Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
The defence argues that it would breach Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights to order extradition of this defendant to South Africa. It would breach Article 2 if there is known to be a real risk to Mr Dewani of loss of life in the receiving 45 country. To establish Article 3 the defence must show that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that the requested person will be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in the requesting state. In each case it is necessary to show there where the risk is from non-state agents, that there is in addition a lack of reasonable protection in the receiving country. It is common ground that an assessment must be made according to the specific circumstances as they would apply to Mr Dewani rather than generalized concerns. A high threshold is required to establish Article 3. The ill-treatment must necessarily be serious such that it is an affront to fundamental humanitarian principles to remove an individual to a country where he is at risk of serious ill-treatment. – Judge Howard Riddle in judgment in the Shrien Dewani extradition case
