FYI - Regarding the on-going debate whether Ghana erred by letting Charles Taylor slip away, please follow the links to a documentary report at American Radio Works website.  The report, which is rather long, was featured on National Public Radio today so I have excerpted only two paragraphs below.

Thanks.

ZXCZXZCZXZCZXZCZXZCZXZCZXZCZXZCZXZCZXZCZ

June 6, 2003
AMERICAN RADIOWORKS

INVESTIGATING SIERRA LEONE

by Michael Montgomery and Deborah George

http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/sierra_leone_trial/1.html

http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/sierra_leone_trial/

ZXCZXZCZXCZXZCZXZCZXZCZXZCZXZC

David Crane told the law students one of his biggest challenges could be over the court's jurisdiction. Historically, heads-of-state and top officials have had immunity from foreign courts. The UN tribunal in The Hague was able to indict Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic - but that court has special authority from the UN Security Council. In going after a state leader like Charles Taylor without explicit UN authority, David Crane is breaking new ground in international law, and other governments could find that troubling.

"States see this as potentially becoming a quagmire in which states are grabbing each other's leaders," explains Madeline Morris, a professor of international law at Duke University and a senior legal counsel to the prosecutor's office. "If it's okay to indict, arrest and to potentially convict and incarcerate the head of state or other high official of another country, if one country can do that to another country, then we're in a very different arena then we've been in the past in international relations."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:

        http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html

AAM Website:  http://www.danenet.wicip.org/aam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------