Question:
ICC is cheaper

Africa bears little of the cost of the ICC – by far its largest contributions come from the European Union, and its member states.

This, coupled with the fact that the ICC is cheaper than the ad hoc tribunals due to economies of scale, means that justice can be delivered to war criminals and those who commit crimes against humanity in an affordable manner – saving resources for helping the victims.

Is justice something to be subjected to simple financial parameters?

Even so, what is the ICC cheaper than? It may be cheaper than individual criminal tribunals like the ICTY and ICTR, but that assumes that such tribunals are desirable. It should be left up to individual states to bring action.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
No impunity

The ICC means an end to impunity. It has meant that warlords such as Germain Katanga have been able to be prosecuted for things like using child soldiers, which are universally reviled.

What the African Union leaders are simply advocating by withdrawal from the ICC is impunity for themselves. They see one of their own – Uhuru Kenyatta, who has to face very serious allegations over his part in the mayhem after the 2007 elections which killed over a thousand people – being prosecuted and then claim it is selective. The only selection going on is that those who do not have a case to answer are not being prosecuted.

Impunity has occurred in some cases, due to the ICC system not leading to prosecutions, such as in Sri Lanka.

At any rate, the ICC is not needed – African courts can deal with individuals, not a foreign one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
ICC necessary to provide fair trials

Domestic legal systems will often suffer from a lack of judicial independence and potentially politicised prosecutions, and are also open to allegations of victors’ justice, or whitewashes by a judiciary biased towards the winners of the conflict.

The ICC, as an effective court and with an independent judiciary, provides a suitable and unbiased climate for these cases to be heard in. While it is difficult to give any former head of state a fair trial, it is even more so in cases involving states divided along ethnic and political fault lines where any conviction could be seen as one based on continuing hatreds rather than evidence and criminal procedure.

In addition, the principle of complementarity means African states can prosecute on their own if they wish.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
Gambling leads to the disintegration of families

Gambling can have a devastating effect on families. The most obvious effect is financial as one partner uses all their money on gambling the other needs to support the whole family or the gambler may even gamble away joint savings. Psychologically there is a relationship between gambling and various psychiatric and alcohol disorders. This is also an impact on friends, who do not want to be tied into supporting gambling financially or even just emotionally. Lesieur and Custer estimated that for each problem gambler there were 10-15 other people adversely impacted by the gambling of that person.1 As with drugs, it is harmful to the individual concerned and their family and friends, and it is better to ban gambling to stop people getting started in the first place.

1 Shaw, Martha C. et al., ‘The Effect of Pathological Gambling on Families, Marriages , and Children’, CNS Spectrums, Vol. 12, No. 8, 2007, pp.615-622.

Treatment programs can address the problems of those who are addicted, and many casinos offer “Self-Exclusion Programs”, where individuals can effectively “ban” themselves from casinos. This could be the initiative of either the gambler or their family or friends.

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:
Gambling affects poor people disproportionately

Poor people are more likely to gamble, in the hope of getting rich. In 1999, the National Gambling Impact Commission in the United States found that 80 percent of gambling revenue came from lower-income households1. It is immoral for the state or charities to raise money by exploiting people’s stupidity and greed. Taxing gambling is a regressive tax (this means that the poor pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than the rich), and regressive taxation is deeply unfair. Gambling attracts people with little money who are desperate for a windfall. These are the people who can least afford to lose money.

1 Mark Lange, The Gambling Scan on America’s Poor, Allnet.com, May 3 2007.

Gambling effects every person in the same way, everyone have the free will to decide to gamble and each may win or lose despite of their wealth or position in society, thus gambling cannot affect poor people to a greater extent. Gambling is only regressive because more poor people choose to gamble.

Gambling does also have good effects on all member of society- Gambling is often used to raise money for the state or good causes. Many governments tax gambling. Some even run their own lotteries. Charities use prize draws to raise funds. Because people will gamble anyway, the best that governments can do is to pass rules to make it safe and try to get some social good out of it. If the government uses the revenue to help people on lower-incomes, it is not necessarily true that taxes on gambling are regressive and target the poor.

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:
Online gambling has increased the incidence of gambling addiction

Someone can become addicted very easily – they don’t even need to leave their home, and online gambling sites are available at all hours. This also means that they are gambling in private. They may therefore be less reluctant to wager very large sums they cannot afford. In the United States in 1999 the National Gambling Impact Study stated "the high-speed instant gratification of Internet games and the high level of privacy they offer may exacerbate problem and pathological gambling",1 and it is estimated that 75% of internet gamblers are problem gamblers, compared with 20% of those who visit casinos.

It is very hard to know the identity of an online gambler – there have been several cases of people (including children) using stolen credit cards to gamble online.

Online gambling sites can also get around government regulations that limit the dangers of betting. Because they can be legally sited anywhere in the world, they can pick countries with no rules to protect customers.

1 Skolnik, Sam, High Stakes: the Rising Cost of America’s Gambling Addiction, Beacon Press, 2011, Chapter 5

Internet gambling is in fact less dangerous than normal gambling. It is free from the pressures to gamble that casinos can create through free food and entertainment, glitzy surroundings and peer pressure. And as children can’t get credit cards, they should not be able to gamble online anyway. Stolen credit cards can be used to commit fraud in any number of ways - online gambling is not a specific problem here. It is also in the interest of internet gambling sites to run a trustworthy, responsible business. Whatever they are looking for online, internet users choose trusted brands that have been around for a while. If a gambling site acts badly, for example by changing its odds unfairly, word will soon get around and no one will want to use 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:
Gambling is associated with other forms of addiction and harmful behaviour

Gambling makes people concentrate of winning money. Religious leaders of all denominations see gambling as eroding family values1 because it implies that material goods should be valued above other things like friendships and families. It also sends out the message that success should not necessarily be the result of merit and effort. As a philosophy, ‘gambling culture’ is incredibly dangerous. Those in society who most need to self-improve, never do. Instead, they tie their hopes and dreams to the lottery. There may be the possibility of winning a big prize, but the overwhelming likelihood is that a gambler will lose money. Instead, governments should be promoting values like thrift, hard work and self-reliance rather than encouraging or even allowing gambling to promote its own negative values.

1 Holahan, Catherine, ‘Online Gambling Still in the Cards’, Bloomberg Businessweek, 3 October 2006.

There is no evidence that gambling makes people not care about others. People do not gamble because they expect to win lots of money. Most gamble as a form of entertainment. Also, there are many areas of life where success is not the result of merit or hard work. Someone born to well-off parents may get many advantages in life without merit or hard work. There are therefore no grounds for thinking that gambling promotes these undesirable values. The desire for wealth one that stems from society as a whole, not casinos.

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:
Gambling is addictive and psychologically harmful

Gambling can become a psychologically addictive behavior in some people. According to the Emotional Neuroscience Centre in Massachusetts, “Monetary reward in a gambling-like experiment produces brain activation very similar to that observed in a cocaine addict receiving an infusion of cocaine.”1 Because of this addictive nature, many people end up gambling to try to recover money they have already lost. This is known as ‘chasing losses’. It results in people staking more and more money, most of which they will lose, and sinking deeper and deeper into debt. People start to gamble without thinking that they will become addicted. Once that happens, it is often too late. A gambling addiction, in addition to the long term effects it has, can result in financial ruin in a few short hours.

1 Johannes Hedwig, Hypersensitivity to Reward in Problem Gamblers, Biological Psychiatry, April 15 2010. .

Unlike drugs, gambling is not physically or metabolically addictive. Most gamblers are not addicts, simply ordinary people who enjoy the excitement of a bet on a sporting event or card game. Only a small percentage of gamblers have an addiction. Many more get enjoyment from gambling without problems. The risks of gambling addiction are well known. People can make a conscious choice to start gambling, and are aware of the risks of addiction.

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:
Casinos are often used to mask criminal activity

Casinos are often associated with crime, particularly organized crime. When it comes to local crimes a study has found that only larceny(theft) liquor violations increased significantly with a small increase in prostitution.1 But comparing statistics probably does not show the real harm; drug dealers and prostitutes operate near casinos – they know that there are a large number of potential clients in the area. Moreover when a gambler is in debt and wishes to continue gambling due to its addictive nature, he or she often turns to loan sharks as no bank would lend to them. Casinos can therefore be devastating to neighborhoods. It would of course be wrong to assume all gamblers are criminals, although there is an increased possibility that gamblers in debt could turn to criminality through illegal borrowing. These loan sharks themselves usually have links to organized crime, in some cases are actually run by organized crime,2 and use brutal methods to reclaim their money. By banning gambling the opportunities for loan sharks to offer their services is greatly reduced due to a lesser amount of gamblers in debt, as are the opportunities for prostitutes therefore reducing criminal activity in the areas surrounding casinos.

1 Stitt, Grant, et al., ‘Does the Presence of Casinos Increase Crime? An Examination of Casino and Control Communities’, Crime & Delinquency, Vol. 49, No. 2, April 2003, pp.253-284, P.279

2 Jordan, Mary, ‘Mafia loan sharks making a killing’, Washington Post, 15 March 2009.

People committing crimes should be prosecuted. The existence of criminals does not make nearby businesses (including casinos) immoral. It is perverse to punish people who just want to gamble (and not take drugs or use prostitutes) by taking away their chance to do so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independent nations are capable of trying war crimes themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Question:
It is impossible to effectively ban gambling

When gambling has been banned, people have just found a way round the ban. They use internet sites based in other countries. A good example being the Ukraine, who in May 2009 made gambling illegal, this included internet gambling. By July 2009, over 500 illegal gambling operations were established, where 6,000 slot machines were confiscated and 216 criminal charges were made in connection to illegal gambling.1 This illustrates how banning gambling can creates a thriving underground market.

It is better to legalize and regulate online gambling than to drive gamblers to poorly-regulated foreign operators. Regulation can reduce the problems identified by the proposition. For example, online gamblers can be required to give personal details when registering (e.g. occupation, income). If this information suggests he or she is spending more than they can afford, the company can block their credit card.

1 Kyiv Post, ‘Governmental checks expose over 500 facts of illegal operation of gambling establishments’, 20 July 2009.

Gambling is not impossible to ban, although it will not be easy such examples of states that have banned it show that it is possible and although illegal activity may arise from the ban this can also be stopped by though rules. If government did not ban activities where some may find a way around it, nothing would be banned at all.

Making an activity more difficult to pursue will still reduce the number of those who take it up. It is not impossible to put effective deterrent steps in place, such as the recent US ban on American banks processing credit card payments to internet gambling sites.

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:
Many activities directly comparable to gambling are already legal and regulated

What is the difference between gambling and playing the stock market? In each case people are putting money at risk in the hope of a particular outcome. Gambling on horse-racing or games involves knowledge and expertise that can improve your chances of success. In the same way, trading in bonds, shares, currency or derivatives is a bet that your understanding of the economy is better than that of other investors. Why should one kind of online risk-taking be legal and the other not?

Gambling is quite different from buying stocks and shares. With the stock market investors are buying a stake in an actual company. This share may rise or fall in value, but so can a house or artwork. In each case there is a real asset that is likely to hold its value in the long term, which isn’t the case with gambling. Company shares and bonds can even produce a regular income through dividend and interest payments. It is true that some forms of financial speculation are more like gambling – for example the derivatives market or short-selling, where the investor does not actually own the asset being traded. But these are not types of investment that ordinary people have much to do with. They are also the kinds of financial activity most to blame for the financial crisis, which suggests we need more government control, not less.

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:
Gambling is simply a leisure pursuit

People have free will and should be allowed to spend their money on which ever leisure pursuits they choose. Gamblers know that, overall, they are likely to lose money. They gamble because it is a leisure pursuit that they enjoy.

There is nothing irrational about this. Some people get an enjoyable thrill from the remote possibility that they might win a huge prize – even if he or she loses, they enjoy the experience. Some forms of gambling are highly sociable. For example, many people are involved in ‘social gambling’ and go to bingo halls (or equivalent) to spend time with friends, and some types of gambling are interlinked with other leisure pursuits such as horse racing.* Society accepts people spending money on other leisure pursuits with no material benefits (e.g. cinema tickets, watching sport) – gambling should not be any different. It is patronizing to suggest that people should not be able to choose how they spend their money or their leisure time.

1 The General Education Centre of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, ‘Report on A Study of Hong Kong People’s Participation in Gambling Activities’, Home Affairs Bureau, March 2002, p.4

Gambling is a harmful activity and could have harmful effects on not only to individuals but also on their friends and family. Gamblers may win money from time to time, but in the long run, the house always wins. Why should governments allow an activity that helps their citizens lose the money they have worked so hard to earn? Surely it is the responsibility of the government to protect its citizens from harming themselves, just as harmful substances are illegal, gambling should also be illegal.

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