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Category: Law/Crime

Israel tries to rebut genocide charge by declassifying cherry-picked cabinet decisions

Israel tries to rebut genocide charge by declassifying cherry-picked cabinet decisions

The New York Times reports: Israel has declassified more than 30 secret orders made by government and military leaders, which it says rebut the charge that it committed genocide in Gaza, and instead show Israeli efforts to diminish deaths among Palestinian civilians. The release of the documents, copies of which were reviewed by The New York Times, follows a petition to the International Court of Justice by South Africa, which has accused Israel of genocide. Much of South Africa’s case…

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U.S. states had an estimated 65,000 rape-related pregnancies after banning abortion

U.S. states had an estimated 65,000 rape-related pregnancies after banning abortion

NPR reports: As an abortion provider in Montana, Dr. Samuel Dickman has seen patients routinely who tell him they became pregnant after a rape. His sense was the patients who were telling him were only a fraction of the true number. “There are certainly far more survivors of rape who become pregnant as a result, who — for totally understandable reasons — don’t want to disclose that fact to a medical provider that they just met.” Dickman used to live…

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How the Biden administration helps Israel sidestep U.S. human rights laws

How the Biden administration helps Israel sidestep U.S. human rights laws

The Guardian reports: Top US officials quietly reviewed more than a dozen incidents of alleged gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces since 2020, but have gone to great lengths to preserve continued access to US weapons for the units responsible for the alleged violations, contributing – former US officials say – to the sense of impunity with which Israel has approached its war in Gaza. An estimated 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by…

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Israel’s right to tyranny

Israel’s right to tyranny

Amjad Iraqi writes: It’s hard to overstate the symbolic power of the Jan. 11 hearing at the International Court of Justice. In a moving display of solidarity, a diverse lineup of South African, Irish, and British lawyers meticulously laid out their evidence for charging Israel with the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip. The malicious statements of Israeli officials, including cabinet ministers and generals, were recited as declarations of murderous intent. Videos of mass destruction, often recorded gleefully by…

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In Judge Kaplan’s court, Trump plays with fire

In Judge Kaplan’s court, Trump plays with fire

The Washington Post reports: In the high-stakes world of presidential trials, there are no judges like Lewis A. Kaplan. At 79, after decades on the bench, the senior judge is one of the most well-regarded legal minds in New York. And he has a unique history that makes Donald Trump’s courtroom behavior over the past week potentially dangerous for the former president of the United States. Trump is on trial in a civil case as writer E. Jean Carroll seeks…

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Why the United States can’t ignore the ICJ case against Israel

Why the United States can’t ignore the ICJ case against Israel

Zaha Hassan writes: Last week, South Africa presented a well-argued case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s judicial arm, alleging Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Israel denies the charges and claims its actions in Gaza are self-defense. A state-to-state complaint about “the crime of crimes” should be a big deal to the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, particularly when it involves a close ally receiving around $4 billion per year in U.S. security assistance (and fast-tracked for more)….

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The U.S. lacks what every democracy needs

The U.S. lacks what every democracy needs

Richard L. Hasen writes: The history of voting in the United States shows the high cost of living with an old Constitution, unevenly enforced by a reluctant Supreme Court. Unlike the constitutions of many other advanced democracies, the U.S. Constitution contains no affirmative right to vote. We have nothing like Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, providing that “every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of…

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Supreme Court case could result in a major victory for capitalism at the expense of democracy

Supreme Court case could result in a major victory for capitalism at the expense of democracy

The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday in a set of cases that could pave the way for its conservative supermajority to undercut how American society imposes rules on businesses, advancing a key goal of the conservative legal movement. Such a ruling would make it easier to challenge regulations across a gamut of issues, like keeping the air and water clean; ensuring that food, drugs, cars and consumer products are safe; and much more. The…

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The ‘sleeping giant’ case that could upend Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump

The ‘sleeping giant’ case that could upend Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump

Kimberly Wehle writes: There’s been a lot of attention paid to the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for actions taken while president, a judgment that will have big implications for the 2024 presidential campaign and special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president on charges related to Jan. 6. But there’s a sleeping giant of a case also percolating in the Supreme Court that’s even more likely than the immunity issue to…

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Judge Aileen Cannon is quietly sabotaging the Trump classified documents case

Judge Aileen Cannon is quietly sabotaging the Trump classified documents case

Dennis Aftergut and Laurence E Tribe write: On Friday, District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a new order in the Donald Trump classified documents case adding to the mountain of evidence that she is firmly in the former president’s pocket. Trump appointed Cannon in 2020 and the Senate confirmed her appointment in the days after he lost the 2020 election. It’s deeply offensive to the rule of law for judges to bend the law to benefit those who put them on…

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Genocide expert, Omer Bartov: Israel’s claim that South Africa has aligned itself with Hamas is ‘nonsense’

Genocide expert, Omer Bartov: Israel’s claim that South Africa has aligned itself with Hamas is ‘nonsense’

  Omer Bartov, Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, gives his take on the trial at the International Court of Justice where Israel has been accused of genocide by South Africa. At the ICJ, Israel criticized the “critical part of the South Africa [genocide] thesis” arguing that it has created “safe passage corridors” to protect Palestinian civilians. This is the “humanitarian corridor” of Salah al-Din street where many were killed pic.twitter.com/kWZHuyLCLv — Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) January 15,…

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It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the West’s claim to moral superiority

It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the West’s claim to moral superiority

Nesrine Malik writes: It was only a little over six hours of legal argument, but the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the international court of justice had decades of history bearing down on it. The specifics dealt with Israel’s assault on Gaza, but at its heart, the case was about something wider: closing the gap between Palestinian reality and how the dominant political forces describe it. For weeks now, anger at events in Gaza has spilled…

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Germany and Israel’s genocidal partnership draws strong rebuke from Namibia

Germany and Israel’s genocidal partnership draws strong rebuke from Namibia

The Times of Israel reports: The German government sharply rejects allegations before the UN’s top court that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and warned against “political instrumentalization” of the charge. Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit says in a statement that Israel was “defending itself” after the “inhuman” attacks by Hamas on October 7. He says Germany would intervene as a third party before the ICJ under an article allowing states to seek clarification on the use of a multilateral convention….

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Donald Trump’s 50-year mission to discredit the justice system

Donald Trump’s 50-year mission to discredit the justice system

Michael Kruse writes: What happened in Room 300 of the New York County Courthouse in lower Manhattan in November had never happened. Not in the preceding almost two and a half centuries of the history of the United States. Donald Trump was on the witness stand. It was not unprecedented in the annals of American jurisprudence just because it was a former president, although that was totally true. It was unprecedented because the power dynamic of the courtroom had been…

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Don’t turn away from the charges of genocide against Israel

Don’t turn away from the charges of genocide against Israel

Megan K. Stack writes: The word genocide rings loudly in our imagination. We think of Rwanda, Bosnia, the Armenians, the Trail of Tears and, of course, the Holocaust. I have heard many people balk at the suggestion that Gaza could be experiencing genocide. The Holocaust, after all, wiped out over 60 percent of European Jews. Israel’s war — instigated, no less, by the murder of Jews — has killed about 1 percent of the Palestinians in Gaza. One percent is…

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Israel will lose genocide case at The Hague, human rights lawyer predicts

Israel will lose genocide case at The Hague, human rights lawyer predicts

  Professor Francis A. Boyle, Human Rights Professor and Lawyer who was the first to win a genocide case at the International Court of Justice spoke to Andrew Marr on Thursday, praising South African lawyers performance in rebutting Israeli defences. South Africa has formally accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians and pleaded with the United Nations’ top court to order an immediate halt to Israeli military operations in Gaza. Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust,…

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