Andover law school dean convenes Bush War Crimes Conference Stephen C. Webster

Published: Saturday September 13, 2008





Print This Email This Update: Massachusetts School of Law dean Lawrence Velvel tells RAW STORY that video of the conference will be available on the Internet by Friday, Sept. 19, 2008.



Saturday morning, the dean of Massachusetts School of Law at Andover will convene a two day planning session with a single focus: To arrest, put to trial and carry out sentence on criminals in the Bush Administration.



The conference, arranged by Lawrence Velvel, cofounder of the Andover school, will focus on which of Bush's officials and members of Congress could be charged with war crimes. The plan also calls for "necessary organizational structures" to be established, with the purpose of pursuing the guilty "to the ends of the Earth."



"For Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Yoo to spend years in jail or go to the gallows for their crimes would be a powerful lesson to future American leaders," Velvel said in a media advisory.



In a published document entitled "The Long Term View" (PDF link), Vevel argues, at the very least, "there is no question" George W. Bush is guilty of conspiracy to commit torture, a war crime.



"He is a former drunk, was a serial failure in business who had to repeatedly be bailed out by daddy's friends and wanna-be-friends, was unable to speak articulately despite the finest education(s) that money and influence can buy, has a dislike of reading, so that 100-page memos have to be boiled down to one page for him, is heedless of facts and evidence, and appears not even to know the meaning of truth," said Velvel.



The conference will focus on:



# What international and domestic crimes were committed, which facts show crimes under which laws, and what punishments are possible.



# Which high level Executive officials -- and Federal judges and legislators as well, if any -- are chargeable with crimes.



# Which international tribunals, foreign tribunals and domestic tribunals (if any) can be used and how to begin cases and/or obtain prosecutions before them.



# The possibility of establishing a Chief Prosecutors Office such as the one at Nuremburg.



# An examination of cases already brought and their outcomes.



# Creating an umbrella Coordinating Committee with representatives from the increasing number of organizations involved in war crimes cases.



# Creating a Center to keep track of and organize compilations of relevant briefs, articles, books, opinions, and facts, etc., on war crimes and prosecutions of war criminals.



And, addressing the conference will be:



# Famed former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, author of the best-selling "The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder" (Vanguard).



# Phillippe Sands, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre of International Courts and Tribunals at University College, London. He is the author of "Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values" (Penguin/Palgrave Macmillan), among other works.



# Jordan Paust, Professor of Law at the University of Houston and author of "Beyond The Law."



# Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and U.S. Foreign Service official who holds a State Department Award for Heroism and who taught the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land Warfare at the Special Warfare Center at Ft. Bragg, N.C. She is the coauthor of "Dissent: Voices of Conscience."



# Peter Weiss, Vice President of the Center For Constitutional Rights, which was recently involved with war crimes complaints filed in Germany and France against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others.



# Benjamin Davis, Associate Professor at the University of Toledo College of Law and former American Legal Counsel for the Secretariat of the International Court of Arbitration.



# David Lindorff, journalist and co-author with Barbara Olshansky of "The Case for Impeachment: Legal Arguments for Removing President George W. Bush from Office"(St. Martins Press).



# Colleen Costello of Human Rights USA.



# Christopher Pyle, a professor at Mt. Holyoke and author of several book on international matters.



# Lawrence Velvel, a leader in the field of law school education reform, who has written numerous internet articles on issues relevant to the conference.



Watch the Bush War Crimes Conference on Saturday, 9 a.m. EST - 5:15 p.m., and Sunday 9 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. EST. in the embedded video below.



Live video by Ustream



