Question:
Poor treatment of terrorists affirms terrorist ideology and provides a recruitment tool, therefore the Geneva Conventions must be applied to prevent this.

Poor treatment affirms terrorist ideology: regardless of what is morally right, it would be beneficial to treat terrorists in the ways prescribed by the Convention. Terrorist ideology is often predicated on the behaviour of those countries against which it is targeted. Treating captured terrorists or terror suspects in a way that ignores their human dignity only reinforces negative perceptions of the West and encourages the radicalization of the youth (McCarthy, 2007). In addition, such behaviour can be used to justify terrorist actions to less radicalised members of certain communitie

Poor treatment is not a significant recruitment tool: whilst some people may be encouraged to join terrorist groups as a result of such behaviour, those who are outraged by human rights abuses in this context should be equally concerned about the violation of human rights which occurs when a terrorist detonates a bomb, or flies into a building, killing large numbers of innocent civilians. The ideology invoked exists independently of the way in which suspects are treated and indoctrination with such beliefs is the real tool in the recruitment process.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
Terrorists are engaged in war, which much remain subject to the Geneva Conventions lest it become unrestrained

Terrorists are engaged in a war like any other: they unite as a political actor to undertake military action in favour of a specific cause. The fact that they do not represent one individual nation and that they are not at war with a specific list of states does not undermine this: Al Qaeda, for example, has clear goals including eliminating American influence within Muslim nations, destroying Israel and re-establishing the Caliphate (Blanchard, 2007). The fact that we may not view these causes as worthy or legitimate is irrelevant: we do not assess the merits or legitimacy of a conflict between states before deciding whether to apply the Geneva Convention. It should therefore apply equally to soldiers and terrorists. The Geneva Conventions were formed to ensure that future wars would not result in the barbarity and wanton violence that mired World War II; to deny it to terrorists would risk the undermining of norms that have developed to restrain warfare. If we don’t treat terrorists as prisoners of war therefore, we risk a return to the barbarity of warfare in the first half of the 20th century.

Terrorists are not engaged in a war. Their actions are aimed at destruction of civil society and of nations across the globe. The Geneva Conventions exist to control wars between nations in a way which respects human dignity and minimises long-term harm. Wars between nations have a foreseeable end, and the Convention is an important means of aiding reconciliation and cooperation in the future: it is harder to build a relationship with a state which has brutally tortured your soldiers upon capture. However, a war against terrorists will often have no end: it is inconceivable, for example, either that Al Qaeda will successfully achieve the reestablishment of the Caliphate or that the West will quash all terrorist activity. Reconciliation and future cooperation are meaningless here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
Harsh interrogation is not necessarily an effective tool for extracting valuable information.

Harsh interrogation of captives has not been shown to be effective (White, 2007). Those who are prepared to die to advance their cause are unlikely to yield information, no matter how much they are threatened or tortured. Where captives do provide information, they often state simply what they think that the interrogators want to hear, rather than anything that is true (Mazzetti, 2007). In addition, given the cellular nature of many terrorist organisations, those captured often have very little useful information to begin with. Even if they have been involved in a plot, they may only have information about a very small part of that plot. Furthermore, winning the trust of prisoners can lead to more effective information than the use of torture.

Harsh interrogation is indeed necessary, due in part to the unique efficacy of harsh interrogation in dealing with the new threat. The interrogation of a terrorist is qualitatively different to that of a soldier, due to the nature of terrorist attacks and the importance of information in their prevention. Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA, argues that there is no other way for the CIA to have acquired information from them, ‘given their character and given their commitment to what it is they do’ (Martinez, 2009). The effectiveness of harsh interrogation may vary, but an absolute prohibition based on the few exceptions would be too high a price to pay. Protecting civilian lives must come before maintaining any moral high ground.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
With no hope of reciprocity, adherence to the Geneva Conventions would undermine the fight against terrorism

There is no moral duty to respect the dignity of terrorists. States should do whatever possible to protect their own citizens. The Geneva Convention is about reciprocity: it is in the interest of our own citizens to treat enemy combatants in a humane manner so that if our soldiers are caught they will receive similar treatment. There can be no guarantee of reciprocity from ‘terrorists’ as a whole, or even specific terrorist groups given the cellular nature of the organisations and the disparate nature of the command structures. Furthermore, terrorists specifically use poor treatment of hostages as a tool in their campaign. Given this, it is in the interests of our own citizens to use whatever means possible to fight terrorism; compliance with the Geneva Convention undermines this.

Treating terrorists with respect for their human rights allows those fighting the war on terror to take the moral high ground. By failing to comply with the Geneva Conventions, countries such as the USA are no better than the terrorist groups that they are fighting. The objects of war have changed, states no longer seek territory purely through force but by cultivating popular support, ‘hearts and minds’ (Kilcullen, 2009). The values that the West stands for are exactly what terrorists are attacking and the West needs to show that it can win the war on terror while still respecting fundamental values such as the rule of law and human rights. Applying the Geneva Conventions is therefore a vital part of winning the war on terror, regardless of whether the terrorists choose to apply them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
There are other means by which to protect the rights of terrorists without needing to apply the Geneva Conventions

Under the auspices of the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war can be detained for the duration of hostilities, and are only entitled to return home at the end of the war (International Committee of the Red Cross, 1949). Given the open-ended nature of the war on terror, it is very likely that treating terrorist detainees as POWs will mean they are never released. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the Geneva Conventions protect human rights any better than existing domestic law or policy. In democracies, the accountability of elected politicians and judicial review by independent judges can instead be trusted to ensure that detainees are not abused or mistreated.

The Geneva Conventions provide the only fair, impartial and strong mechanism for protecting the human rights of detainees in the war on terror. Applying the Geneva Conventions would allow the Red Cross to inspect prisons where detainees are held (Anonymous, 2002). Breaches of the Geneva Conventions also give rise to State Responsibility, as seen in the USA and Israeli courts’ supervision of the treatment of terrorists and terror suspects. Individuals can also be held criminally responsible for breaches of the Geneva Conventions, for example the Charles Taylor trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the trial of Radovan Karadzic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (Dworkin, 2003). The Geneva Conventions are therefore a useful way of ensuring that states respect human rights, rather than simply promising to treat detainees well as a matter of policy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
Terrorists are not lawful combatants, therefore they not do not acquire prisoner of war status

Prisoner of war status is only granted to those who legally and morally deserve its protections. Therefore, those who wish to seek the protection of the Geneva Conventions, the laws of war, have a duty to distinguish themselves from the civilian population (Detter, 2007, p.1063). Terrorists who absolve themselves of this responsibility in the pursuit of wanton violence, who flagrantly ignore the laws of war, cannot thereafter appeal to its protection once captured. Such a norm is required in order to preserve the sanctity of the Geneva Conventions, including the immunity of civilians, and prevent the encouragement of using civilians as means to ends. Terrorists who operate outside of the law and attempt to thereafter use it to their advantage should be denied that opportunity. Attempts to permit the use of non-uniformed soldiers in Protocol 1 lack authority as several key states are not party to it (including the USA and Israel).

The re-definition of terrorists as unlawful combatants threatens to encourage the use of the evolution of war as an excuse for human rights abuses. The refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions allows states to use tactics such as indefinite detention without trial and enhanced interrogation techniques such as water-boarding, which are seen by many as a form of torture (UN General Assembly, 1984). These practices are cruel and significantly harm the physical and psychological wellbeing of detainees. Even if these techniques were effective in the war on terror, they should not be practiced because they are a violation of both the laws of war and international human rights law (ICRC, 1948). Moreover, under Protocol 1 (1977) Additional to the Geneva Conventions, non-state forces engaged in wars aiming at self-determination are permitted to operate without use of uniforms or carrying arms openly (except during combat and while visibly deploying immediate prior to attack).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
Special interrogation methods are necessary in order to combat the terrorist threat

The war on terror is unlike any other war and so different tactics are necessary in order to win. There is no point maintaining a moral high ground where this leads to more civilian deaths. The Geneva Conventions put barriers in the way of winning the war on terror because tactics such as indefinite detention are necessary. For example, Israel’s practice of targeted killing of terrorists was restricted by the Israeli Supreme Court on the grounds that it did not comply with the Geneva Conventions (The Public Committee against Torture in Israel v. The Government of Israel, 2006). Often there is no other way to combat terrorists and the Geneva Conventions restrict tactics that save hundreds of lives. Governments would also not be able to gain as much intelligence if they had to adhere to the Geneva Conventions when interrogating terrorists. It is dangerous to put the west at an operational disadvantage in the war on terror just to maintain a moral high ground.

Special interrogation methods are not necessary to combat the terrorist threat. It is always easy to imagine extra lengths that states could conceivably go to in order to protect their soldiers or civilians. However the ambition of the Geneva Conventions in the wake of World War II was to establish limits. The ‘unlawful combatant’ legal loophole created by the United States threatens to erode the restraint on warfare built up over half a century. The high-profile case of waterboarding involving Al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah casts serious doubt on any claim that such methods are effective, and by extension, necessary in combating the terrorist threat. Water-boarded 83 times in one month, Zubaydah’s treatment demonstrates that the absence of the constraints of the Geneva Conventions is a slippery slope to the use of wanton, sadistic violence with no justifiable end (Shane, 2009). Though Zubaydah’s interrogation is believed to have been fruitful in terms of intelligence gathered, there is little reason to believe ordinary interrogation methods would not have been similarly successful over time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
ASBOS encourage antisocial behavour

ASBOs are explicitly intended to deal with bad juvenile behaviour. But they encourage rather than deal with such problems. They are viewed as badges of honour that boosts street credibility amongst young gangs – the ‘naming and shaming’ just increases this. [1] They push people that could be helped by social work or proper attention into an unenviable category of ‘offender’ – they criminalise people for behaviour that isn’t criminal.

[1] BBC News, ‘Asbos viewed as ‘badge of honour’, 2 November 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6107028.stm

ASBOs offer a wide flexibility to the sentencing authority as they are not only a punishment for past actions but also a form of restraint to prevent future misbehaviour. They permit the judge or magistrate to forbid the offender to go to a certain place, avoid a certain person, and ban them from participating in a particular activity. Without such powers, our courts will never be able to deal with the rising tide of yobbish behaviour that is, whilst not criminal, hugely damaging our communities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
ASBOS breach basic principles of justice

“A youth recently appeared in Court in Manchester for breach of his ASBO. The Order had been made in the youth's absence without his being able to give his side of the story (one of the main concerns about ASBOs and one that can lead to misuse). The day after the Order was made someone came to his house to "serve" it on him. This consisted of his being handed a copy of what was a fairly bulky document running to several dozen pages with no attempt to explain it or even to ascertain if he was literate enough to read it. The Order included an restriction preventing him entering a particular estate nearby and another preventing him from associating with certain others. Unfortunately, he went out before reading the Order and beached it twice that day. The next day he went out again and breached it three times by mistake as he had not read the part covering the particular restriction. He now faces possibly custody although he has never been convicted of a criminal offence.” [1]

The issuing of ASBOs is inconsistent and almost amounts to a geographical lottery. People can be jailed for breaching an ASBO where the original offence was itself non-imprisonable – i.e. A civil procedure is being used to create and expand criminal sanctions. ASBOs have also been imposed on people with mental health problems where treatment would have been more appropriate.

[1] Select Committee on Home Affairs, ‘Anti-Social Behaviour Orders – Analysis of the First Six Years’ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhaff/80/80we20.htm

The problem of service and enforcement of ASBOs is identical that of all other court orders and can be solved the same way – in the proposition example the obvious solution would be to ensure that the youth in question had had the order fully explained to him on service.

An ASBO can only be made after a court hearing where both sides have the opportunity to have their say. The burden of proof remains on the person seeking the order to show why it is necessary. An impartial magistrate oversees the hearing. People subject to ASBOs are typically allowed to breach it several times before serious enforcement action is taken against them.

The fact is that the system of ASBOs is perfectly just and a much more liberal alternative to simply criminalising minor anti-social behaviour altogether

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
ASBOs do not address the real problem

ASBOs address the symptom, not the condition. Their powers are wide and undefined – too wide, meaning that Judges and magistrates can do pretty much whatever they like. Certainly there are problems in the way people conduct themselves – but if such behaviour isn’t criminal, then it’s up to families and communities to fix it. The ASBO is the latest example of excessive state interference in the lives of citizens. Either conduct is criminal, or it is not. The law of nuisance exists. Restraining orders exist. ASBOs aren’t intended to deal with that kind of problem: they’re the tool of the state controlling behaviour. Just because a problem exists, doesn’t mean it’s the job of the state to try and fix it. The powers granted to the state in its efforts are disproportionate to the problems concerned.

Indeed, the current trend is against such interference both as shown by the potential replacement of ASBOs and by court decisions such as one that people should not be punished for hurling obscenities. [1]

[1] Kelly, Jon, ‘Should swearing be against the law?’, BBC News Magazine, 21 November 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15816761

Something meaningful has to exist to punish actions that don’t merit criminal punishment, but damage the quality of life of others, especially through constant repetition. The ASBO is such a tool. It is intended to be the primary weapon in a ‘zero tolerance’ environment. ASBOs allow communities to take back their streets and estates from intimidating and out of control youths, and to establish proper norms of behaviour. In this way a slide into more serious lawlessness and criminality can be prevented, and the rights of the law-abiding majority to walk the streets and live peacefully with their neighbours can be secured.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
There is no respect among the population for ASBOS

Newspapers are full of examples of absurd ASBOs. They make an ass of the law and show that the nanny state is overreaching. People trying to kill themselves really aren’t going to be put off by the prospect of breaching their ASBO. [1]

Other examples include a prostitute who was prohibited from carrying condoms in an area that included her drug clinic, a prohibition on mobile soup vans that fed the homeless and a deaf girl who was banned from spitting in public. [2]

[1] BBC News, ‘Suicide woman banned from river’, 25 February 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/4297695.stm

[2] Select Committee on Home Affairs, ‘Anti-Social Behaviour Orders – Analysis of the First Six Years’ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhaff/80/80we20.htm

The wackier examples of ASBOs are actually demonstrations of what the order can do and other laws cannot. The woman who has an ASBO restraining her from jumping into rivers shows that the order can help with the thorny problem of actions that aren’t illegal, but place huge burdens on the emergency services and place the police and other citizens at risk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
No system is perfect

Of course, some ASBOs fail. But no aspect of the justice system has a 100% success rate, and by their nature ASBOs are more likely to be abused because (unlike prison) the offender remains in his own environment. Should more in breach of ASBOs be punished? Sure. That’s not an argument against ASBOs though, is it? Neither is the fact that not enough are handed down. Although the use of ASBOs around the country is still patchy, some authorities have made very effective use of them to improve life in many local communities.

58% of ASBOs have been breached, [1] with little resulting punishment. Only 2% of those who breach their ASBO are currently punished with a prison sentence. [2] This brings the justice system into disrepute. It doesn’t seem to matter if they’re breached – so people don’t care about getting them. Furthermore, they’re not granted in anything like the proportions needed to have an effect: 5,000 were supposed to be imposed every year, but instead only 3,800 were used in the first five years.

[1] ‘Statistical Notice: Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) Statistics - England and Wales 2012’, gov.uk, 2013, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/253535/Anti-Social_Behaviour_Order_Statistical_Notice_2012.pdf

[2] ‘No prison for Asbo-breaching yobs’, Metro, http://www.metro.co.uk/news/61949-no-prison-for-asbo-breaching-yobs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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