Question:
Hate crime enhancements unfairly punish equal offences differently

Hate crime enhancements are unjust because they respond to two equal results (i.e. assault vs. racial mugging) with different punishments. We need to judge solely on the concrete actions of the aggressor in order to prevent punishments from being based on arbitrary judgements as to an offender’s “intent”, which can be very difficult to prove. Otherwise “intent” may be supposed or argued in cases where it did not exist, leading to perverse sentencing whereby a crime is punished more harshly despite the true absence of intent. There is a danger of unjustly branding someone as bigoted and punishing them excessively, e.g. for their involvement in a bar fight where the victim coincidentally belonged to a minority group.

Juries might also be willing to make the logical leap that, because the aggressor was proved to hold bigoted views in general towards his victim's ethnic group, these views must have motivated his actions in this individual incident, despite the absence of any evidence linking the specific brawl in a bar to the aggressor's views. Therefore it is unjust to punish two crimes with equal effects differently on the highly subjective basis of “intent”, and thus hate crime enhancements are unjust.

This presupposes that hate crimes are equal in their effects to non-hate crimes, which they are not as hate crimes cause harms in terms of terror directed at, and felt only by, specific groups.

Moreover, intent is considered in trials in many other circumstances, such as in differentiating between manslaughter (killing without intent to kill) and murder (killing with intent to kill), or when deciding whether a murder was premeditated or not. There is no reason to suppose intent cannot also be judged in possible hate crime cases.

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:
Hate crime enhancements help prevent hate crimes

The additional punishment given to hate crimes under enhancements can help deter people who hold hateful views from acting on them, as they fear going to prison for any amount of time, and so any additional punishment affects their risk calculation before they commit a hate crime.

Moreover, increased punishments help prevent those who have perpetrated hate crimes from re-offending through rehabilitation in prison. In cases of crimes motivated by deep hatred, rehabilitation may require increased time and increased effort in order to provide criminals with the correct focus and concentration, and a longer sentence is necessary for this to happen.

Hate is not an essential human trait, we are not born hating people, it is a learned factor that can be unlearned when correctly rehabilitated. Therefore hate crime enhancements are just because they help prevent hate crimes and help prevent hate crime recidivism.

It isn't necessarily true that hate crime enhancements really do deter hate crimes or help fight recidivism. Those committing hate crimes would face significant deterrents (in the form of legal sanctions, including prison time) for the crimes they commit even without the enhancements, so it seems unlikely that the addition of a few more years on their sentence, for example, would make a large difference to them when considering committing a crime. Moreover most hate crimes are based on irrational hatred and prejudice, and thus are unlikely to be rationally considered in a risk analysis as this argument supposes. In terms of rehabilitation, it should be noted that prisons are frequently places of racial and sectarian tension, with violent prison gangs built on ethnic and other identities, and thus hardly seem the place to counteract such prejudices.(4)

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:
Hate crimes uniquely harm through terror

Hate crimes should be given a more severe penalty because the harm done to the victim and society is greater. Given that the intent of hate crimes is more malicious than simple premeditative murder; it is just to enhance hate crime laws to reflect stronger punishment. Hate crimes don't merely victimize the individual upon whom violence is inflicted, they also victimize a community or minority group that the hate crime was intended to terrorize. This is why hate crimes frequently include highly public acts such as lynchings in town squares, dragging hate crime victims behind cars along streets inhabited by certain communities, and graffiti on significant buildings -they are intended to send a message.

Hate crime-delivered messages limit the freedom of expression and group association of the victim community, thus violating their liberties. For this reason, hate crimes have more victims than other crimes, and subsequently deserver greater punishment. Moreover, as hate crimes are generally perpetrated against minority groups, and because these minority groups are always in a state of social disenfranchisement; it could be argued that hate crime enhancements are the state's way of attempting to arbitrate equality to minorities by compensating them with laws that will better favour their interests, thus forcibly "balancing the scale" of social equity.

Much of this symbolism and “meaning” attributed to hate crimes is deeply subjective and open to (mis)interpretation, especially in a politicized environment where hatred against one group is perceived as being the “usual” motivation behind any crime by any individual from another community against that group, and where the idea of hatred motivating a crime against another community by a different individual (based on his own background) is treated with scepticism.

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:
Hate crime enhancements can help emphasize tolerance and inter-community relations

Hate crime laws can teach society that hatred is highly condemnable and mould society into a streak away from racism, sexism, etc. Most governments have already taken this turn with the advent of segregation laws, discrimination laws, etc. To simply leave these issues unaddressed would be to make many communities, especially minority communities, feel that their grievances were ignored and that the state allowed discrimination and violence against them. Such feelings would further polarize communities against each other and make racial tensions and further hate crimes more likely.

Therefore hate crime enhancements should be maintained as a way for the state to send a message that it desires tolerance and will not allow crimes based on prejudice to stand un-addressed.

Victims of violence may be prone to accusing their assailant of hate-motivated crimes. Victims frequently seek revenge, and hate crime laws create a very easy avenue for doing so. Thus hate crime enhancements may serve to fuel the fires of inter-community tensions as people perceive them as being used to exact communal vengeance.

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:
Enemy combatants are not US citizens and as such they should not enjoy any protection which a US citizen enjoys under the Constitution.

Unlawful enemy combatants are not US citizens. The only connection they have to the US is the desire to destroy it. As such, they do not fall within the group of people the Constitution is intended to protect. [1]

[1] BBC News, ‘Guantanamo appeal denied’, 12 March 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2842093.stm

Via legal precedent, [1] Habeas Corpus protections extend to foreign nationals detained in the US. Furthermore, to focus solely on the immigration status and purported guilt of suspected terrorists ignore the fact that Habeas Corpus exists to protect us all. Eliminating the rights for “bad people” necessarily eliminates them for the innocent as well.

[1] Supreme Court of the United States, Boumediene v Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-1195.ZS.html

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:
Habeas Corpus has often been suspended in times of conflict, when it has been deemed necessary.

There is a longstanding tradition of suspending Habeas Corpus protections during times of war and conflict. For example, President Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War. [1] Habeas Corpus was also suspended briefly in the Hawaii during World War II, immediately after the attacks on Pearl Harbour. [2] In the UK, Habeas Corpus was suspended in 1794, after the French declared war on Britain, [3] and in 1817, [4] in order to arrest parliamentary reformers. In 1971 Habeas Corpus was again suspended in the UK in order that IRA suspects could be arrested and detained. [5] 9/11 and other Al Qaeda plots require that Western countries respond in just as determined a way. The war on terror may not follow the rules of traditional warfare, but it is a war nonetheless. These precedents show that, in certain circumstances, the suspension of Habeas Corpus is both necessary and justified.

[1] Lincoln, Abraham, ‘Proclamation Suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus’, teachingamericanhistory.org, 24 September 1862, http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=425

[2] Anthony, J. Garner, Hawaii under Army Rule, Stanford University Press, p.5, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=V66lAAAAIAAJ

[3] Holmberg, Tom, ‘Great Britain: Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 7 May 1794’, The Napoleon Series, July 2002, http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/british/c_habeus.html

[4] ‘Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill’, Hansard, 24 June 1817, vol.36, cc1145-55, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1817/jun/24/habeas-corpus-suspension-bill

[5] Wilkinson, Paul, Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2006, p.82, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uq6oCZF7iHcC&dq

The current war on terror is not comparable to past wars during which Habeas Corpus was suspended. Both the Civil War and World War II were openly declared wars of limited duration following invasions by hostile forces. The “war on terror” is nebulous and open-ended. In any case, history has harshly judged arbitrary detentions during wartime. Lincoln’s Civil War detentions and Roosevelt’s Japanese internment camps of the 1940s are embarrassing chapters in US national history. The fact that former presidents improperly suspended Habeas Corpus is all the more reason to exercise caution now. Additionally, the suspension of Habeas Corpus by the UK in 1971 arguably strengthened the cause of the IRA, and made it easier for the organisation to recruit members. Western governments should be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past

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:
Restricting Habeas Corpus is necessary in the face of the new and dangerous threat which modern terrorism poses.

Restricting suspected terrorists’ rights to challenge their detention is necessary to ensure that that individual cannot participate in future terrorist activities. The attacks of September 11th constituted a catastrophic and unprecedented attack on US soil, and the measures undertaken by the US at Guantanamo Bay, in holding many terrorist suspects without trial, are necessary to prevent future attacks of that nature. Terror suspects still have recourse to military tribunals, which contain many of the same safeguards as the federal court system

There is no reason why the United States cannot uphold constitutional protections such as Habeas Corpus and effectively combat terrorism at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, ensuring that suspected terrorists have access to Federal courts will save much-needed resources and ensure more accurate administration of justice. In the present case, it is unclear which of the Guantanamo detainees actually committed the acts that are used to justify their indefinite detention. Allowing detainees to challenge their detention would bring clarity to this uncertain situation and free up resources in the war against terrorism.

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:
Disregarding Habeas Corpus protections sets a dangerous precedent for the treatment of the soldiers and citizens of the US and its Allies when captured by foreign forces.

If the US disregards Habeas Corpus protections, it sets a dangerous precedent for the rest of the world to follow. If other countries follow suit, the citizens and soldiers of the US and its Allies abroad could also be indefinitely detained and denied legal recourse if captured by foreign forces. This is especially relevant when considering journalists covering foreign conflicts, such as those currently occurring in the Middle East. [1]

[1] Staff reports, ‘USA TODAY writer, 3 other journalists captured in Libya’, USA Today, 8 April 2011, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-04-07-libya-journalists_N.htm

The necessity of the measures, and the size of the terrorist threat which faces the US, outweighs the possible problems posed in the opposition argument.

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:
Suspending Habeas Corpus undermines the moral high ground of the US and its Allies, and strengthens the cause of the terrorists which these nations are fighting against.

Restrictions on Habeas Corpus undermine the war against terror and put national security further at risk. Giving terrorist suspects the protection of Habeas Corpus legitimises the war against terror by ensuring that US actions against suspected terrorists have a legal basis, and are not in contravention of the rule of law. The moment that the US and its Allies show the rule of law the disrespect that typifies the regimes which the West seeks to overthrow, the fight for ‘hearts and minds’ will be lost. This effect can easily be seen in the results of the suspension of Habeas Corpus in the UK in order to arrest suspected IRA activists in 1971 – rather than suppressing the IRA as intended it increased support for the terrorist organisation. [1]

[1] Wilkinson, Paul, Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2006, p.82, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uq6oCZF7iHcC&dq

Global terrorism calls for aggressive responses. We cannot allow our respective nations to be besieged by terrorists while we stand aside and do nothing. Our enemies are well aware of the legal framework in which the US authorities and their Allies operate, and will exploit it wherever possible. Constitutional freedoms are extremely important, but the security and continued existence of our nations must come first. The US and its Allies must make a stand and demonstrate that terrorism will not be tolerated.

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:
Suspending Habeas Corpus makes it easier for terrorist organisations to demonise the US and its Allies, and thus to recruit more terrorists in its fight against the West.

By suspending Habeas Corpus, the US is playing into the hands of terrorists and creating more would-be terrorists for the future. Enemies of the West aim to demonstrate that the US is an oppressive state in order to make its model less attractive to others. In particular, they wish to show that America is at war with Muslims in order to radicalise young Muslims both at home and overseas. The US should take heed of the precedent in Northern Ireland, where widespread internment without trial radicalised many Catholic youths in the 1970s and drove them into the arms of the IRA.

The hatred that terrorists feel for the US and its Allies does not depend on details of their respective legal systems. Their hate stems from our success in building a tolerant, democratic society at odds with their narrow vision of harsh conformity. Their propaganda seeks to radicalise young Muslims across the world not by arcane appeals to Habeas Corpus, but by twisted portrayals of Allied military actions against civilians in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. If the prisoners currently held without trial in Guantanamo Bay were released, they could untold damage to the US and its Allies. The risk of this occurring clearly outweighs the ethical issues concerning the suspension of Habeas Corpus protections.

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:
National sovereignty ends when human rights are systematically violated.

States violate their right to non-intervention through systematic human rights abuses by violating the contract of their state.

States derive their rights of control and on the monopoly of violence through what is called the ‘social contract.’ A state gains its right to rule over a population by the people of that state submitting to it their rights to unlimited liberty and the use of force on others in society to the state in return for protection by that state [1] . The individual is sovereign and submits his rights to the state who derives sovereignty from the accumulation of an entire population’s sovereignty. This is where the legitimacy and right to control a population by force comes from. When a state is no longer protecting its people, but rather is systematically removing the security and eroding away the most basic rights and life of those citizens, they no longer are fulfilling the contract and it is void, thus removing their right to sovereignty and immunity from intervention.

The necessity of intervention in such a case comes from the desperation of the situation. Regimes that use the machinery of the state and their enriched elite against their populations hold all the wealth, power and military might in the country. There is no hope for self-protection for individuals facing a powerful, organized, and well-funded national army. In such a case, the sovereignty of the individuals need to be protected from the state that abuses them.

Referring back to counterargument one, this again assumes the a priori existence of individual rights. Moreover, following this logic, as all individuals would, behind a "veil of ignorance", most certainly choose to live is a developed, prosperous nation, all developed nations would have the moral obligation to literally relocate the entire population of the developing world into their own countries. Simply because something may be seen as "preferable" to some people does not a moral imperative create.

Further, this experiment assumes universality of any conception of rights or "human rights". The subjective nature of what it means to be a human being between different faiths and cultures leads to different conceptions of what "dignity" means to humanity and thus enforcing the conception of "dignity" held by the militarily powerful on other states does not necessarily protect it, but in many ways can erode it.

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:
Interventions can be small and successful.

It is the interventions that take a long time to succeed, such as Kosovo, or even fail such as Somalia, or those where many people do not buy into the justification such as Iraq that are remembered. However this forgets that there have also been many small successful interventions and sometimes the threat of intervention is enough. Sierra Leone is the forgotten conflict of Tony Blair’s premiership in the UK. In 2002 Britain sent 800 paratroopers into Sierra Leone, originally just to evacuate foreigners from the country but became an intervention when the British helped government forces drive out rebels which may have saved many lives. However it may also have emboldened Blair to help with intervention in Iraq. [1] This example also shows that it is important to have support on the ground as the British were seen as being legitimate and there was a functioning government who could do the rebuilding. Where this luxury does not exist it is important not to do as happened in Iraq and disband the civil service and prevent those natives who are qualified from running the country even if they may have been implicit in the previous regimes actions.

Where possible as little force as possible should be used. In Libya NATO only committed airpower and supplied weapons so keeping the conflict as much a domestic affair as possible. Slowly as it becomes accepted that interventions will happen the threat will become enough. Sudan may well in part have accepted the secession of South Sudan due to the US backing of the peace deal in 2005.

[1] Little, Allan, ‘The brigadier who saved Sierra Leone’, BBC Radio 4, 15 May 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8682505.stm

Individual rights are created by the state and do not exist in a vacuum, nor do they exist outside of the realm of the existence of a state. To argue that a “social contract” exists where one gives up their “rights” to the state is to suggest that these rights somehow exist outside of the scope of the state existing, which they do not. States empower individuals to have the capacity to do things and thus allow for practical rights to exist. The rights they allow or disallow, whether “human rights” or otherwise, are simply constructions of the state and its denial of certain rights is therefore in no way a breach of any contract or trust [1] . No state or external organisation has any right to decide what a state should or should not construct as its citizen’s rights and therefore has no basis for intervention.

[1] Burke, Edmund. "Reflections on the Revolution in France." Exploring the French Revolution. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Jun 2011. < http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/563/> .

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