Human rights group says Israel ‘brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell’ on strip’s 2.3m population
A report from Amnesty International alleges that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the first such determination by a major human rights organisation in the 14-month-old conflict.
The 32-page report examining events in Gaza between October 2023 to July 2024, published on Thursday, found that Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the strip’s 2.3 million population, noting that the “atrocity crimes” against Israelis by Hamas on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, “do not justify genocide”.
The unprecedented scale and magnitude of the military offensive, which has caused death and destruction at a speed and level unmatched in any other 21st-century conflict;
Intent to destroy, after considering and discounting arguments such as Israeli recklessness and callous disregard for civilian life in the pursuit of Hamas;
Killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm in repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, or deliberately indiscriminate attacks; and
Inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, such as destroying medical infrastructure, the obstruction of aid, and repeated use of arbitrary and sweeping “evacuation orders” for 90% of the population to unsuitable areas.
Janine Jackson interviewed the Center for Constitutional Rights’ Katherine Gallagher about the Abu Ghraib verdict for the November 29, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: For a press corps that described the grievous abuse of Iraqi detainees at the prison in Abu Ghraib as “seared into the American consciousness,” there’s been relatively little interest in the fact that a federal jury has just found defense contractor CACI guilty of conspiring in that abuse.
Al Shimari v. CACI International was filed in 2008 and, CounterSpinlisteners will know, has been fought and fought and fought. And now, while its unclear what justice would look like for victims of torture, there is some acknowledgement of harm, and the fact that it was people, and not nameless forces in the “fog of war,” who were to blame.
How meaningful this verdict becomes could shape things going forward, given the US military’s increased reliance on private contractors, who’ve evidently been led to understand that they are above the law.
Katherine Gallagher: Thanks so much for having me back.
JJ: First of all, congratulations. I’m not sure people understand that, just because the paper says, “Oh, this was horrible abuse. Our conscience is shocked,” doesn’t mean that anything happens. So the law isn’t justice, but if you use the law, it’s something. So first of all, I want to say thank you.
KG: Thank you, thank you for that acknowledgement, and, really, the thanks and the effort was first and foremost to our clients, who filed this case 16-and-a-half years ago, and stuck with it and stuck with us and stuck with US courts through a rollercoaster ride of moments where they thought that justice might be coming, and then others where the case was dismissed and deep disappointment. So I agree, the law is not always an answer, but it can certainly be a tool, as it was in this case, to get some measure of justice for Suhail, Asa’ad and Salah.
JJ: I’ll ask you to say their names, actually, because they’re not often named. So the plaintiffs in this case, that made it this far, say their names.
KG: Salah al-Ejaili came and testified in person in Virginia in this case. He is a journalist, and he was working as a journalist for Al Jazeera at the time he was detained and tortured at Abu Ghraib. The second plaintiff is Asa’ad al-Zuba’e. He is a fruit vendor in Iraq, and he testified, via video link, live in the courtroom in Alexandria. And then the third plaintiff is Suhail al-Shimari, whose name is the lead name in this long-running case of Al Shimari v. CACI. And he is an educator.
JJ: It seems important to recognize and acknowledge that there are human beings here. I want to ask you to ground us, because some of our listeners weren’t even born. Ground us on the substance of the charges here, and maybe why is this the only lawsuit to make it this far?
KG: So this case stems out of what for many of us, or those of us of a certain generation, really is a historic event, in the negative sense. And that is the torture of Iraqi detainees at a US-run detention center in Baghdad, in Iraq, during the US invasion of Iraq.
At Abu Ghraib, especially during the time from fall 2003 until early 2004, there was a conspiracy to torture and otherwise subject Iraqi detainees to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. And that abuse, that horrific abuse, was documented in photos.
And those photos came out, the world saw them in 2004, and really “shocked the conscience,” which is a term that we often use in the law, but here it was true, for the entire nation and the world, when we saw naked, hooded, Iraqi detainees in human pyramids, being threatened with dogs, being subjected to sexual assault and degradation and humiliation, being held in contorted, painful positions, shackled to bed frames and walls.
And all of this, military generals investigated, they found that this was done, in large part, to “soften up” detainees, to make them pliable and ready to speak when they went into interrogation.
Now, at the time of the US invasion of Iraq, the US went in far too quickly, and with not enough resources, and with really no plan for the counterinsurgency that followed. So in the summer of 2003, the US started detaining Iraqis en masse. And so there were thousands and thousands of Iraqi detainees.
And in order to understand who they were even picking up, the US set up a number of detention centers, and they didn’t have enough trained interrogators, and they also didn’t have enough trained translators within the US military. So they outsourced those functions to private companies, and one of them was CACI, or C.A.C.I., a private government contractor from Virginia.
And CACI was hired, and paid tens of millions of dollars, to augment and support the US interrogation services. So CACI was hired to find so-called resident experts—qualified, trained interrogators to work in Iraq, and to supervise those interrogators who were working with the US military.
But what we found out, as the torture scandal broke and the military investigations happened and more information came out, is that CACI sent over unqualified interrogators, in many cases, and did not provide the kind of oversight or supervision that was required, and that was particularly required at Abu Ghraib, where there was a breakdown in the command structure within the military that allowed the kind of torture and abuse in those notorious photos to occur.
So that’s the big picture of what happened. And the abuse in that time was also inflicted upon the plaintiffs, Suhail, Asa’ad and Salah, who were detained in that end-of-2003, early-2004 time.
JJ: It seems worth just lifting up, as a point of information, these were not people who were charged or convicted of any crime, the detainees that we’re talking about, many of them, at Abu Ghraib, right?
KG: Correct. The individuals in this case, and I’ve represented individuals in two other cases, one that settled back in 2012 and one that was dismissed back in 2009. And of those 338 plaintiffs I’ve represented across those three cases, zero were ever charged with a crime. But I also want to be very clear that, even if one were charged with a crime, torture is always unlawful.
JJ: Right. Well, the case is landmark, in part just because of the way that it names contractors as responsible parties. It’s always been their argument, right, that they’re just private actors following orders from the US, and the US has immunity, so we do too, right? That’s part of what’s important about this.
KG: That’s precisely right. Over the 16 years of litigation, CACI has filed at least 15 motions to dismiss. And whether they’ve invoked Derivative Sovereign Immunity or the Political Question Doctrine or the Government Contractor Defense or the Law of War Immunity, or most recently and throughout trial, the so-called Borrowed Servant Defense—all of these boiled down to essentially one argument, which is, we were working with the US military, and anything we did was because they were overseeing it. And if they were overseeing it, they should have any responsibility, not us. We were just, essentially, following orders.
Now, the conduct at issue in this case—and we have clear decisions from the Fourth Circuit saying as much in our long litigation—the conduct at issue is unlawful. We’re talking about torture. We had plead war crimes, we’re talking about cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. These are violations of US domestic criminal law, and they are also violations of US-signed treaties, including the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.
And so, this is not conduct that the military could order anyone, whether it’s soldiers or contractors, to do. This is unlawful, illegal. So CACI’s defense fails, insofar as this is not a lawful order that they could have ever received from the military.
But, additionally, CACI was hired to supervise its own employees. This is a for-profit corporation that hired employees at will. So, unlike an enlisted person at Abu Ghraib, the CACI employees could quit at any time, and notably, some did, and one even did, more than one, because of what they saw happening at Abu Ghraib. So this corporation should be held accountable for its own employees’ conduct.
And that’s precisely, after 16-and-a-half years, what a jury in Alexandria, Virginia, found to be the case two weeks ago when they gave down a verdict against CACI and for our plaintiffs.
JJ: I will say I’m disheartened by the relative quietness of media around the verdict. There has been some coverage, but I feel like I can say pretty confidently that had this case died in court, we would’ve never heard about it again.
But I’m also saddened by the accounts that I have seen: Virtually all of them use the phrase “over two decades ago.” And that, to me, is not a neutral tag. It’s a linguistic wink that says, “Why are we still talking about this?” But as you’ve noted, the case has taken this long because CACI has resisted it for this long, right?
KG: That is absolutely the case. The plaintiffs filed back in 2008, and our plaintiffs, to this day, the 20-year time period doesn’t erase or make this historic. They are living every day with being an Abu Ghraib torture survivor. They still suffer from nightmares, from flashbacks, and talking about Abu Ghraib is not something that’s easy for them to do.
The fact that this case went to trial not once but twice, and that the plaintiffs had to tell their account, tell about their suffering, their humiliation, more than once, it wasn’t easy. And to remember the kinds of details, some of it is seared in their memory, and others, of course, over 20 years is less clear than it used to be. But the nightmares and the mental harm has continued to this day, and it should not be something that is relegated to the history books at all.
And one of the things I’d note: There weren’t many photos shown during trial, but there were a few photos shown during trial, and there were a couple of jurors who appeared to be on the younger side. And when those photos came up, particularly for one of the younger jurors, who may not have seen this on the cover of the paper each day, as those of us did back in 2004, there was absolute shock. There was absolute shock. I mean, these photos were shocking for everyone, but the accounts seemed to be unknown. And that is not something that should be permitted to happen.
And that’s part of why, despite the difficulty, our plaintiffs have brought this case forward, and stayed with it throughout all of this time, so that it is not forgotten. And it is so that what was done in our name, for me as a US citizen, is also not forgotten. And they want to be sure that this never happens to anyone else again. So to the extent that corrections haven’t been made, whether by the US military or by CACI, to ensure that their employees or soldiers do not ever, ever treat detainees, or humans, in the way that the Iraqi men, women and children who were held at Abu Ghraib were treated, that’s what this case is also about.
JJ: Well, what do you make of the “few bad apples” line, which literally has appeared in some of the journalistic accounts that I’ve seen, that these were some rogue CACI employees, and it’s wrong to hold the organization liable for that?
KG: CACI, again, by its contract, had an obligation to oversee its employees, and it had staff on site precisely to do that. Also, the staff in Iraq was in daily contact with the staff back in Virginia, and some of the staff in Virginia traveled to Abu Ghraib over this period of time.
And so, whether we’re talking about a contractor at Abu Ghraib and allegations of torture, or frankly, other kinds of corporations, you have an obligation to look down your supply chain. And that, here, that supply chain is your employees, and you have an obligation to ensure that they are abiding by the terms of their contract, and the obligations that you as a corporation are putting forward that you will comply with. And that included following federal and international law. And that means no torture, no cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment.
JJ: I sort of resent the fact, though I understand it, that it’s being reported solely as a lawsuit, and not a human rights crisis. And the coverage as a lawsuit means, first of all, we see a note of monetary outcomes: These folks are getting millions!
And then, also, I see the Washington Post quoting CACI, saying CACI employees say, “None of them laid a hand on detainees.” Well, “laid a hand on,” like, I don’t know, that sounds like language you got from somewhere else.
But, also, plaintiffs are described as “saying” they were restrained, “claiming” they were tortured. There’s always this degree of difference. And I wonder, I wish, in some ways, we could move it outside of just the lawsuit framework, and talk about the human rights crisis that Abu Ghraib actually presents and presented for the United States.
Katherine Gallagher: “The jury found not that our clients ‘claimed’ that they were tortured, but that our clients were subjected to torture.”
KG: I appreciate that comment and that perspective. And just a few reactions to the language that you cited: What’s important here is, our clients testified in court, under oath, and there were findings made by a jury, factual findings against clear law. And Judge Brinkema gave the jury their legal instructions against which to apply facts.
So the jury found not that our clients “claimed” that they were tortured, but that our clients were subjected to torture, or cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. The jury found them credible, as did General Taguba when he investigated Abu Ghraib back in 2004.
And, in fact, one of our clients in this case was someone who provided an account of abuse already, back in late 2003. And at that time, General Taguba also found the report by him and other Iraqi detainees credible.
So these are not mere allegations at this point. We have a jury verdict, and the jury awarded each plaintiff $3 million in compensatory damages, and $11 million each in punitive damages against CACI.
And that punitive damages award is saying that it wasn’t a few rogue employees, but it was a corporation that had responsibilities that it didn’t fulfill. The fact that that punitive damages award was meeting the amount that CACI was paid through their contract at Abu Ghraib, I really think sends a very clear message.
JJ: Finally, and perhaps you’ve answered it, but what are your hopes for the impact of this verdict, and what would you maybe say to other attorneys, frankly, who are working on years-old cases that might never lead to such an outcome?
KG: First, on the outcome, we certainly had a big victory, and it was a real validation of our clients, of what was done to them, and of their quest for justice. So that, again, I am very grateful for.
We will be facing an appeal; CACI has made that clear. So the litigation is not yet over, and our clients have not been given the monetary compensation. But, indeed, there already has been a real recognition for them by the jury, which mattered a lot, I have to say. It mattered a great deal to them, to know that they were heard and that they were believed.
In terms of the bigger picture of what this means, I do think that these cases are important. They may be difficult and, frankly, they also may be lost, but raising the challenges, and bringing the facts to the forefront, and putting harm with proper labels, so that those pictures Abu Ghraib are understood as torture, which means causing severe physical or mental harm, intentionally. And that is what happened to our plaintiffs.
CACI was part of a conspiracy to do that to our plaintiffs. And, indeed, they may not have been the ones to literally shackle our plaintiffs, but they gave instructions and encouragement to have our plaintiffs so mistreated and so harmed.
And I think that that message of challenging injustice, and for our clients to try and regain some of their agency, some of their dignity, it’s important. And I’m gratified that in this case it ended in a victory, but I still think it’s worth bringing cases, even if that’s not the outcome.
JJ: All right, then. We’ve been speaking with Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. They’re online at CCRJustice.org.
Thank you so much, Katherine Gallagher, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
Activists targeted as US-linked hard-right campaigns sow disinformation ahead of inter-American court of human rights ruling on case of woman who was denied abortion in 2013
Earlier this year, Morena Herrera woke up to find that a video about her had been posted on social media. It claimed that the 64-year-old campaigner for abortion rights in El Salvador had “chased down” a young woman in hospital and “terrorised” her into seeking an abortion.
The young woman was Beatriz, who had been denied an abortion in 2013, even though she was seriously ill and the foetus would not have survived outside the uterus.
Australia will set broad limits on anticompetitive behaviour by big tech companies under a proposed framework that could impose penalties of up to $50 million, more than two years after the competition watchdog first called for the regime . Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones outlined the framework in a speech on Monday, which would include service-specific…
Feminist solidarity has weakened, but women around the world tell me their fight continues
What happens in America does not stay in America. The prospect of Trump’s second administration is devastating for many American women, but its reverberations are also echoing for women across the globe, and bringing much more fear and uncertainty than last time around.
Eight years ago, while Trump’s success shocked women in Britain, it also brought rays of hope – in the shape of a resurgence of solidarity. On the day after the election in 2016, I remember going into my workplace, a charity for refugee women, feeling pretty bleak, and looking at other women’s downcast faces. Then, at the end of the day, one of our colleagues had the most unexpected news. The charity’s online donations had rocketed.
Feminist solidarity has weakened, but women around the world tell me their fight continues
What happens in America does not stay in America. The prospect of Trump’s second administration is devastating for many American women, but its reverberations are also echoing for women across the globe, and bringing much more fear and uncertainty than last time around.
Eight years ago, while Trump’s success shocked women in Britain, it also brought rays of hope – in the shape of a resurgence of solidarity. On the day after the election in 2016, I remember going into my workplace, a charity for refugee women, feeling pretty bleak, and looking at other women’s downcast faces. Then, at the end of the day, one of our colleagues had the most unexpected news. The charity’s online donations had rocketed.
Feminist solidarity has weakened, but women around the world tell me their fight continues
What happens in America does not stay in America. The prospect of Trump’s second administration is devastating for many American women, but its reverberations are also echoing for women across the globe, and bringing much more fear and uncertainty than last time around.
Eight years ago, while Trump’s success shocked women in Britain, it also brought rays of hope – in the shape of a resurgence of solidarity. On the day after the election in 2016, I remember going into my workplace, a charity for refugee women, feeling pretty bleak, and looking at other women’s downcast faces. Then, at the end of the day, one of our colleagues had the most unexpected news. The charity’s online donations had rocketed.
Officials acknowledge prisoners have harmed themselves but say they did not set themselves on fire or self-immolate
Several incarcerated people in Virginia’s high-security Red Onion state prison have intentionally burned themselves in a protest against harsh conditions at the facility.
A written statement from Virginia’s department of corrections acknowledged that men imprisoned there had harmed themselves, although the authorities confirmed six incidents while others reported that 12 men were injured.
This week on CounterSpin: It wasn’t the horrific abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, but the pictures of it, that forced public and official acknowledgement. The Defense Department vehemently resisted the pictures’ release, with good reason. Yet when, after the initial round, Australian TV put out new images, Washington Post executive editor Len Downie said they were “so shocking and in such bad taste, especially the extensive nudity, that they are not publishable in our newspaper.” The notion that acts of torture by the US military and its privately contracted cat’s paws are, above all, distasteful may help explain corporate media’s inattentiveness to the efforts of victims of Abu Ghraib to find some measure of justice.
But a federal jury has just found defense contractor CACI responsible for its part in that abuse, in a ruling being called “exceptional in every sense of the term.” The Center for Constitutional Rights has been behind the case, Al Shimari v. CACI, through its long rollercoaster ride through the courts—which isn’t over yet. We hear about it from CCR senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher.
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of the ICC’s Israel warrants.
This post was originally published on CounterSpin.
Draconian new laws allow mass incarceration of women and children forced to beg because of work ban
Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention.
Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused.
Conservative leader says there needs to be a ‘plan not just a promise’ beyond leaving the ECHR
William Hague has achieved a rare Tory election victory; he has won the contest to be Oxford University’s next chancellor.
The university has released the figures for the final round of voting, where the winner emerged after the final five candidates were ranked using the alternative vote system. The runner up was Elish Angiolini, the lawyer and academic.
A media mogul, a computer programmer, a developer, a trade unionist, and a Sikh activist – the prisoners arbitrarily detained abroad
The cases of five British men, held for years without a fair trial, are being highlighted as MPs, families, and campaigners fight for their release and better help for all those arbitrarily detained abroad. Who are the five, and what has happened to them?
Charges against Israeli prime minister and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant mark first time western-affiliated leaders have been targeted for war crimes
Thursday’s announcement from the international criminal court’s pretrial chamber of arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has sent shockwaves through the international legal system. As the first time that officials from a democratic, western-allied state have been charged with war crimes, it is widely seen as the most significant action taken by the court since it was set up at the turn of the century.
Peace Brigades International calling for new act to force companies with links to UK to do due diligence
Human rights defenders have faced brutal reprisals for standing up to extractive industries with links to UK companies or investors, according to a report calling for a law obliging firms to do human rights and environmental due diligence.
Peace Brigades International (PBI) UK says a corporate accountability law requiring businesses to do due diligence on their operations, investments and supply chains could have prevented past environmental devastation and attacks.
One of the arguments that has come to the fore in the debate surrounding whether assisted dying should be legalised in England and Wales is the “slippery slope” theory – that even if the legislation contains watertight qualifying criteria and safeguards, the law will inevitably be expanded in time and the restrictions loosened. Here is an explanation of why lawyers disagree about the likelihood of this happening.
Interim leader Muhammad Yunus confirms plans to put former PM on trial accused of crimes against humanity
Bangladesh will seek the extradition of the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to face trial on charges including crimes against humanity, the country’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, has said in a speech.
Hasina, whose autocratic regime governed Bangladesh for 15 years, was toppled in a student-led revolution in August. Since then she has been living in exile in India after fleeing the country in a helicopter as thousands of protesters overran the presidential palace.
This week, UK ministers and political leaders from Britain’s overseas territories will come together at the joint ministerial council. This summit is intended to build a united strategy for our partnership with the overseas territories, built on shared democratic values and respect for human rights.
But this partnership also comes with the obligation to adhere to certain standards. For those campaigning to eradicate money laundering and fraud from the UK’s economy, that involves tearing down secrecy and promoting full corporate transparency and robust accountability through publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership.
Pact hailed as EU migration breakthrough in tatters after judges rule asylum seekers must be transferred to Italy
A multimillion-dollar migration deal between Italy and Albania aimed at curbing arrivals was presented by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, as a new model for how to establish processing and detention centres for asylum seekers outside the EU.
The facilities in Albania were supposed to receive up to 3,000 men intercepted in international waters while crossing from Africa to Europe. But it seems neither von der Leyen nor Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, had taken existing law into account.
The chair of the government’s equality watchdog, who was appointed by Liz Truss and investigated after a series of complaints by staff members, has been given a 12-month extension in the role, ministers have announced.
The decision to reappoint Kishwer Falkner as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), first revealed by the Guardian, has left some staff members angry after they had hoped a Labour government might change the organisation’s leadership.
Associated Newspapers argued it was ‘excessive’ for such fees to be added to the costs of people who had sued it
The publisher of the Daily Mail has won a court battle after arguing that its human rights were breached by a requirement for it to pay “success fees” to lawyers representing people it had paid damages to.
Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) complained to the European court of human rights that it was “excessive and unfair” for it to have to pay such fees to plaintiffs who have engaged lawyers to take cases on a no win, no fee agreement.
England and Wales abolished these draconian sentences in 2012 – but our crumbling prisons still hold offenders trapped in horrifying stasis
On a Thursday evening last June, I found myself standing in a packed room in the House of Commons. The space had been turned into a temporary art gallery showcasing work made by a selection of IPP prisoners – the acronym stands for imprisonment for public protection – who had spent years in prison beyond their sentences or remained there, under the terms of the long-abolished indeterminate sentence, which had by then collectively been agreed upon as a point of national disgrace. Much of the art was, unsurprisingly, darkly hued and themed, a mesh of heavy greys and nightmare landscapes.
Donna Mooney – whose brother Tommy Nicol took his own life in prison in 2015, having lost hope of ever being released after serving two extra years over his four-year minimum tariff for a car robbery – had given a short, understated address. Words to the effect that the renewed interest in IPP was welcome, but there were still hundreds of people lingering in prisons across England and Wales. Her speech was greeted with the applause it deserved. I remember noting how impressively cool her performance was, and how hard won that control must have been.
On the orders of Mohammed bin Salman, Clifford Chance – a “magic circle” legal giant with headquarters in London – was reported to have facilitated the forced transfer of assets from a Saudi TV station to the government.
The University of Canberra’s Professor Kim Rubenstein is a constitutional law and citizenship expert. For years, Kim has argued federal parliament should allow for this. I asked her a few questions about this exciting development.
Why is this a news story? And why does it matter?
This is news because it is a new initiative in Australia – no two people have ever announced they are planning to nominate to run for Parliament as a job-sharing candidate in Australia before!
According to my research, this matters for two main reasons. These are:
Representative democracy
The way power is and should be exercised in parliament.
Job sharing broadens the pool of people who would consider running for Parliament, who may not have before because their lives do not enable them to work full time, or because they have other commitments that mean they don’t want to be a full time politician, but could do an excellent job in joining with another person in doing that role and bringing their own lived experiences into Parliament and being a representative.
This includes people with a disability, whose disability precludes them working full time and people with caring commitments that preclude them working full time.
The statistics are clear that the greatest percentage of people who work part time because of caring commitments are women, so this would open up the possibility of more women putting their hands up to represent their communities.
Also, more men who we want to encourage in a gender equal world to be sharing those caring commitments, and we want those men to also be able to bring that experience into Parliament).
It also includes people who want to live healthier balanced lives, and in that balance want to be contributors to representative democracy.
Indeed, the possibility of nominating to job-share the role of a representative in Parliament would enhance Australia’s constitutionally guaranteed system of representative democracy. Ultimately, the electorate still has to choose or vote for that job-sharing candidate – so like all other candidates this job-sharing candidate must be voted in.
Second, I think job-sharing would assist Parliament and society more broadly re-think how power should be exercised in society. We know that Parliament has not been a healthy institution and while there are excellent steps being taken to improve that culture, another important step would be modelling better forms of leadership and responsibility for exercising power on behalf of a community – whether it be an electorate in the House of Representatives or an entire State or Territory in the Senate.
Lucy Bradlow (left), Professor Kim Rubenstein (centre) and Bronwen Bock (right). Picture: Supplied
You’ve been a supporter of this concept for a long time (long before this story broke!). Can you elaborate on your view that job-sharing candidates are “entirely consistent” with the Australian Constitution? What specific provisions support this perspective?
Yes! I encourage your readers to spend a few minutes after reading this article, to look at my online published piece and the earlier BA piece!
The High Court of Australia has looked at the meaning of Representative Democracy in The Australian Constitution – and sections 7 and 24 have been relied on by the Court to say that the Constitution protects representative democracy, through the words of those sections that confirm that the people must ‘directly choose’ their representatives.
Job-sharing the role of a representative in the House of Representatives or Senator in the Senate fits entirely within and affirms those sections. Indeed, to prevent ‘the people’ from voting for a candidate running as a job-sharing candidate, would be inconsistent with those sections.
Moreover, the Constitution does not prescribe that people vote for a person – they vote for a representative, the office of Senator. You have to be a person to nominate – and each of the parts of the job-sharing candidate would need to fulfil the requirements in the Constitution – including not falling foul of section 44 (they can’t be dual citizens), like any other person deciding whether to nominate to be a representative in Parliament.
What specific changes to the electoral act would you advocate for to facilitate the nomination of joint candidates?
In principle, in my view and from my research, a job-sharing candidate could and can apply now as the Act stands. But practically, the nomination form to run for Parliament doesn’t provide a lot of space for the candidate to fill in their details – indeed, any person with a very long name, or multiple surnames would have difficulty filling in that nomination form.
That practical challenge doesn’t mean they can’t nominate – but it would be more straight forward and indeed a statement of affirmation of the value add of allowing people to consider nominating to run, to provide more space on the nomination form, which is part of the Electoral Act.
Are there any legal precedents or international examples that might inform the feasibility of job-sharing in political roles?
Yes! The idea itself is not new in the world – there has been a lot of attention to job-sharing in Parliament in the UK – in England in Wales, Northern Ireland and in Scotland – but this is a first in Australia.
For a few examples, you can check out what’s being done overseas here and here and here.
How do you think the introduction of job-sharing candidates could impact public trust and engagement in politics, especially in the context of voter disillusionment with major parties?
I think this would be significant in that regard. We have seen such a rise in distrust of politicians, and of those exercising power. There is a growing sense that the main motivation of those in power is to stay in power – and that it is all about those individuals and the parties maintaining their hold – having power over, rather than enabling power.
This initiative conceptually is reminding people more broadly that it is good to share power – and that much good comes from sharing power.
How would you address concerns that allowing job-sharing MPs could lead to “double representation” or confusion within the electorate?
I think this is all about communication – and indeed the current job-sharing candidate is paying attention to those issues in their Frequently Asked Questions about job sharing.
How important is it for job-sharing candidates to have a pre-written conflict resolution strategy? Can you elaborate on how this might work in practice?
Yes, this is something many people ask the job-sharing candidate! What if you don’t agree on everything. Again, this is a good example of broadening people’s thinking about decision making and coming to the best decision – the current job-sharing candidate has been very clear about how they will do this – and their elaboration is one way – but ultimately the electorate will need to be told this to convince them to vote for the job-sharing candidate!
In your opinion, how might the success or failure of job-sharing candidates influence future innovations in Australian political structures and practices?
I think as a society, we must think about the structures that are foundational and influence how we act towards one another, and how our rules are made that govern us in our everyday lives – ie they really do impact on us every day in so many ways.
Our constitutional system was set up in the 1800s for an Australia that is very different to the society we are living in now. Those structures may have provided us with some key democratic principles, but they need to be expressed in the here and now, with expectations from the lives of the people who they govern that are different to those in the 1800s.
I have written about this more broadly in constitutional terms about our multicultural society, about Australia’s relationship with First Nations, and indeed with the Monarchy.
I think enabling voters to think about and decide whether to choose to vote for a job-sharing candidate is the first step in helping all Australians to be active citizens – thinking about the best way to live together in a more harmonious society, and in thinking through the best ways to make the best decisions for our society as a whole.
Janine Jackson interviewed the Intercept‘s Shawn Musgrave about the voter fraud hoax as voter suppression, for the October 25, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: When you hear that Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to turn over valuable possessions, including a Manhattan penthouse, watches and a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey, to the two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of ballot tampering in the 2020 election, you might believe that, though the harm is ongoing, at least the lawyers who propped up Donald Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the 2020 vote have paid some kind of price.
And, indeed, catspaws like Sidney Powell, like John Eastman, have faced repercussions. But, our guest explains, not only is the scaffolding of Trump’s voter fraud hoax still standing, some key architects are still hard at work on it.
Shawn Musgrave is a media law attorney and reporter who serves as counsel to the Intercept, where you can find his recent piece, “Trump’s Big Lie Attorneys Are Back.” He joins us now by phone from here in town. Welcome to CounterSpin, Shawn Musgrave.
Shawn Musgrave: Thanks so much for having me on.
JJ: The key elements of the piece are right there in the lead:
Across battleground states, attorneys who helped former President Donald Trump undermine confidence in the 2020 election results are back at it, filing lawsuits that seed doubt in advance of this year’s outcome.
Let’s start with the lawsuits themselves, as lawsuits. What are the claims being made, and what can we say about those claims?
SM: So the lawsuits that I looked at fall into a couple of different buckets: one alleging the possibility of voter fraud for overseas ballots, under a federal law that helps US citizens abroad, including members of the military and their families, to vote. And in several states now, Republicans have filed last-minute lawsuits—with voting already going on, including overseas ballots—claiming that there’s a possibility of fraud using this mechanism.
And then the second bucket of lawsuits that I look at in this piece is another go-to boogeyman, which is the cybersecurity of voting machines. And the case that I look at is filed in Georgia over Dominion voting machines, which, again, were just one of the centerpieces of the election fights in court in 2020, and it looks like they will be again this year.
JJ: You note that these are last-minute lawsuits being put in there, but still, in terms of evidence, in terms of information, what can we say about, for example, fraud in overseas voting?
SM: So many of these lawsuits have already been rejected. They’ve been thrown out by courts, including [on] the basis that the people filing them did not show any evidence of actual fraud that had been happening. It’s all based on hypotheticals in the lawsuits themselves.
JJ: And the Dominion case, that’s not new news for folks. That’s also been kind of churned through, hasn’t it?
SM: The Dominion claims are very much recycled from 2020, and from other cases that were filed in between the 2020 cycle and now. And it just really underscores the fact that these are also many of the same attorneys who are trying to just recycle the legal playbook.
JJ: The big Big Lie attorney that you’re writing about in this piece is Cleta Mitchell. And so what should listeners know about her, and what she’s up to?
SM: Cleta Mitchell is very central to the election denial movement. And in 2020, she really came to prominence by being on the infamous call that Trump had with the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump asked the Georgia secretary to “find” a few thousand votes. Cleta Mitchell was advising Trump on that call, and she resigned from the law firm that she was at at the time, and then has really since made election integrity, so to speak, her entire brand.
And now, in terms of her involvement this cycle, she has given this pretty frank interview—not to me, but to a conservative radio host—describing her involvement in putting together and helping organize lawsuits over overseas ballots. And she said she struggled to find an attorney who was willing to file one, that was ultimately filed in Pennsylvania.
JJ: I guess there’s something heartening about that, actually, about the difficulty of finding attorneys who would line up behind what looks clearly to be a specious set of lawsuits. And, just as a detour, there is something about the abandonment of principle, the politicizing of the professions—doctors who can say, “Well, torture is OK,” and lawyers who can abandon ethical codes. It’s somehow different than just being a bad lawyer. It really feels like a giving over of the whole principles of the profession. So I guess I’m happy to hear that it’s not so easy to turn up attorneys who will sign on to that.
SM: That was in Pennsylvania, where Cleta Mitchell said she had a hard time finding anyone else to file it. In two other states, where the Republican National Committee were the ones filing, other attorneys were found.
JJ: Right. Well, then, to bring us back, there’s no evidence, as you’ve indicated, for these charges; they haven’t been able to put forward any evidence, and they weren’t in the previous incarnations of these. So maybe it’s time to recognize that evidence, and even winning the lawsuit, is not the point. What is the point, do you think, of these last-minute lawsuits?
SM: When I talk to election law experts, they certainly don’t think that the point of most of these suits is to win in court, to convince a judge that they have evidence to support the pretty drastic request that they’re asking a judge to give. In the overseas ballots cases, asking for a court order that state election officials set aside ballots that were received from people who went through the registration process as it was when their ballot was sent.
But that doesn’t seem to be the point, to convince the judge that they should win on this. It really does seem to be to essentially put out a press release, put together to look like a lawsuit, to sprinkle a little doubt into the public’s thinking about the election headed into November.
JJ: And so then maybe, if the Trump team—whatever happens, we don’t know—but if the Trump team decides to dispute the election results, well, then, those seeds of doubt have already been laid, and people will say, “Oh, I remember something from even before the election about overseas ballots being perhaps corrupt,” right? So it can be successful in its real goal, even if nothing at all happens in court, or if it gets thrown out.
Fox43 (10/30/24)
SM: And I should mention, in the same radio interview, Cleta Mitchell implied that she already had evidence, but none of it made it into the lawsuit. She told the conservative radio host that Democrats were encouraging people to fraudulently register using these overseas mechanisms. So the striking thing is what is said out of court versus what actually goes into the lawsuit itself. And I think, again, looking at what happened in 2020, same dynamic, is that people will point to the lawsuits, even though the lawsuits don’t have any actual proof of fraud, and use the filing of the lawsuit itself as its own form of proof, even though the lawsuit itself doesn’t contain proof.
JJ: Well, it’s very Joe McCarthy: “I have a list right here in my hand,” and it turns out to be a blank piece of paper. It doesn’t matter. People see him holding what he says is a list, and the impression is made.
Well, I don’t want to say that we don’t see any reporting that is acknowledging folks like Cleta Mitchell’s strategy as a strategy, as an intention of sowing doubt. The New York Times. just on October 22, had a piece on the “election denial network.” But I know that listeners will also have seen coverage that just says, “concerns raised about overseas voting,” and stories that, if you don’t read them carefully, or even if you do read them, the very fact that the story got written suggests that there’s that there’s a there there, that there’s a valid question, even if, “Oh, well, we looked into it, and actually it’s not grounded. There’s no evidence there.”
And I wonder, what do you, as a reporter as well as an attorney, see as the professional, critical way for journalists to engage this sort of campaign, that uses legal tools and legal language and legal mechanisms, but isn’t really about the legality? How do you cover that?
SM: I do think that it’s important for reporters to be clear-eyed about what the strategy is, which is to get coverage of the lawsuit just as a lawsuit, and put it into this neutral reportage territory. Like you said, “Concerns raised.” My typical one that drives me nuts is “lawsuit filed,” or something like that, that really just says what the claim was, without looking, as I am currently doing, at—consider the source, consider the lawyer who is willing to sign their name to this, and think about what that means.
The Times today actually had a good story about one of the attorneys that I’ve also writtenabout, Kurt Olsen, and his background. And he was deeply involved in 2020, in a number of different efforts, including trying to get the election fight straight to the Supreme Court, on a pretty ridiculous theory that was panned by legal experts. But I just remember coverage at the time really focusing just on the stakes, the Supreme Court weighing in, and painting it as if it were similar to what happened in Bush v. Gore, things like that, as opposed to the extraordinary way that the lawsuit arrived at the Supreme Court in 2020.
That’s sort of what I’m trying, not to be too grandiose, but to do a little bit of correcting on, just focus on the people that are involved, and the attorneys who are willing to put their law licenses on the line, and sign their name, and attest that everything in the papers is true, even when they have often a checkered track record on that front.
JJ: And not to draw you out on it too much, but it isn’t that reporters can’t consider the source, because in some other cases they say, “Oh, well, this is the ACLU,” or, “Oh, this is this other organization, so maybe we ought to put an asterisk next to that.” It isn’t that they can’t do that. It just seems that they don’t do that in the way that would always be most balanced, or most useful, when it comes to electoral politics, or something somehow changes when it gets to presidential electoral politics.
But let me just ask you for final thoughts, Shawn Musgrave, about the way—because it’s not going to go away—we have indicated that these lawsuits are coming in at the last minute, while folks are already voting, so clearly it’s a last-minute press, in many ways, that we might see even more coverage of going forward. What should we be keeping an eye out for? What would you like to see more of, or less of, as reporters cover this going forward?
Shawn Musgrave: “”People will…use the filing of the lawsuit itself as its own form of proof, even though the lawsuit itself doesn’t contain proof.”
SM: What I aim for, and what I think that other reporters should aim for too, is to take a moment on some of these stories, as so many of these lawsuits are flying, and look at trends. Look at, not just the parties who are named in the lawsuit itself, like the RNC, the DNC, ACLU, different voting rights groups, which are often very generically named, and try to look at the people who are actually working on them. Because I do think, seeing from the postmortem on 2020, the people really mattered, in terms of what strategies were followed, which lawyers Trump was listening to, which he was sidelining and ignoring, or forcing to resign.
We know from 2020 that the people who were working on particular lawsuits matter incredibly. And I think, going into the election and afterward, when there are absolutely going to be lawsuits of one kind or another, it’s important that readers understand who the people are, not just faceless attorneys. Because it mattered in 2020, and I assume it’ll matter again.
JJ: All right, well, thank you very much for that.
We’ve been speaking with media law attorney and reporter Shawn Musgrave. You can find the work we’re talking about at TheIntercept.com. Thank you so much, Shawn Musgrave, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
Law firm AS&H Clifford Chance failed to include alleged abuse of migrant workers in assessment for Fifa 2034 bid, say rights groups
A report by the Saudi arm of a global law firm on Saudi Arabia’s 2034 Fifa World Cup bid has “whitewashed” the Gulf kingdom’s record of exploiting and suppressing the rights of migrant workers, rights groups have claimed.
AS&H Clifford Chance was commissioned to independently assess the human rights implications of the bid, but the report “contains no substantive discussion of extensive and relevant abuses in Saudi Arabia”, according to a statement released by 11 organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Neil O’Brien’s simplistic plan isn’t really about antisocial behaviour. It’s a litany of rightwing gripes aimed at human rights
Some years ago, the Guardian introduced a feature, Dining across the divide, to show that it was still possible to disagree in a constructive manner. The idea was born at a time when it seemed politics was so polarised nothing could ever grow again on the ground between. Happily, it turns out there’s an appetite for common-ground stuff, illustrated not least by the ability of two middle-aged political podcasters determined to talk rationally to fill the O2 Arena, as Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart did a fortnight ago.
Working politicians are taking note. There’s a recognition that many voters don’t like being shouted at, or shouting at all. Take the lament that the Conservative MP Neil O’Brien posted on his Substack page a few days ago – reported by the BBC as a “plan to make Britain vaguely civilised again” – about the decline of orderliness on the streets of Britain. Here’s a surefire winner that’s bound to get everyone to agree. Not even the most effete liberal welcomes “people playing obnoxious music on public transport”, or the mass trip-hazard of abandoned ebikes and scooters on the pavement, or the kind of petty vandalism that makes so many city streets look neglected. He’s right that it’s unsettling and sometimes downright intimidating.
Anne Perkins is a writer and broadcaster, and a former Guardian correspondent
Janine Jackson: When you hear that Rudy Giuliani has been 
