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Their Rules-Based International Order Is the Rule of the Mafia
Ana Segovia (Mexico), Huapango Torero (‘Huapango Bullfighter’), 2019. The skin is the largest organ of the human body. It covers our entire surface, at some points only as thin as a piece of paper and at other points about half as thick as a credit card. The skin, which protects us from all manner of […]
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A Misplaced Purity: Democracies and Crimes Against International Law
The application for arrest warrants by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim A.A. Khan in the Israel-Hamas War gives us a chance to revisit a recurring theme in the commission of crimes in international humanitarian law. Certain states, so this logic goes, either commit no crimes, or, if they do, have good reasons […]
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The Assange Case: A Flicker of Hope in the UK High Court
It was faint, but there was more than just a flicker of hope. In the tormented (and tormenting) journey the WikiLeaks founder and publisher, Julian Assange, has endured, May 20, 2024 provided another pitstop. As with many such stops over the years, it involved lawyers. Many of them. The occasion was whether the UK High […]
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A Brutal Punishment: The Sentencing of David McBride
Sometimes, it’s best not to leave the issue of justice to the judges. They do what they must: consult the statutes, test the rivers of power, and hope that their ruling will not be subject to appeal. David McBride, the man who revealed that Australia’s special forces in Afghanistan had dimmed and muddied before exhaustion, […]
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Forces of Impunity: The US Threatens the International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a dusty jewel, a creation of heat, tension and manufacture in the international community. Various elements have gone into its creation. As with any international institution which draws its legitimacy from nation states and the like, its detractors are many, the invective against it frequent. Some 124 countries have signed […]
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Faulty Assurances: The Judicial Torture of Assange Continues
Only this month, the near comatose US President, Joe Biden, made a casual, castaway remark that his administration was “considering” the request by Australia that the case against Julian Assange be concluded. The WikiLeaks founder has already spent five gruelling years in London’s Belmarsh prison, where he continues a remarkable, if draining campaign against the […]
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Flicker of Hope: Biden’s Throwaway Lines on Assange
Walking stiffly, largely distracted, and struggling to focus on the bare essentials, US President Joe Biden was keeping company with his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, when asked the question. It concerned what he was doing regarding Australia’s request that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be returned to Australia. Assange, who has spent five […]
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Degenerate Art in New Normal Germany
One of the first things totalitarians do when they set about transforming a democratic society into whatever type of strictly-regulated, utterly soul-deadening totalitarian dystopia they are trying to transform it into is radically overhaul and remake its culture. You can’t impose your new official ideology on a formerly democratic society with a bunch of artists […]
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Imperial Venality Defends Itself: Day Two of Julian Assange’s High Court Appeal
On February 21, the Royal Courts of Justice hosted a second day of carnivalesque mockery regarding the appeal by lawyers representing an ill Julian Assange, whose publishing efforts are being impugned by the United States as having compromised the identities of informants while damaging national security. Extradition awaits, only being postponed by rearguard actions such […]
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A Duty to Obey: David McBride, Whistleblowing and Following Orders
The unpardonable, outrageous trial of Australian whistleblower David McBride was a brief affair. On November 13, it did not take long for the brutal power of the Commonwealth to become evident. McBride, having disclosed material that formed the Australian public about alleged war crimes by special forces in Afghanistan, was going to be made an […]
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