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Ratner has published books and written newspaper articles about the Patriot Act, ]s, and civil liberties in the post 9/11 world. These writings include chapters in the books ''Disappeared in America'', ''Freedom at Risk'', ''It’s a Free Country'', ''Lost Liberties''. He authored a textbook on the case of ], a ]an who won a 1984 judgment against the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner for his son's murder in a US court. That case established a legal precedent{{Fact|date=July 2007}} now used frequently] by foreigners filing suit for alleged human rights abuses, under the ], in US courts. Ratner has published books and written newspaper articles about the Patriot Act, ]s, and civil liberties in the post 9/11 world. These writings include chapters in the books ''Disappeared in America'', ''Freedom at Risk'', ''It’s a Free Country'', ''Lost Liberties''. He authored a textbook on the case of ], a ]an who won a 1984 judgment against the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner for his son's murder in a US court. That case established a legal precedent{{Fact|date=July 2007}} now used frequently] by foreigners filing suit for alleged human rights abuses, under the ], in US courts.

==Controversy==
Michael's Brother, Bruce Ratner, heads Forest City Ratner a company which has been accused of having undue influence in New York politicians which has resulted in controversial building projects in Brooklyn, and of eminent Domain Abuse. Critics have accused Michael Ratner of making contributions to politicians that help his brother, to the extent where his offices are used for meetings and as 'drop offs' for campaign contributions including one to Roger Green who was indicted. In short, critics accuse Michael's concern for human rights ends where Ratner family interests begin:

''Michael Ratner and his wife, Karen Ranucci, both Greenwich Village residents, have recently made campaign contributions using Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn building as a return address. Ranucci has matched many of her husband's contributions. And Bruce Ratner's girlfriend, Pamela Lipkin, as well as other Ratner family members, have made contributions engineered by an FCR lobbying firm.''

"For Bruce and Michael, however, business in Brooklyn comes first. That's why Bruce's company has required gag orders of those selling property for the Atlantic Yards project, thus clamping down on criticism and even requiring sellers to say that Forest City Ratner treated them honorably.
That's why, even though Bruce and Forest City Ratner (FCR) stopped giving political contributions years ago - apparently to dispel suspicion that the donations helped win projects - Michael and his wife Karen Ranucci, the development director of left-wing radio show "Democracy Now," stepped in to fill the breach. Though residents of Greenwich Village, they reliably wrote checks to Brooklyn candidates from the county Democratic machine. Some contributions, according to state records, even had the return address of Forest City Ratner headquarters in Brooklyn. Michael, who apparently has an office there, owns a piece of the Nets, the sports team his brother wants to bring to Brooklyn. The extended Ratner family controls FCR's parent company, Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises."


==Recognition and board appointments== ==Recognition and board appointments==

Revision as of 14:34, 13 March 2008

Michael Ratner in front of the US Supreme Court

Michael Ratner (born 1943, Cleveland, Ohio) is an attorney, adjunct professor of law at Columbia University Law School, and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York, New York.

He was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, where, in June, 2004, the court decided his clients have the right to test the legality of their detentions in court. Ratner is also a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of numerous books and articles, including the books Against War with Iraq and Guantanamo: What the World Should Know, and a textbook on international human rights. Ratner is also the co-host of the radio program, Law and Disorder. He and three other attorneys host the Pacifica radio show that reports legal developments related to civil liberties, civil rights and human rights.

Ratner is the brother of radio talk show host and Fox News contributor Ellen Ratner as well as New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner.

Academic, activist, attorney and author

Press conference with Amnesty International and CCR in front of the US Supreme Court, 2006

Teaching posts

Ratner has been teaching law since the early 1970s. Currently, he lectures on international human rights litigation at Columbia Law School, and he was a lecturer and the J. Skelly Wright Fellow at Yale Law School.

Activism

Ratner opposes Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse and the Iraq War. In January 2006, he served as an expert witness at a 'tribunal' staged by the Bush Crimes Commission at Columbia University.

Civil liberties and human rights counsel

Ratner has litigated several cases opposing US initiated wars from Central America to Iraq. In 2006 he filed a criminal complaint in the courts of Germany requesting the criminal prosecution of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials for the abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison.

Ratner served as a special counsel to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, assisting in the prosecution of human rights crimes. Ratner sued the George H. W. Bush administration to stop the Gulf War, the Bill Clinton administration to stop the bombing of Kosovo, and he won a case on behalf of victims of the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, for war crimes.

The Center for Constitutional Rights

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which Ratner leads, states that its mission it to defend civil liberties in the US. The group's efforts have included a legal challenge to the USA PATRIOT Act and a lawsuit on behalf of post 9/11 immigration detainees in the US. The Center also representated Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was sent, or rendered, to Syria, where he was tortured. Ratner and his office have also sued two private military contracting companies in Iraq, alleging their employees were involved in the abuses and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.


Writings

Ratner has published books and written newspaper articles about the Patriot Act, military tribunals, and civil liberties in the post 9/11 world. These writings include chapters in the books Disappeared in America, Freedom at Risk, It’s a Free Country, Lost Liberties. He authored a textbook on the case of Joel Filartiga, a Paraguayan who won a 1984 judgment against the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner for his son's murder in a US court. That case established a legal precedent now used frequently] by foreigners filing suit for alleged human rights abuses, under the Alien Tort Claims Act, in US courts.

Controversy

Michael's Brother, Bruce Ratner, heads Forest City Ratner a company which has been accused of having undue influence in New York politicians which has resulted in controversial building projects in Brooklyn, and of eminent Domain Abuse. Critics have accused Michael Ratner of making contributions to politicians that help his brother, to the extent where his offices are used for meetings and as 'drop offs' for campaign contributions including one to Roger Green who was indicted. In short, critics accuse Michael's concern for human rights ends where Ratner family interests begin:

Michael Ratner and his wife, Karen Ranucci, both Greenwich Village residents, have recently made campaign contributions using Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn building as a return address. Ranucci has matched many of her husband's contributions. And Bruce Ratner's girlfriend, Pamela Lipkin, as well as other Ratner family members, have made contributions engineered by an FCR lobbying firm.

"For Bruce and Michael, however, business in Brooklyn comes first. That's why Bruce's company has required gag orders of those selling property for the Atlantic Yards project, thus clamping down on criticism and even requiring sellers to say that Forest City Ratner treated them honorably. That's why, even though Bruce and Forest City Ratner (FCR) stopped giving political contributions years ago - apparently to dispel suspicion that the donations helped win projects - Michael and his wife Karen Ranucci, the development director of left-wing radio show "Democracy Now," stepped in to fill the breach. Though residents of Greenwich Village, they reliably wrote checks to Brooklyn candidates from the county Democratic machine. Some contributions, according to state records, even had the return address of Forest City Ratner headquarters in Brooklyn. Michael, who apparently has an office there, owns a piece of the Nets, the sports team his brother wants to bring to Brooklyn. The extended Ratner family controls FCR's parent company, Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises." The Ratner campaign money trail leads to... Michael (& his wife)

Recognition and board appointments

  • 2007, The Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship
  • 2006, The National Law Journal named Ratner as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States.
  • 2006, Honored as the Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
  • 2006, Brandeis University Alumni achievement award;
  • 2006, Lennon Ono Peace Grant from Yoko Ono on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights
  • 2006, Winner of the Letelier-Moffit award from the Institute for Policy Studies on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the NYC Jobs with Justice award.
  • 2006, Winner of Hans Litten Prize, named after a famous anti-fascist lawyer who was tortured to death by the Nazis. Awarded in Berlin
  • 2005, Winner of The Columbia Law School Public Interest Law Foundation Award, and the Columbia Law School Medal of Honor
  • 2005, Winner of the North Star Community Frederick Douglass Award, and Honorary Fellow University of Pennsylvania Law School
  • 2005, Winner of the Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Award

Ratner serves on boards of non-profits including The Culture Project and The Brandeis Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life.

Quotes related to human rights

  • "Alberto Gonzales has his hand deep in the blood of the conspiracy of torture."
  • "Can the United States pick up people anywhere in the world, take them to an offshore prison camp and not have any hearings at all and keep them forever and basically wipe out court review of those cases? That's really significant. Are we going to be a state that's ruled by law and by checks and balances and the Constitution and human rights?"
  • Guantanamo is "an offshore Devil's Island has no place in a country that claims it abides by the rule of law. The test now is to see if the Democrats cut the funding off for this human rights abomination."

Publications

  • 1996, International Human Rights Litigation in U.S. Courts (with Beth Stephens), Transnational Publishers, ISBN 0-941320-95-2
  • 1997, Che Guevara and the FBI: U.S. Political Police Dossier on the Latin American Revolutionary, Ocean Press, ISBN 1-875284-76-1
  • 2000, The Pinochet Papers: The Case of Augusto Pinochet in Spain and Britain (with Brody), Kluwer
  • 2003, Against War with Iraq: An Anti-War Primer (with Jennie Green and Barbara Olshansky), Open Media, ISBN 1-58322-591-9
  • 2004, Guantanamo: What the World Should Know (with Ellen Ray), Chelsea Green Publishing Company, ISBN 1-931498-64-4

Book chapter

  • 2004, America's Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the "War on Terror" (with Barbara Olshansky and Rachel Meeropol), ISBN 1-58322-645-1

Articles

  • 1988, "Freedom at Risk; It's a Free Country: Secrecy, Censorship, and Repression in the 1980s" (edited by Richard O. Curry),Temple University Press
  • 1998, "How We Closed the Guantanamo HIV Camp: The Intersection of Politics and Litigation"
  • 1999, "Bypassing the Security Council: Ambiguous Authorizations to Use Force, Cease Fires, and the Iraqi Inspection Regime, (with Lobel)
  • 2003, "Lost Liberties: Ashcroft and the Assault on Personal Freedom (edited by Cynthia Brown), The New Press

External links

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