Format: video with audio
Running time: 18 min 02 sec.
Summary: Pinky calls up international law expert Peter Weiss (Center for Constitutional Rights) and asks him "What is a Crime Against Humanity?". Other points of discussion include how a crime against humanity is different from a war crime; the 'superior orders' defense; torture; the International Criminal Court (ICC); the importance of ordinary people taking a stand on matters of international law; more!

Transcript

Larry Everest: [ from video ] ...I can't think of a more egregious crime against humanity, than the destruction - the deliberate, willful, conscious destruction of the habitat of all living things on this planet, the environment...

Pinky: You know, when I first heard that quote, it... took me a little by surprise. Because I had always thought of crimes against humanity as being things like - genocide, or torture, things like that.

But I'd never heard people talk about the destruction of the environment in terms of it being a crime against humanity - which makes me think, hey, I guess I don't know what the term really means right?

So, this is Mr. Peter Weiss - lawyer, writer, and a renowned expert on international law. I asked him if it'd be okay if we could call him up and ask him a few questions about crimes against humanity. Bunny? Can you please dial that number?

Bunny: Okay. [ telephone sounds ]

Pinky: Speed dial.

Peter Weiss: Hello?

Pinky: Hello Mr. Weiss, this is Pinky again.

Peter Weiss: Yes.

Pinky: Hi, um, thank you for agreeing to do this interview with us.

Peter Weiss: Mm-hmm.

Pinky: Um... Mr. Weiss - should I call you Mr. Weiss?

Peter Weiss: No, you can call me Peter.

Pinky: Um... okay, thank you. Maybe we can start with a definition-type question.

Peter Weiss: Okay.

Pinky: What is a crime against humanity?

Peter Weiss: A crime against humanity is a particularly odious crime, which is committed systematically or repeatedly against the people of a certain country or region. It is not a single crime. See, torture for instance, one act of torture can be a war crime, but a crime against humanity requires that it be part of a general scheme.

Pinky: Uh-huh.

Peter Weiss: But I think crimes against humanity go to some extent beyond the classic definitions of war crime. Maybe we should spend a little time defining crimes against humanity as they have been defined in various international law instruments - would you like to do that?

Pinky: That would be great because I think I tend to confuse crimes against humanity with... war crimes - which would be, what, murdering people during times of war?

Peter Weiss: Well murder as such is not defined as a war crime. The word murder doesn't appear in the Geneva Conventions, although execution without trial is defined as a war crime. Torture is something that would be common to war crimes and to crimes against humanity, and we may later in this discussion touch on the subject of what constitutes torture and whether there is such a thing as "torture light" as this American administration would have people believe. One of the more recent crimes against humanity which came principally out of the Bosnian situation is forced pregnancy - forcing women to have children as a result of rape. So, I mean, rape has for some time been considered a crime against humanity but forced pregnancy is something relatively new, as is sexual slavery. Another crime against humanity would be 'disappearance' - the sort of thing that came to public attention during the 80's when it was common in the southern column of Latin America and also in Central America. Apartheid has been called a crime against humanity and would not normally be considered a war crime. Imprisonment for an indefinite period without trial, that again, that overlaps with war crimes. But the basic distinction is a crime against humanity requires a higher standard than a war crime in the sense that it has be part of a systematic policy. And on the other hand it's, it has a lower standard than war crime because as you pointed out it doesn't have to be in time of war.

Pinky: Is the "I was just following orders" - kind of statement an acceptable defense for someone accused of committing a crime against humanity?

Peter Weiss: No. A crime against humanity - the kind of crime that we talked about before - you know, murder, extermination, rape, forced pregnancy, disappearance, and so forth - in the case of crimes of that sort, the defense of what in international law is called 'superior orders' is never acceptable. Although it is often used, and it is sometimes even accepted by judges, but it shouldn't be. The [United States] Army field manual for instance makes it quite clear, that superior orders are not a defense to an act that is prohibited in other parts by the Army field manual. See the Army field manual says you can't torture. Then another part of the Army field manual says you can't claim superior orders as a defense.

What we have in this recent situation [Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq] of torture being ordered, in effect, it really it all started with [U.S. Vice President] Cheney, it went from Cheney to Rumsfeld, it went from Rumsfeld to the commanders in the field. And now the government is saying "Oh gosh, you know, it was so difficult for people to figure out whether they were actually torturing or not." That's where the business of torture light comes in. For instance, you know, Rumsfeld signed off on more than a dozen specific forms of so-called 'aggressive interrogation' which on paper looked different from what people normally think of when you mention torture like, you know, pulling off fingernails and that kind of thing. So these, these were things like keeping people in a stressed position for hours on end or depriving them of sleep or subjecting them to drastic changes of temperature. And what most people don't realize is that these types of so-called aggressive techniques can be more effective in destroying the subject of those techniques, destroying their resistance and making them confess to anything that the so-called interrogator, who's really the torturer, wants them to confess to. That these can be more drastic than hitting or beating.

Pinky: Wow.

Peter Weiss: There was a situation at the end of the Korean War, where, toward the end of the Korean War, where a group of American soldiers and their officers were captured by the North Koreans and several weeks after their capture they confessed to a conspiracy to kill half the population of North Korea by using biological weapons - which of course had nothing to do with reality. And when they were asked later why they confessed they explained what was done to them. The curious and the important thing about that in relation to the current situation is that they said that everything that was done to them was non-physical. [They] said they [the North Koreans] never laid a hand on us. They did things like making us stand at attention for fifteen hours and sleep deprivation and other methods designed to, you know, destroy - destroy a human being, destroy that human being sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. And these are some of the very things that Rumsfeld signed off on.

Pinky: When did the idea of 'crimes against humanity' come into existence?

Peter Weiss: Well according to some people it was first used about the Armenian genocide around 1915 or so, but it didn't really reach general usage and general recognition until Nuremberg [the Nuremberg Trials, 1945-1946], where crimes against humanity were at the center of the proceedings.

Pinky: The Nuremberg Trails, uh huh. And today, would the International Criminal Court be the main place where cases of alleged crimes against humanity would be heard?

Peter Weiss: It's the primary tribunal to judge it on an international level, but there are various international but not worldwide regional tribunals, like the tribunal for the formal Yugoslavia and the Rwanda tribunal, and the Sierra Leone tribunal, now you have one in East Timor. But clearly, yes, the ICC - the International Criminal Court - is the primary one, except that ideally, every country should take upon itself the obligation to search for, arrest, investigate, try people who commit war crimes or crimes against humanity or genocide.

Pinky: You know, earlier this year, the International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration indicted the Bush administration on a wide variety of crimes - wars of aggression, torture, indefinite detention - things just like you identified earlier. But President Bush and his friends were also charged with destruction of the global environment, attacks on global public health, and for the way they responded to Hurricane Katrina. Are these also crimes against humanity?

Peter Weiss: Not so far, I hope we're going to get there someday. But today most international lawyers would say that is not a crime against humanity in the classic sense.

Pinky: So the way crimes against humanity is defined is something that can be changed? Is that correct?

Peter Weiss: Oh it's something that is evolving like any kind of concept in international law. You know, rape wasn't considered an international law crime until fairly recently, about twenty years ago.

Pinky: I see. I guess what I'm thinking is that international law is something that sounds distant and abstract to most people. Is this something only for powerful judges and lawyers to think about or are crimes against humanity something that ordinary people can do something about?

Peter Weiss: Well I like to think of international law as the constitution of the world. So if you take the constitution seriously, you have to take international law seriously. Because under American judicial principles, the United States is bound to observe international law. And that is true about, you know, just about every other country in the world. That's what international law is about. But you have to realize that it's formed in two ways - there's treaty law, and then there is customary law, which springs from practice and general acceptance over a long period of time - by courts, by academics, by governmental policy. And the customary law is sometimes more important than the treaty law - this is particularly so in this period when we have in Washington an administration, the policy of which is not to enact any more treaties.

One of the great promoters of international law in the early part of the last century, was a republican Secretary of State, Elihu Root, who [received] the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts and one of the things he is quoted for is, "International law relies for its effectiveness on the approval of international public opinion." So the relationship between the citizens' role and the role of the official enforcers of international law is a very close one.

Pinky: If ordinary citizens see crimes against humanity taking place in the world around us, and then do nothing about it, what are the consequences of this? I don't mean just in the practical sense, but also in the moral, ethical, or even spiritual sense?

Peter Weiss: Well the... [ chuckles ] ...I suspect that what you're thinking, and what I agree with, is that if crimes against humanity are allowed to take place on a large scale and over a long period of time without bringing their perpetrators to justice, it will simply remove the moral barriers which these laws are representing and which they are intended to translate into legal and prosecutorial action. So when the United States continues to do things like what they're doing in Guantanamo and what they did in Abu Ghraib, every other country is going to say, "Hey, this is the world's superpower, right? And they're always lecturing us about the importance of law, and if they can get away with that why can't we?" And we have seen that happening already.

Pinky: Hmm. Thank you Mr. Weiss.

Peter Weiss: Okay, you're very welcome.

Pinky: I think this was really helpful; because actually, when I read the newspaper or watch the television news, I've been finding the discussion of these subjects to be very... unilluminating. Confusing.

Peter Weiss: Well the people at the Pentagon seem to be quite confused about it, so it's not too surprising that ordinary people are confused about it. And the people at the Pentagon are encouraging the confusion.

Pinky: Good point. Thank you Mr. Weiss.

Peter Weiss: Okay, bye.

Pinky: That was Peter Weiss, Vice President, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City.

Larry Everest: [ from video ] ...I can't think of a more egregious crime against humanity, than the destruction - the deliberate, willful, conscious destruction of the habitat of all living things on this planet, the environment...

Pinky: Okay, so now I think I understand that quote a little better. Governmental policies that result in the destruction of the world environment may not be considered a crime against humanity right now, but it could be in the future. People are going to have to fight for that, in order to make that happen.

As for me, Mr. Weiss kinda inspired me to make my own list of laws to fight for.

For now I'm going to call them 'crimes against animal-ity'... or something. Hmm.. Maybe we'll talk about that in another episode.

This is a rush transcript provided for the information and convenience of the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed. Please contact us if you have questions about permissions or terms of use.

Credits

guest: Peter Weiss (Vice President, Center for Constitutional Law)
host: Pinky
sound effects: phone noises by Bunny
other images: titles by Pinky
video credits: Larry Everest (author, Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda) talks about destruction of the environment. From Democracy University DVD number 84, Chapter 2, 5 min 10 sec. Special thanks to Ralph Cole (www.justicevision.org) for letting us use this material.

[ image credits ]