The second session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, taking place from September 8 to 12 in New York, this morning considered the establishment of an International Criminal Bar.

Esteemed counsel Neal Sonnett of Miami tells us:

During the proceedings on September 10th, Registrar Bruno Cathala stated that "without a worthy defense there is no such thing as a fair trial after the judges and the Prosecutor, the defense is the third pillar on which a court of justice rests."

In response, the representative from Canada stated that "the reputation and
ability of the International Criminal Court to succeed will to a great extent rely on its ability to service the needs of defendants and ensure that they obtain proper representation and in this regard, I would like to emphasize that good work has already been done, in terms of assistance in this regard by the International Criminal Bar, and I would urge us to build on its efforts as we develop a plan that will adequately ensure that the services and the infrastructure that is required by the defense bar is provided."

Don't you wish the Department of Defense understood that?

We join Amnesty International in condemning the arrest and detention of Lebanese lawyer and human rights activist Dr al-Mugraby in Lebanon.

Dr Muhammad al-Mugraby, who is putting his name forward as a candidate for the post of Chair of the Beirut Bar Association, has in recent years issued a number of statements in which he criticised sections of the judiciary and the Beirut Bar Association, and called for the reform of these institutions.

These prompted the Bar Association of Beirut to instigate a disciplinary action against Dr al-Mugraby accusing him of issuing leaflets and memoranda with the object of "harming and questioning the integrity of the judiciary and the credibility of the Beirut Bar Council".

On 17 January 2003 a disciplinary board of the Beirut Bar Association issued a unanimous decision striking off the name of Dr Muhammad al-Mugraby in absentia from the register of the Bar Association. The decision is subject to appeal, and becomes final only after the defendant has exhausted all means of appeal, according to Article 553 of the Code of Civil Procedures. Dr al-Mugraby appealed against the decision and is still waiting for the outcome. In the meantime he continued to practice law as a lawyer and to represent his clients before the court with the knowledge of the Beirut Bar Association.

Generals from past torture regimes all over Central America are finding safe haven in the U.S.

Florida, California and a handful of other states are home to hundreds of accused war criminals and torturers from all over Latin America, according to Amnesty International, a human rights group. Other suspected human rights abusers have made their way to the United States from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, Somalia, Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, sometimes settling in the same communities as their victims. (Torture treatment centers and refugee groups claim there are roughly 500,000 torture survivors nationwide, with an estimated 40,000 in the Washington area.)

Some examples:

Vides Casanova and Garcia received U.S. visas in 1989 after retiring from the military; Garcia was granted political asylum on the grounds that he and his children had been threatened during the war. Vides Casanova was allowed to enter the country despite a 1983 report to the State Department that he was likely "aware of, and for a time acquiesced in, the coverup" of the murders of four American churchwomen.

This is a very graphic article, but it's one that raises an important issue and should be read. Why are we providing safety to these war criminals?

Noah Levitt writes a comprehensive article in Findlaw on the Liberia situation. He argues that the U.S. should step up to the plate and save Liberia.

In this column, I will use a legal concept drawn from contract law to explain the basis for the U.S.'s responsibility toward Liberia. The concept is "detrimental reliance." A contract is an exchange of promises. When one party breaks its promise, and the other has relied on that promise and suffers as a consequence, the latter party is said to have "detrimentally relied."

Liberia detrimentally relied on a number of promises and representations - explicit and implicit - made by the U.S. over the past century and a half. Historically, the United States has acted in such a way as to represent that it will provide for Liberia's economic well being and security. But over history, it has often let Liberia down - at no time more conspicuously than now.

Comments, anyone?

The Bush Administration has decided to take all its marbles and go home. It has suspended military aid to 35 countries who won't agree to give U.S.citizens immunity before the International Criminal Court.

When India and the U.S. signed a non-extradition pact last year, promising each other not to turn over citizens to any third party or international tribunal, we had this to say:

This sounds like a purely manipulative gesture to try and defeat the power of the International Criminal Court--had we signed on to the Rome Statute, we'd be in there with the other 139 countries right now, making up the rules. Instead we're left out. The Court will go on without us or our input. We were ambivalent about the ICC in the beginning, but last year we had a chance to review the draft guidelines under consideration, and heard a panel of military and international law professors and experts dissect and debate it, and we changed our mind. Here is the list of countries that are part of the Court.

Some historical information on the ICC:

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on 17 July 1998, when 120 States participating in the "United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court" adopted the Statute. This is the first ever permanent, treaty based, international criminal court established to promote the rule of law and ensure that the gravest international crimes do not go unpunished.

Even though the U.S. is not a party to the court, American criminal defense lawyers have been volunteering their time and paying their own expenses to defend those accused in the court. The International Criminal Bar was formed in July, 2002 in Montreal. In attendance were 350 lawyers from 48 countries and 68 international, regional, and national bars and numerous non-governmental organizations from around the world. Here are some reasons we should be a party to the International Criminal Court.

Bush should remember that what goes around comes around.

[Ed. Corrected after reviewing reader comment below.]

The European Union and the United States will sign an extradition agreement today that allows terrorism suspects to be handed over to U.S. authorities.

First, the good news:

The laboriously negotiated deal, part of Europe's response to the September 11 attacks, makes it clear that anyone likely to face execution will not be surrendered.

Other provisions of the agreement allow:

US and EU law enforcement agencies access to bank accounts in the fight against crime and terrorism, complementing the arrangements on cooperation between the FBI and Europol, the EU's police agency..... and the US to search containers leaving EU ports.

Last Thursday we reported that President Bush in May issued an executive order that prohibited American lawyers from defending war crime suspects at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, in The Netherlands . We're pleased to report the Administration rescinded a portion of its order.

The U.S. government lifted a ban on American lawyers defending war crimes suspects after talks with the Yugoslav tribunal's president, a court spokesman said Friday. The ban, part of an executive order seeking to halt support of individuals blacklisted by Washington, had derailed two cases since it was made public earlier this week.

But during talks between the Treasury Department and tribunal President Theodor Meron, guarantees were given that lawyers would not be prosecuted for their work at the tribunal, spokesman Jim Landale said. ''Authority has been given by the Treasury for U.S. attorneys to practice here at the tribunal,'' Landale said. ''I don't think we will have any problems in this matter the future.''

The new authorization requires that the U.S. lawyers be paid from funds outside the U.S. and outside the control of any person in the U.S. Also, lawyers have to apply to the U.S. Government for a license to represent the Yugoslav suspects. While there may be some issues remaining to be resolved with the license requirement, this is a definite improvement.

From the Institute for Public Accuracy:

Three experts come awfully close to suggesting that Iran may be a new target for the U.S.:

The White House is portraying Iran as having hostile intentions towards the United States. They said the same thing about Iraq, and there's been no evidence of that in either case. Iran has regional interests, but it's never been in an attack mode against the United States. It's actually in a defensive posture against intensifying U.S. and Israeli manipulation of monarchist Iranian opposition in exile. Allegations that Iran is exporting Shi'ite zealotry to Iraq have been contradicted by the top British commander there.

Our new ally, Uzbekistan is torturing Islamists and the U.S. is looking the other way.

Independent human rights groups estimate that there are more than 600 politically motivated arrests a year in Uzbekistan, and 6,500 political prisoners, some tortured to death. According to a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy, in August two prisoners were even boiled to death. (emphasis supplied.)

The US condemned this repression for many years. But since September 11 rewrote America's strategic interests in central Asia, the government of President Islam Karimov has become Washington's new best friend in the region.

The US is funding those it once condemned. Last year Washington gave Uzbekistan $500m (£300m) in aid. The police and intelligence services - which the state department's website says use "torture as a routine investigation technique" received $79m of this sum.

Counterspin has more.

Israeli leaders have indicated they will back a U.S. plan for peace in the Middle East that includes the recognition of a Palestinian state-- with conditions.

The road map, drafted by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, calls for an immediate cease-fire, followed by a series of simultaneous confidence-building steps by the two sides, including the disarming and dismantling of Palestinian militant groups, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion and the immediate dismantling of small settlement outposts established in the past two years. The plan calls for the creation of a "provisional" Palestinian state by the end of this year and a fully independent and sovereign state by 2005.

The "conditions" Israel are seeking include the relinquishment by Palestinians of the right to return to parts of Israel:

Most significantly, the cabinet members said that before the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian refugees had to give up their claim to a "right of return" to areas in Israel that they left during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The road map does not specifically refer to the right of return but calls for a realistic solution to the refugee issue.

Apparently, the Palestinians refuse to acknowledge the condition.

A senior Palestinian official said that in the interest of pushing the road map forward, his government would simply ignore the Israeli conditions. "The Israeli cabinet wanted to make themselves feel better about the road map, so they decided they were going to accept the road map as they define it, which includes this condition that Palestinians have to give up the right to return," he said. "We are ignoring that condition because it is irrelevant, and it's not part of the road map, nor will it ever be."

It doesn't sound to us like there is a meeting of the minds here.