British Lawyer Criticizes Bush Policy

Controversial British lawyer Philippe Sands criticized the Bush administration’s attitudes on international law and warned officials that they could be liable before international courts, at a Law School forum last night.

Sands is in the midst of a tour to promote his recent book, Lawless World, which describes the United States’ historical contributions to, and recent attacks against, international law and covenants.

The Atlantic Charter of 1941, signed by President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, opened a “golden age” of international law, Sands said last night. The U.S. recognized that “the Rule of Law would work to put forward American interests all over the globe.”

Last night, Sands chronicled what he sees as the dismantling of those ideals with the advent of the “war on terror”­—resulting in “the deplorable state of international law in the U.S.”

According to Sands, members of the Bush administration have divided international treaties that the U.S. had helped to create into ¨good and bad.” The World Trade Organization and other monetary and patent agreements are “good.” The Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court and certain war conventions are “bad”— deemed “threats to American sovereignty” by organizations like the New American Century.

“For these people,” he said, “9/11 was like manna from heaven,” as it resulted in the war on terror and gave license to attack the concept of multilateralism.

Sands then explained how lawyers working for the Defense Department created the legally unprecedented category of “unlawful combatants” to deny captured suspects the rights that covenants like Geneva were supposed to protect.

Sands also cited administration memos arguing that interrogation rules mandated by conventions on torture could be overruled at the order of the U.S. President.

Because of their arguments, Sands said, members of the Bush administration—including legal counsel—could be pursued by other signatories of international treaties. Sands cited as precedent the detention of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1999 and a U.S. lawsuit in the aftermath of World War II which convicted individuals for participating “in governmentally organized systems of cruelty.”

One key and controversial legal advisor to the Bush administration—now on the Harvard Law faculty—was originally scheduled to participate in last night’s event.

Professor of Law Jack L. Goldsmith, who held high-level posts at the Pentagon and the Justice Department during President Bush’s first term, was criticized by a handful of Harvard Law School faculty members last year who alleged that he had helped the Bush administration justify harsh treatment of detainees.

But the Wall Street Journal and other publications have since reported that he in fact played a key role in pushing the White House to ban the torture of suspected terrorists.

Reached yesterday, Goldsmith declined to comment on why he cancelled his scheduled appearance.

According to Sands, however, Goldsmith’s cancellation coincided with a speech Sands delivered last week in which he first advanced the argument that administration lawyers could be internationally liable for their advice.

Sands concluded his appearance by asserting that international law will ultimately prevail.

Even for superpowers like the U.S, actions are not cost-free, he said, citing Italian prosecutors’ charges against CIA officers following the alleged abduction of individuals on Italian soil, and the recent European Parliament investigation regarding transport of suspected terrorists from the Middle East to undisclosed locations for interrogation.