Rumsfeld cancels Germany trip under war crimes cloud News
Rumsfeld cancels Germany trip under war crimes cloud

[JURIST] US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld [official profile] has canceled plans to fly to Germany in February to attend the Munich Conference on Security Policy [official website], giving rise to speculation that the cancellation is connected with a war crimes complaint [JURIST report] brought against him in the German courts in November and currently under investigation by the federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe. The lawsuit, launched by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights [advocacy website], accuses Rumsfeld of responsibility for torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. German law permits war crimes prosecution of individuals in Germany notwithstanding their nationality. After the complaint [English translation, PDF; CCR backgrounder] was filed Rumsfeld indicated that he would not come to the Munich conference unless it were dropped or dismissed. Deutsche Press Agentur has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.