Category: Current Events

“We’re not gonna have a war, we’re gonna have the appearance of a war.”

Conrad Brean (Robert de Niro)

“Look at that! That is a complete f….. fraud, and it looks a hundred percent real. It’s the best work I’ve ever done in my life, because it’s so honest.”

Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman)

Wag the Dog (1997)

In Barry Levinson’s dark comedy Wag the Dog, we see a savvy political operative/spin doctor (Robert de Niro) get together with an exuberantly resourceful Hollywood executive (Dustin Hoffman) to generate images and footage of a fictional war to distract and misdirect the public from focusing on a scandal involving the US President. Over the course of a week or so, an ensemble of writers, actors, song writers, cameramen, and technicians put together a persuasive, realistic, bamboozling visual narrative. Crisis averted; scandal disremembered.

Not that what we see on TV and social media today on the events unfolding in Ukraine or Gaza or elsewhere are fictional. To the contrary, these are real events with real victims, real destruction, real misery, real consequences. But how much of what we see (and hear about what is being seen) should we believe? Most I suspect. Yet, most is not sufficient, just as close enough is not trustworthy in criminal proceedings where the evidence (as in any type of trial whether civil, commercial, or criminal) needs to be authentic and reliable – assuming it is relevant.

The process of determining the admissibility of evidence is rather straight forward. A foundation needs to be laid. The proponent will adduce evidence from witnesses who will testify as to the provenance of the evidence. In some cases, it may also be necessary to establish the reliability of the evidence through witnesses who have generated or collected and/or analyzed the evidence – before testimony on the substance of the evidence can/should be taken. Of course, before the evidence is admitted for the purposes of eliciting substantive evidence on what it purports to prove or disprove, the opposing side should be given an opportunity to conduct a voir dire, i.e., a cross-examination on the provenance, authenticity, reliability, and in some instances, the relevance. Continue reading “TRUE Project and Inner Temple Demystify the “New Frontiers in Evidence” – User Generated and Open Source Material”

In armed conflicts between sovereign states of conspicuously unequal capacities there is sometimes a particular kind of unequal application, or rather abuse, of the law. Some relatively less powerful states (as well as non-state bodies) have engaged in consistently unlawful operations against the more powerful adversary such as hostage-taking, co-location of their military objects with civilian objects, use of human shields, use of suicide bombers disguised as civilians, indiscriminate attacks, use of proxy forces to engage in unlawful operations while denying all responsibility for their actions and deliberate attacks on civilians. Such unlawful operations have been prevalent during the period of US military dominance since the end of the Cold War, and can be seen as a response to the US ability to fight war from the air with impunity and with a high degree of accuracy. In many cases, they are intended to lure the United States and its coalition partners into causing civilian damage and incurring international criticism: as such, they are part of what Charlie Dunlap of the US Air Force has called ‘lawfare’, or ‘the strategy of using – or misusing – law as a substitute for traditional means to achieve an operational objective’.

Adam Roberts((Adam Roberts, The equal application of the laws of war: a principle under pressure, 90(872) International Review of the Red Cross 931, 949-950 (2008). ))

The laws of war – aka “law of armed conflict” or “international humanitarian law”– at times fall short of their intended purpose. They are imprecise in providing exacting guidance. They afford vague margins of discretion to what may seem, semantically, to be malleable standards, and may reflect over‑permissiveness of conduct incongruous with moral philosophy’s meaning of justice and the nature of the good life (or the good war). But they are reflective of and consistent with the realities faced by those who must apply them in the war theater, as opposed to paradigmatically in a classroom amphitheater. Nonetheless, the facilitative aspect of laws of war, i.e., that which it aims to achieve – whether viewed from a prohibitive lens or a permissive lens – carries the imprimatur of moral acceptability, however imperfect or unsatisfying. Continue reading “THE DARK SIDE OF ADHERING TO THE LAWS OF WAR: The seeming unfairness of taking the legal and moral high-ground”

It is possible to grieve and honor the hundreds of Israeli women, children, and men killed or injured in last Saturday’s brutal attack without simultaneously devaluing the lives, suffering and basic humanity of Palestinians.

Khaled Elgindy, Senior Fellow Middle East Institute.

News cycles shift attention.

Russian rockets brazenly demolished Hroza, a Ukrainian village on 5 October 2023. Hroza was not a legitimate military target. It posed no military threat and was of no military significance. 50 civilians were killed, hundreds more wounded. One of the deadliest attacks of unarmed, unthreatening, uninvolved citizens, it got worldwide attention. The attack was of a harmless village with harmless men, women, children, and elderly, away from the front, and far removed from any military objective. With no disclaimers of this being the handiwork of an undisciplined and uncontrolled rogue unit, or of a barrage of rockets gone astray, or of a mistaken target, this has all the hallmarks of a calculated, deliberated, and targeted attack to kill Ukrainian civilians. Outcries of genocide followed. As hard as it may be to shock the conscience after witnessing on media outlets unrelenting and indiscriminate Russian attacks, this one seemed different – maybe a game-changer. Until two days later.

Hamas’ merciless and vicious and deliberated killing and kidnapping spree of innocent Israeli civilians shifted the world’s attention. Just as the Hroza rocket attack was seemingly designed to eliminate a part of the Ukrainian people because of their ethnicity, so too the attacks by Hamas, especially at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Kibbutz Beeri, Kibbutz Nir Oz and the Nova Music Festival, were seemingly designed to eliminate a part of the Israeli people because of their ethnicity and religion. Continue reading “RESPONDING TO ACTS OF GENOCIDE WITH CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IS NOT THE ANSWER”

Much can be said about the politics of international criminal justice, the tolerated/excused hypocrisy in the behavior of certain states (in particular the permanent five members of the UN Security Council), and yes, the callousness or indifference or obliviousness in viewing, accepting, and even promoting inequity. We often tend to justify or minimize inaction or overreaction or selective action when it either suits us or when we lazily adopt a so what or a that’s the way things are attitude. Even when occasionally we truly believe something is off-kilter, irreconcilable, or just plain wrong, we rarely are willing to call it for what it is, to speak truth to power, to dare voice an unpopular position because it is simply the right thing to do. With no agenda in mind, here are a couple of matters worth expressing, however seemingly distasteful it may be to criticize anything related to Ukraine and its efforts in seeking peace and justice. Continue reading “Untroubled Asymmetry in International Criminal Justice: Dare we look in the mirror – sincerely?”

Who would expect a full house of young (under 45 years old) lawyers from around the globe to eagerly (and punctually) arrive at the Peace Palace in The Hague, on 27 May 2023, one of those rare bright sunny days, to hear from and exchange views with a couple of speakers on the topic of International Criminal Institutions And Their Role In Combatting Crimes Against Humanity? This was to be the last event (other than the Gala later that evening, another memorable experience) of the four-day International Association of Young Lawyers (AIJA) Half-Year Conference.

Continue reading “A memorable experience with the AIJA at the Peace Palace”

The dark side of social media is that, within seconds, anything can be blown out of proportion and taken out of context. And it’s very difficult not to get swept up in it all.  –  Nicola Formichetti

Ditto with press releases. In the age of soundbites, short attention spans, and instant messaging, errors in content are made with such frequency and such magnitude that unless one is well informed, scrumptiously analytical, and persistently skeptical, they go unnoticed. Nuance – the quality of something that can be hard to perceive yet vital for full appreciation – is often ignored or sacrificed when sloppily, lazily, or indifferently narrating complex matters in broad of categorical terms with little or no regard to context and/or all the facts. Continue reading “ADMONISHING THE ADMONISHERS: The Legal Review Panel’s Report on Amnesty International’s Press Release on Ukrainian Fighting Tactics”