Imagine how Human Rights Watch, and other pundits, might have reacted to a trial of Hitler, ca. 1946 - Dateline Spandau, October 1946.
An excerpt from this exercise in alternative history: “Human rights groups have expressed concerns. A Human Rights Watch report says the Berlin trial ‘runs the risk of violating international standards for fair trials’. Amnesty International has sent three delegates to Berlin to ensure that Adolf Hitler receives a fair trial, and to oppose the death penalty if he is found guilty.”
"Amnesty International has sent three delegates to Berlin to ensure that Adolf Hitler receives a fair trial, and to oppose the death penalty if he is found guilty.”"
ReplyDeleteBut what would be at all wrong with this? The death penalty is one of the most obvious things that reasonable people disagree about, and ensuring fair trials, even of the worst and most depraved, is generally considered to be a value we uphold, no?
I'm confused as to what's wrong either with hypothetically working to ensure that Hitler got a fair trial, or with the real-life major efforts to strive to make Nuremburg as reasonably just and fair as possilbe, or with working to do the same with Saddam Hussein (or, in fantasy, with Kim Il Jong, or the Sudanese junta, or whomever).
(It's not as if there wasn't plenty of debate, everywhere -- save in the Soviet Union -- about how to handle the real Nuremberg trails, or about their fairness, and is, yes, there weren't both Germans taking stances still supporting him, and plenty of factual reporting on the defendents and their behavior in court. I'm really not getting the point here.) (I generally like Aaronovitch.)
I feel that Amnesty & Human Rights Watch have put the emphasis on the wrong point. I do want Saddam to get a fair trial, if only so that Sunnis in Iraq believe that he got a fair chance - but I think that the emphasis should be placed on the crimes he's accused of. And I'm not opposed to the death penalty for people convicted of crimes against humanity - I don't agree with AI and HRW on this subject.
ReplyDelete