Berkeley Protests John Yoo, UCB Law Professor Who Wrote Justice Dept Memo On Torture

"the Jan. 9, 2002 memo, written by Justice lawyers John Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty, went far beyond that conclusion, explicitly arguing that no international laws—including the normally observed laws of war—applied to the United States at all because they did not have any status under federal law.

“As a result, any customary international law of armed conflict in no way binds, as a legal matter, the President or the U.S. Armed Forces concerning the detention or trial of members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by NEWSWEEK. A copy of the memo is being posted today on NEWSWEEK’s Web site.

At the same time, and even more striking, according to critics, the memo explicitly proposed a de facto double standard in the war on terror in which the United States would hold others accountable for international laws it said it was not itself obligated to follow.

After concluding that the laws of war did not apply to the conduct of the U.S. military, the memo argued that President Bush could still put Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters on trial as war criminals for violating those same laws. While acknowledging that this may seem “at first glance, counter-intuitive,” the memo states this is a product of the president’s constitutional authority “to prosecute the war effectively.”

The two lawyers who drafted the memo, entitled “Application of Treaties and Laws to Al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees,” were key members of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, a unit that provides legal advice to the White House and other executive-branch agencies. The lead author, John Yoo, a conservative law professor and expert on international law who was at the time deputy assistant attorney general in the office, also crafted a series of related memos—including one putting a highly restrictive interpretation on an international torture convention—that became the legal framework for many of the Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies. Yoo also coauthored another OLC memo entitled “Possible Habeas Jurisdiction Over Aliens Held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” that concluded that U.S. courts could not review the treatment of prisoners at the base.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5032094/site/newsweek/

Yoo Talks About Memo on PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june04/interrogation_05-13.html

Yoo Speaks Out Against Affirmative Action:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/yoo.html

More on Yoo and Torture Memos:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/politics/21MEMO.html?ex=1088308800&en=b5e6ea7417b72ea7&ei=5070
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/06/07/MNGKP721F21.DTL
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4989481/