In the case of “al Bahlul v. United States” the DC Circuit Court upheld the right of the federal government to try an al Qaeda terrorist by military tribunal and rejected the petitioner’s challenge to his conviction. Petitioner claimed that his conviction on conspiracy charges was a violation of international law because there is no crime of conspiracy in international law. The court held the conviction was in accordance with the U.S. Constitution which empowers Congress, not international law, with defining what offenses violate the law of war. The amici curiae brief filed by the Allied...

Approximately 15 million civil cases are filed each year in the United States. The purpose of filing a civil case is to seek an award, often money, for “torts” or harms suffered by an individual, group, business or organization from an individual, group, business, or organization. Awards or “damages” can either be compensatory, reimbursing you for an amount lost, and/or punitive, to punish the offender and prevent them from harming again. Civil cases may be more likely than criminal cases to result in an award since evidence of intentional harm is not necessary and only a “prepondera...