Media Mentions

Michael Newton, Law professor and former Senior Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, and Visiting Harvard Law professor, Alex Whiting who is also deputy specialist prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague, join host Carol Castiel to discuss potential war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine and the important ongoing process of documenting evidence, which is needed to hold perpetrators, up to and including Russian President Vladimir Putin, accountable at the ICC or any other national or international venue.

Trillions of dollars of financial assets are at risk of losses related to the climate, so the Biden Administration is now moving to require public companies to disclose their climate risk. Host Steve Curwood talks to Jody Freeman, Harvard Law professor and former Obama White House official, about the proposed Securities and Exchange Commission mandate.

The brutalities of Russia’s war in Ukraine have stoked enormous demand among Ukrainians and much of the Western world for investigations, indictments, arrests and trials for the invaders and their commanders, notably President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Some leaders, including President Biden, have even accused them of genocide. ... “There’s no question an act of aggression was done,” said Alex Whiting, a visiting professor of international law at Harvard and a war-crimes prosecutor. “And the most straightforward case, in a crime of aggression, is against Putin himself.”

Boise residents on Saturday found bookmark-sized fliers in their neighborhoods. A large black box at the top read, “POLITICAL PROSECUTION.” Below it were photos, home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of two people: 4th District Magistrate Judge Annie McDevitt and Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Whitney Welsh. The flier claimed that McDevitt and Welsh were “using their position of power to retaliate against a gubernatorial candidate because of his opposition to the inequity of justice and systemic excessive force used by government agents” — a reference to Ammon Bundy. ... “Any of these laws could be subverted by the powerful,” Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, told The Markup last year.

A Harvard Law program will join the ACLU of Nebraska as counsels in a lawsuit against Cody Kilgore Unified Schools – a suit that stems from cutting Native American children’s hair. A Cody Kilgore employee allegedly cut two children’s hair for a lice check without their parents’ permission in spring 2020. The family, members of the Lakota tribe, believe hair is a sacred symbol. A year later, the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of the family – alleging first amendment violations. The lawsuit caught the Harvard Law School Religious Freedom Clinic's attention. “We are proud to team up with the ACLU of Nebraska on this important case," said Josh McDaniel, the clinic's director, in a statement. "As a Clinic, we are committed to protecting the religious rights and traditions of people of all faiths — especially those with misunderstood or marginalized beliefs.”

An op-ed co-written by Laurence Tribe: As Vladimir Putin vows to continue his genocidal invasion of Ukraine, investigators at the Treasury Department and Justice Department are scrambling to seize Russian yachts, mansions and the other spoils of his despotic regime. Meanwhile, in Washington, Representatives Tom Malinowski of New Jersey and Joe Wilson of South Carolina have advanced a bipartisan measure to clarify exactly how much power the executive branch has to liquidate those assets. These efforts are laudable and important. But they are neither bold enough nor swift enough to provide what Ukraine needs.

Think about modern warfare and it's likely images of soldiers, tanks and missiles will spring to mind. But arguably more important than any of these is something on which they all rely: the humble truck. Armies need trucks to transport their soldiers to the front lines, to supply those tanks with shells and to deliver those missiles. In short, any army that neglects its trucks does so at its peril. Yet that appears to be exactly the problem Russia's military is facing during its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, according to experts analyzing battlefield images as its forces withdraw from areas near Kyiv to focus on the Donbas. ... Matthew Stephenson, a Harvard Law School professor and editor in chief of the Global Anti-corruption Blog, wrote in March that corruption had a particularly corrosive effect on the Russian military's maintenance and supply logistics. "All of these problems that anti-corruption experts and national security specialists had been emphasizing for years do seem to be manifesting in the current Russian invasion," he wrote.

The Ukrainian security service released a photo this week of a disheveled man in a conspicuously crisp Ukrainian army uniform manacled in a chair next to a radiator. For President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the picture of Viktor Medvedchuk that Kyiv released on social media presents a triumph for the Ukrainian secret service operatives who tracked down the Russian oligarch missing for nearly two months in the midst of a brutal conflict. The close ally of President Vladimir Putin now represents a lucrative prize to trade for the release of soldiers in Russian captivity, as the Ukrainian leader suggested in a pre-dawn video address on Wednesday. ... “In theory, perhaps some members of the Russian leadership might be interested in seeking to reduce Mr. Medvedchuk’s susceptibility to being subject to a proceeding in a court in Ukraine or, if the [International Criminal Court] or a foreign court institutes proceedings against him, in his potential transfer outside Ukraine,” says Dustin Lewis, research director for the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, adding that he would need more clarity on the facts of Medvedchuk's detention to determine which legal provisions may be applicable.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: Even before the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade, as most court watchers expect it to do this June, the legal battle about the aftermath of the decision is getting underway. By far the most consequential aspect of the fight is likely to be about state attempts to regulate medical abortions using the drug mifepristone. For pro-choice advocates, mifepristone represents the only cost-effective workaround for women who want to end unwanted pregnancies but who live in the 25 or more states that will ban abortion after Roe is overturned. Some people have the means to travel out of state for surgical abortions. And, with enough financial support, some national organizations might be able to help pay the way for those who cannot afford the trip and the surgery.

An article by Terri Gerstein: In the past two weeks, Amazon workers at a Staten Island warehouse and Starbucks baristas in four New York cities and beyond all voted to unionize. While these victories are remarkable and inspiring, there’s still a David-and-Goliath battle going on—and it’s still much too difficult to understand the full forces arrayed against these workers and those at other locations nationwide. When confronted by workers seeking to unionize, the vast majority of employers hire professional consultants—“persuaders”—to thwart workers’ efforts. These persuaders meet one-on-one with workers, train managers, and hold mandatory anti-union “captive audience” meetings that employees must attend. (Last Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel issued a memo arguing that these meetings violate the law. Until this is litigated, such meetings will likely continue apace, unfortunately.)

This week, the European Union announced it will provide funding and support to prosecutors from the International Criminal Court who are investigating alleged war crimes. The move comes days after E.U. President Ursula von der Leyen visited Bucha, a Kyiv suburb where hundreds of Ukrainian civilians have been found dead in the streets. On Sunday, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told ABC’s “This Week” that Russian forces are intentionally targeting civilians as part of their strategy. However, when asked whether the U.S. would be involved in prosecuting the alleged war crimes through the International Criminal Court, Sullivan deferred. The United States has a complicated relationship with the ICC. Neither the U.S. nor Russia are signatories to the Rome Statute, which established the court back in 2002. And the U.S. has long been opposed to allowing the court jurisdiction over citizens of countries that aren’t part of the ICC. We have a panel of legal experts to discuss the path forward on war crimes in Ukraine. GUESTS Alex Whiting Deputy Prosecutor of the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s office

The internet is increasingly emerging as a source for identification and documentation of war crimes, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has devastatingly proven yet again. But how does an image of a possible war crime go from social media to before a tribunal in a potential war crimes prosecution?  On a recent episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Nick Waters, the lead on Justice and Accountability at Bellingcat, about how open-source investigators go about documenting evidence of atrocity. This week on the show, Evelyn and Quinta interviewed Alexa Koenig, the executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert on using digital evidence for justice and accountability. They talked about how international tribunals have adapted to using new forms of evidence derived from the internet, how social media platforms have helped—and hindered—collection of this kind of evidence, and the work Alexa has done to create a playbook for investigators downloading and collecting material documenting atrocities.

As attacks mount on Ukrainian civilians, Alex Whiting, a former head of Investigations and Prosecutions at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, tells MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell what goes into the investigations into potential war crimes and genocide in Ukraine. “All of that evidence will be critical in showing civilians were intentionally targeted,” Whiting says.

The Russian military, in retreat after defeat in the cities around Ukraine’s capital, left behind such horror that war crimes investigators are likely to be kept busy for months, if not years. Bodies were strewn across the northern countryside, including Bucha, where city officials said at least 400 civilians were killed, with more than 260 buried in mass graves. Dozens were found on the streets outside their homes, their hands bound, with some shot in the head. In Mariupol, Russian forces allegedly fired indiscriminately and used bombs to level an art school where some 400 civilians were sheltering. WHO has verified 64 attacks on health facilities. ... “Very often, militaries will make arguments that they were primarily going against military targets, that they didn’t expect that the incidental loss of civilian life would be so high, there was an intelligence error or technical mistake, or that there was information on combatants and fighters being present,” said Ioannis Kalpouzos, a Harvard law professor and co-founder of the Global Legal Action Network. “This information is not necessarily easy to disprove and has led to significant difficulties in bringing such cases [to the courts].”

In early April, as Ukraine started to regain control of Bucha and other small towns northwest of Kyiv, appalling imagery began to spread on Telegram and other social networks. Photos and videos showed bodies in the streets and anguished survivors describing loved ones, civilians, killed by Russian soldiers. In Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine, attorney Denys Rabomizo carefully built an archive of the gruesome evidence. His aim: to preserve social media posts that could help prove Russian war crimes. ... “Capturing social media from Ukraine is an incredible source of evidence,” says Alex Whiting, deputy prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in the Hague, and a visiting professor at Harvard University. A deluge of TikTok and Telegram posts could vastly increase the amount of evidence of alleged Russian war crimes—but they will only aid prosecutions if judges accept such material in court.

The national war of words over whether students should learn about LGBTQ issues in school — ignited by a recently enacted Florida law that critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — has taken a charged, and some say dangerous, turn over the last several weeks.  In early March, the press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted that anyone who opposes the bill “is probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.” Several days later, Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked her millions of viewers, “When did our public schools, any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals?”... Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s Cyber Law Clinic and a transgender-rights advocate, said using such language is “an attempt at the dehumanization and delegitimization of queer people’s identities by associating them with pedophilia and child grooming.” “What terrifies me is that when you start labeling groups with that, the calls for violence are inevitable,” she said.

There have been urgent calls for investigations into allegations of war crimes in previously Russian-held areas of Ukraine after shocking footage of murdered civilians. But there are wider questions over whether widespread Russian attacks on civilian targets amount to war crimes. We've been looking at a series of attacks in one city - Chernihiv - to see whether they are consistent with Russian tactics across Ukraine and reveal something of their strategy. ... A critical factor in any prosecution for war crimes is obtaining clear evidence of a deliberate intent to target civilians. Images and eye-witness statements can be the starting point, says Prof Alex Whiting, a former investigations co-ordinator at the International Criminal Court.

A lawsuit has been filed against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for implementing a secret policy that allows them to avoid conducting inspections required by the Animal Welfare Act. Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Clinic filed the lawsuit on behalf of Rise for Animals and the Animal Legal Defense Fund. The lawsuit claims that the USDA made a secret policy that evades its obligation to conduct full inspections of research facilities as the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) requires.

Gathering evidence of war crimes in Ukraine will be a fairly straightforward process, international prosecutors have said. The most difficult task will be linking those crimes to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who may escape accountability altogether. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched an investigation into the atrocities committed in Ukrainian cities such as the scenes witnessed in Bucha, where horrific images appeared to show dozens of civilians shot at close range with hands bound behind their backs. The gruesome discovery was made after Russian troops abandoned the city on 30 March. ... Time can also help with investigations, Alex Whiting, a former ICC prosecutions coordinator and visiting professor at Harvard Law School in the US, told i. Given the enormous power he yields and the great amount of support he enjoys at home, it seems unlikely that Mr Putin would be surrendered to the ICC by his loyal inner circle if he were to be charged with war crimes. But those close ties could erode as time goes on, especially as the leadership comes under intense pressure from sanctions and international condemnation, Professor Whiting said.

A transgender individual heads to their local DMV for a standard appointment – a registration renewal or driver’s license issuance. Just like the person at the window beside them, they present their birth certificate. According to current West Virginia law, their birth certificate contains either the incorrect gender marker or the corrected gender marker with an indication that it’s been amended, thus outing the individual in the public space. With no way to obtain a birth certificate that affirms their gender identity without flagging the change, a daily errand turns potentially dangerous. “It’s a matter of privacy and dignity for our clients,” said Clay Hackney, JD ‘22, a student in the Harvard LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic. This example reflects the stories of two current plaintiffs being represented by the clinic, in collaboration with the ACLU of West Virginia and the ACLU LGBT and HIV Project.

There’s a big piece of land in lonely northwest Colorado where the grassy plains meet the mountains, wide-antlered elk drink from icy rivers and sage-grouse pump their chests in wild mating dances each spring. Ranch hands still ride herd on thousands of cattle and sheep here, just as they started doing 150 years ago when Texas cowboys first drove cows north into the high country. ... Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, says the U.S. grid sorely needs the TransWest line. He argues that families like the Boeddekers—who don’t live at Cross Mountain full-time—are living an energy-intensive lifestyle by definition and should be willing to accept some inconvenience. “You want to live in a world where that lifestyle has no consequences and any social costs of that should be borne by others and you shouldn’t have to be inconvenienced by seeing that from your second home?” he said. “I have zero interest in their concerns.”