Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 July 14

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July 14

Warren Buffet: luck or ability?

Question moved to the math desk (and I fixed the spelling in the title while I was at it). This is the sort of thing that can be sensibly answered only through statistics. --69.159.60.163 (talk) 04:36, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

The Death of Jean Charles de Menezes, and a coronial verdict of "unlawful killing".

At the coroners' inquest into the Death of Jean Charles de Menezes, according to our article:

On 2 December Sir Michael ordered the jury, shortly before it retired to consider its verdict, that they may not return one of 'unlawful killing,' leaving their options as 'lawful killing,' or an open verdict. Sir Michael said that the verdict could not be inconsistent with the earlier criminal trial. As well as the short form verdict of 'lawful killing' or 'open', Sir Michael also asked them to respond to three questions of fact, and nine possible contributory factors with simple 'yes,' 'no,' or 'cannot decide' answers.[87][88] The Menezes family lodged an immediate application for a judicial review of the decision

I'm puzzled with the reference to the "earlier criminal trial". Earlier on in our article it states:

In July 2006, the Crown Prosecution Service said that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any named individual Police officers in a personal capacity, although a criminal prosecution of the Commissioner in his official capacity on behalf of his Police Force was brought under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, on the failure of the duty of care due to Menezes. The Commissioner was found guilty and his office was fined.

So in other words, there was no earlier criminal trial of the officers who shot Jean Charles De Menzes. There was a court case against the police department, and it was found guilty. So how did the coroner reach the decision that a verdict of "unlawful killing" would be in any way inconsistent with some "earlier criminal trial", and thus not open to the jury? Eliyohub (talk) 17:56, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Because what the police, as an organisation, were found guilty of was not unlawful killing, but failure to protect. That was the verdict - the inquest had to be compatible with that. Wymspen (talk) 20:51, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

See Menezes verdict choice restricted, which quotes the coroner: "All interested persons agree that a verdict of unlawful killing could only be left to you [the jury] if you could be sure that a specific officer had committed a very serious crime - murder or manslaughter". Alansplodge (talk) 21:40, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Still doesn't seem to answer my question. The jury in the earlier trial found that the police commissioner bore no personal responsibility. It made no findings as to the two specific officers responsible for the actual shooting, did it? (They were not the ones on trial). So wouldn't it still be open to the jury to find that one or both of them committed murder or manslaughter? Eliyohub (talk) 10:06, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it's not very clear. The gist of the judge's remarks seem to be that it had already been established that "murder or manslaughter" had not been committed. Q&A: The Menezes inquest suggests that this was established by the first Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation known as Stockwell One, from which the Health & Safety trial originated. If I'm reading it correctly, Stockwell One concluded that Menezes had not been murdered, but that the broader public may have been put at risk. But I can't find anything that spells this out for us. Alansplodge (talk) 16:55, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

International enforcability of treaties with indigenous peoples

If a State, by treaty with the indigenous people whose territory it has proceeded to occupy, acknowledges that the territory is not Terra nullius, and thus conveys a degree of sovereignty on the indigenous peoples, would such a treaty be enforceable in the International Court of Justice?

We had a question yesterday about the Status of Native American treaties from before 1776. But I'm thinking about a different treaty - the Treaty of Waitangi. Could either of these sets of treaties (the American ones or the New Zealand ones) hold any binding standing in international law? Eliyohub (talk) 18:18, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Our article on Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice points out that the ICJ only gives rulings on disputes (so called Contentious issues) between states; either states that are members of the UN, or those that have "become parties to the Court's statute under the Article 93(2) procedure" (from the main ICJ article). Neither the Maori nor any Native American group would have that status. Also, from the Jurisdiction article, "The key principle is that the Court only has jurisdiction on the basis of consent. The court has no true compulsory jurisdiction", so the British or American governments would have to agree that the Court could rule on any matter. Rojomoke (talk) 20:44, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

New Zealand, not Britain, since sovereignty of the Crown in right of New Zealand is now separate. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:05, 15 July 2016 (UTC)