Commentaries by David M. Crane

I have been taking on dictators, tyrants, and thugs for decades, holding them accountable and making them pay for the atrocities they cause. Just ask former President Charles Taylor who now sits in a maximum-security prison in the United Kingdom for aiding and abetting international crimes.  My signature is on his indictment.  Additionally, I have [...]

After the age of accountability in the 1990’s and early 21st century, there are certain lessons that have been learned since then. One of those lessons is that the beast of impunity must be faced down…always. International courts seeking justice for atrocity crimes in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone were beacons of light [...]

The United States, long a bastion of law, has a moment. That moment is its “return to the fold”, so to speak, regarding the rule of law and supporting human rights. Elihu Root, a former Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt, stated that at the heart of US foreign policy “our conscience must be our [...]

The election is over. The process has begun to transition to the next administration. What must be preserved is the Constitution of the United States. The cornerstone to the success of the Republic is the rule of law. Without it we are no different than any tinpot government in some dark corner of the world. [...]

As the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Caucasus, slug it out over a decades-long dispute about a piece of ground, one is reminded that conflict, once again, has become dirty and lawless at many levels. Civilians have become targets, protective symbols of the Geneva Conventions, such as the [...]

Dictators, autocrats, and strongmen thrive on chaos in the beginning of their rise to power. At first they come to that power legally, within domestic law. Once in power the autocrat takes the law and uses it and bends it, eventually shaping it to his will. This is not an easy process and history shows [...]

Recently the committee mandated to draw up a list of candidates to be Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and reported out to the Assembly of States Parties on 30 June the list of candidates to be considered. The report is comprehensive as to its procedures and methodologies. Buried in the report is a [...]

Any nation that attacks a justice mechanism for following its lawful mandate supported by 123 nations is on the wrong side of the fence and of history. In this “wonderland” that we find ourselves where what is right is made wrong, what is good appears evil, and hate and fear the norm, it is only [...]

In this election year and beyond, rightfully, the focus of our national attention and the world’s concern is COVID-19, the economy, healthcare, and jobs. That’s it. The world is reeling from a true pandemic the likes we may not have seen since 1918. The United States struggles in how to rationally tackle not only the [...]

Chief Hinga Norman, head of the brutal Civil Defense Force, during the monstrous civil war in the West African country of Sierra Leone—part of larger unrest that engulfed neighboring Liberia and others—admonished his men to kill every living thing down to the ants in Pujehun. That they did. This was emblematic of the brutality that [...]