Last week, I had the great honor of giving the annual Uma and Ashis Nandy Lecture at UC San Diego - entitled "Worst of the Worst: The Long War on Rights." For those interested in the connection bw post-9/11 policies and the descent into fascism, link is below: www.youtube.com/watch?v=77qI...

The headline here is that the US govt publicly (last week in open court in front of media and observers) used detainee letters to their families, obtained only via @icrc.org functions, as evidence in favor of using torture-acquired evidence in a death penalty trial. @icrc.org, any thoughts?

Granting ICRC access to detainees was a standard risk mitigation measure I used to recommend for U.S. work with military partners. Israel’s refusal to grant ICRC access after Oct 7th was a major red flag—especially after the Biden administration pressed the issue. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/o...

If true, war crime.

Listening to the 9/11 prosecution team once again defend/ promote torture - even though everyone knows they’re losing any chance at a trial - really highlights the accountability vacuum that got us to the present day. The current anti-law DOJ stands on the shoulders of the Gitmo MC prosecution team.

This was such a pleasure to moderate, and to learn from @davidakaye.bsky.social an @knundy.bsky.social about an issue that affects everyone around the world. Recording will be up in a few days!

And also this is accurate. The WHCD has long outlived its (dubious) purpose.

Oh he’s speaking now? I think I will just wait like a responsible person and see what the actual facts end up being. As always, whenever it is possible to say in this country full of deadly weapons, I am glad no one was hurt.

And so please join us Thursday to hear our free speech/expression experts, @davidakaye.bsky.social and @knundy.bsky.social, speak abt how the rise of authoritarianism has resulted in this and other serious erosions of the right - and what we can do about it: www.ibanet.org/conference-d...

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I am honored to have former UNSR @davidakaye.bsky.social and the formidable advocate @knundy.bsky.social joining me next Thursday for an IBA Rule of Law Forum discussion about safeguarding the right to freedom of expression - please join us! Registration (free) below👇🏾 www.ibanet.org/conference-d...

It is still a war crime to threaten violence with the intention of instilling terror in civilian populations, TACO or not. It's in the Geneva Conventions and it's in the DoD Law of War Manual. That crime has already been committed.

Here in the U.S. right now we painfully dependent on the willingness of other nations to uphold their international legal obligation not to assist in the commission of an internationally wrongful act. Feeling grateful to UK & Portugal: www.ft.com/content/e7b1...

I told CNN: Trump's threats to civilian infrastructure are illegal Iran should keep civilians away from threatened sites All States must deny the U.S. use of their territory or airspace for illegal attacks, and demand an immediate end to this lawless war. video.snapstream.net/Play/1ocivPG...

Can't tell you how many members of Congress who *at best* had nothing to say when I asked about the Minab girls school attack. There is a profanely cold detachment inside Capitol Hill, a mode completely unrecognizable to common human decency I wish I could properly convey to you.

"History will judge-" let me stop you right fucking there, history doesn't do fucking shit, I'm a historian, let's be clear here: elected officials need to do their fucking jobs, right now, before it happens, or future historians will judge THEM. Everyone knows and knew who Trump was.

The President is openly threatening genocide. A crime against humanity. He must be removed from office. The 25th Amendment must be invoked. If not, Congress has to do our damn job. Speaker Johnson, call us into session. War powers & impeachment. Remove this man from office.

Somehow “chickens out” (as in the possibility that today will be TACO Tuesday) seems like the wrong term for “delays carrying out a threat to commit war crimes.”

This is absolutely black and white - the US president is ordering war crimes and crimes and humanity.

You think the Pope has someone particular in mind?

I cannot believe this is not the bottom - and yet, it still does not feel like we’re close.

It would be useful if the NYT explicitly stated that the pilot, if captured, would be a POW, that there are laws governing how POWs can be treated, that respect for international law on war shapes how the enemy approaches it, and this is why the US conduct of this illegal war has been so dangerous.

I am never not on message. Coming at you from spring break at Machu Picchu. #CloseGitmo

People say Trump has no war strategy, but his strategy is quite clearly a criminal one of destroying Iran's civilian infrastructure (and killing a bunch of people in the process) unless they capitulate. We -- the United States of America -- are a rogue state and global pariah.

All but three (!) of the 1,651 refugees admitted into the United States in the three most recent months we have data are white South Africans. For comparison, in 2024, the U.S. admitted 100,060 refugees. It's an explicit white supremacist project. www.rpc.state.gov/documents/Re...

I know it’s competing with an illegal war and 10,000 other major scandals but I feel like people should be making a bigger deal out of the DefSec systematically trying to resegregate the military

$1.5 trillion for the Pentagon.

New memo by Trump's 36-year-old OLC chief, Elliot Gaiser, says Congress's Constitutional power to make laws necessary and proper to regulate how the U.S. government works is actually just a power to "assist" the president--so laws are valid if they increase Trump's power but not if they restrict it.

This is the point - rational people are back cheerleading the court on its skepticism re *birthright citizenship*, literally one of the most straightforward issues it has had to address so far, while the Court consistently burns down institutions/ marginalizes people for the regime in other cases.

As someone who studies politicization of democratic militaries this statement on X is a five- alarm fire. It creates an undeniable permission structure for overt partisan behavior by mil. It's part of a concerted effort by civilian leaders to turn the U.S. military into a partisan aligned force.

Dehumanization and bloodlust gone wild.

So it's been a very long day at Gitmo, a place where there are only long days.

I am here to remind everyone that defense at Gitmo milcomms revealed that Robert Mueller oversaw the insidious collaboration of FBI with the CIA-run torture program, even while publicly (falsely) insisting that the FBI “walked away.” Obits of public figures should be accurate.

This was a grotesque insult for a well-deserved, historic win.

If you're a service member being ordered to prep for deployment for the War in Iran and you have moral and/or ethical misgivings on all this, remember that you have the right to apply for conscientious objector status. Call the G.I. Rights hotline: 1-877-447-4487

DC folks actually sort of need to demand that heads roll over this. It’s a real problem if law enforcement in the capital is so pathetic, weak, and supine that their instinct is to act as stormtroopers for illicit federal power grabs.

Why international law is still the world’s best defence. By former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and her chief of staff Sam Sasan Shoamanesh

Thoughtful and incisive - as always - thread by the amazing @k-interarma.bsky.social, who herself is an intellectual giant and inspiration to so many.

This is a crime. If you read the Board of Peace charter, you understand it has nothing to do with the American government; it's a private entity Trump created for his own enrichment. This is an impeachable offense, and if this country were not broken he would be gone by tomorrow.

Historian Kevin Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) got irked about Musk banging on about how our multicultural society is a Bad Thing, and consequently wrote this screamingly fantastic little gem. Provides badly needed perspective especially for folks who don't know much about the US decades ago.

Head of state sentenced to life for insurrection. 🧐

In the concentration camp universe, this is what's known as a filtration camp. A government preemptively takes a whole class of people to interrogate and detain extrajudicially in order to inflict duress on them while arbitrarily assessing their (supposed) culpability.

It is a huge credit to our school district that when I called the principals to urge them to resist these directives, their response was "absolutely." As Jesse Jackson said, you don't drown because of the water. You drown because you stop kicking.

tell it to the hague, buddy