Blog Roundup - Passing Judgement

Needless to say, Alito took center stage around the blogosphere this week. I think it would be impossible to round up every worthwhile Alito post, so let's just say shorter blog roundup: Alito, Scalito, Thomaslito, Borkalito. It's so much nicer to end the week with Harry Reid's statement regarding "Say Anything Sammy's" nomination.

I have not forgotten that Judge Alito was only nominated after the radical right wing of the President's party forced Harriet Miers to withdraw. The right wing insisted that Justice O'Connor be replaced with a sure vote for their extreme agenda.

And what would any extreme agenda be without extremist rhetoric such as this:

And now Ariel Sharon, who was again a very likeable person, a delightful person to be with. I prayed with him personally. But here he is at the point of death. He was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or United States of America. God said, "This land belongs to me, you better leave it alone."

Obviously, Israel didn't appreciate what Robertson had to say and the country has judged back - they have decided to "stop all contact" with him. Maybe now that his inane ramblings have finally caught up with him - he won't get to build his "JesusLand" theme park anymore - he might finally be a little more prudent with his commentaries. Of course, there's always the 700 Club's prayer line - it would be hilarious to get a ton of prayer requests for Robertson to get a grip.

Aaahhhh...so much judging and there's always so much to go around; while we were judging judges and Robertson was - well, not exercising any judgement whatsoever, but anyway - Spain and other European nations may have been judging us.

The concept of universal jurisdiction asserts that some crimes are so abhorrent that they transcend the normal understanding of sovereignty:

According to the proponents of universal jurisdiction, certain crimes pose so serious a threat to the international community as a whole, that any state ought to be able to prosecute an individual responsible for it; no place should be a safe haven for war criminals (including criminals involved in genocides) and human rights violators. Amnesty International also includes torture, "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions in this list.

The most famous incarnation of this concept can be found in Belgium's 1993 "law of universal jurisdiction under which charges were brought against participants in the Rwandan genocide, Ariel Sharon for event at Shatila, and against George H.W Bush, Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney for the 1991 Gulf War. However, Belgium is not the only country that has asserted the principal of universal jurisdiction.

In addition to Belgium, Spain has claimed the right to universal jurisdiction, with this jurisdiction traditionally being limited to cases involving Spanish nationals. This was the basis upon which Baltazar Garzon, one of Spain's investigating magistrates, brought charges against Augusto Pinochet, the ex-dictator of Chile. While the vast majority of the allegations being made against Pinochet related to the killings and torture of native Chileans, the presence of Spanish nationals amongst the victims was the basis upon which Garzon was able to ask for the extradition of Pinochet from the UK to stand trial in Madrid.

John Yoo isn't going to like that...


Tags: Alito, Universal Jurisidiction, Supreme Court, Israel, Pat Robertson