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4.2.12
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charges and he sought my help, which I was pleased to give. Eventually, he was cleared of all charges and continued to practice law in the newly united Germany.

Human rights in Israel

A human rights case that surely tested my commitment to universal rights involved an Arab-Israeli who was accused by Israel of assisting terrorism. He was being held in administrative detention, instead of being formally charged with a crime. I was in Israel at the time writing a long article on the practice of administrative detention (or as Americans call it “preventive detention”). I was critical of the practice though I understood why some Israelis believed it was necessary to combat terrorism. After meeting the Israeli-Arab in the detention center and reviewing his case, I concluded that his detention was unjustified. I met with Israeli officials and urged them to reconsider his case. They did, and they released him. He moved to Lebanon where he became an active member of the more moderate wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization. To my knowledge, he has never engaged in any acts of terrorism.

I helped several other Palestinian prisoners and detainees as well. I also wrote critically of and litigated against several Israeli policies, including the use of unacceptable interrogation methods, the overuse of wiretaps, religious discrimination against women, and de facto discrimination against Israeli Arabs. Since the early 1970s, I have been a vocal and persistent opponent of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. And after the war in Lebanon, I protested the use of cluster bombs that, though lawful, unduly endanger the lives of civilians. I have never believed that my strong, general support of Israel is in any way inconsistent with my opposition to, and criticism of, specific Israeli policies which violate neutral principles of human rights.

Human rights and wrongs in China

In 1979, Senator Edward Kennedy asked me to travel to China and report back to him on the condition of human rights. The cultural revolution was just ending, and the first sparks of freedom were being ignited at a place in Beijing called “Democracy Wall,” where dissidents gathered and posted anonymous notes. I was to be one of the first human rights advocates allowed into what had long been a closed society. Senator Kennedy, with whom I worked closely on numerous human rights issues, was the key to why I was invited not only to visit prisoners and courtrooms, but also to lecture on criminal law in several of China’s most important universities. Although I was invited to lecture exclusively on technical aspects of criminal law, in order to help China develop a modern penal code, I managed to smuggle some discussion of human rights into my lectures.

During my visit to several prisons, I learned about a legal provision that seemed unique to China. When the sentence of death was imposed for certain types of crimes, the condemned prisoner was sent to a particular institution to await execution. After about a year, half of the condemned would actually be executed, while the other half would be spared. All the condemned were competing against each other in a zero sum game, in which the stakes were life and death. The “winners” were selected not only on the basis of good behavior—needless to say, everyone in this high stakes game was on their best behavior—but also on their commitment to Maoism and their “worthiness” to live.

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