister faces a lot of requests like this, and has to decide in between the regular work of actually governing. [1] It is the lack of initial oversight which is anti-democratic, citizens expect their government and courts to prevent the intelligence agencies from infringing on privacy not simply demand an apology later when the intelligence agency is found out. How many more cases are there which are not caught?

[1] NIS News Bulletin, ‘Press Sector Sues State for Eavesdropping Telegraaf Journalists’ 9/07/2009 http://www.nisnews.nl/public/090709_1.htm

Even if the ICC brings proceedings, that does not guarantee that individuals, even if captured by forces that oppose them, will be transferred over to the ICC – the new Libyan government is still holding Saif Gaddafi. [1]

The ICC can also only act when the state is unwilling or unable to provide a trial – this this is the principle of complementarity. However there is not ICC force that can act to arrest a suspect. This means in effect that it will be down to the forces on the ground which may mean summary justice by those who capture the suspect if they think it won’t get a sufficiently stiff sentence at the ICC – there is no death penalty.

At any rate, many in Syria would want to see a fully military conclusion to the conflict, rather than any result through the international courts or a political settlement.

[1] Aliriza, Fadil, ‘Is Libya too scared to put Said Gaddafi on trial?’, The Independent, 16 August 2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/is-libya-too-scared-to-put-saif-gaddafi-on-trial-8771495.html

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


Question:
The longer a politician remains in office, the more entrenched his grip becomes, and the more likely he is to use his office to his personal advantage:

Power is highly intoxicating; it can corrupt even the most scrupled individual given enough exposure over time. For this reason, power should not be left in the hands of specific individuals for too long. When a politician is firmly entrenched, he may seek to enrich himself at the expense of the public. He may seek to shower benefices on family and allies in order to maintain and strengthen his powerful position. Without term limits legislators often become self-serving individuals, more interested in craving out personal power bases than with serving the people who elected them. Because legislators are so likely to be reelected, lobbyists and special interest groups find the lines of power in states' capitals largely predictable, and are thus able to buy the influence of the permanent power nexuses in the legislature with relative ease1. Term limits serve to limit the ability of individuals to put forward self-serving legislation and to retain power indefinitely 2. Instead, by maintaining term limits, legislators have only a limited time in power, which tends to shift their focus toward genuinely benefiting the public.

1 Bandow, Doug. 1995. "Real Term Limits: Now More Than Ever". Cato Institute Policy Analysis. 2 Green, Eric. 2007. "Term Limits Help Prevent Dictatorships". America.gov.

People are intelligent enough to recognize whether a representative is benefiting them or not. They will not vote for someone who is using his privileged position in the legislature to enrich himself or build a fiefdom of influence. Rather, legislators will only be able to stay in office so long as they do what their constituents want. If legislators are maintaining their power by other means, such as institutionalized corruption and force, it is not because there are no term limits on them, but rather because of other fundamental problems of government in those states.

Acting due to a change of government is not the prerogative of another state. Putin is within his rights not to recognise that government and to grant asylum to former president Yanukovych but not to take action within the Ukraine to change the situation.

The coup however was not a coup but an abdication. “Yanukovych has lost his legitimacy as he abdicated his responsibilities. As you know, he left Ukraine – or left Kyiv, and he has left a vacuum of leadership.” It was therefore Yanukovych who essentially decided that he was no longer in charge by leaving Kiev and not making any statements for several days. [1] Moreover the Ukrainian constitution (both 2004 and 2010 versions) gives the right to impeach the President to Parliament [2] this is what the Parliament has done.

[1] Psaki, Jen, ‘Daily Press Briefing’, U.S. Department of State, 28 February 2014

[2] Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85 (7 & 10), wikisource, 2004 , 2010

Far from being a unifying force the Schengen Area has already led to disagreements between individual countries. Italy and France were involved in a major political dispute after Italy abused the spirit, if not the terms, of the Schengen Agreement to offload thousands of North African migrants onto France. In April 2011, French police even went so far as to stop an Italian train carrying migrants and prevent it from crossing the border [1] . France took the rare decision to temporarily re-establish border controls, adding more than 300 police to patrols monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory, along with inspecting rail traffic [2] . It issued instructions stating that an immigrant who wishes to cross the French border must “hold a valid travel document recognised by France” and a “valid residence document,” “show proof of having sufficient resources—that is, €31 per day if the person has accommodations, and €62 otherwise [3] . France’s unilateral decision to restore border controls and stretch the boundary of the Schengen Agreement underlines the extreme fragility of the legal basis of the European Union. Further, Romania was angry at attempts to exclude them from the Schengen area, a move led by France and Germany, after accessing to the EU and technically meeting all the border conditions for the passport-free zone, calling it “discrimination” [4] .

[1] ‘France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty’, BBC News, 26th April 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

[2] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[3] Ira, Kumaran, ‘France re-establishes border controls with Italy amid dispute over African migrants’, World Socialist Website, 11th April 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/fran-a11.shtml

[4] Waterfield, Bruno, ‘Romania accuses France and Germany of discrimination over Schengen exclusion’, The Daily Telegraph, 22nd December 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/8219933/Romania...

The inalienable rights of refugees are not negotiable, nor are they subject to the interests of the state which they would be returning to. International law considers agreements between an occupier and the occupied to be null and void if they deprive civilians of recognized human rights including the rights to repatriation and restitution. [1] Therefore the interests of the state of Israel are not legitimate reasons to deny the right of return which is owed to Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the right of return is feasible in Israel due to the availability of empty land. 80% of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the remaining 20% live on 85% of the land that belongs to the refugees. Further, of the 20%, 18% live in Palestinian cities while the remaining 2% live in kibbutzim and moshavs. By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire their lands are practically empty. [2]

[1] Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. "Factsheet". Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html

[2] Sakhnini, Nizar. "Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing." Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. 12 July 2004. http://www.al-awda.org/zionists01.html

The fact that the prison system is not designed to be punitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. Retributive justice demands that criminals are punished. Prison should do that, and it should fit the crime, by having more than one category of punishment based on the offence. It is understandable that prison services themselves do not consider their task to be to punish; they claim that is done by the judge or jury that hands out the sentence. This however in effect means that no one takes responsibility for punishing those who have done wrong. Instead each stage of the criminal justice system becomes solely an attempt to prevent future crime without consideration to past victims.

The ICC does not infringe upon national sovereignty because it only has jurisdiction if the national justice system is either ineffective or unable to prosecute the criminal.

National courts still have the responsibility and ability to prosecute their own criminals, and the ICC is only meant to be used as a last resort in case these national measures fail; there is no contradiction between the two.1 Sovereignty only exists if the state has internal control, and the ICC will only have jurisdiction in cases where the national justice system has proven that for some reason, it will not prosecute the criminal.

1 Nanda, Ved P. "The Establishment of a Permanent International Criminal Court: Challenges Ahead." Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, May 1998, 413-428.

Although religions supported the anti-gay law, it is not solely a religious issue; the majority of Ugandans believe that homosexuality is contrary to their traditional values and all the anti-gay protests were inclusive regardless of religious denominations. It is therefore wrong to assert that the law was passed as a religious initiative. A separation of church and state does not mean the government should never run policies that the religious want simply that the government should not be favouring a particular religion.

There are procedural ways of mitigating this concern that are less severe than eliminating the jury altogether. Possible ways of dealing with jury intimidation/tampering include 1) having retrials in cases where jury tampering occurred, 2) attempting to increase the degree of juror anonymity, for example by seating jurors where they cannot be seen, and 3) by having higher penalties for jury tampering and intimidation. The second way is probably the most effective, and American courts have found that in cases where jury tampering poses a serious threat, it does not interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial.1 1Laura K. Donohue, "Terrorism and Trial by Jury: The Vices and Virtues of British and American Criminal Law"

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

The AIVD example shows exactly that judicial and political control is not enough: the judicial control is control after the fact, so it didn’t prevent the AIVD from listening in to journalists conversations in the first place. Moreover, a regulatory committee judged that the Minister of Internal Affairs, who is supposed to be the a priori control, had given permission too easily, which is to be expected when a Minister faces a lot of requests like this, and has to decide in between the regular work of actually governing. [1] It is the lack of initial oversight which is anti-democratic, citizens expect their government and courts to prevent the intelligence agencies from infringing on privacy not simply demand an apology later when the intelligence agency is found out. How many more cases are there which are not caught?

[1] NIS News Bulletin, ‘Press Sector Sues State for Eavesdropping Telegraaf Journalists’ 9/07/2009 http://www.nisnews.nl/public/090709_1.htm

Even if the ICC brings proceedings, that does not guarantee that individuals, even if captured by forces that oppose them, will be transferred over to the ICC – the new Libyan government is still holding Saif Gaddafi. [1]

The ICC can also only act when the state is unwilling or unable to provide a trial – this this is the principle of complementarity. However there is not ICC force that can act to arrest a suspect. This means in effect that it will be down to the forces on the ground which may mean summary justice by those who capture the suspect if they think it won’t get a sufficiently stiff sentence at the ICC – there is no death penalty.

At any rate, many in Syria would want to see a fully military conclusion to the conflict, rather than any result through the international courts or a political settlement.

[1] Aliriza, Fadil, ‘Is Libya too scared to put Said Gaddafi on trial?’, The Independent, 16 August 2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/is-libya-too-scared-to-put-saif-gaddafi-on-trial-8771495.html

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