Nixonâs âSaturday Night Massacreâ triggered nationwide outrageâand a firewall that is now gone.
The confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general of the United States reveals just how far President Donald Trump has shifted the Overton windowâthe spectrum of thought that is considered acceptableâwith regard to the Justice Department. During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings last month, the acting attorney generalâs nomination hit a snag when two senators, Tom Tillis and John Cornyn, demanded that Blanche sign a document assuring them he would not revive the presidentâs proposal to set up a $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund providing support for individuals allegedly persecuted by the federal government. Although he initially hesitated, Blanche ultimately released a carefully worded statement promising that the fund âis not moving forward.â The decision to shield members of the Trump family from IRS audits remained in place, though Blanche provided a âbinding written document,â as a Cornyn spokesperson put it, specifying who would and would not be covered by the provision. Within hours, Tillis and Cornyn said they were satisfied and would vote for his confirmation.
The fact that these vague assurances were sufficient to move his confirmation forward was already an indication of just how little Senate Republicans are demanding from the administration. And thatâs even from two senior senators who arenât running for reelection after finding themselves in the presidentâs crosshairs. But anyone following the Iran warâin which the president is comfortable constantly reversing himselfâwould hesitate to accept Blancheâs assurance at face value.
But these being the major points of contentionârather than Blancheâs utter failure to say anything substantive about restoring the firewall that had, until recently, largely separated the Oval Office from the Justice Department since the early 1970sâis far more telling. Blanche, who said during his confirmation hearings that âIâm his lawyer,â referring to the president, embodies the extent to which the rule of law has eroded within the administration. (He subsequently corrected himself to say he âwasâ Trumpâs lawyer.) The Justice Department has been transformed into a presidential instrument, wielded to target opponents and reward supporters.
This administration has dismantled many of the rules and norms put into place after President Richard Nixonâs resignation in August 1974. At that time, Americans became painfully aware of the dangers of allowing the nationâs chief law enforcement officer to serve as an agent of the president rather than a guardian of the Constitution. Yet the lessons of the âSaturday Night Massacreâ in 1973, when the nation watched in shock as Nixon attempted to stifle the DOJâs Watergate investigation, have been forgotten.
The Watergate scandal started with a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters on June 17, 1972. The arrests of the burglars, who had connections to Nixonâs reelection campaign, launched multiple investigations.
Beginning in May 1973, a Senate select committee chaired by North Carolinaâs Sam Ervin conducted high profile televised hearings into the Watergate scandal. While the hearings produced shocking revelations of the scandalous abuse of presidential power that had taken place since 1969, only 26 percent of the country supported impeachment (even though 71 percent of the population told pollsters that Nixon was culpable).
One of the most important revelations to come out of the hearings was that Nixon had taped many of his phone and Oval Office conversations. Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor whom Attorney General Elliot Richardson had appointed in May to investigate Watergate, wanted access to the tapes. Cox, a distinguished Harvard Law professor, understood that the recordings could contain proofâa âsmoking gunââthat Nixon had violated the law. Not only did the administration refuse to turn over the material, but Nixon wanted Cox to be fired. He did not have the appetite for an independent investigation taking place within the executive branch that centered on him.
Richardson, a lifelong Republican and decorated World War II veteran, found himself in a difficult position. The path of least resistance would have been to fire Cox. Just as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara justified his decision to direct a war in Vietnam he knew to be unwinnable from the start by claiming to be following President Lyndon Johnsonâs orders, Richardson could have done the same.
The month of October 1973 was already filled with turbulence. War broke out in the Middle East on Oct. 6 when a number of Arab states attacked Israel. Four days later, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after pleading no contest to a charge of tax evasion, part of a plea bargain that allowed him to avoid broader corruption charges. On Oct. 12, the day that the president announced he would nominate House Minority Leader Gerald Ford to succeed Agnew, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Nixon had to turn over the tapes.
Before trying to fire Cox, Nixon and Mississippi Sen. John Stennis tried to work out a potential deal with the Justice Department. According to the plan, Stennisâone of the most conservative members of the upper chamber, who was famously hard of hearingâwould listen to the tapes, compare what he heard to transcripts that the White House would provide, and submit synopses to the court. As part of the agreement, Cox could not demand any tapes. Cox said no.
At that point, with Nixon pressing him to fire Cox, Richardson found himself in an extremely difficult position. Through his chief of staff Al Haig, Nixon sent Richardson the message: âI am instructing you to direct Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox ⌠that he is to make no further attempts by judicial process to obtain tapes, notes, or memoranda of Presidential conversations.â
Richardson understood that he could not fire Cox. If Richardson agreed to carry out Nixonâs orders, his actions would have killed the DOJ inquiry and posed a massive blow to the entire effort to understand what Nixon had done, thereby throwing accountability out the window. The other risk of accepting the presidentâs instructions would have been to create a chill for anyone else who might be willing to cooperate. There was a âconstitutional crisis ahead,â wrote the New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis.
Cox was standing firm. Richardson watched on television as Cox spoke to the National Press Club, where he dismissed the Stennis compromise as a betrayal of the law. He told the reporters gathered that he would keep fighting, requesting that the court provide a ruling in response to Nixonâs dangerous defiance. âWhether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not men,â Cox warned, âis now for Congress and ultimately the American people to decide.â
On Saturday, Oct. 20, Richardsonâwhom Haig tried to persuade one last time by offering him an ambassadorship or even a place on the national ticketâtold the president that he was resigning. The request for the tapes, Richardson explained, did not meet the âextraordinary circumstancesâ that would justify removing Cox from his post.
By stepping down instead of complying with the presidentâs order, Richardson, who held the job for only five months, defined the terms of the struggle and offered a template for others to follow. He demonstrated a model of responsible civic action in a time of crisis. The next person that Nixon ordered to fire Cox, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, followed Richardsonâs precedent. Although Nixon finally found someone to carry out the order (Solicitor General Robert Bork), this public controversy spurred media debates about a constitutional crisis. Richardson had done a great deal to expose how far Nixon was prepared to deploy his authority and more members of Congress understood that further action was necessary, including impeachment proceedings.
The Saturday Night Massacre, as the string of resignations and the firing of Cox came to be called, triggered nationwide outrage. More than 50,000 people sent telegrams to the White House and members of Congress expressing their anger and calling for the president to go. The episode prompted more than a dozen House members to propose impeachment-related. âIt was a terrifying night. It felt like we were in a banana republic,â the renowned journalist Elizabeth Drew recalled. According to Gallup, the number of Americans supporting impeachment 38 percent by November.
Nixon was under such intense attack that he agreed to appoint a new prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who would continue pursuing the tapes.
On Feb. 6, 1974, the House of Representatives voted by a whopping 410-4 to begin the historic process of an impeachment inquiry, one that had not been undertaken since President Andrew Johnsonâs tenure more than 100 years previously. The House granted the Judiciary Committee, chaired by New Jersey Democrat Peter Rodino, subpoena authority in its inquiry.
The Saturday Night Massacre remained a defining moment in the history of the Justice Department. Following Watergate, the department undertook reforms that would finally create some boundaries between the president and the attorney general that the Constitution hadnât establishedâwhich Nixon had exploited to his own benefit.
Attorney General Edward Levi, who later served under President Gerald Ford, created the Office of Professional Responsibility to oversee the department. President Jimmy Carterâs attorney general, Griffin Bell, changed the norms of communication and transparency to buttress their insulation from the Oval Office. The goal was to ensure that Americans understood Justice Department investigations were being conducted as a result of legal, not political, considerations. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti further strengthened the reforms in 1979 by inscribing these principles into the rulebooks that were used by the department. Under President Joe Biden, as NYU Law Professor Noah Rosenblum has written, Merrick Garland worked hard, with considerable success, to fix the erosions that took place during Trumpâs first term.
But the first term was merely childâs play.
The second Trump term has made the first seem tame. The president has sought prosecutions of perceived opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, while suggesting that the proposed weaponization fund could be used to benefit supporters such as the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, whom he already pardoned. He has also pushed for investigations of California Sen. Adam Schiff and former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Meanwhile, some of his own supporters have expressed frustration with the slow and limited release of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
The minimal public outrage over Blancheâs nomination epitomizes how far the nation has moved from the legacy of the Saturday Night Massacre. The kind of presidential intervention that in October 1973 could cause large number of Americans to conclude that the countryâs leader needed to go would hardly qualify as a scandal. The Justice Department has effectively been folded into the presidency, with presidential influence extending beyond policy decisions into the red zone of investigations themselves. This has created a dangerous moment for a democracy that depends on the rule of law.
Without significant public outcry, and with a congressional majority endorsing this sea change, the nation will remain in a dangerous placeâone where citizens cannot be sure that the power of the law wonât be used as a bludgeon to curb dissent and reward supporters.
We're at the "JK Rowling is personally funding litigation to try and destroy AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL" stage of rabid UK terf brain.
Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky
Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*
You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.
*Not so friendly reminder there is no way to engage in the wizard books without enabling this shit.
Truly, the two questions of the modern day to determine if someone would actually hide Anne Frank are: 1) do you still engage with Harry Potter and 2) do you use gen AI? If they say yes to either the answer is no.
Ok, so I just shared this story with @tamber-tales and I realized it was insane and probably not good to share but Iâm writing it anyways. Also, in advance: TW: Violence, blood, sick animals, I kill an animal in this story.
In undergrad, especially at BYU, my depression was likeâŚBAD bad. Like not showering or eating or getting out of bed or talking to people or turning on the lights bad. Itâs partially because I had PTSD that was untreated, partially because I was getting overstimulated a lot and didnât know it, and partially because I was burned out. My normally mild depression was SEVERE and my mom saw it one summer and took me to a dog shelter and got me a dog.
Her name was Madi, she was half-Malinois and half-Chow Chow. Curly tail, purple tongue, looked like a coyote had the night of his life with a German Shepherd, LOTS of sass, and about 7 teeth.
She was a grumpy old lady when I got her, but she was MY grumpy old lady and I was HER confused lazy mama and she LOVED me. I was the only person she loved - even my mom, who even on a bad day can be described as an animal whisperer, couldnât get her to so much as eat treats from her. She was a weird, silly dog: she had arthritis, so she needed gabapentin, so she slept a lot during the day. She had basically no teeth but wouldnât eat wet food, so we had to get her the only kibble sheâd eat (it was blessedly cheap) and get it wet, and then MAYBE! JUST MAYBE! Sheâd eat some.
She was high strung and had some issues with appetite on-top of that because her arthritis diminished her appetite, so sometimes sheâd go a whole day or two without eating. When she got like that, sheâd only eat if I gave her treats or mixed her kibblemush with cottage cheese or unsalted butter, and then fed it to her by hand. There was also a trick I had where I would take her for a walk and sprinkle treats and kibbles into a bush she was smelling and sheâd be like âHAHA! See, mama, it is a kibblebush! I have no need for your stinky kibbles, nature provides!â
Despite being sleepy during the day, and not always having much of an appetite, she ALWAYS wanted to walk. Iâd take her for a minimum of two miles a day. That was actually a huge boon to me. Every morning at about 6:30 sheâd wake me up and Iâd have to look her in her big wet brown eyes and decide if I wanted the depression to win (she poops on my rug) or if I wanted us to win (I get out of bed and take her for a walk) and no matter how much I hated myself I couldnât bring myself to do that to her, so Iâd get outta bed and weâd go for a walk and sheâd poop somewhere cool and unique, like grass, or a leaf, or someoneâs flowers, and not on my rug.
So our symbiotic relationship - she gets me out of bed, I trick her into eating enough food to live, was working. Then I moved from Provo, UT, with forests and greenery, to Arizona, where the pavement gets to 175°F at times, and she was severely annoyed with me. She wouldnât wear the little doggy booties so Iâd have to take her for walks in the early morning or late night most of the year, but around October it would be chilly enough for an afternoon walky and she LOVED those. Sometimes during the summer Iâd take her on an afternoon walky to an irrigated field or a dog park with lots of shade trees so she could walk, and during the school year and the peaks of the summer we explored so many of the little alleyways and secret areas of ASU campus since they almost always had shady sidewalks and sprinklers running somewhere.
But her absolute FAVORITE place was this little alleyway behind the Howieâs Pizza just off ASU Campus. She loved it because there were always lots of smells, because it was extremely well-shaded so even in the peak of summer we could take a short walk over that way without risking her little peets, and because the dumpsters behind the pizza place, the shawarma place, the Chinese place, and the Mexican place, were all greasy as hell. That by itself wasnât much to interest her tbh - she couldnât reach the garbage and wasnât super food motivated besides that, but she had two joys in life besides walkies and me and that was chasing animals and biting them. And those dumpsters were full of food trash, which drew in pigeons, and then those pigeons got so greasy from the food trash that theyâd get too slow to fly away from her, so even when her arthritis was bad she could catch a pigeon.
Because she had no teeth, she could not KILL the pigeons, but she could kinda suck on them a little before Iâd take it out of her mouth and she loved the thrill of the hunt.
But one day - one fucking crazy-ass day, itâs October so weâre walking at like 11 AM and sheâs not burning her little peets so sheâs thriving already AND on our way home we walk past the alleyway AND she catches a pigeon AND she was sucking on it but this pigeon had looked kinda fucked up before she caught it and I was worried. So I take it from her mouth and sure enough - she caught it so damn easy because its wing was totally busted. It couldnât fly.
If this were anyone else, they probably would have thought to take the bird to a vet, but I was sleep-deprived (depression kept me up and made my sleep less satisfying), bedraggled (uncombed tgirl egg hair, wearing flip flops, in my jammy pants), and raised by cowboys, so I was like: I know what to do! Big Papa and Grandpapa Yeehaw taught me! End the animalâs suffering by wringing itâs neck! (I know, I know, so gross and violent, Iâm sorry, I know better now). So I drop Madiâs leash for a sec, check the opening to the alleyway, see thereâs nobody about to be traumatized by this, so I look back down, apologize to the pigeon and tell him heâs gonna be somewhere happier soon, and then wring his neck.
Important to this is that the only other time I had done this was when I was 12 and had teeny fucking noodle arms and was hunting and I had to put my whole soul into the act. But now I was a depressed 23-year-old with like three times as much strength. So when I put the entirety of my strength into this I just popped the pigeonâs head off (ew ew ew ew ew I know I know I know Iâm sorry Iâm sorry Iâm sorry) and in the time I took to prepare myself some grad student had walked into the line of sight of all of this.
So I look up and make immediate eye contact with this complete stranger - heâs on a phone call, or he was, but now heâs making direct eye contact with a disheveled human mess and her equally disheveled insane toothless hound and he just throws his hands up in surrender, says something about not telling anyone what he saw, and then breaks out at a full sprint, leaving me holding a pigeonâs head and my dog looking at me like âgood job mama we did it!â and me feeling so dirty I had to wash my hands like four times and then take a shower and then take another shower and then cry.
Anyways - Madi lived to the ripe old age of about 11-12 before she died almost exactly a month before I started grad school. I miss her still - a lot tbh, she was such a funny beast. She was old and had lots of little lipomas so I called her my grumpy pickle because she was often grumpy and had the texture of a pickle. She would holler at me any time she couldnât see me, which included likeâŚif she walked out of the room herself, sometimes.
She didnât like swimming, but loved what we called our âwet belly timeâ where Iâd take her to irrigated fields or orange groves and sheâd just kinda crawl around in the shallow water on her belly because she loved having a wet belly. She also preferred drinking from puddles, so sometimes Iâd take her along the canals and sheâd drink so much water sheâd pee like 8 times on the walk back home.
Sometimes in the winter sheâd act all haughty and huffy when Iâd invite her to snuggle me in bed - like âNo, mama, I have my own bed and am a big brave wolfâ and then sheâd lay down and be like âOh heck no mama the ground is cold I snuggle youâ and then worm her way under my blankets. Also, Every morning when she woke up her tongue was flopping out of her mouth because her teeth were mostly gone and she couldnât keep it in.
She liked laying on her back but couldnât balance super good so sheâd lay on her back and bite her foot to hold the position. She loved car rides and stuff with me and she was always happy to spent time with me. My mom had a kind of thick ivy called âwedeliaâ that she LOVED because we grew up on a street built over an old orange grove, and orange groves attract giant rats, and she could smell those rats in the wedelia, and she loved feeling like a hunter. She also liked it because it was thick enough and soft enough that she could lay down in it without having to bend her sore joints by just kinda toppling over into it, which allowed her to then squirm and wriggle as much as she wanted without having to bend her knees too much. Plus one time she actually killed a rat in the wedelia and my mom was so proud of her she gave her a greenie after Iâd already given her a greenie to wash the smell out of her mouth so she got TWO greenies even if she didnât eat the one my mom gave her until my mom handed it to me.
She stayed by my side until the very end, and she died two days before I got FFS which made the whole experience really wild for me emotionally. She was such a good dog and I miss her all the time.
She was such a sweet, weird beast, and the way she loved me and the way I loved her really helped make my depression more manageable. Iâm gonna include a bunch of pictures of her for yâall and because I love her. FWIW the pigeon sheâs got in her mouth was totally unharmed - she ended up letting him fly away about 8 seconds after I took the picture, she just wanted to suck on his greasy feathers a little.
youtube auto-generating descriptions on videos (that already have descriptions, even!) is so fucking odd. it's a categorical refusal to let a video speak for itself. it's an assertion that pacing your reveals is wasting the viewer's time. it is an admission that you see videos not as art, but as Content. ugh.
A KGB agent goes to a library and sees an old Jewish man reading a book.
âWhat are you reading, old man?â he asks.
âIâm learning Hebrew, comrade,â replies the old Jew.
The KGB agent asks, âWhat are you learning Hebrew for? You know it takes years to get a permission to travel to Israel? You will die before you get one.â
âIâm learning Hebrew for when I go to heaven so I can speak with Moses and Abraham,â replies the old man.
âHow do you know youâre going to heaven? What if you go to hell?â asks the KGB agent.
PSA: tumblr user littlefuckinmonster is stealing human bones from cemeteries in Louisiana. Please donât let them get away with this and spread the word/signal boost!
For anyone who wasnt around when this happened, this was real. Littlefuckinmonster was actually stealing bones from cemeteries. She is the bone stealing witch. She was specifically stealing bones from poor people. She was arrested for it.
I wanna hear about the molecular difference of human blood types
Omg I'm so glad you asked!! Okay, so, let's cover some basics first, which is when it comes to human blood types, there are two components to a blood type: 1) type A, B, AB, or O and 2) whether the blood is Rh factor positive or negative.
I really like this image, but it doesn't cover Rh factor, so I'll be using it to explain A, B, AB, and O type differences, and why certain blood types cannot be given to other blood types.
On the outside of your red blood cells, there are these little molecules called antigens. Antigens are used to communicate with the immune system and identify cells. So when other cells within the immune system encounters those cells, the antigens serve as like a name tag to show what the cell is, if it belongs in the immune system, and what its job is. In humans, there are two antigens for red blood cells, antigen A and antigen B. Your red blood cells can either be covered in antigen A only, antigen B only, both antigen A and B, or neither antigen at all. This is where we get the letter portion of blood types. Someone who is Type A blood only has antigen A on their red blood cells, someone who is Type B blood only had antigen B on their red blood cells, and someone who is Type AB has both antigen A and B on their red blood cells. Fun fact, Type O was actually supposed to be called Type Zero, because there are neither antigen A or B on those red blood cells. But someone misread the information and thought the zero was an O, hence why it's called Type O and not Type Zero.
So why do these antigens matter? Well, you can see on the image that below the antigens, we have antibodies. Antibodies are proteins made by our immune system to identify and aid in destroying threats to the immune system. They're like a big flashing sign telling other cells HEY THIS THING IS DOESN'T BELONG HERE WE NEED TO KILL IT!!!! For red blood cells, the antibodies will be against the opposite antigen naturally produced. So if someone is Type A, they will have Anti-B antigens that will attack and kill any blood that enters the body with antigen B on it. This means someone who is Type B cannot have their blood transfused into someone who is Type A, and vice versa. Now Type AB blood is very unique, as it has neither antibodies, as it would be pointless to have such antibodies, they'd just go after the blood constantly! And Type O has both anti-A and anti-B antibodies, as it would like to remain free of either antigen, thank you very much.
Now, it is important to note that these antibodies are present in the plasma portion of the blood, which is the liquid portion making up 55% of blood. Typically, when blood is donated to be transfused into someone during a medical emergency like severe blood loss, the plasma is not transfused into you. Only the red blood cells get transfused into you, so none of those antibodies come with them. This is why Type O blood can be given to any blood type. Because the Type O red blood cells don't have any antigens on them, regardless of your blood type, your immune system sees these little blank guys carrying oxygen around and ignore them. Which is exactly what we want! If red blood cells containing antigens that are not already in your body, like if you are Type A getting Type B blood, enter your body, your immune system freaks out and starts killing those Type B blood cells, which is the last thing we want when you're dying of blood loss. Additionally, Type AB can recieve Type O blood, Type A blood, or Type B blood, as your immune system sees these transfused red blood cells as either missing both antigens or missing one of the two, and again ignores them to let them do their job. It does not flag this lack of antigens as a threat and so does nor attack it.
So with Types A, B, AB, and O explained, we gotta talk Rh factor.
Rh factor is the presence or lack of a protein on the outside of the red blood cells. This where the term positive or negative comes into use when talking blood types. Positive blood has Rh factor present on the red blood cells and negative blood does not have Rh factor present on the red blood cells.
Similar to the two different antigens, blood without Rh factor can be given to someone who naturally has blood with Rh factor. So someone who is Type A+ can have blood that is Type O- put into them as it does not have either A or B antigens on it and also does not have Rh factor on it. But you cannot give Rh factor positive blood to someone who is naturally Rh factor negative, as the immune system sees the Rh factor present on the cells as a threat and attacks them and you have a really bad reaction.
So for me, I'm Type O+, which means my blood can be given to anyone who is Type A+, Type B+, or Type AB+, because I do not have either antigen A or B on my red blood cells. But my blood cannot be given to anyone who is negative, so it cannot go to anyone who is Type A-, Type B-, Type AB-, or Type O-, due to the presence of Rh factor on my red blood cells.
Also obligatory PSA to please donate blood if you are able to, we cannot synthesize human blood in a lab and are fully reliant on blood donations for life saving blood transfusions as well as secondary blood products for therapeutic treatment for people with various chronic diseases
Finding out AI companies are chewing through - literally, theyâre pulping and burning them as they go - millions of books often including 1/1s and old texts that cannot be reprinted
Meanwhile thereâs always some dipshit telling me AI is the future and weâve got to just let companies erase human history and literature so they can train their abomination machines to pretend to think like people because a judge said itâs fine
what's that one thing where they asked how ripely from alien was so realistic and believable as a female character in scifi for once and they were like "well we just took the dude from the original script and made him a girl and changed nothing else. it works bc men and women are the same?" and people were like "woah no way" and then didn't learn anything from that for 20 years
"how do you write such believable men as a woman?" "how do you write such believable women a man?" and the answer people who are good at it always give is "i just write people. were literally the exactly the same. do you think the opposite sex is some sorta totally different animal???" and people respond "woah that's wild. yea i do. and im not gonna stop thinking that goodbye :)"
Despite setbacks, the powerful can still be held to account for their crimes.
The International Criminal Court and the rule of law it undergirds are in trouble. Former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has warned of a âdeep erosion of international justiceâ taking place. Many ICC judges and other senior officials have been sanctioned by Russia and the United States. After an unduly prolonged investigation, the courtâs chief prosecutor has been removed over sexual misconduct allegations.
The ICC has long been criticized for doing too little too slowly, picking on the weak and giving a pass to the powerful. More generally, efforts to secure accountability for crimes in Gaza and Ukraine have confronted pushback. Many atrocitiesâincluding those in Syria during the Assad years, Chinaâs crimes against the Uyghurs, and mass killings and rape in Sudanâhave gone largely or entirely unpunished.
But this does not mean the struggle for international justice is a lost cause. Washington, long an essential, if deeply flawed, champion, has disqualified itself for now. But many countries remain committed to the rule of law, and many people around the world want the powerful held to account for their crimes. Increasingly, these efforts will by necessity take place outside of the ICC. Yet as the upcoming trial of the former leader of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, shows, even a weakened ICC still has a role to play.
The push for accountability now lies in the hands of the same coalition of middle powers that brought the ICC into being a quarter century ago. Continuing to defend the ICC is essential, but more is needed. Universal jurisdictionâthe principle that heinous offenses against all humankind can be judged by any stateâmust become even more universal. Governments outside Europe must invest in the capacity of national prosecutorial units and judges to pursue complex investigations and conduct protracted trials. And when the older Hague-based court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which addresses state rather than individual responsibility, issues provisional measures and final judgments, middle powers must push to implement those rulings. Finally, these governments should support the expansion of regional jurisdictions to deal with atrocious situationsâsuch as in Sudanâthat China, Russia and the United States refuse to address.
Ever since the trials of accused German and Japanese war criminals at Nuremberg and in Tokyo following World War II, advocates of rights have struggled to bring to justice officials, like Duterte, who commit grave crimes against civilians while they hold power. A notable success took place in Argentina in the 1980s. After seven years of brutal military rule, a newly elected civilian government documented 8,960 âdisappearancesâ conducted by the armed forces. They convicted and imprisoned several military commanders, including two former presidents. The Argentine example inspired similar efforts elsewhere in Latin America and in a few countries in Africa and Asia. Even in situations where it was difficult or impossible to bring officials to trial, as in South Africa, the push for accountability involved detailed documentation of crimes by the outgoing regime.
In 1993, the United Nations Security Council established a tribunal along the lines of Nuremberg to investigate crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia. In response to genocide in Rwanda the following year, the Security Council created a similar tribunal for that country. Over time, the two tribunals became great successes, apprehending those they indicted, conducting good trials, and imprisoning most of the high officials they tried.
This performance was crucial in the effort to establish a global court. In 1998, 148 governments met in Rome to establish the International Criminal Court. The treaty they drafted was supported by 120 of those governments; 21 abstained, and sevenâIraq, Libya, Qatar, Yemen, China, Israel, and the United Statesâultimately opposed it. The Clinton administration wanted the Security Council to authorize prosecutions, enabling the five permanent members to veto any prosecution. This would have nullified the value of the Court. Though Clinton eventually signed the treaty, the United States never ratified it. Today, the 125 members of the court also do not include China, India, or Russia.
Like its predecessors, the ICC seeks accountability: âto put an end to impunity for the perpetrators ofâ the most serious crimes. Accountability means official acknowledgment of culpability for abuses. This is of immense importance to victims, and their families and communities. Acknowledgement through legal processes is often the most important way of making amends for the suffering that has been caused. It identifies those who caused abuses and thereby stigmatizes them. It makes clear that abuses are crimes and that punishment may be warranted. It helps prevent the rewriting of history. And there is a possibility that it will help deter further abuses.
Those core aims face enormous challenges today. Disinformation and polarization undermine the concept of truth; political leaders are increasingly contemptuous of any constraints; repeated vetoes by permanent members of the Security Council block referrals to the ICC or the creation of new ad hoc courts; and most tribunals remain distant from survivors, witnesses, and affected communities.
Nonetheless, if one looks beyond the ICC, the movement for international justice has made significant progress in recent years. Governments have increasingly turned to the International Court of Justice to address international crimes. In 2019, Gambia charged Myanmar with genocide against the Rohingya. In June 2023, Canada and the Netherlands sued the Assad regime in Syria for violations of the U.N. Convention Against Torture. And that December, South Africa brought a suit against Israel for alleged genocide in Gaza. Each of those cases is pending, though the Myanmar judgment may come down later this year. The ICJ has already expanded the opportunity for more litigation along these lines, invoking the principle of erga omnes partes to hold that any state party to the Genocide Convention may institute court proceedings against another state party.
In response to Security Council blockage, the U.N. General Assembly has created investigative mechanisms to probe and collect evidence related to crimes in Iraq, Myanmar, and Syria. These bodies have served as central repositories of testimony, documents, and digital data, and supported the building of case files for prosecution at such times and places as that becomes possible.
Perhaps of even greater significance, authorities at the domestic level, primarily in Europe, are expanding efforts to prosecute and try perpetrators of international crimes. Courts in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden have charged and/or convicted Assad regime and allied perpetrators of crimes in Syria of torture, crimes against humanity, and sexual violence. Following earlier convictions in France and the United States, the Lafarge cement company (now part of the Swiss conglomerate Holcim), is under investigation in France for alleged complicity in crimes against humanity in Syriaâs conflict. And on July 15, Syrian authorities arrested a former Assad-era colonel for allegedly overseeing the manufacture and storage of chemical weapons used against civilians in 2013 and 2017.
In 2024, a Swiss court convicted former Gambian Interior Minister Ousman Sonko for crimes against humanity committed over 16 years during the brutal reign of Yahya Jammeh, who was forced from power in 2017. Also in 2024, the Brussels Court of Appeal ruled that the Belgian government must pay financial compensation for the colonial-era policy of systematically removing from their families children born in the Belgian Congo to a black mother and a white father. This March, another Belgian court ordered a former diplomat to stand trial for his alleged role in acts leading to the assassination in 1961 of Patrice Lumumba, the Congoâs first prime minister.
In Sweden, a criminal trial of the former CEO and chairman of Lundin Oil (now Orron Energy) for complicity in war crimes committed by Sudanâs regime is coming to an end, with the prosecution seeking prison sentences of up to 10 years. And in June 2025, Ukraine and the Council of Europe agreed to establish a special tribunal with the mandate, grounded in the territorial jurisdiction of Ukraine, to prosecute senior figures for the crime of aggression against Ukraine. As of now, 36 governments and the European Union have pledged to join an Enlarged Partial Agreement to oversee the tribunal. On July 3, the Netherlands agreed to act as host.
Beyond Europe, Argentina, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste are among those probing crimes in Myanmar against the Rohingya. In February 2025, a federal judge in Brazil opened a war crimes investigation into a visiting Israeli soldier for his alleged participation in the demolition of civilian homes in Gaza, forcing him to flee the country to avoid possible arrest. In the United States, in October 2025, a New York jury found the French bank BNP Paribas liable for damages for enabling mass atrocities in Sudan.
Even the beleaguered ICC has made important headway, issuing charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin, and against Israelâs leaders (along with principals of Hamas, before they were killed) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. In October 2025, an ICC Trial Chamber convicted a senior member of the Janjaweed of numerous crimes in Darfur, Sudan, including, in an important jurisprudential landmark, two counts of crimes against humanity of âgender persecution.â
In November, the ICC will commence perhaps its most consequential trial, that of Duterte, the former Philippine president. Duterte, who ruled with an iron fist from 2016 to 2022, is charged with crimes against humanity for allegedly overseeing the mass murder of civilians in his own country as part of a draconian âwar on drugs.â Ever since Duterte was sent to The Hague in March 2025, the prosecution, the defense, and many victims have been preparing for the very kind of contest this institution was designed to carry out.
Some will argue that none of this matters, that charges against figures as powerful as Putin and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu are empty gestures that wonât have real impact. Maybe. But history suggests that, even if arrest is not imminent, justice is a long game. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were arrested 13 and 16 years, respectively, after they were first charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. They are serving life sentences. Moreover, even now, the travel of any ICC indictee remains restricted.
To be sure, even the most successful prosecutions wonât end todayâs democratic backsliding. But the impact of seeing a political potentate in the dock should not be underestimated. Just ask survivors of atrocities who have pushed successfully for judicial process against former leaders from Argentina to Guatemala, Chad to Liberia.
Or ask people in Manila, as we did last week. According to a Catholic Church worker close to victims and their families, the charges against Duterte are âthe fulfillment of a dreamâthat accountability is possible.â The sibling of a man killed in Duterteâs drug war sees the ICC process as âa lesson for everyone that even a president can be punished for his crimes.â For another victimsâ advocate, the trial in The Hague is âsurrealâ in that it shows, after years of impunity, âwhat real justice looks like.â
At this authoritarian moment, when placing limits on those in power often appears harder than ever, the ICC trial of Duterte offers a cause for hope. It is a reminder that, even as the worldâs largest states prefer to turn a blind eye to international crimes, there are still paths forward for governments and individuals demanding justice.
