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Posted on 06/16/2002 12:45:05 AM PDT by kattracks
More than 350 lawyers from 48 countries agreed Saturday to form a new bar association to aid lawyers representing terrorism and war crimes suspects before the International Criminal Court.
The International Criminal Bar was described in the final resolution of the conference as "a third pillar of the Court."
The need for a new international bar -- as lawyers' associations are known in most countries -- emerged from complaints of limits on the freedom of defense lawyers in ad hoc international criminal tribunals looking into war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
It was hastened by the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States, which led Washington to detain hundreds of suspected terrorists under wartime conditions and establish military tribunals to try cases.
The United States has refused to participate in the permanent international tribunal, which comes into being July 1.
Delegates to a conference here were told that they will have to be thick-skinned when defending some of the most notorious war crimes and terrorism suspects. And they won't win many friends.
"Let it never be said that an accused appeared before the International Criminal Court without a lawyer by his or her side," US lawyer Nancy Hollander said.
Without a competent lawyer representing them, these suspects will be deprived of a fair trial, she said.
Even in her own country, said Hollander, there were major fears about the legal rights of suspects arrested on terrorism-related charges.
She said the rule of law hasn't applied in the case of US national Jose Padilla, accused of plotting to set off a radioactive "dirty" bomb in the United States.
Padilla, 31, a convert to Islam now known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, is being held in military custody as an enemy combatant, without access to a lawyer. No charges have been filed against him.
Saturday's resolution will go to the United Nations. The aim is to get the rights of lawyers spelled out before March, when the ICC is due to open for business in The Hague.
An international association of predatory, corrupt, thieving, lying, sociopaths... oops, I meant distinguished members of the bar.
Nah, no such luck. Slimy sociopaths that they are, lawyer vermin have no capacity for guilt...
The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him.
By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run for the bridge.
Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown.
Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop. "Ah, so you've come back for the rest of the story," says the owner.
"No," says the tourist, "but I was wondering if you have any bronze lawyers!"
We should feel blessed because they're so many lawyers willing to sacrifice so much to defend the indefensible.
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