On Wednesday October 7th I attended the Rose Cafe featuring Professor Jens David Ohlin on “What should you know about international law?”  This was a really interesting talk.  We began the discussion with a talk about the current situation the US is facing with the accidental bombing of a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.  This is a really messy situation because hospitals are considered safe zones in a war, and technically it’s a war crime to bomb such places.  The group that ran the hospital, Doctors Without Borders, is calling for the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to be activated in order to declare this incident a war crime.  President Obama has apologized for the mistake, but it is still unclear whether or not the military was aware that the building was a hospital before approving the attack.

Professor Ohlin gave us a pretty in depth analysis on the implications that this could have for the US.  I found it surprising that there are certain technicalities that must be addressed when considering what acts of violence can be declared a war crime.  I found the definition of collateral damage to be interesting, since it is pretty vague to declare how many people it takes for a catastrophic event to be collateral damage or not.

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay for the event in it’s entirety (I have a class that starts at 7:30pm), but I’m glad that I was able to stay for at least half of the discussion.

Last week, Jens David Ohlin gave a thought provoking presentation on International Criminal Law and invited participants to engage in the subject matter and give their opinion on how they felt international war moves should be judged. Ohlin started the lecture by illustrating a situation pulled from actual current events. He posed a question of morality and legality regarding the US’s bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan. Should the government be sanctioned for such a move? How come this story was not plastered all over the news and media when it happened? Ohlin addressed these questions and more and elaborated on a portion of international criminal law and encouraged the audience to think about where the line should be drawn between legal and illegal. 

The part that I found to be the most interesting was the role the United Nations played in this situation and how the international law body responds to such events. I have participated in Model UN since my freshman year of high school and while during our debate simulation we often pass several large pieces of legislation, this is not very reflective of the actual UN. The tricky clause of international law lies in the debate over sovereignty. When is a country overstepping its boundaries and encroaching on another national nation? Often the issue with the UN is that sovereignty is at the forefront of its mission goals and implemented global wide legislations and enforcing it often results in encroachment. This inefficiency was highlighted along with another loophole Ohlin mentioned. The United States holds a permanent position on the United Nations Security Council and therefore has voting rights. The council is able to incur war charges against other individuals and countries, however voting member positions do have the ability to veto such charges. Therefore, if the UN were to charge the US, the country could easily veto the charge. This is a demonstration of the US’s global influence allows it to often get away with many things without suffering the consequences.

Last week, I attended Professor Ohlin’s talk at the Becker and Rose Café Series.  It was an intense discussion about who is defined as a war criminal, what actions define a war crime, and the current war criminals in the world today.

What I found interesting was the idea of collateral damage.  Killing a target with collateral damage is considered lawful because it always happens.  International law allows collateral damage as long as the number of civilian killed is not disproportioned like blowing up an entire hospital.  The proportion is determined by the importance of the target and the value of the target relative to the lives of many.  This is basically saying “how many citizens are you entitled to kill?”, which is an ethical question that is a grey area in the law.

Another interesting topic is international law that prevents people from hunting down big threats.  For example, many people believe that the President of Syria, Bashar Hafez al-Assad, is a war criminal for attacking his own citizens.  However, international law prevents others from going after Assad as a humanitarian intervention due to international law.  This is also another controversial self-defense law.

I enjoyed listening to Professor Ohlin’s lecture on war crimes and the lively discussion that ensued.  It was certainly thought provoking.

This café series event was surprisingly very interesting. Human rights has been a very important topic for me in recent years, as I have developed my sense of morality and beliefs. As someone that is concerned about human rights issues, I unfortunately did not have too much knowledge of the legal aspects of war crimes and such. I noticed that the short biography for the week stated that his research includes military action that is not associated with a specific nation (which I assume includes large terrorist organizations and such); the legal issues and lack of treaties associated with the war on terror is an interesting topic that I wish Professor Ohlins would have touched upon. The change in battlefield warfare and the changes in wartime traditions are even more apparent when you include the modern wars in the middle east. The idea that there have always been traditions for warfare (although ever changing) truly disgusts me. Is war so necessary to our nature that we have traditions associated with it, as we do with every major aspect of human culture? When Rose Scholars were suggesting ideas for responses to war crimes, it was almost amusing to see how acceptable these “reparations” are. I know that everybody is against war overall, but it was interesting to think that one government paying another is an accepted response to certain war crimes. The idea almost plays out like a political cartoon, with politicians passing money around for the “unacceptable” crimes that are committed around the world. As discussed in the scholar program, it is not an easy task to legally punish a war criminal; however, when action isn’t taken against criminals—and the judicial body has little power to act—war crimes seem to be an acceptable part our society and culture.

Attending professor Ohlin’s talk was a really informative experience for me because I felt like I heard something that I had never really thought of. I do wish that I had brought some paper or a notebook to take notes because there was a lot of information and it seemed interesting.  I think that the part that stuck with me the most from his talk was the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan and whether the case could be argued in court or not. As professor Ohlin then explained, it is a case that points morality against collateral damage that usually occurs in war. The fact that there was a military attack on the hospital makes this case tougher because it is hard to tell if it was really collateral damage or if the attack was actually targeted at the hospital.

Overall, I found last week’s lecture to be very interesting and informative regarding the bombing of the Afghan hospital. Professor Ohlin added insightful remarks during the lecture about whether or not the United States should be “charged” with war crimes. As such, the Professor discussed the importance of the intel the US government received from the Afghan forces. This particular example truly encouraged me to consider the numerous US air bombings and the very reason the government got involved. At the very least, the US is guilty of ignorance for not verifying the Afghan forces’ intel on the ground. Unfortunately, the US could be responsible for heinous war crimes.

Professor Ohlin expressed the concept of collateral damage and its implications on war. The relative definition of this idea and case-by-case basis makes it difficult to justify actions that in the process kill innocent civilians.

In addition, I found Professor Ohlin’s continued discussion on the International Courts to be remarkable. The fact of the matter is that the United States stands as a voting delegate on the United Nations Security Council and thus is able to veto any vote charging them with war crimes. This feature unfortunately removes formal accountability for the US to admit its wrongdoings. Regardless of what the NATO and the Afghan government investigation, the US will not be punished for the bombings.

After this lecture, I took it upon myself to research the notion of war crimes and the Afghan hospital bombings in greater detail. I find it interesting that President Obama apologized to several of the Doctor Without Borders staff members. In my opinion, I contend that the President apologizing most certainly admits a great deal of guilt. In the future, I will most certainly consider this area of law as a potential interest of study and possibly career.

Last week I had the opportunity to hear about the international laws that govern several terrorist and violence issues from the perspective of Professor Ohlins. As a naïve person who really only knows about terrorist issues and other war crimes through TV crime shows such as NCIS and the Blacklist, I am not the best informed citizen about these topics. I hardly read the news and do not know about many current events on international cases. Thus, this discussion with not only talking about the issues but also how to deal with them legally was a great intriguing and enlightening topic for me. For example, he informed me about the United States bombing a hospital in Afghanistan by accident thinking it was the location of a terrorist.

This issue was a perfect case study to talk about the implications of the wrong action done here. Professor Ohlin talked about how the concept of collateral damage can come in with war crime in which by basic definition a war crime is targeting civilians purposefully during a war. However, it is not a war crime if those civilians were accidentally killed when soldiers carry out a strategic mission for taking down terrorists or enemy groups. Then the deaths of those civilians become collateral damage. However, the big issue is that every time a similar story like this occurs overseas it becomes a subjective issue in if the United States or another country had committed a possible war crime. It is sad to see people die if they were not the targets of the mission and thus automatically by human emotions we think our actions were wrong. However, others seeing from a strategic perspective might feel their losses as collateral damages to reach our ultimate goal in the war and prevent any bigger –scale violence.

Thus, I enjoyed the engaging discussion on the current issues that are occurring internationally and also bringing the issue back to the root opinions of the issue. It has encouraged to try and stay engaged with more current events.

On Wednesday October 7, I attended the Becker/Rose House Cafe Series with speaker Jens David Ohlins. Professor Ohlins spoke to us about international law. He weaved together current news with some history about the institutions who preside over international cases. It was a thought provoking discussion which helped me realize how important international agencies are to keeping peace between countries.

Normally, I would consider myself someone who knows just enough news to stay current. Unfortunately, I did not pay attention to the news the week that I had attended this Cafe Series. As it seems, I missed very important news that the United States had bombed a hospital in Afgahnistan by accident as they were targeting a terrorist. Prof. Ohlins made sure everyone understood the importance of this topic by explaining collateral damage in war time. It is a war crime to target civilians during a war. However, it is not a war crime if the civilians are killed in the process of attacking a strategic military position. That is to say, killing civilians during a war is considered collateral damage as long as the ration of killing civilians during war time is small. Like many things in law, the definition of small is subjective. Prof. Ohlins went on to describe some situations when the ration is particularly “small” so we could understand the situation. An important consideration to make about the ratio is that we cannot only consider the number of targets you were aiming at. More specifically it is essential to consider the importance of the target when we are trying to see if the collateral damage is justifiably small. There is a lot of complexity in trying to decide if the collateral damage is small enough to not be considered a war crime.

We covered a lot of topic in just the one hour and I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion. Although I try to stay current with the news around the world, I know I do not spend much time to understand it in depth. This Becker/Rose House Cafe Series helped me understand not just the current situation but also helped me understand some inner workings of international agencies.

Last Wednesday, I attended the Becker-Rose Café Series talk given by Professor Ohlin, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the Cornell Law School. Professor Ohlin focuses on criminal law, both domestic and international.

The word cloud for this talk asked for names of war criminals. Most of the discussion was centered around the recent bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan and whether or not we can classify the act as an international war crime. Patients as well as volunteers with Doctors Without Borders were killed in the incident. Some students in the audience at the talk offered suggestions for how the US can take responsibility for the bombing. One mentioned accepting a trade embargo, another offering to pay monetary sanctions. Since news broke last week of the incident, President Obama has since issued an apology and the US has indeed gone with the latter option. It is amazing how many different factors can be at play in a situation like this.

Professor Ohlin proceeded to discuss extensively the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was a bit tricky for me to wrap my head around all of the terms and conditions. However, I gathered that the ICC has a difficult job to do and that making decisions on the complex cases that they must review is not easy. Despite rulings that the Court makes that may be in a country’s best interest, they are not always carried through.

From this talk, I left with a greater appreciation for international policy and politics. The bombing of the Afghan hospital was an extremely unfortunate event. I wish I knew more of the details of what happened. The most that I feel that is in my power to do in the present moment is to acknowledge that human lives were lost. While we can certainly discuss such events from different views and perspectives, perhaps it is best to leave the final say in the hands of the experts.

Last week Wednesday I attended Professor Jens Ohlin’s talk about international criminal law. He explained to us the basic rules of warfare, as well as, what actions are deemed as a war crime. A large part of his talk centered around the United States attack on the hospital in Afghanistan.

This talk was a very eye opening experience for me. I never knew that there were international laws about war. I had just assumed that once war had begun, everything was fair game. For example, I did not know that hospitals were considered safe zones during war. I also did not know that wounded soldiers are considered a civilian and thus cannot be attack with exceptions. From Professor Ohlin’s talk, I also learned that there are many exceptions to the rules of warfare. These exceptions create a grey area, which makes it hard to prove whether certain actions are actually war crimes.

In regards to the U.S. attack on the Afghanistan hospital, it was interesting to hear both sides of the argument during the talk. On one hand, if the U.S. believed that there were key enemies hiding in the hospital then they might have had a legitimate reason for attacking the hospital. However, on the other hand, about 22 innocent people died and it is hard to justify any attack when innocent people pay the price with their lives. I think it is difficult to make a decision in this matter until all facts are known.

Overall, the talk was a great experience. I had never before heard of international war crimes, nor had I heard about the U.S. attack on the Afghanistan Hospital. Professor Ohlin was a great speaker and I am intrigued to learn more about this topic and what happens following the U.S. attack.

When I read about the Doctor’s Without Borders incident, I was infuriated to see the lack of accountability by the U.S. regarding the situation and the constant stream of very different official stories being told. Once Professor Ohlin explained how International Criminal Law works and the lack of enforcement involved in these cases, I think it just added to my astonishment as how easy it is to avoid accountability if the right players involved don’t want to take action. Countries can let criminals slide through various loopholes, such as the criminal being an current leader of a nation. These loopholes need to be closed and there needs to be clarity whether diplomacy or international criminal law should be priority.

On another note, I appreciated being explained the concept of collateral damage. If there is no collateral damage, then no war can be possible. However, the span of interpretation for collateral damage is also too broad and lets many countries working on its own agendas to get away with excessive damage. The Doctor’s Without Borders case doesn’t even have an official story and currently, there is no news on how important a target the U.S. was going after to justify killing 22 doctors and patients, injuring many others, and destroying the main source of care for thousands of people in the region it was in, in Afghanistan. Not to mention, this only fuels the spite of the Afghan population at Americans and other countries getting involved.

I attended Professor Ohlins’ lecture on what war crimes are and who qualify as war criminals. He started the hour by giving us two equally valid perspectives about the Doctors without Borders hospital that the United States recently bombed; one said the U.S. should be held accountable for killing innocent civilians and the other that the actions were justified because loss of civilian lives is a natural part of war. I found it interesting that Professor Ohlin justified the inevitable casualties of war by citing rules of war. Actually being one of those soldiers on the ground, realizing they had just killed innocent people for no reason would be horrible. I can’t imagine the guilt they must feel. The rules that govern war, the idea that casualties are acceptable if the ratio is proportional, is convenient; it lets people off the hook. I haven’t made up my mind about how justified this rule of proportions really is because you can’t quantify a life.

I’m interested how we approach the loss of lives in a war zone versus somewhere like the United States. A death is a death and yet in one situation, we justify the death so that we can sleep at night while the other, we treat it as the tragedy that it is. I have learned a lot in classes about the impact of technological warfare on how killing psychologically affects people. There is a valid concern that as technology takes over how we conduct war, the justification that war is a game of ratios will become stronger.

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a talk hosted by Jens David Ohlins, an expert on international criminal law. What I learned was that international criminal law is extremely complicated and cannot easily be codified into a set of stringent rules. For example, civilians can’t be intentionally killed; that’s pretty straightforward. However, civilians can be killed if it is a result of targeting a legitimate military target, and the number of civilian deaths isn’t disproportionate to the value of the military target. As you may have guessed, “disproportionate” lacks a concrete definition in this case.

Additionally, the enforcement of international criminal law is a tricky matter. The International Criminal Court can only address matters if they are brought forth by a member nation, or if the U.N. Security Council refers a case to it. Becoming a member nation to the International Criminal Court is voluntary, so any nation that does not wish to be obligated by international criminal law can merely opt not to become a member. Furthermore, it is difficult for the U.N. Security Council to bring a case to the International Criminal Court thanks to the veto power of nations such as America and Russia.

Throughout the discussion, Ohlins repeatedly used the term “rules of engagement” to refer to the international laws governing what acts are and are not permitted during warfare. Acts such as targeting civilians, utilizing chemical weapons, and torture are all forbidden. While it may seem agreeable to have rules governing warfare in order to prevent atrocities and violations of human rights, the notion of “rules of engagement” leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Whenever I hear the term “rules of engagement,” my thoughts immediately turn to some sort of game. I worry that by creating rules for warfare, we have denigrated war to nothing more than a game, thus severely lessening the severity of war. Is it possible that our good intentions have led us astray? Did we merely create the “rules of engagement” so that we have the freedom to act in war, all the while maintaining that we have done no wrong because we played by the rules? I surely hope that this is not the case, although I am not so confident.

In his talk last week, Professor Ohlins brought up the difficulties of trying war criminals. Most topical was the case of the United States’s bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital. Professor Ohlins mentioned some of the ways the US could be brought to The Hague for trial, one of which was a recommendation from the United Nations Security Council. Being that the US is one of the countries on the Security Council and has a veto, Professor Ohlins noted that the case would never be brought to The Hague through this method.

My question, however, is if it would be a shrewd political move for the United States to put itself on trial for the accidental bombing of the hospital. This would first serve as an actual admittance of wrongdoing in the practical ways that a simple apology from President Obama cannot. And second, this would create a precedent for bringing powerful countries— think Russia—- for their violations. This action would certainly be a difficult choice to make and could cause the United States to lose some stature in the eyes of China and Russia, however, it could create a rule to which every other country would need comply. If the international community is serious about ending war crimes, one country needs to take the lead. In this case, it can be the United States.

Last Wednesday, Professor Ohlins spoke about criminal law, a topic with which I am not too familiar. First, he asked whether the recent bombing of the Afghan hospital should be considered a war crime, knowing we would all immediately jump to say “yes! How could the killing of the sick not be considered a crime?” Professor Olin, however, introduced the idea of proportionality, and said that one must consider the situation at hand– whether the “importance” of the target overrides the casualties of innocent civilians.

In response to a question about Assad, Professor Ohlin said that the world must “bring him to justice.” In high school, I grappled with the ambiguities of justice while serving on my school’s Honor Committee. With no “rulebook for judging cases,” we had to define what fairness meant in every situation, for each student, and for the community. When we seek to find justice on an international level, when citizens from all over the world likely have different definitions for right and wrong, how can we come to a consensus?

I attended this lecture last week, where we heard Professor Ohlins speak about war crimes and criminals: what they are and who they are. We started the discussion with the America’s recent “accidental” attack on a hospital to reach their target, in the process killing more than a dozen innocent people, both doctors and patients. Now, the question is whether the US should be held accountable. There are two ways to view this situation. In the first, one could say that it was justified in that the US was acting in the name of war, and that these were just casualties. However, others could say how these were innocent civilians and that the US should be held accountable for such a lack in accuracy in attacking.

I personally, was perplexed. I found myself thinking, aren’t casualties a normal thing in war? What separates this instance from the countless others? Then Professor Ohlins mentioned how there are certain rules by which war must abide. The ratio of civilians killed must be low. That to me got me thinking, when do we have the right to put the legitimacy of taking a life? People make such controversial statements about abortion and murders, yet simply accept casualties and just killing in war as a normal and possibly good thing. Sure, war may be in self defense or in the name of common good, but what about to those innocent mothers and children who suffered at war’s hands? How did they deserve that? How is this different from a typical murder? The bottom line remains the same, they both lost their lives forcefully. The value of life is so fickle, and it is truly interesting how one can value life in some circumstances and not in others. Perhaps the value of lives will always be dependent on circumstance, and perhaps it is the correct way to go about such a sensitive subject. Or perhaps, we are simply experiencing cognitive dissonance and trying to justify our hypocritical views when it comes to life and murder.

On Wednesday, I attended the Becker-Rose Café regarding international criminal law with Professor Ohlin. The talk focused on a current event: an “accidental” bombing by the United States of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, killing and injuring dozens of innocent civilians. We discussed whether or not this act should be considered a war crime. This is not a simple distinction to make. When there are civilian casualties, typically the act is considered a war crime. However, in this case, why the US bombed the hospital was not clear. We considered the situation where Afghanistan had purposely provided the coordinates of the hospital to the US, telling them the coordinates were something different, in hopes that the US would destroy the hospital for them. In this case, who is the guiltier party? Who should get punished? Who decides what actually happened, and then the appropriate punishment for both parties?

The topic of the bombing in Afghanistan lead to a discussion on the term collateral damage. This term refers to the damage that is “acceptable” in order to take down a high profile target. The concept that one evil life could be worth one hundred good lives if that one life is evil enough is horrible. While it is argued that taking down the bad guy could save hundreds of innocent lives, it still does not seem right to sacrifice innocent lives. And again, this brings up the same questions as before. Who decides how many innocent lives are worth the life of one criminal? Who is in charge of actually carrying out the act? The line between fair and unfair, justifiable and unjustifiable, is very thin and wobbly with regards to punishing war crimes and war criminals. Hopefully, in the future, the need for war decreases and reduces the loss of lives.

The talk about international criminal law was extremely informative. As someone who follows the news closely, the talk helped me realize how little the news media covers the topic. Despite its relevance in many news stories the topic of international criminal law seems under emphasized. By contrast, I feel that when a story involves matters of domestic criminal law the news media often discusses the legal aspects of a story from all angles. I wonder if my perception of the news coverage is correct and if so what can account for the differences.

I thought that Professor Jens David Ohlin’s style of using current events to teach about international criminal law concepts was effective. Since I had some previous knowledge of the events he was talking about I was better able to focus on the legal concepts being discussed. The professor also used questions to help him tailor his talk to the audience. It seemed that the questions he asked helped him judge the audiences’ familiarity with the topic.

I was also fascinated by the many intricacies of the law and how it seemingly leaves room for a variety of interpretations. I was amazed by the story that Professor Jens David Ohlin told regarding the South African government not arresting a foreign government official charged by the International Criminal Court; even though South Africa had signed a treaty promising to arrest individuals charged by the court. This case also involved domestic courts ordering officials to abide by the treaty. I’m sure there are numerous other examples illustrating the complex interplay of domestic and international law.

A topic that was not discussed, but would have been interesting to learn more about, is how technological changes impact international criminal law. I have heard a lot about the interplay between technology and domestic laws written before the internet. I would be interested in how this interplay is impacting international law.

After hearing the talk, I will try to seek out information about how other news stories fit into the system of international justice. I would also be interested in taking classes on this topic in the future.

At Rose Café last Wednesday, Professor Ohlins spoke about international criminal law – a topic I had, prior to, known nothing about. He shed a light on the intricacies and fine print involved in defining what constitutes as a war crime. After the lecture, it was apparent to me that declaring an act a war crime is nothing but complicated:

Killing is illegal…unless it’s in a time of war.

Then it’s legal to kill only enemy persons.

But killing civilians is still illegal… unless they’re collateral damage.

Or unless the amount of civilian causalities is proportional to the value of the target.

How is the value of a target measured?

On a case-by-case basis.

It makes sense, though. The Bataan Death March and the Atomic Bombs in World War II are not comparable. Joseph Goebbels and the Rosenburg spies are not the same. This process ought to be complicated. Before this lecture, I had assumed that there was a strict book of rules when it came to international criminal law, but (thankfully) war crimes are so novelty that there is no rigid checklist that can be referenced.

Professor Ohlin began his talk with a discussion of the recent airstrike against an Afghanistan hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) by the United States military. To me, and probably many other audience members, the attack seemed to fit the category of according to an intuitive understanding of the term. One nation attacked a target in another nation, resulting in the injury and death of civilians. Furthermore, that target was a hospital, something that is intuitively thought of as a safe zone (which it actually is under international law). But then Professor Ohlin began to complicate things. This would be a running theme for the next hour.

As Professor Ohlin introduced the matter of collateral damage and proportionality into the discussion, it became clear this incident was not open-and-shut, at least in practice. Even though it just seems like the US committed a war crime with the attack, international law complicates things. After all, people are expected to die during wartime, including civilians. Nobody’s perfect. So laws were made to determine what is an “acceptable” and “proportionate” amount of collateral damage. A shrewd nation can then twist those rules to elude punishment for its misdeeds.

Another common theme within the talk was the difficulty of prosecuting a war criminal. As the International Criminal Court only includes so many nation states amongst its members, it can only judge individuals from certain parts of the world. The UN can be of assistance, but the veto power of the Security Council lets individual nations block any efforts that run contradictory to their personal interests. The message here, as with the talk on proportionality, is that common sense judgments on war crimes and other atrocities are not easily realized and that international laws meant to promote justice too frequently fall short of actualizing it.

I was only able to join for the second half of the Cafe Series, but I really enjoyed the topic. When I had walked in, Professor Ohlins was talking about the ICC (International Criminal Court), describing it as a court for war criminals located in the Netherlands. Although it has nothing to do with the United Nations, it is quite similar in its function. I found it a little odd that something that has a similar function as the UN isn’t directly tied to it. But Professor Ohlins later mentioned that not all countries are involved in it, one being the United States, and it got me thinking that not all those involved in the United Nations are interested in keeping war criminals in jail or punishing them. With this in mind, possibly the United States’ government thinks that if we join, there would be many instances where we could be put on trial for that would be considered war crimes. Regardless, I think it’s a little controversial that we’re not involved in the ICC, especially since there are some measures of managing what cases are brought to the ICC. Very few cases end up at the ICC because (1) there needs to be some sort of method to hear the case (like the country needs to have joined the ICC) and they can be brought to court and (2) the country has veto rights, so the case can’t get to the ICC if it gets vetoed. That already sounds like a large amount of power given to each country.

Also, I was very absorbed during the talk about who is considered a war criminal. Many people think Omar al-Bashir is considered a war criminal, but when he went to visit South Africa, the South African government did all it could to prevent al-Bashir from getting captured. That led into an intense conversation about South Africa’s view on how al-Bashir cannot be considered a war criminal because he’s a President and a person of power, so he has diplomatic immunity, which should trump the arrest warrant. I think it’s somewhat understandable why South Africa would view the situation in this way because if we arrest al-Bashir in the middle of his reign, the entire community would collapse and possibly fall into anarchy. Or more killings would result from it. Although we would all love to see al-Bashir in custody of the ICC, South Africa took a different perspective, and it’s respectable (but wrong because they broke the rules that come with the arrest warrant and it sucks because there’s no strong enforcement of the ICC’s decisions).

At the Becker-Cafe series this week, Jens David Ohlins talked about the concept of war crime, something I had previously known very little about. Even though I had to leave fairly early, there was something that Professor Ohlins said that really caught my attention–and not in a good way. Through the course of a war, the United States apparently has the ability to chalk down the deaths of innocent civilians if they were just “collateral damage” as a part of a military operation. The sad thing about this fact, though, was that for some reason, it wasn’t that surprising to hear that this was the case. The fact that it’s legally okay to kill hundreds of people as long as they’re just “collateral damage” disgusts me, and I wish with all my heart that this wasn’t the way it was.

I found Professor Ohlin’s talk really interesting, especially the discussion we had about the recent incident in Afghanistan involving Doctor’s without borders. It became very clear that serving justice on the international state was both slow and ineffective.

It really is a battle between sovereignty of individual states vs justice. Not many countries want to give some international body the ability to persecute its citizens. However, I find that the current system of international justice leaves a lot to be desired.

The ICC has no authority to pursue charges against the citizens of countries that have strong military and economic might like the US, Russia, and China. These larger countries have had questionable incidents in the last decade or so. The counter would be that the worst crimes have occurred in less developed countries, and at least the ICC provides justice for those crimes. However, the people that have committed these crimes aren’t prosecuted equally, but instead it depends on whether a large country has interests in those countries. These shortcomings of the ICC don’t sound like justice to me.

Clearly, we are far away from equal justice for all entities on the international level

The discussion Professor Ohlins led left me very confused.

We started talking about the US bombing of the hospital in Afghanistan that killed 22 people, an event that was on the front page of both the New York Times and USA Today the very next day.

Proportionality was the legal term Ohlins then introduced, which seems to justify killings like these if the importance of the target is at a bigger ratio than the civilians that must be sacrificed. What does that mean? By killing these dudes, we’ll save a whole bunch of those dudes, but these peeps are gonna have to die too?

How can we determine whose lives are more valuable than others? If killing soldiers is more moral than killing civilians in war, does that mean costumes determine level of innocence? Why should wearing a uniform justify the killing of a person? Everyone is just as scared and can have similar levels of innocence. I know I’m overlooking who is carrying guns and the agendas of rival organizations, but I don’t understand how we can react differently to the deaths of civilians and the deaths of soldiers when these are all the deaths of humankind.

My reaction to this talk is one similar to when you realize your parents don’t know everything, and make mistakes. The definition of murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. I’ve become distrustful of the word “unlawful” because now I’m disgusted at the idea of a “lawful killing.”  Law seems to be a system of enforced rules we humans try to agree upon. I guess I didn’t realize just how “human” these laws can be, how far we are from attaining morality and justice.

If the bombings of Dresden, or the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are behind us, what is to come? The world is becoming more interconnected, but at the same time we have the ability to create such atrocities at even bigger distances with larger repurcussions, and with even less regard to morals. This is truly terrifying.

War is a messed up game that I don’t want to play.

On Wednesday I attended the Becker Rose cafe and heard Professor Ohlins talk about international criminal law. In an interactive discussion, we learned about what constitutes a war crime, and the various institutions in place to prosecute accused individuals or political entities, such as the UN and the International Criminal Court. As I expected, the political arena of criminal justice is very subjective and dynamic. There is a lot of gray area, and the law is being continually shaped.

Speaking with him after the event, I found two of his insights to be especially thought provoking. The first was the tension between what is moral and what is legal. One would expect international law to be formed on a moral basis, as a framework for political entities engaging in fair, ethical conduct. Professor Ohlins brought up that during the Vietnam Conflict, voices in the US evaluated our military’s aggression on a moralistic basis: was it right for us to be there, supporting a certain party, dropping bombs all over the place – or not? However, in the last 50 years the international legal system has grown in size and scope, as organizations such as the UN have grown. Now, people generally evaluate the US’ foreign involvement on the basis of established international law. They ask whether launching a ground invasion to take out Assad would be legal or not, not whether it would be moral or not. This creates the moral versus legal tension. Example: The United States, acting with more of a moral policy, engages in airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syrian territory, whereas European Nations see that as illegal without a Syrian invitation based on laws about national sovereignty, so have not entered into the conflict. Of course, laws can be eventually changed to more accurately reflect morality in various cases, but there are other motives for various laws, such as control and stability. In this case, Russia and China resist any UN coalition involvement in Syria because they consider national sovereignty and governmental control as more important than ethics.

This leads into the second insight: generally, if an accused criminal is powerful enough, or has friends who are powerful enough, then they are relatively immune to the international criminal justice system. For instance, Assad will likely never be tried in the International Criminal Court for the crimes against humanity that he has committed (such as massacring his people with illegal chemical weapons), due to his close connections with Russia, who have veto power in the UN. Similarly, the US would surely veto any attempt to try the military officials responsible for a recent US airstrike which resulted in the demolishing of an Afghani hospital, despite Doctors Without Borders calling the strike a clear war crime. Although Professor Ohlins notices an encouraging trend away from criminal immunity, there is still great resistance. In our times, and in a nation valuing representation and freedom of speech, it seems that it is often the responsibility of the common man to facilitate this process by pressuring the government to do what is moral, whether or not it is seen as “legal”, or politically advantageous. The law is not perfect: and we can be a voice standing for what seems to be ethical and agitating for legal change in that direction. The question is, how to do this most effectively, and based on the most accurate information? There will always be a level of uncertainty.

I found this talk on international law very interesting. It was a very informal format and we were able to freely ask questions. I would say it was more like a conversation between Professor Ohlins and the guests. What I found most intriguing is that he brought in current events and presented the facts about international law in a way that was easy to understand. When he brought up the hospital that was bombed in Afghanistan, it was something that I had read about and I had a basic understanding of what had happened. I found the process of getting an event declared as a war crime to be very complicated and difficult. Also, it seems as though some countries could have one of their actions declared as a war crime with less trouble than others. For example, the United States has a veto on the security council so anything that may be brought up against them, can be vetoed.

Overall, I found this discussion to be very interesting. I do not usually find law and policy to be very interesting, however I found that my attention was very focused on what was being said. I am glad that I went as this opened to my eyes to how international crimes are so difficult to persecute and solve. Also, I never knew that so many factors go into determining if something is a war crime and the idea of proportionality is very foreign to me. Overall, I think it is very important for everyone to have a basic understanding of international law.

Before the event I actually expected a more lecture style talk which the professor would go over the structure of international law and briefly talk about how it works. Interestingly, he starts off by talking about the recent bombing in Afghanistan and ask us how is bombing a hospital special. I didn’t know the news before hand and this questions immediately triggered my curiosity. He points out that hospital is considered a safe zone and it is not ok to bomb such a place in war.

Then he went on to give more examples on international law. I didn’t recall some of them but it was a comfortable and relaxed talk. My friend Julia really enjoys it and she think the professor is very clever for channeling the important ideas in international law in some very basic examples. I am very into the tech field so this event is an open-eye event for me.

We were fortunate to have Jens David Ohlin, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, attend the Becker-Rose Cafe Series event. In a very casual environment, Professor Ohlin engaged us in conversation regarding international criminal law. I found the main theme of the discussion, which was determining the legality of killing civilians in war or conflict, to be highly interesting. The professor shared with us that it becomes considered criminal when the number of civilian deaths is disproportionate to the importance of the target. Although the policy sounds reasonable, it actually is difficult to apply in the court. Indeed, “disproportionate” is of course highly vague and subjective, and thus Professor Ohlin pointed out that prosecutors are often hesitant to embrace cases dependent on this law.

The professor also pointed out that international criminal law can be highly political, and as a result can prevent cases technically required by law from ever taking form. Countries like Syria and Saudi Arabia, both of which have been widely reported to have committed serious criminal infractions, have many business partners and economic allies; this has prevented a strong and unified push for prosecution against these nations in an international court. More concerning is when a nation is supposed to prosecute or seek justice under the terms of a contract or treaty, and instead fails to do so. Thus, what perhaps needs to be instituted is a system that penalizes those who fail to uphold justice in a world where no true international police force exists.

I attended the talk led by Jens David Ohlins, and it was by far the most informal talk so far. Ohlins was sitting in a chair, not standing and presenting, and it made the talk more approachable. This led to a dialogue between Ohlins and several of the people who attended. The talk was opened by asking us to text the name of some international criminals so it would appear on a polling question in the front of the room. Names like Kony, Osama and Hussein showed up. Ohlins prompted us on a current United States international cirme scandal, in which the United States attacked an Afghani Hospital, killing 22 civilians and injuring many. He wanted to know, in war times, is this illegal? Most people would immediately say, no, you can’t just kill innocent people, but I found out that in war times, it is law that civilians may be killed as collateral damage, as long as the deaths are proportionate to the target. In this case, is seemed clear that this wasn’t quite proportionate.

However, this brought up the moral question, what is proportionate? Ohlins asked us about the atomic bomb, and the United State’s use of it in Japan. Killing thousands seemed justified because it essentially won the war, but what if they killed 5 people for just one soldier? Or what about 200 people for Osama Bin Laden. Its hard to guess what the threat of a high level criminal is worth in civilian lives, and continues to be a grey area in international law. Personally, I think war is ugly, and will always be ugly. Unfortunately, innocent people die in the line of fire, be it accidental of not, and I don’t always think its “collateral damage”. Also, it is hard to judge because you view the other side as the enemy, and you want your own country to win. You just have to hope that eventually, this conflict will come to and end.

For this week’s Rose-Becker Cafe series, Jens David Ohlins, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, led a fascinating discussion on criminal law and its relevance to current events. This is a subject on which I have limited knowledge, but, as an avid follower of the news, I was very interested.

Earlier this week, a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan was tragically and mistakenly bombed by the US. There is much debate regarding whether this should be considered a war crime. Hospitals are usually known as protected sites in war, and there can be no attacks on civilians or safe zones. Professor Ohlins explained that there is much grey area between criminal and lawful collateral damage that weighs on many factors such as intention, magnitude of damage, and the value of military target. I found this part of the discussion very saddening as this is hugely relevant and a major problem with what is currently happening in the world; innocent civilians are being caught up in conflict and being displaced from their homes. I find it very sad to think about innocent civilian deaths being classified by the term “collateral damage”, as it transforms people’s lives into a number for interpretation. We should keep in mind the innocent victims of war, who accidentally become caught up in conflict, and be open to offer safety and shelter.

Professor Ohlins from the law school cam as the guest speaker for this week’s Café Series. We had a fascinating discussion about international criminal law, focusing specifically on war crimes.

In the beginning of the night, we had a poll everywhere question naming war criminals we knew that were/are very terrible. A few big names from the work cloud were Omar, Al Bashir. House professor Garrick was also on the list as a form of amusement (I hope). We started off the discussion by talking about the Afghanistan incident involving the bombing of a hospital with Doctors without Borders workers. The bombing killed 22 people and the question was whether it was a war crime or not.

That led into a discussion of what constitutes a war crime and what happens if it is. Basically a hospital is seen as a protected place, and is not really supposed to be attacked in war. While the main rule is that soldiers cannot kill civilians, they can kill civilians when justified. Justifications are not based on any rule or numerical value, but rather the worth and appropriation of the aftermath. If the target that the military was looking for was extremely dangerous, then killing civilians is justified. If it just one person that is being targeted and a million civilians may not be justified.

We then got into a discussion about the International Crime Court and its power and involvement in war criminal trials. The United States is not a member of the international crime court, interestingly enough. There were three problems mentioned with the pursuit of a war criminal to be put on trial by the ICC. Two of the major problems are that the country must be a part of the ICC and the fact that war crimes happen everyday. There is also no police force so they can’t physically bring the criminal to court. However, if you are a criminal an arrest warrant is issued, meaning that any country part of the ICC must arrest that person.

Yet another problem is that presidents and other world leaders have sovereign immunity so we can’t arrest them. The argument here is the state the country will be in if the leader is removed. I personally think that if the leader is a war criminal, the country might actually be better off with his removal. Diplomatic immunity impeded in another case concerning South Africa and the pursuit of a president committing mass murders of his people. The countries that don’t follow through have no real punishment, as the security counsel does not do anything.

The professor wrapped up with a brief order of the view the ICC has: Crimes against humanity >War criminal > than diplomatic immunity. I completely agree with the ICC view and it’s a shame that their policies aren’t really enforced.

Professor Ohlin led a fascinating discussion about international criminal law with a focus on war crimes. As one would imagine with legalese, there is a lot of gray area with interpreting the letter of the law. One of the major ways to determine if a war crime was committed is to determine if the death of civilians was justifiably proportional to the killing of military targets. In times of war, it can be argued that civilians killed as collateral damage is proportional to destroying an enemy military base. Of course it is all relative. Destroying a hospital can not be justified to kill just one soldier with a gun.

One of the major issues recently is the destruction of a hospital by US armed forces and reports and testimony state that the deadly airstrike was a mistake. Doctors without Borders, the organization that heads that hospital, are calling for the US to be charged with a war crime. Are they justified? It is still early days in trying to figure what exactly happened and an independent investigation would be needed to ascertain the circumstances of the incident. Whatever what may be case, whether it was due to the request of a support airstrike from a support ground commander or preplanned due to previous intelligence, the death of 22 people and many who were wounded is a large amount of collateral damage and may amount to a war crime if it is found to not be proportional. However, charging the US with a war crime would not be an easy process. A prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC) may not necessarily bring the charges of a war crime against the United States if additonal evidence is not found because the proportionality argument can not stand on its own due to the inherent ambiguity.

Even if proportionality and sufficient evidence is available for countries committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, the ICC has limited enforceability as it depends on the cooperation of the various governments. Just recently, the South African government failed to arrest al-Bashir, who was indicted by the ICC and had an arrest warrant for him. The South African government even disobeyed an injunction from a local judge demanding for the arrest of Bashir. Because the South African government failed to fulfill its obligations, it would receive consequences from the UN Security council, but they have not actually done anything. Essentially the hands of the ICC are tied in this situation since al-Bashir would need to venture out of his country in order to be arrested. Additionally, there was the dilemma of whether an arrest warrant issued by the ICC outweighs diplomatic immunity as a head of state, the latter of which is ensured under international criminal law.

It is evident that while international criminal law is designed to protect civilians and limit unwarranted damage, it is ambiguous and limited in its enforceability. Countries would need to respect the ICC (and the ICJ) enough to compile with indictments and arrest warrants; currently that is not the case and South Africa is not even being punished, which is cause for concern because it may show that the international law can be flouted. How would you ensure international law is effective and enforced properly?

In his talk this evening, Professor Ohlin from the Cornell Law School discussed how military actions are classified as war crimes and how these war crimes can be prosecuted internationally. After listening to his lecture, I realized how little I had previously known about the process of international criminal cases and the complications which they involve.

Focusing on the example of the recent U.S. bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan, Professor Ohlin began by explaining that there is no easy answer to the question of what constitutes a war crime, as the killing of civilians is a frequent occurrence in war. He said that the only legal way to determine if a military action is acceptable is to look at its proportionality, in other words, the ratio of civilian lives lost against the military benefits gained. However, there is no clear objective rule for a court to use in determining how this ratio should be calculated and evaluated.

Professor Ohlin also noted that even in cases where it is clear that a country has committed a war crime it can be difficult to prosecute them. He illustrated this by mentioning that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, al-Bashir. But since they have no way of enforcing this warrant, al-Bashir has been able to travel around Africa without repercussions.

These insights into international law gave me a better understanding of the many complexities which surround the issue of war crimes in today’s society.

this was my first wednesday-night informational-talk for the rose scholar program. to be honest, until i arrived, i didn’t even know what the professor’s discussion was going to be covering. tonight was the only evening i had free, so i didn’t look very closely as to the content of the lecture since i had to go no matter what. upon entering i noticed that in the back of the room, the projector displayed a page where students in attendance could text in the names of infamous war criminals, and have them appear on the screen. most were serious answers like osama bin laden, omar al-bashir, and josef mengele, but there were a couple funny ones too, like donald trump and garrick blalock. i really wanted to add grand moff tarkin to the list, although, to be fair, the discussion revolved around international war criminality and g.m.t. is arguably more of an interstellar war criminal. i showed up at seven exactly so by the time i’d apportioned an embarrassingly large number of chocolate chip cookies for myself the only seat left was in the front row. i’m not really a front row kind of person usually, but i didn’t mind today because professor jens david ohlin turned out to be a relaxed, well-spoken, and personable guy. over the course of the hour the conversation shifted fluidly from the international criminal court, to the recent u.s. bombing of a hospital in afghanistan, to the on-going quest to bring al-bashir to justice. i know less of international affairs than i care to admit, so i found the evening to be informative and entertaining. overall, i’d rate professor ohlin’s discussion a 10/10 and would certainly recommend it to a top ten friend.