The Lawfare Podcast

Last month, a court in Germany convicted a senior Assad government official for a crime against humanity and sentenced him to life in prison for activities overseeing detention centers in Syria, where the government interrogated and tortured suspected antigovernment activists. The case was unique, not just for the profile of the defendant, but for the fact that the crime had no nexus to Germany. Instead, it's an example of what scholars call a universal jurisdiction case. In these cases, a country like Germany exercises criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes like war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. A collection of European countries, as well as Argentina, have incorporated provisions like this into their criminal code, and universal jurisdiction cases have served to bring justice for offenses committed in a range of conflicts across the world. To talk through the most recent developments and the phenomenon of universal jurisdiction cases, Jacob Schulz sat down with Hayley Evans, a research fellow working on Afghanistan projects at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and Rule of Law.Visit our website: https://www.lawfareblog.com/ Become a Material Supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lawfareSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The House of Representatives last week passed the COMPETES Act, its counterpart to a Senate bill last year on competitiveness with China. What's in the bill? What would it do? How similar is it to the Senate bill? And how close are we to a major piece of China legislation?Benjamin Wittes sat down on Lawfare Live with Susan Thornton, a retired U.S. diplomat who is currently a visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School and a senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center, and Jordan Schneider, the host of the ChinaTalk podcast and newsletter. They talked about the legislation, the prospects for reconciling it for the Senate bill, and whether this is a real start or just window dressing.This episode was recorded live for our Material Supporters.Become a Material Supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lawfareSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week was scary for historically black colleges and universities, 17 of which received bomb threats that caused disruptions, building closures and class cancellations. The FBI is investigating, but we don't know a lot about what happened. To go over what we do know, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Andy McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI who ran his share of counter-terrorism investigations, and Yasmin Cader, a deputy legal director at the ACLU and the director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality. They talked about what we know about the investigation, how these investigations take place, and the tensions they involve between the FBI and communities of color. They also talked about the role of HBCUs and why people may be targeting them, whether the FBI is well positioned to investigate hate crimes, and what it needs to do to better position itself for this mission. They even talked about Jan. 6 and what the FBI's preparedness for that event says about its preparedness now.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From February 23, 2021: For more than a week now, Texas has been struggling with a massive power outage caused by record low temperatures. Millions have been without power, heat and running water, and at least dozens have been confirmed to have died as a result. All states are confronting extreme weather, but Texas is unique in that its electricity is almost completely independent from the rest of the United States' grid. This has at times lowered costs and increased innovation in the Texas energy markets, but as the current crisis shows, Texas's energy exceptionalism comes at a cost. Alexandra Klass is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and a nationally recognized expert on energy law and policy who recently wrote about the Texas energy crisis for Lawfare. Alan Rozenshtein spoke with her about the current situation and the future of energy policy, both for Texas and for the United States.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 28, 2019: President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, died in a raid conducted by U.S. Special Operation Forces. The president used highly unusual language to describe the raid, including that al-Baghdadi “died like a dog.” He also stated that the U.S. would be “leaving soldiers to secure the oil.” Scott R. Anderson and Dan Byman join Benjamin Wittes to discuss the raid, what it means for the future of the Islamic State, Trump’s speech and what it all means for the broader region.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last night, U.S. forces in Northern Syria killed Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi who until yesterday was the current leader of ISIS. It was an operation in which at least 13 people, including civilians, were killed, apparently when al-Qurayshi detonated a bomb that destroyed the building they were in. What are the implications for the future of ISIS, for the future of Syria and for the future of the U.S. military, which is supposedly at peace these days? To chew it over, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson, and Hassan Hassan, editor-in-chief of New Lines Magazine. They talked about who al-Qurayshi was, what we know about him, who on the ground was helping the United States, the future of Syria and its new political landscape, and what this all means for Joe Biden.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk a lot on this show about the responsibility of major tech platforms when it comes to content moderation. But what about problems the platforms can’t—or won’t—fix? Tracy Chou’s solution involves going around platforms entirely and creating tools that give power back to users to control their own experience. She’s the engineer behind Block Party, an app that allows Twitter users to protect themselves against online harassment and abuse. It’s a fine-tuned solution to a problem that a lot of Twitter users struggle with, especially women and particularly women of color. This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Tracy about her work developing Block Party and how the persistent lack of diversity in Silicon Valley contributes to an environment where users have little protection against harassment. They also talked about what it’s like working with the platforms that Block Party and other apps like it are seeking to improve. And they discussed what content moderation problems these kinds of user-driven tools might help solve–and which they won’t.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last month, the New York Times ran a story about YouTube videos promoting tourism to China and promoting messages sympathetic to the Chinese government. The accounts are a part of a broader network of profiles on Twitter, YouTube and other social media, spreading pro-Beijing narratives. To talk through the story and what to make of the accounts, Jacob Schulz sat down with one of the story's authors, Paul Mozur, a reporter at the New York Times, and Darren Linvill, an associate professor at the University of Clemson. They talked through who exactly these accounts are, what messages they promote and how to think about what impact they're having.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nearly six months have passed since the Taliban’s sudden takeover of Afghanistan. As the country faces down a failing economy and looming humanitarian catastrophe, the new Taliban regime is still struggling with what it means to govern, both internally within the country and externally in its relations with the broader international community.To get a sense of the state of play in Afghanistan, Scott R. Anderson sat down with a panel of experts: Laurel Miller, director of the International Crisis Group’s Asia Program; Andrew Watkins, a senior expert on Afghanistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace; and Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American University in Afghanistan and a visiting scholar at The New School. They talked about the Taliban's approach to governing, its changing relationships with the outside world and what it all means for Afghanistan's future.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s the best historical analogue for the American political situation today? Often, pundits will compare our current age of rising polarization and increasing political violence to the era preceding the American Civil War. If they’re alarmed and looking for a European analogy, sometimes they’ll point to Weimar Germany. But another point of comparison from prewar Europe might be more apt: the French Third Republic, from the late 19th century leading up to World War II.Lawfare Managing Editor Jacob Schulz and Quinta Jurecic spoke with John Ganz, who writes the Substack newsletter Unpopular Front and is working on a book about American politics in the 1990s. He’s written in depth about the political crises roiling the Third Republic, from the Dreyfus Affair to February 6, 1934—a violent riot outside the French National Assembly, which has striking echoes in January 6. So why is France a more apt comparison than Germany or Italy? What can studying the Third Republic, and February 6, tell us about January 6 and the rise of an American far right? And what might we learn from the striking differences between how French civil society responded to February 6, as opposed to the more muted American response to a similar riot almost 90 years later?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.