is torture an official act? are war crimes?
both are criminal under U.S. law.
what happens to presidential command responsibility?
also, if POTUS is immune from prosecution, there is no complementarity. the court has made it easier for the ICC to pursue cases ag american presidents.
we are all understandably focused on how the court undermines domestic rule of law. but it's striking just how out of step the court is with the long-term trend of senior official responsibility for war crimes, crimes ag humanity and genocide.
What I don't get about this whole discourse: if, hypothetically speaking, Biden goes "fuck it" and uses his newly found God powers to dismiss all current judges, find new judges (3 times more of those!), ask them to reassess the same topic (given new evidence), can't they take his God-power away?
Like, where all this "from now on...", "centuries to fix..." etc doomerism is coming from, if in this case God can quite literally create a stone he cannot lift? (Or at least it seems so...)
well kavanaugh almost certainly has misled the senate about his involvement in and knowledge of the post 9/11 geneva and torture decisions. that era shaped his views, i'm sure. so there's at least one.
depends on the crime. there's no immunity from manifestly unlawful orders. but what is unlawful now? who decides? the court may be throwing all this up in the air.
That's the question. If the president is immune for any act committed in his official capacity then doesn't that mean that anyone following his official orders is also immune? This ruling is ridiculous and dangerous.
Seems like the presumption is that anytime the president exercises their constitutional powers it is legal. Therefore, any command given by the president as commander-in-chief is by definition not criminal. So... Sounds like no such thing as an unlawful order if it comes from the pres.
i don't know, really. seems like the logic but if i were a subordinate, i would definitely not take that to the bank. i am almost certain the ICC wouldn't see it that way and i'm not sure a court martial would either.
The ICC doesn't matter to the US and any criminal case in the US. including military courts I believe, the Supreme Court can eventually overrule them.
The leash is off now. We have seen many times that they aren't afraid to test limits in court because they know SCOTUS has their backs.
The US has passed laws basically saying that we will invade The Hague if the ICC tries to charge a US politician or military personnel. They effectively don't matter when it comes to the US (just stating facts, I'd rather it wasn't this way). I don't think that the military (continued)
All the president needs to do is pardon those following his unlawful orders. Only limit on the president now is impeachment then conviction by Senate, but that's illusory so long as 34 senators are in the president's pocket.
Idk enough about international law to grasp how complementarity works.
Could you help me understand, "the court has made it easier for the ICC to pursue cases ag american presidents"?
Does that mean if U.S. prez orders war crimes and U.S. has no internal ability to prosecute, ICC would step in?
right, complementarity means that, if a state is demonstrably willing & able to prosecute a crime within the ICC's jurisdiction, the ICC should not prosecute it. but the US can't make that arg, for at least the pres, if he's immune from criminal prosecution. opens the door...
