After Torture: Discussing a Plan for Justice in the Post-Bush Era
An Open Forum hosted by the Center on Law and Security and Harper's Magazine
On publication of contributing editor Scott Horton's report, Justice After Bush, in the December issue of Harper's Magazine, a panel of legal experts will discuss methods available to the government with reckoning with a legacy of human rights abuses.
Event Details
This event is free and open to the public
Date: December 4, 2008
Time: 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Location: Lipton Hall, 108 W. 3rd Street, NY, NY [Yahoo! Maps link]
Featured Speakers:
The Honorable ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN, co-chair of Herrick Feinstein LLP's government relations practice
SCOTT HORTON, contributor, Harper's Magazine and Adjunct Professor, Columbia Law School
Representative JERROLD NADLER (D-NY)
BURT NEUBORNE, Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties, NYU Law
MICHAEL RATNER, president, Center for Constitutional Rights
Major General ANTONIO TAGUBA, U.S. Army, Ret.
Moderated by Luke Mitchell, Senior Editor, Harper's Magazine
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NYU Center on Law and Security link
Harper's link
Center on Constitutional Rights link
Nod to Compound F, who posted a diary about Scott Horton's cover story for the current edition of Harper's, "Justice after Bush: Prosecuting an outlaw administration."
Could not find any other mention here of this upcoming forum.
Related: Glenn Greenwald's Salon Radio interview, Scott Horton on war crimes prosecutions.
Glenn and Scott discuss:
* what distinguishes the Bush administration's lawlessness from the isolated lawbreaking of past Presidents ("This administration did more than commit crimes. It waged war against the law itself");
* why -- of all the Bush crimes -- torture is, in Scott's words, "not only the crime that most clearly calls for prosecution but also the crime that is most likely to be successfully prosecuted";
* whether the limited retroactive immunity bestowed on war criminals by the Detainees Treatment Act and Military Commissions Act is a barrier to such prosecutions;
* whether it should be a defense for high level government officials that the Bush DOJ issued legal opinions authorizing these interrogation programs and asserting that they were legal;
* how the issuance of presidential pardons could be overcome;
* what the benefits are of beginning with a Truth Commission, rather than having the DOJ simply investigate and prosecute.
From a post on Horton's blog, No Comment:
[T]he bottom line is that there should be no call about prosecutions until there has been an investigation. The question is really how should an investigation be conducted, and who should conduct it?
In the end any prosecution would require a special prosecutor, but who should handle the threshold inquiry into whether enough exists to appoint one? . . . There is one clear answer . . . [Obama] should appoint a commission to lay bare the facts, putting what the public needs to know on the record. Only then should the call about a special prosecutor be made by the attorney general. He should have the commission’s advice and findings to draw on in the process, and he should take the decision avoiding the political tug-of-war now going down and the dark interests who are driving it.
President Obama shouldn’t be focused on the fate of individual potential defendants. He should care about the nation’s reputation, our commitment to the rule of law, and a process that is worthy of our best traditions and aspirations.
~ AP: Obama Will Not Prosecute War Crimes
There in no clearer voice on this matter than Mr. Horton's.
Stay tuned!
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See too: If Obama Doesn't Prosecute Bush's Torture Team, We'll Pay a Big Price Down the Road, by Liliana Segura, AlterNet