Legal Experts: Why can't we sue for the Bush Admin to conform to the law?

[Tamyrlin79]

File a complaint that asserts that the president is acting outside the law by continuing to prosecute the Iraq War:

Argument: The Iraq War is unlawful.

1. International Law bans preemptive war except in self-defense.

a. Evidence - U.N. Charter, to which the U.S. is a party as a binding treaty

2. All reasons given by the administration to justify a "self-defense" exception have been proven incredible or false, leaving only "liberate the Iraqi people" as justification, which does not meet the self-defense criterion. (give these reasons and the facts that refute them)

2. The Secretary General of the U.N. has opined that the Iraq War is unlawful (compare to Attorney General or governor of a state giving such an opinion and give Annan's reasoning, if he gave any)

3. International Law is part of the Supreme Law of the land, as defined in the Supremacy Clause

.

4. The courts have a duty specificly imposed under Article VI to uphold that law and the constitution.

5. Therefore, if Iraq is a pre-emptive war that is not in our self defense, the courts have a duty to make a legal finding declaring it such.

6. As American troops cannot be utilized in pursuit of an unlawful objective, the president must be ordered withdraw them immediately.


I'm not sure we could get much out of this, but we could challenge Bush's "preemptive war doctrine", and we could use it to make a point that there IS an argument that finds this administration in gross violation of the law. Even just getting a court to just make a legal finding would be pretty damning.

And hey, you could make some legal history applying international law in American courts! :)

[mhr]

1. With The Majority Of The Courts Stacked With Republicans,

Who would hear the case?

[acmavm]

2. I would have thought that there were about a thousand R.I.C.O. violations

during the first four years. This four will top that.

[Gothmog]

3. Courts do not decide "political questions"

There is a basic principal of constitutional law that the courts do not decide "political questions" that would kill such a suit. Yes, I know that Bush v. Gore was a purely political decision.

In effect, the courts would probably hold that we do not have standing to intervene in a pure political issue.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Anybody up for a writ of madamus

compelling the Shrubster to comply with the law? Of course, even if it's not a political question, the Supremes would say it was so they could toss it out.

[mdhunter]

4. Who files the suit? Individuals don't have standing qua taxpayer

or citizenship status.

I'd love to see this happen in theory, but it doesn't seem technically feasible in the U.S. courts. Better then, I think, to pressure the ICJ to take a war crimes case, or get the UN to rule the war an act of criminal aggression. The downside of those last two being that, even with a "win" and moral victory, no one ultimately need to take responsibility or gets reprimanded.

[HamdenRice]

6. Unfortunately most international law is the law of nations, not people

In other words, in any law suit a plaintiff must have "standing" to sue. Some people or entities can sue in a matter; other's can't. If you are injured in a car accident, you can sue; your mother cannot sue on your behalf.

Most international law gives rights to other nation states; sadly, it does not give rights to individuals. Exceptions are aspects of international law that are aimed at individuals, such as international human rights or international refugee law.

But international law relating to war and intervention is strictly a nation-state game. When the US illegally carried on the contra war against Nicaragua, Nicarague sued the US in the International Court of Justice. When US and western governments violated UN sanctions against South Africa concerning South West Africa/Namibia, other African countries were recognized to have standing, to sue, but individuals did not.

Some possible plaintiffs could include Iraq -- but the old Iraq government has ceased to exist and the new Iraq government is under the control of the US.

It would be interesting to see if other countries could sue, but right now they are too afraid of the bully boys of Washington to sue the US over Iraq. Perhaps in the future this will change.