Abstract
In an episode of the television show Law & Order recently broadcast in Finland, the setting was as follows: an African-American man snatches a taxi away from under the noses of two Caucasian men. The Caucasians hail another taxi, and order it to follow the first. After some 20 minutes, the first taxi stops, and its passenger gets out. Consequently, the other taxi stops as well, and one of the Caucasian men gets out (the other has gone home). The Caucasian approaches the black man and shoots him. Upon arrest, he claims to have acted out of racial hatred, and his lawyer argues before the court that his client should be in a mental institution because he seriously believes he is being persecuted by black people in general and thus is clearly delusional. The jury, however, finds the man sane and convicts him of murder in the second degree.
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Keywords
- Nuclear Weapon
- International Criminal
- International Criminal Tribunal
- Additional Protocol
- International Lawyer
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Notes
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© 2015 Jan Klabbers
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Klabbers, J. (2015). Off Limits? International Law and the Excessive Use of Force. In: Ziegler, D., Gerster, M., Krämer, S. (eds) Framing Excessive Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514431_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514431_13
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