The Volokh Conspiracy
[David Bernstein, July 27, 2007 at 9:36pm] Trackbacks
Kontorovich at Opinio Juris:

My friend and Northwestern U. Law School prof Eugene Kontorovich is guest-blogging about international law (what else?) at Opinion Juris. A provocative question from Eugene: if Israel agrees to a broad amnesty for convicted Palestinian terrorists with "blood on their hands," will any of the human rights organizations that routinely oppose amnesties for other human rights violators object? (I can guess the answer...)

neurodoc:
Can I get back to you with an answer to that provocative question in the morning? Right now it's dark outside, so I can't be absolutely certain that there are no pigs with wings flying overhead.
7.27.2007 10:32pm
jack (mail):
It might be productive drawing attention to his post regarding examples of legal accessions of territory as a result of armed conflict.

http://opiniojuris.org/posts/1185508439.shtml
7.28.2007 8:44am
Brooklynite (mail) (www):
Which human rights organizations are you thinking of, David? For instance, can you give me a list of the international human rights groups that opposed South Africa's TRC amnesties?
7.28.2007 9:19am
dearieme:
George III eventually decided that Geo Washington was a Great Man - that was pretty forgiving, wasn't it? Your Founding Fathers had lakes of blood on their hands.
7.28.2007 10:19am
neurodoc:
Your Founding Fathers had lakes of blood on their hands.

Hmmm, sounds like the old relativist contention that terrorism is just a matter of perspective, with one person's "terrorist" another's "freedom fighter." But now the new and improved version, which is that the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, the al-Aqsa Brigade, Islamic Jihad, et al., can be seen as the modern day likenesses of America's Founding Fathers.
7.28.2007 1:09pm
neurodoc:
Brooklynite, I don't know how many examples we can come up with of "hard," that is de jure, grants of amnesty to human rights violators, like the South Africa one. I expect many fewer than "soft" grants, that is de facto ones, e.g., Cambodia. Will it do prove up the professors' case if the human rights organizations they have in mind (Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others?) loudly decried some of those de jure ones, but will not decry the Israeli-Palestinian one? If it will, we will look to see what those organizations had to say about Argentina's amnesty for all those responsible for the military junta's outrages. Or do you think that if those organizations ever failed (thus, not routinely) to condemn a country for failing to go after human rights violators, then the professors have nothing to show that these organizations treat Israel much harsher than they do other countries they spotlight?

BTW, do you think that Israel is not treated more harshly/unfairly than other countries by AI and HRW?
7.29.2007 7:57pm

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