Va. Law Students Provide Research For Hussein Trial

"There are a lot of scholars who are waiting to see whether this [tribunal] is a train wreck or a success story," said Scharf, who is working with Malone, Laura Dickinson of the University of Connecticut School of Law and Michael Newton of Vanderbilt University Law School in an academic consortium. "The four of us were willing to roll the dice, get involved early." They hope that they'll be able to make it better, he said.

"Basically, these tribunals always are underfunded and understaffed and have really weak library resources," Scharf said. "We're a force multiplier. We act as junior attorneys would in their office." While others pore over millions of documents, testimony from thousands of witnesses and reports from hundreds of mass graves, some of the thorny legal issues are turned over to scholars in the United States from the Regime Crimes Liaison Office.

Every paper goes through multiple revisions with professors, who are experts in this field. Malone was co-counsel to Bosnia-Herzegovina in its genocide case against Serbia and Montenegro before the World Court, for example. Some papers don't go on to Iraq, Dickinson said. Only the best are sent.

Scharf tells his students the first day that if they're having doubts about the clinic, they should leave immediately. "It's like signing up for the military or something," he said. "You're on the hook."

At William and Mary, students worked in pairs to answer questions that they were told to keep confidential. They looked for precedents from other war crimes tribunals, in Nuremberg, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. They looked for Iraqi law. All the documents they found are attached to the papers and sent on, Scharf said; he remembers going to Rwanda and seeing an entire room devoted to his students' research, the pages dog-eared from use.

In some ways, students said, it's like any other monster research paper, with hour after hour in the library. But then there are the news bulletins. The trial started in October and lasted one day, with a belligerent Hussein pleading not guilty and tussling with guards. "Between then and now, two members of the defense team have been assassinated," said Ian Ralby, who graduated in the spring.

He found the research so compelling that he continued even after starting work at a Norfolk law firm. "I've learned a lot of substantive law," he said. "I've also learned how murky and emotionally challenging this type of work is. We're dealing with some really gruesome issues, and really unclear issues of justice and ethics."

Johnson said it has been fascinating, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. "One thing I've learned," he said, "is the most interesting things I do, I can't talk about."