hen
the possibility of far-reaching war crimes and crimes against humanity exists, people of conscience have a solemn responsibility
to inquire into the nature and scope of these acts and to determine if they do in fact rise to the level of war crimes and
crimes against humanity. That is the mission of the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity. It will
be held in October. This Tribunal will, with care and rigor, present evidence and assess whether George W. Bush and his administration
have committed crimes against humanity. Well-established international law will be referenced where applicable, but the tribunal
will not be limited by the scope of existing international law.
he
Tribunal will deliberate on four categories of indictable crimes: 1) Wars of Aggression, with particular reference to the
invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. 2) Torture and Indefinite Detention, with particular reference to the abandonment
of international standards concerning the treatment of prisoners of war and the use of torture. 3) Destruction of the Global
Environment, with particular reference to systematic policies contributing to the catastrophic effects of global warming.
4) Attacks on Global Public Health and Reproductive Rights, with particular reference to the genocidal effects of forcing
international agencies to promote “abstinence only” in the midst of a global AIDS epidemic.
he
Commission’s jury of conscience will be composed of internationally respected jurists and legal scholars, prominent
voices of conscience, and experts and monitors in relevant fields. The tribunal’s legitimacy is derived from its integrity,
its rigor in the presentation of evidence, and the stature of its participants. Representatives of the Bush administration
will be invited to present a defense.
rior
to the meeting of the Commission, teams with sufficient expertise will prepare preliminary indictments in each of the four
areas, setting forth the scope of the Bush administration’s actions and how they contravene legal and moral norms for
international behavior. At the meeting of the Commission, there will be four prosecution teams that organize the presentation
of the evidence. This evidence will be documents as well as eyewitness testimony by victims and observers of the crimes alleged.
The formal proceedings will be held in a public venue and all attempts will be made to publicize and broadcast its deliberations
internationally. The Commission’s jury of conscience will come to verdicts and its findings will be published.
he
holding of this tribunal will frame and fuel a discussion that is urgently needed in the United States: Is the administration
of George W. Bush guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity? The Commission will conduct its work with a deep sense
of responsibility to the people of the world.
The Commission is sponsored by the Not In Our Name statement of conscience, joined by the following
individuals and organizations:
[List in formation]
Anthony Alessandrini, organizer with
the World Tribunal on Iraq and New York University Students for Justice in Palestine
William Blum, author of Killing
Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II and Rogue State: A Guide
to the World’s Only Superpower
Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and
executive vice president of National Lawyers Guild
Larry Everest, author of Oil,
Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda and Behind the Poison Cloud:
Union Carbide’s Bhopal Massacre
International Movement for a Just World (JUST), Malaysia
Thomas M. Fasy, MD, Mount Sinai School
of Medicine, New York City, author of “The Recent Epidemic of Pediatric Malignancies and Congenital Malformations in
Southern Iraq”
C. Clark Kissinger, contributing writer for Revolution and initiator of the Not In Our Name statement of conscience
Joel Kovel, editor-in-chief, Capitalism Nature Socialism: A Quarterly Journal of Socialist Ecology, and author of The Enemy of Nature
National Lawyers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
Barbara Olshansky, deputy legal director
of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of Secret Trials and Executions
Stephen F. Rohde, civil liberties lawyer and co-founder of
Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace
Michael Ratner, president of the Center
for Constitutional Rights and author with Ellen Ray of Guantanamo: What the World Should
Know
Marc Sapir MD, MPH, co-convener of the
UC Berkeley Teach In on Torture and executive director of Retro Poll
Anne Weills, civil rights attorney in
Oakland, National Lawyers Guild
[institutions referenced for identification only]
Contact the Commission.
Source:
Not in Our Name
