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How can Sweden fairly prosecute Assange when they don't prosecute GW Bush?

PhantomWolf said:
This isn't quite so straight forward either. The theory behind it is that for a citizen to plan a trip and travel overseas for those sort of "holidays" that the planning for the trip was done in the country of orign and thus part of the crime was commited there, and so is prosecutable there.

I am pretty sure that if a German who had been on such a trip was passing through the UK that they would not be able to prosecute, they would have to leave it for the German Authorities. I am pretty sure these laws only apply to Citizens or Residents of the country enforcing the law.
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I may have misunderstood, but Inetrnational Criminal Law, or Intl Penal Law, is a very young, and very limited, thing. Very few crimes - crimes against humanity such as torture, and war crimes - are considered "international" such that it would be possible that the autorities in country X could arrest, and possibly try, a subject even if the subject is neither a citizen nor a resident of X, nor has committed any part of his crime in X. That's why the likes of Pinochet, Kissinger, GWB perhaps, don't visit certain countries that have pledged to apprehend such individuals.

But rape, child abuse, tax evasion etc do not fall under this.

Then there is of course the issue of international warrants, whose validity is based on international (bi or multi-lateral) treaties: X can apprehend a suspect and subsequently extradite them to Y if X and Y have a treaty concenring extraditions, and Y has issued a valid international arrest warrant.


In the case of GWB and Sweden, of course no one would ever extradite GWB to Sweden :p
 
Part of the problem with prosecuting GWB with torture is that I don't think he is aware he ever authorized any "torture." Surely he'd bring out all his old Attorney General people who wrote those memos telling him what he was authorizing wasn't "torture."

And if you aren't charging him for torture what are you going to charge him with?
 
Travis said:
And if you aren't charging him for torture what are you going to charge him with?
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There's nothing. Even if someone thought that the war in Iraq was started based on a false premise (WMD) and that as such it was an illegal war and even if that was true then there still isn't a hope that GWB would be charged, much less put on trial. If it was the former President of a minor state then it could happen but not a former leader of a major country.
 
Oystein said:
Any evidence that the Swedish courts are not separate and independent from the Swedish government?
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None.
Do you have any that they are separate and independent?

Oystein said:
How do the decisions of the Swedish government on what to state publicly and what not 10 years ago affect the trustworthyness of Swedish courts today?
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Do you have any evidence that the trustyworthness of Sweden has changed significantly in those 10 years?

Oystein said:
I think, if you look at the history of any government in the entire world, there will NEVER be one country and one year during which said government did not say something that you disagree with - or fail to say something you wish they would have said.
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This is why we can not trust any Government at face value

Oystein said:
So leading this line of thinking to its logical end: How can you ever trust any court in any country at any time, ever, given that no government consults with you, personally, constantly, on absolutely every issue?
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No. Each case should be evaluated separately
 
The Don said:
There's nothing. Even if someone thought that the war in Iraq was started based on a false premise (WMD) and that as such it was an illegal war and even if that was true then there still isn't a hope that GWB would be charged, much less put on trial. If it was the former President of a minor state then it could happen but not a former leader of a major country.
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Hold on there. I'm not even clear on what an "illegal war" even is. Who decides this? On what authority?

To me it sounds like a nonsense concept in practice as all war is essentially illegal/legal. The only way I can see it happening is if the war is declared by someone that doesn't have the authority under that nation's constitution to do so.

And it shouldn't matter if he was the leader of a powerful nation or not. I would not want to see the former President of any democracy put on trial because he authorized a war that was unpopular.

Watanabe said:
Trolling or just not reading post #8?
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Huh???
 
Travis said:
Hold on there. I'm not even clear on what an "illegal war" even is. Who decides this? On what authority?
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The UN I guess


Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan


Read the full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq#ixzz2Ug8nNvDQ

Travis said:
To me it sounds like a nonsense concept in practice as all war is essentially illegal/legal. The only way I can see it happening is if the war is declared by someone that doesn't have the authority under that nation's constitution to do so.

And it shouldn't matter if he was the leader of a powerful nation or not. I would not want to see the former President of any democracy put on trial because he authorized a war that was unpopular.
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And unnecessary, and based on lies..
 
Watanabe said:
The UN I guess


Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan


Read the full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq#ixzz2Ug8nNvDQ
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Right, the leader of the UN had an opinion on the matter and that means he could be prosecuted for a nonsense concept?

Watanabe said:
And unnecessary, and based on lies..
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How was it unnecessary? Was there another way to remove Saddam from power that should have been tried? And what were those lies?
 
Travis said:
Right, the leader of the UN had an opinion on the matter and that means he could be prosecuted for a nonsense concept?
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Nonsense according to you.
and I do not want to argue again about the legality of the Iraq war (it was illegal, though) but it lead to 200000+ deaths

Travis said:
How was it unnecessary?
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As Saddam did not have relevant quantities of WMDs?

Travis said:
Was there another way to remove Saddam from power that should have been tried? And what were those lies?
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Who said that Saddam needed to be removed from power at at all costs?
And, if he had to, why in 2003 and not in 1983?
 
The Don said:
I believe the intended charge would relate to war crimes (given that IIRC GWB personally hasn't robbed a bank, passed a bed cheque or punched an elk in Sweden). I'm pretty sure that offering up a former President would set an unfortunate precedent.
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Ei theenk it was a møøse. Møøse bytes kan be preti nasti.
 
The Don said:
Although why a "crime" committed on a group of people in one country by a person in, and resident in, another country would be prosecuted in a third country (as opposed to the the ICC) is a mystery to me
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Belgium was temporarily entertaining such follies some years back.

Belgium's War Crimes Law invokes the concept of universal jurisdiction to allow anyone to bring war crime charges in Belgian courts, regardless of where the alleged crimes have taken place.
(...)
The law soon ran into trouble when a number of parties worldwide filed cases criticized as politically motivated against leaders of various nations.
Over the years filings included cases against American officials, including George H. W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf and Tommy Franks.
(...)
On 12 July 2003, the incoming government of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt announced that scrapping this law would be among the first acts carried out.
In September of that year, the Belgian Supreme Court threw out the cases against the former President Bush and other US officials, as well as Israelis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Crimes_Law_(Belgium)​
Belgium serves well as an unfunny creepy clown on the international diplomatics stage.
 
Travis said:
Hold on there. I'm not even clear on what an "illegal war" even is. Who decides this? On what authority?

To me it sounds like a nonsense concept in practice as all war is essentially illegal/legal. The only way I can see it happening is if the war is declared by someone that doesn't have the authority under that nation's constitution to do so.

And it shouldn't matter if he was the leader of a powerful nation or not. I would not want to see the former President of any democracy put on trial because he authorized a war that was unpopular.
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I suppose there's some kind of continuum at work here. If the democratically elected leader of Country A started a war with Country B and in the process exterminated or attempted to exterminate an ethnic group in Country B then I think that the leader of Country A should stand trial for that.

My personal problem is with wars where the objective is to topple the leader of another country. I know that Saddam Hussein was a very bad man and I would much preferred that he wasn't in charge of Iraq but to go to war to depose him (IMO the WMD was a convenient ruse) sets a dangerous precedent. In a bizarro future world where by some cruel twist of fate the current leadership of Iran has become a model for much of that part of the world I can imagine the forces of Islamic theocracy invading a Western country to free us from the yoke of secular democracy.

We in the West honestly believe that secular democracy is the best system of government (or to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the least worst) and will support those in other countries who profess to want to implement it in their own countries and will support them financially and even militarily. We believe that we are right by some kind of objective standard. There hundreds of millions of people out there who don't share our view.

Establishing the right to depose by force is IMO dangerous and political assassination moreso.
 
How can you have any pudding when you don't eat your meat?
 
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