Author: Maurice Hankey
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
ISBN: 158477228X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Hankey, The Right Hon. Lord. Politics, Trials and Errors. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, [1950]. xiv, 150 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-228-X. Cloth. $65. * Lord Hankey [1877-1963] served as secretary of the British cabinet during the Second World War. This allowed him the rare opportunity to observe crucial events at the highest political levels, which he describes in this volume. Hankey opposes the Allied policy of unconditional surrender and desire to hold war crime trials, goals that were announced during the middle years of the war. He takes the position that the former encouraged the Axis to take desperate measures to prolong the war, a policy that led to needless destruction and death, and dismisses the latter as empty propaganda that did nothing for the victims and impeded the peace process.
Politics, Trials and Errors
Author: Maurice Hankey
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
ISBN: 158477228X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Hankey, The Right Hon. Lord. Politics, Trials and Errors. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, [1950]. xiv, 150 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-228-X. Cloth. $65. * Lord Hankey [1877-1963] served as secretary of the British cabinet during the Second World War. This allowed him the rare opportunity to observe crucial events at the highest political levels, which he describes in this volume. Hankey opposes the Allied policy of unconditional surrender and desire to hold war crime trials, goals that were announced during the middle years of the war. He takes the position that the former encouraged the Axis to take desperate measures to prolong the war, a policy that led to needless destruction and death, and dismisses the latter as empty propaganda that did nothing for the victims and impeded the peace process.
Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
ISBN: 158477228X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Hankey, The Right Hon. Lord. Politics, Trials and Errors. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, [1950]. xiv, 150 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-228-X. Cloth. $65. * Lord Hankey [1877-1963] served as secretary of the British cabinet during the Second World War. This allowed him the rare opportunity to observe crucial events at the highest political levels, which he describes in this volume. Hankey opposes the Allied policy of unconditional surrender and desire to hold war crime trials, goals that were announced during the middle years of the war. He takes the position that the former encouraged the Axis to take desperate measures to prolong the war, a policy that led to needless destruction and death, and dismisses the latter as empty propaganda that did nothing for the victims and impeded the peace process.
Trial and Error in Criminal Justice Reform
Author: Greg Berman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442268484
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 167
Book Description
In this revised edition of their concise, readable, yet wide-ranging book, Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox tackle a question students and scholars of law, criminology, and political science constantly face: what mistakes have led to the problems that pervade the criminal justice system in the United States? The reluctance of criminal justice policymakers to talk openly about failure, the authors argue, has stunted the public conversation about crime in this country and stifled new ideas. It has also contributed to our inability to address such problems as chronic offending in low-income neighborhoods, an overreliance on incarceration, the misuse of pretrial detention, and the high rates of recidivism among parolees. Berman and Fox offer students and policymakers an escape from this fate by writing about failure in the criminal justice system. Their goal is to encourage a more forthright dialogue about criminal justice, one that acknowledges that many new initiatives fail and that no one knows for certain how to reduce crime. For the authors, this is not a source of pessimism, but a call to action. This revised edition is updated with a new foreword by Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., and afterword by Greg Berman.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442268484
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 167
Book Description
In this revised edition of their concise, readable, yet wide-ranging book, Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox tackle a question students and scholars of law, criminology, and political science constantly face: what mistakes have led to the problems that pervade the criminal justice system in the United States? The reluctance of criminal justice policymakers to talk openly about failure, the authors argue, has stunted the public conversation about crime in this country and stifled new ideas. It has also contributed to our inability to address such problems as chronic offending in low-income neighborhoods, an overreliance on incarceration, the misuse of pretrial detention, and the high rates of recidivism among parolees. Berman and Fox offer students and policymakers an escape from this fate by writing about failure in the criminal justice system. Their goal is to encourage a more forthright dialogue about criminal justice, one that acknowledges that many new initiatives fail and that no one knows for certain how to reduce crime. For the authors, this is not a source of pessimism, but a call to action. This revised edition is updated with a new foreword by Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., and afterword by Greg Berman.
Uncontrolled
Author: Jim Manzi
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465029310
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
How do we know which social and economic policies work, which should be continued, and which should be changed? Jim Manzi argues that throughout history, various methods have been attempted -- except for controlled experimentation. Experiments provide the feedback loop that allows us, in certain limited ways, to identify error in our beliefs as a first step to correcting them. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, scientists invented a methodology for executing controlled experiments to evaluate certain kinds of proposed social interventions. This technique goes by many names in different contexts (randomized control trials, randomized field experiments, clinical trials, etc.). Over the past ten to twenty years this has been increasingly deployed in a wide variety of contexts, but it remains the red-haired step child of modern social science. This is starting to change, and this change should be encouraged and accelerated, even though the staggering complexity of human society creates severe limits to what social science could be realistically expected to achieve. Randomized trials have shown, for example, that work requirements for welfare recipients have succeeded like nothing else in encouraging employment, that charter school vouchers have been successful in increasing educational attainment for underprivileged children, and that community policing has worked to reduce crime, but also that programs like Head Start and Job Corps, which might be politically attractive, fail to attain their intended objectives. Business leaders can also use experiments to test decisions in a controlled, low-risk environment before investing precious resources in large-scale changes -- the philosophy behind Manzi's own successful software company. In a powerful and masterfully-argued book, Manzi shows us how the methods of science can be applied to social and economic policy in order to ensure progress and prosperity.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465029310
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
How do we know which social and economic policies work, which should be continued, and which should be changed? Jim Manzi argues that throughout history, various methods have been attempted -- except for controlled experimentation. Experiments provide the feedback loop that allows us, in certain limited ways, to identify error in our beliefs as a first step to correcting them. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, scientists invented a methodology for executing controlled experiments to evaluate certain kinds of proposed social interventions. This technique goes by many names in different contexts (randomized control trials, randomized field experiments, clinical trials, etc.). Over the past ten to twenty years this has been increasingly deployed in a wide variety of contexts, but it remains the red-haired step child of modern social science. This is starting to change, and this change should be encouraged and accelerated, even though the staggering complexity of human society creates severe limits to what social science could be realistically expected to achieve. Randomized trials have shown, for example, that work requirements for welfare recipients have succeeded like nothing else in encouraging employment, that charter school vouchers have been successful in increasing educational attainment for underprivileged children, and that community policing has worked to reduce crime, but also that programs like Head Start and Job Corps, which might be politically attractive, fail to attain their intended objectives. Business leaders can also use experiments to test decisions in a controlled, low-risk environment before investing precious resources in large-scale changes -- the philosophy behind Manzi's own successful software company. In a powerful and masterfully-argued book, Manzi shows us how the methods of science can be applied to social and economic policy in order to ensure progress and prosperity.
Trial and Error
Author: John C Tucker
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786739606
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
Trial and Error is a legal memoir that gives an unvarnished account of life as one of America's leading trial lawyers; detailing the path from nervous novice to the top of the legal profession. In 1958, John C. Tucker began a legal career that would lead the Chicago Tribune to call him "one of Chicago's finest and most idiosyncratic trial lawyers." Now, in a book reminiscent of Scott Turow's classic One L, Tucker employs painstaking honesty and fascinating detail to illuminate the difficult steps in learning the trial trade and the reality of life as one of the country's leading civil and criminal trial lawyers. Free of the impenetrable language and self-congratulation found in the memoirs of many trial lawyers' memoirs, Tucker skillfully chronicles an extraordinary variety of engrossing cases. From the infamous 1969 trial of the "Chicago Eight" war protesters -- including Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden and Bobbie Seale, heard before the notorious Judge Julius Hoffman -- to one of the most important civil rights cases of the era, the Supreme Court decision that spelled the death knell for the corrupt political patronage system in Mayor Daley's Chicago, Tucker's career spanned three decades of legal landmarks. In Trial and Error Tucker becomes the star witness whose crisp prose and penetrating voice carries readers rung by rung up the legal ladder, altering common misconceptions of lawyers and their craft. Relating both the highs and lows, while also recounting tales from the trial of a giant Mafia gambling ring to a legal showdown with heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, Tucker gives aspiring young attorneys, law students, recent graduates, and all fans of courtroom drama -- and comedy -- the chance to see it all through the eyes of the man in the middle of the ring.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786739606
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
Trial and Error is a legal memoir that gives an unvarnished account of life as one of America's leading trial lawyers; detailing the path from nervous novice to the top of the legal profession. In 1958, John C. Tucker began a legal career that would lead the Chicago Tribune to call him "one of Chicago's finest and most idiosyncratic trial lawyers." Now, in a book reminiscent of Scott Turow's classic One L, Tucker employs painstaking honesty and fascinating detail to illuminate the difficult steps in learning the trial trade and the reality of life as one of the country's leading civil and criminal trial lawyers. Free of the impenetrable language and self-congratulation found in the memoirs of many trial lawyers' memoirs, Tucker skillfully chronicles an extraordinary variety of engrossing cases. From the infamous 1969 trial of the "Chicago Eight" war protesters -- including Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden and Bobbie Seale, heard before the notorious Judge Julius Hoffman -- to one of the most important civil rights cases of the era, the Supreme Court decision that spelled the death knell for the corrupt political patronage system in Mayor Daley's Chicago, Tucker's career spanned three decades of legal landmarks. In Trial and Error Tucker becomes the star witness whose crisp prose and penetrating voice carries readers rung by rung up the legal ladder, altering common misconceptions of lawyers and their craft. Relating both the highs and lows, while also recounting tales from the trial of a giant Mafia gambling ring to a legal showdown with heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, Tucker gives aspiring young attorneys, law students, recent graduates, and all fans of courtroom drama -- and comedy -- the chance to see it all through the eyes of the man in the middle of the ring.
A Wilderness of Error
Author: Errol Morris
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143123696
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 575
Book Description
Soon to be an FX Docuseries from Emmy® Award-Winning Producer Marc Smerling (The Jinx) featuring the author Errol Morris! Academy Award–winning filmmaker Errol Morris examines one of the most notorious and mysterious murder trials of the twentieth century In this profoundly original meditation on truth and the justice system, Errol Morris—a former private detective and director of The Thin Blue Line—delves deeply into the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. MacDonald, whose pregnant wife and two young daughters were brutally murdered in 1970, was convicted of the killings in 1979 and remains in prison today. The culmination of an investigation spanning over twenty years and a masterly reinvention of the true-crime thriller, A Wilderness of Error is a shocking book because it shows that everything we have been told about the case is deeply unreliable and that crucial elements of case against MacDonald are simply not true.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143123696
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 575
Book Description
Soon to be an FX Docuseries from Emmy® Award-Winning Producer Marc Smerling (The Jinx) featuring the author Errol Morris! Academy Award–winning filmmaker Errol Morris examines one of the most notorious and mysterious murder trials of the twentieth century In this profoundly original meditation on truth and the justice system, Errol Morris—a former private detective and director of The Thin Blue Line—delves deeply into the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. MacDonald, whose pregnant wife and two young daughters were brutally murdered in 1970, was convicted of the killings in 1979 and remains in prison today. The culmination of an investigation spanning over twenty years and a masterly reinvention of the true-crime thriller, A Wilderness of Error is a shocking book because it shows that everything we have been told about the case is deeply unreliable and that crucial elements of case against MacDonald are simply not true.
Transformative Justice
Author: Leora Bilsky
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Examines four trials held in Israel in which government authorities sought to advance a political agenda through criminal prosecution. Far from being "show trials", these hearings greatly transformed popular consciousness in Israel and were instrumental in the democratization of Israeli society. Pp. 17-82 deal with the Kasztner trial (1954-58) and pp. 83-165 with the Eichmann trial (1960-62). The Kasztner trial, and particularly the final judgment of Justice Shimon Agranat of the Israeli Supreme Court, shattered the simplistic juxtaposition prevalent in Israeli consciousness of heroic resistance and the path of betrayal, in this case negotiation with the enemy. The Eichmann trial shattered this conception even more and for the first time gave voice to the victims of the Holocaust rather than to the resistants. Dwells on the criticism voiced by Hannah Arendt and Natan Alterman, who challenged the conceptions of the Kasztner and Eichmann trials respectively - Arendt in support of the resistance-betrayal dichotomy and Alterman against it. The other two trials discussed are those of the Israeli soldiers who perpetrated the Kufr Qassem massacre (1956) and of Yigal Amir who assassinated PM Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Examines four trials held in Israel in which government authorities sought to advance a political agenda through criminal prosecution. Far from being "show trials", these hearings greatly transformed popular consciousness in Israel and were instrumental in the democratization of Israeli society. Pp. 17-82 deal with the Kasztner trial (1954-58) and pp. 83-165 with the Eichmann trial (1960-62). The Kasztner trial, and particularly the final judgment of Justice Shimon Agranat of the Israeli Supreme Court, shattered the simplistic juxtaposition prevalent in Israeli consciousness of heroic resistance and the path of betrayal, in this case negotiation with the enemy. The Eichmann trial shattered this conception even more and for the first time gave voice to the victims of the Holocaust rather than to the resistants. Dwells on the criticism voiced by Hannah Arendt and Natan Alterman, who challenged the conceptions of the Kasztner and Eichmann trials respectively - Arendt in support of the resistance-betrayal dichotomy and Alterman against it. The other two trials discussed are those of the Israeli soldiers who perpetrated the Kufr Qassem massacre (1956) and of Yigal Amir who assassinated PM Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
Legalism
Author: Judith N. Shklar
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674523517
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Incisively and stylishly written, this book constitutes an open challenge to reconsider the fundamental question of the relationship of law to society.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674523517
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Incisively and stylishly written, this book constitutes an open challenge to reconsider the fundamental question of the relationship of law to society.
Trial & Error
Author: Alan Sears
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 9781619042384
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
A former American pastor accused of a hate crime; an isolation cell in a foreign country; A driven Department of Justice assistant director; a brilliant Italian countess; The mysterious deaths of two Supreme Court justices and one DOJ attorney; A dedicated NTSB investigator; an out-of-the box FBI agent; An aloof international court; an overworked Christian defense team; And an uncertain, potentially frightening future. Dr. Pat Preston sits isolated in an international prison located in The Hague, Netherlands, waiting a trial he has no hope of winning. Separated from his wife and two young children, and abused by sadistic guards, Pat struggles to keep his faith alive, waffling between courageous determination and utter despair. Countess Isabella San Philippa, an expert in the world's international courts, works closely with leaders of the Alliance, an American Christian defense team, to assist in Pat's defense before the International Court of Justice, a body clearly unsympathetic to the Christian faith. And someone is willing to kill to make sure she fails. In this sequel to Alan Sear's novel, "In Justice," we get a chilling glimpse of what tomorrow may look like in America, and across the globe, if religious freedom is not vigorously defended. Alan Sears is the President, CEO and General Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a global legal alliance defending religious freedom. He has served in private law practice and in numerous positions within the United States Government, including the Department of Justice as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Section, as Director of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography; and as Associate Solicitor in the Department of the Interior. Alan has authored several books, including the non-fiction expose "The ACLU vs. America" and his first work of fiction, "In Justice."
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 9781619042384
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
A former American pastor accused of a hate crime; an isolation cell in a foreign country; A driven Department of Justice assistant director; a brilliant Italian countess; The mysterious deaths of two Supreme Court justices and one DOJ attorney; A dedicated NTSB investigator; an out-of-the box FBI agent; An aloof international court; an overworked Christian defense team; And an uncertain, potentially frightening future. Dr. Pat Preston sits isolated in an international prison located in The Hague, Netherlands, waiting a trial he has no hope of winning. Separated from his wife and two young children, and abused by sadistic guards, Pat struggles to keep his faith alive, waffling between courageous determination and utter despair. Countess Isabella San Philippa, an expert in the world's international courts, works closely with leaders of the Alliance, an American Christian defense team, to assist in Pat's defense before the International Court of Justice, a body clearly unsympathetic to the Christian faith. And someone is willing to kill to make sure she fails. In this sequel to Alan Sear's novel, "In Justice," we get a chilling glimpse of what tomorrow may look like in America, and across the globe, if religious freedom is not vigorously defended. Alan Sears is the President, CEO and General Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a global legal alliance defending religious freedom. He has served in private law practice and in numerous positions within the United States Government, including the Department of Justice as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Section, as Director of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography; and as Associate Solicitor in the Department of the Interior. Alan has authored several books, including the non-fiction expose "The ACLU vs. America" and his first work of fiction, "In Justice."
Expert Political Judgment
Author: Philip E. Tetlock
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Since its original publication, Expert Political Judgment by New York Times bestselling author Philip Tetlock has established itself as a contemporary classic in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting. Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems. He notes a perversely inverse relationship between the best scientific indicators of good judgement and the qualities that the media most prizes in pundits--the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat. Clearly written and impeccably researched, the book fills a huge void in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. It will appeal across many academic disciplines as well as to corporations seeking to develop standards for judging expert decision-making. Now with a new preface in which Tetlock discusses the latest research in the field, the book explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Since its original publication, Expert Political Judgment by New York Times bestselling author Philip Tetlock has established itself as a contemporary classic in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting. Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems. He notes a perversely inverse relationship between the best scientific indicators of good judgement and the qualities that the media most prizes in pundits--the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat. Clearly written and impeccably researched, the book fills a huge void in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. It will appeal across many academic disciplines as well as to corporations seeking to develop standards for judging expert decision-making. Now with a new preface in which Tetlock discusses the latest research in the field, the book explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts.
A History of Political Trials
Author: John Laughland
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9781906165000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
"This is a formidable and well-documented counterblast to a developing modern orthodoxy, expressing a point of view that many readers will not even have suspected existed, let alone read."--Anthony Daniels, Spectator "A useful and controversial contribution to the debate about victor's justice, and a valuable warning that international war crimes tribunals need to operate with precision and care."--Jonathan Steele, Guardian The rapid development of the use of international courts and tribunals to try heads of state for genocide and other crimes against humanity has been welcomed by most people, because they think that the establishment of international tribunals and courts to try notorious dictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In A History of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a very different and controversial view, namely that political trials are inherently against the rule of law and almost always involve the abuse of process, as well as being seriously hypocritical. By means of detailed consideration of the trials of figures as disparate as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker and Saddam Hussein, Laughland shows that the guilt of the accused has always been assumed in advance, that the judges are never impartial, that the process is always unfair and biased in favor of the prosecution, that the defense is not permitted to use all the arguments at its disposal, and that often the accusers have done exactly what they accuse the defence of having done. All the trials he recounts were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, often gross injustice. Although the chapters are short and easy to read, they are the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading. The general reader will be forced by this book to re-examine the ideas on this subject, and will be much less sanguine about the possibility of bringing dictators and other leaders to genuine justice. John Laughland lives in Bath and is an author, journalist, and has been a university lecturer in France. He has published The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea (Time Warner Paperbacks) and has written for the Spectator, he Economist, and The New York Times . Table of Contents Introduction The Trial of Charles I and the Last Judgement The Trial of Louis XVI and the Terror War Guilt after World War I Defeat in the Dock: the Riom Trial Justice as Purge: Marshal Peacute;tain faces his Accusers Treachery on Trial: the Case of Vidkun Quisling Nuremberg : Making War Illegal Creating Legitimacy: the Trial of Marshal Antonescu Ethnic Cleansing and National Cleansing in Czechoslovakia, 19451947 Peoplers"s Justice in Liberated Hungary From Mass Execution to Amnesty and Pardon: Postwar Trials in Bulgaria, Finland, and Greece Politics as Conspiracy: the Tokyo Trials The Greek Colonels, the Emperor Bokassa, and the Argentine Generals: Transitional Justice, 19752007 Revolution Returns: the Trial of Nicolae Ceausescu A State on Trial: Erich Honecker in Moabit Jean Kambanda, Convicted without Trial Kosovo and the New World Order: the Trial of Slobodan Miloscaron;evic Regime Change and the Trial of Saddam Hussein Conclusion Notes Bibliography and Further Reading Index
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9781906165000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
"This is a formidable and well-documented counterblast to a developing modern orthodoxy, expressing a point of view that many readers will not even have suspected existed, let alone read."--Anthony Daniels, Spectator "A useful and controversial contribution to the debate about victor's justice, and a valuable warning that international war crimes tribunals need to operate with precision and care."--Jonathan Steele, Guardian The rapid development of the use of international courts and tribunals to try heads of state for genocide and other crimes against humanity has been welcomed by most people, because they think that the establishment of international tribunals and courts to try notorious dictators represents a triumph of law over impunity. In A History of Political Trials, John Laughland takes a very different and controversial view, namely that political trials are inherently against the rule of law and almost always involve the abuse of process, as well as being seriously hypocritical. By means of detailed consideration of the trials of figures as disparate as Charles I, Louis XVI, Erich Honecker and Saddam Hussein, Laughland shows that the guilt of the accused has always been assumed in advance, that the judges are never impartial, that the process is always unfair and biased in favor of the prosecution, that the defense is not permitted to use all the arguments at its disposal, and that often the accusers have done exactly what they accuse the defence of having done. All the trials he recounts were marked by arbitrariness and injustice, often gross injustice. Although the chapters are short and easy to read, they are the fruit of formidable erudition and wide reading. The general reader will be forced by this book to re-examine the ideas on this subject, and will be much less sanguine about the possibility of bringing dictators and other leaders to genuine justice. John Laughland lives in Bath and is an author, journalist, and has been a university lecturer in France. He has published The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea (Time Warner Paperbacks) and has written for the Spectator, he Economist, and The New York Times . Table of Contents Introduction The Trial of Charles I and the Last Judgement The Trial of Louis XVI and the Terror War Guilt after World War I Defeat in the Dock: the Riom Trial Justice as Purge: Marshal Peacute;tain faces his Accusers Treachery on Trial: the Case of Vidkun Quisling Nuremberg : Making War Illegal Creating Legitimacy: the Trial of Marshal Antonescu Ethnic Cleansing and National Cleansing in Czechoslovakia, 19451947 Peoplers"s Justice in Liberated Hungary From Mass Execution to Amnesty and Pardon: Postwar Trials in Bulgaria, Finland, and Greece Politics as Conspiracy: the Tokyo Trials The Greek Colonels, the Emperor Bokassa, and the Argentine Generals: Transitional Justice, 19752007 Revolution Returns: the Trial of Nicolae Ceausescu A State on Trial: Erich Honecker in Moabit Jean Kambanda, Convicted without Trial Kosovo and the New World Order: the Trial of Slobodan Miloscaron;evic Regime Change and the Trial of Saddam Hussein Conclusion Notes Bibliography and Further Reading Index