I always thought that only sovereign nations could charge a foreign leader with war crimes, however, this blog posting from the New York Times leads me to believe I’m wrong.
Further, John McCain’s proposal to offer a $300 million prize for an improved electric car battery got me thinking that, if a civilian could bring charges against George W. Bush for war crimes, why not offer a prize on BigCarrot to incentivize someone to do it?
So, my questions are:
How would a civilian go about bringing war crime charges?
Who could do it?
Where could it be done?
Please keep the discussion factual, I don’t want it to devolve into a great debate.
How could a regular old person charge someone with burglary? I don’t think you can. Convincing a prosecutor that there is a case is the first safeguard in the system.
No, but the civilian could charge the burglar in civil court with emotional distress (or something along those lines).
However, as a relevant follow up: If a regular civilian can’t bring charges, how could a prosecutor be incentivized to bring charges without the prize being a de-facto bribe?
Presumably, this would have to be done on the federal level. It’s unlikely that Bush’s own AG would accept the challenge, but you could try and convince the AG from the next administration to bring charges. The first step in the process would be to determine which particular statute relating to “war crimes” you want to charge Bush with breaking. Have you figured that out yet?
So, we pass another law retracting it, or we turn him over to an international court. We could also call it something else, like civil rights violations.
Do you have a cite that he was charged with “war crimes”?
But if you want to get him indicted overseas, then you just have to convince an oversees government to do so. You might also need to do it on behalf of someone actually affected by the alleged crime to avoid having your case thrown out since you, as a private citizen of the US, probably wouldn’t have standing. Assuming you are a private citizen of the US.
Three words: ex post facto Any new law would have to be for acts after that new law was passed. Since this is GQ and GD, I think we should agree that “war crimes” include only those actions that have precedent-- ie, actions that government officials have been charged with in the past. Creating a new legal precedent is probably best done in GD, since there would not be a factual answer to that.
Can you pass a law granting immunity? Wouldn’t it have to be from that point on that torture is legal? Why is Dio’s law nullified by ex post facto and yours isn’t?
Ex post facto refers to actions that were legal when committed. Bush’s actions were crimes when committed, so it doesn’t apply. He was given retroactive immunity for crimes. Rescinding that immunity does not punish him retroactively for anything which was legal when he did it.
Do you have an example of something like that having been done before? If not, then we’re in the land of conjecture.
I’m imagining a scenario like this: The US grants immunity to draft dodgers who fled to Canada. Ten years later, the US rescinds that immunity and rounds up any and all people “stupid” enough to return to the US. Can’t see how that would stand up in court.
Further, do you have a cite of anyone having been convicted of war crimes for the equivalent of approving the waterboarding of 3 detainees? I don’t think this forum is the proper place to claim, as a matter of fact, that something is a “war crime” if there is no precedent for it.
I think Wisconsin has a “John Doe” law, that allows any old schmoe to bring a case before a judge (or grand jury?) for prosecution. There was an article in the paper about prison inmates abusing this privilege by filing criminal cases against guards.
Assuming that is true, I believe that would fall under the category of “crimes against peace”, not crimes of war. However, it is certainly not a fact that the invasion of Iraq was unlawful. Could be, but that’s a very debatable point.