A “Grotian Moment” is a legal development that is so significant that it can create new customary international law or radically transform the interpretation of treaty-based law. The trial of Saddam Hussein is such a moment, and this Case Western School of Law blog is providing expert commentary on the legal and foreign policy implications of arguably the most important international trial since Nuremberg. The subject of the latest post is former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who is a member of Saddam’s defense team. The post’s author — Case Western international law professor Michael Scharf — notes the following:

Clark is known for turning international trials into political stages from which to launch attacks against U.S. foreign policy. He has represented Liberian political figure Charles Taylor during his 1985 fight against extradition from the United States to Liberia; Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a Hutu leader implicated in the Rwandan genocide; PLO leaders in a lawsuit brought by the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the wheelchair bound elderly American who was shot and tossed overboard from the hijacked Achille Lauro cruise ship by Palestinian terrorists in 1986; and most recently Slobodan Milosevic, the former leader of Serbia who is on trial for genocide before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Sounds just like your typical former U.S. Attorney General, doesn’t it? ;^)