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Update on Bush War Crimes Conference

The agenda is now set and speakers in place for the September conference to plan for the war crimes prosecutions of President Bush and other top administration officials. As you may recall, two posts here in June (here and here) described plans by Massachusetts School of Law dean Lawrence Velvel to convene the conference. As we quoted Velvel saying then: "This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred. It is, rather, intended to be a planning  conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

Now the conference has a firm date, an agenda, an initial list of presenters, and a Web site that lays it all out. To be held Sept. 13 and 14 in Andover, Mass., the conference is to be named in honor of Justice Robert H. Jackson, who in 1945 took a leave of absence from the Supreme Court to serve as chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals. Among those so far tapped to speak are:

Velvel's initial announcement of the conference in June attracted controversy for his suggestion that administration officials found guilty of war crimes should be hanged. "We must insist on appropriate punishments," he said, "including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s." That controversy aside, this latest announcement of the speakers and agenda suggests the program is one to be taken seriously.

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on July 28, 2008 at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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