Over the course of the long and violent twentieth century, only a minority of international crime perpetrators ever stood trial, and a central challenge of this era was the effort to ensure that not all these crimes remained unpunished. This required not only establishing a legal record but also courage, determination, and inventiveness in realizing justice. Defeating Impunity moves from the little-known trials of the 1920s to the Yugoslavia tribunal in the 2000s, from Belgium in 1914 to Ukraine in 1943, and to Stuttgart and Düsseldorf in 1975. It illustrates the extent to which the language of law drew an international horizon of justice.
The fight against impunity is an increasingly central concept in EU law-making and adjudication. What is the meaning and the scope of impunity as a legal concept in the EU legal order? How does the fight against impunity influence policy and adjudication? This timely first piece of comprehensive research aims to to address these largely unexplored questions, which involve structural institutional and substantive dilemmas underpinning the most recent developments of the European integration process. In recent years, the fight against impunity has become a pressing concern for the European institutions. It has shaped several EU policies and has led to a recurring argument in the case law of the Court of Justice. The book sheds light on this elusive notion, providing a much needed conceptual appraisal. The first section examines the scope of the notion of impunity, and its role in the EU decision-making process and in the development of EU competences. Subsequent sections discuss the implications of impunity - and of the fight against it - in a variety of complementary domains, namely the allocation of criminal jurisdiction, mutual recognition instruments, the rise of new surveillance technologies and the external dimension of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. This book is an original and timely contribution to scholarship, which is of interest to academics, researchers and policy-makers alike.
As increasingly more countries adopt 'Magnitsky Acts', the space for civil society to use these is expanding, helping bolster efforts to sanction those responsible for gross human rights violations worldwide. The Magnitsky Acts represents a major development in protecting human rights and punishing perpetrators. What makes these Acts so different from other sanctioning mechanisms is that their targets are individuals, not countries or states. Another key difference is that many have been designed with civil society in mind in terms of structuring the process of filing recommendations for targets to be sanctioned. These Acts have opened up crucial channels through which governments can benefit from civil society's advantage of often being best positioned for recommending rights violators to be sanctioned. However, as with any sanctions scheme, politics, bureaucracy and procedure can make the submission process confusing; in some cases key information is not even in the public domain. The material in this book is derived from extensive interviews with diplomats, government officials, activists and others involved in the behind-doors decision process, with knowledge of absolute best practices, the underlying politics and how to incorporate all these into a robust recommendation. The result is the first-ever comprehensive manual for civil society on the best approach for making a successful 'Magnitsky submission'.
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on International Relations. Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations
From the Foreword by General H.R. McMaster: Strategies that weaken illicit power structures and strengthen legitimate state authority are vital to national and international security. As Dr. Henry Kissinger observed, we may be "facing a period in which forces beyond the restraints of any order determine the future." Because threats to security emanate from disorder in areas where governance and rule of law are weak, defeating terrorist, insurgent, and criminal organizations requires integrated efforts not only to attack enemy organizations, but also to strengthen institutions essential to sustainable security. Successful outcomes in armed conflict require confronting illicit networks. A failure to do so effectively frustrated efforts to consolidate gains in Afghanistan and Iraq, and after more than a decade of war and development, the international community and the governments of those countries, continue to contend with the violence and instability that are the result. In Afghanistan, corruption and organized crime networks perpetuate state weakness and undermine the state's ability to cope with the regenerative capacity of the Taliban. The failure to counter militias and Iranian proxies that infiltrated the government and security forces in Iraq led to a return of large scale communal violence and set conditions (along with the Syrian Civil War) for the rise of a terrorist proto-state and a humanitarian catastrophe that has adversely impacted the entire Middle East. These and other cases illustrate how governments and international actors struggle to establish security and rule of law, and reveal incomplete plans and fragmented efforts that fail to address the causes of violence and state weakness. While challenging, success in confronting illicit power structures is not impossible. While still works in progress, successful efforts, such as those in Colombia and Sierra Leone, are the result of integrated diplomatic, military, economic, development, informational, intelligence, and law enforcement efforts directed toward well-defined political outcomes. The case studies and analyses in this volume make clear that understanding the dynamics associated with illicit power and state weakness is essential to preventing or resolving armed conflict. These case studies also point out that confronting illicit power requires coping with political and human dynamics in complex, uncertain environments. People fight today for the same fundamental reasons the Greek historian Thucydides identified nearly 2,500 years ago: fear, honor and interests. They further remind us that that illicit power structures often depend on the perpetuation of violence and the conflict economy. Crafting effective strategies to address the challenge of weak states must begin with an understanding of the factors that drive violence, weaken state authority, and strengthen illicit actors and power structures. Terrorist, insurgent, and criminal networks exploit fear and anger over injustice, portraying themselves as patrons or protectors of a community in competition with others for power, resources, or survival. Thus military and law enforcement capabilities provide only one component of what must be comprehensive, civilian and military approach to confronting illicit power.
This book contains strengthening democracy where citizens and government can become more independent and professional in democracy, meritocracy, law enforcement, integrity, independent economy, honest and fair economy, humanity, justice, peace, and harmony. This book also contains political education, legal education, ethics, morals, democracy, meritocracy, autocracy, integrity, government, government systems, international systems, and world order.
Since 9/11, a new configuration of power situated at the core of the executive branch of the U.S. government has taken hold. In Crimes of Power & States of Impunity, Michael Welch takes a close look at the key historical, political, and economic forces shaping the country's response to terror. Welch continues the work he began in Scapegoats of September 11th and argues that current U.S. policies, many enacted after the attacks, undermine basic human rights and violate domestic and international law. He recounts these offenses and analyzes the system that sanctions them, offering fresh insight into the complex relationship between power and state crime. Welch critically examines the unlawful enemy combatant designation, Guantanamo Bay, recent torture cases, and collateral damage relating to the war in Iraq. This book transcends important legal arguments as Welch strives for a broader sociological interpretation of what transpired early this century, analyzing the abuses of power that jeopardize our safety and security.
A frequent criticism of contemporary political science is that empirical research too seldom is combined with in-depth inquiry into the philosophical, historical, and legal foundations of the societies it seeks to understand. Others suggest that political scientists specializing in U.S. government too rarely collaborate with those who study other countries. The contributions in this volume belie these claims. The authors, all colleagues, students, and friends of Henry W. Ehrmann, represent the U.S., France, Germany, and Canada, the four countries in which Dr. Ehrmann has lived. The essays reflect the breadth and scope of Ehrmann's work as a teacher, scholar, and political activist. The contributions to this volume cover a broad range of topics, among them political theory and methodology of comparative politics and the interrelationships of economic, social, historical, and political developments, and include theoretically oriented studies of such problems as interest group politics, political culture, and parties. Integrating constitutional law and political philosophy with comparative sociological and historical research and theory, Henry Ehrmann's approach to teaching and research sets an excellent example for the contemporary study of political science.
