Results matching “Ferencz” from FIRE JOHN YOO!

"This was the tragic fulfilment of a program of intolerance and arrogance," said Ferencz at the trial of 22 officers who led mobile paramilitary killing squads known as Einsatzgruppenthe. "Vengeance is not our goal, nor do we seek merely a just retribution. We ask this court to affirm by international penal action man's right to live in peace and dignity regardless of his race or creed. The case we present is a plea of humanity to law."

Ferencz notably condemned Berkeley Law John Yoo's "enhanced interrogation" program and "torture memos."

In June 2020, President Donald J. Trump issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13928 enabling sanctions against "officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members" working at the International Criminal Court (ICC), including potentially its judges. 

The move sparked an outburst of criticism from diplomats, jurists, and members of civil society across the United States and the international community. 

Amnesty International and others have pointed out that the E.O. is so vague and broadly worded that it might reach anyone providing any assistance at all to the Court, including expert witnesses, national human rights researchers, defense counsel, and state parties.

A group of 175 legal scholars, jurists, and lawyers pressed the Trump administration to rescind the E.O., including Ben Ferencz, the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor, and staunch advocate for U.S. support for contemporary international justice efforts.* 

*Ferencz notably condemns Berkeley Law John Yoo's "enhanced interrogation" program and "torture memos" during the Bush administration. 

 

The Last Prosecutor From the Nuremberg Trials Says We're Committing Crimes Against Humanity: "Law Always Beats War"

John Yoo's diatribe condemning the International Criminal Court cannot go unchallenged ("Prosecuting the Peace-Can international tribunals curb future atrocities or is the intervention of a great power needed?," Books, Jan. 7). His absurd argument that the threat of prosecution may "exacerbate humanitarian atrocities" denigrates the deterrent effect of law enforcement. He dismisses U.S. Ambassador David Scheffer's "All The Missing Souls" as "a soporific memoir" but extols the virtues of American sovereignty and exceptionalism as justifying the unilateral use of our military might. He also distorts William Shawcross's thoughtful conclusion in "Justice and the Enemy" that "legal proceedings against violent extremists are a crucial defense of our civilization." [Shawcross's] father Sir Hartley Shawcross, the chief British prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, remained a strong supporter of having an international criminal court all his life.

Mr. Yoo also ignores President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1958 warning: "In a very real sense, the world no longer has a choice between force and law. If civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law." Mr. Yoo fails to recognize that law is always better than war.

Benjamin B. Ferencz
Delray Beach, Fla.
Mr. Ferencz was a combat soldier in World War II and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

[Source: By Benjamin B. Ferencz, The Wall Street Journal, January 2012]

"It's imperative that every single American now recognizes all this for what it is," says umair haque, Eudaimonia and Co. "The game we've been playing for the last few years -- looking away politely, hoping the bad guys come to their senses -- was always a losing proposition. The bad guys don't have consciences or morals -- would they be bad guys if they did? Until and unless all these things are recognized for what they are -- genuine crimes against humanity, the real thing, identified by a prosecutor of fascism as fascism -- who will have the power to stop them?"