Shocking The Conscience

An unforgettable chronicle from a groundbreaking journalist who covered Emmett Till's murder, the Little Rock Nine, and ten US presidents

The most commonly cited justification for international criminal law is that it addresses crimes of such gravity that they "shock the conscience of humanity." From decisions about how to define crimes and when to exercise jurisdiction, to limitations on defences and sentencing determinations, gravity rhetoric permeates the discourse of international criminal law. Yet the concept of gravity has thus far remained highly undertheorized. This book uncovers the consequences for the regime's legitimacy of its heavy reliance on the poorly understood idea of gravity. Margaret M. deGuzman argues that gravity's ambiguity may at times enable a thin consensus to emerge around decisions, such as the creation of an institution or the definition of a crime, but that, increasingly, it undermines efforts to build a strong and resilient global justice community. The book suggests ways to reconceptualize gravity in line with global values and goals to better support the long-term legitimacy of international criminal law.

The most commonly cited justification for international criminal law is that it addresses crimes of such gravity that they "shock the conscience of humanity." From decisions about how to define crimes and when to exercise jurisdiction, to limitations on defences and sentencing determinations, gravity rhetoric permeates the discourse of international criminal law. Yet the concept of gravity has thus far remained highly undertheorized. This book uncovers the consequences for the regime's legitimacy of its heavy reliance on the poorly understood idea of gravity. Margaret M. deGuzman argues that gravity's ambiguity may at times enable a thin consensus to emerge around decisions, such as the creation of an institution or the definition of a crime, but that, increasingly, it undermines efforts to build a strong and resilient global justice community. The book suggests ways to reconceptualize gravity in line with global values and goals to better support the long-term legitimacy of international criminal law.

Historically delineates the problems of genocide as a concept in relation to rival categories of mass violence.

This book is an in-depth examination of the much needed process of “self” study known as self observation. We live in an age where the “attention function” in the brain has been badly damaged by TV and computers-up to 90 percent of the public under age 35 suffers from attention-deficit disorder! This book offers the most direct, non-pharmaceutical means of healing attention dysfunction. The methods presented here are capable of restoring attention to a fully functional and powerful tool for success in life and relationships. This is also an age when humanity has lost its connection with conscience. When humanity has poisoned the Earth’s atmosphere, water, air and soil, when cancer is in epidemic proportions and is mainly an environmental illness, the author asks: What is the root cause? And he boldly answers: Failure to develop conscience! Selfobservation, he asserts, is the most ancient, scientific, and proven means to develop this crucial inner guide to awakening and a moral life. This book is for the lay-reader, both the beginner and the advanced student of self observation. No other book on the market examines this practice in such detail. There are hundreds of books on self-help and meditation, but almost none on self-study via self-observation, and none with the depth of analysis, wealth of explication, and richness of experience which this book offers. Red Hawk, author of 5 collections of poetry, was the Hodder Fellow at Princeton University (1992-93) and is currently a full professor at the University of Arkansas, Monticello. He has practiced self-observation for over 30 years, under the guidance of the Gurdjieff Society of Arkansas, meditation master Osho Rajneesh, and spiritual teacher, Lee Lozowick.

The most commonly cited justification for international criminal law is that it addresses crimes of such gravity that they "shock the conscience of humanity." From decisions about how to define crimes and when to exercise jurisdiction, to limitations on defences and sentencing determinations, gravity rhetoric permeates the discourse of international criminal law. Yet the concept of gravity has thus far remained highly undertheorized. This book uncovers the consequences for the regime's legitimacy of its heavy reliance on the poorly understood idea of gravity. Margaret M. deGuzman argues that gravity's ambiguity may at times enable a thin consensus to emerge around decisions, such as the creation of an institution or the definition of a crime, but that, increasingly, it undermines efforts to build a strong and resilient global justice community. The book suggests ways to reconceptualize gravity in line with global values and goals to better support the long-term legitimacy of international criminal law.

Within a few years of its first issue in 1951, Jet, a pocket-sized magazine, became the “bible” for news of the civil rights movement. It was said, only half-jokingly, “If it wasn’t in Jet, it didn't happen.” Writing for the magazine and its glossy, big sister Ebony, for fifty-three years, longer than any other journalist, Washington bureau chief Simeon Booker was on the front lines of virtually every major event of the revolution that transformed America. Rather than tracking the freedom struggle from the usually cited ignition points, Shocking the Conscience begins with a massive voting rights rally in the Mississippi Delta town of Mound Bayou in 1955. It’s the first rally since the Supreme Court’s Brown decision struck fear in the hearts of segregationists across the former Confederacy. It was also Booker’s first assignment in the Deep South, and before the next run of the weekly magazine, the killings would begin. Booker vowed that lynchings would no longer be ignored beyond the black press. Jet was reaching into households across America, and he was determined to cover the next murder like none before. He had only a few weeks to wait. A small item on the AP wire reported that a Chicago boy vacationing in Mississippi was missing. Booker was on it, and stayed on it, through one of the most infamous murder trials in US history. His coverage of Emmett Till’s death lit a fire that would galvanize the movement, while a succession of US presidents wished it would go away. This is the story of the century that changed everything about journalism, politics, and more in America, as only Simeon Booker, the dean of the black press, could tell it.