Michael Ratner
Template:TOCnestleft Michael Ratner is an Attorney and Professor at Columbia Law School. He is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit organization that litigates civil and human rights cases. He has worked or been affiliated with the advocacy group since graduating from law school. He is also an attorney, lectures on international human rights litigation at Columbia Law School, and he is a lecturer and the Skelly Wright Fellow at Yale Law School.
Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit organization that litigates civil and human rights cases. He has worked or been affiliated with the advocacy group since graduating from law school.
Michael Ratner is also a past president of the National Lawyers Guild.[1]
Writing
Michael Ratner is the author of numerous books and articles, including the books Against War with Iraq and Guantanamo: What the World Should Know, a textbook on international human rights, and a leading book on Pinochet.[2]
Background
Michael Ratner was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1943 and is the brother of radio talk show host and Fox News contributor Ellen Ratner. He has said he still found delight in all battles, big and small. He pushes his two children to demonstrations and proudly explained that his daughter petitioned the Parks Department to change the swings in the local park from baby swings to children's swings. He just read "The Count of Monte Cristo," "a man who was jailed for no reason and went out and got revenge," to his son.
His wife of 16 years, Karen Ranucci, runs a nonprofit group that distributes Latin American videos to universities and educational institutions and works for Democracy Now, a syndicated radio and television program. They live in Greenwich Village. When he is not , he is fly-fishing in streams in upstate New York or exploring the foundations of old houses in the woods. As a boy growing up in Cleveland, he dreamed of being an archaeologist.[3]
Student activism
As a law student at Columbia University, Ratner was pushed to the ground and beaten by the police in 1968 as he and other students blocked the entrance to a building occupied by protesters. This would turn out to be one of those defining moments. Mr. Ratner, who would graduate second in his class, got up, looked at his bloodied fellow protesters and decided to become a rebel. "That night was crucial," he recently told a journalist. "An event like this created the activists of the next generation. I never looked back. I decided I was going to spend my life on the side of justice and nonviolence." [4]
Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights Bicentennial Celebration
On November 10, 1991 Michael Ratner was listed as a member of the 1991 Tribute Committee for the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights Bicentennial Celebration.[5]
Peace for Cuba Appeal
In 1994 Michael Ratner was an initiator of the International Peace for Cuba Appeal, an affiliate of the Workers World Party created International Action Center.
Other prominent initiators included Cuban Intelligence agent Philip Agee, academic Noam Chomsky, Congressman John Conyers and Charles Rangel[6].
Rosenberg Fund for Children
In 2003 Michael Ratner was on the Advisory Board of the Rosenberg Fund for Children[7].
Michael Ratner serves[8]on the Advisory Board of the Rosenberg Fund for Children.
Guantanamo
Ratner was co-counsel in representing the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States Supreme Court, where his clients won a major victory in June, 2004 that gave them theright to test the legality of their detentions.
In January, 2006, Ratner served as an expert witness at a 'tribunal' staged by the Bush Crimes Commission at Columbia University. He owns a baseball cap with the words "Guantanamo Bay Bar Association.”[9]
International activism
Michael Ratner has litigated numerous cases opposing US initiated wars from Central America to Iraq. He is assisting with the criminal complaint in the courts of Germany against U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials seeking the initiation of criminal prosecutions against them for the abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison.
Michael 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 successfully sued on behalf of victims of the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, for war crimes.[10]
Awards
In 2006 Ratner received the Lennon Ono Peace Grant from Yoko Ono on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights; the Letelier-Moffit award from the Institute for Policy Studies on behalf of the Center for Constiutional Rights and the NYC Jobs with Justice award.
He also won the Hans-Litten-Prize is awarded every two years by the VDJ, the German Association of Democratic Lawyers.
Ratner was chosen as the Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Trial lawyers for Public Justice. Other awards include The Columbia Law School Public Interest Law Foundation Award, the Columbia Law School Medal of Honor (January 21, 2005), the North Star Community Frederick Douglass Award and Honorary Fellow University of Pennsylvania Law School (May 16, 2005).
In 2006 the National Law Journal named Michael Ratner as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States. He also received the Brandeis University Alumni achievement award in 2006.[11]
Center for Constitutional Rights
Ratner serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Center for Constitutional Rights.[12]
Congressional Testimonies
Ratner submitted a prepared statement, in his role as the director of the marxist Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), in the hearings entitled "Break-Ins at Sanctuary Churches and Organizations Opposed to Administration Policy in Central America", House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, House Judiciary Committee, February 19 and 20, 1987, Serial No. 42.
References
- ↑ H a n s - L i t t e n – P r i z e A w a r d i n g 2 0 0 6 , B e r l i nT o M i c h a e l R a t n e r , N e w Y o r k
- ↑ H a n s - L i t t e n – P r i z e A w a r d i n g 2 0 0 6 , B e r l i nT o M i c h a e l R a t n e r , N e w Y o r k
- ↑ H a n s - L i t t e n – P r i z e A w a r d i n g 2 0 0 6 , B e r l i nT o M i c h a e l R a t n e r , N e w Y o r k
- ↑ H a n s - L i t t e n – P r i z e A w a r d i n g 2 0 0 6 , B e r l i nT o M i c h a e l R a t n e r , N e w Y o r k
- ↑ Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights Bicentennial Celebration Program, Nov. 10, 1991
- ↑ International Peace for Cuba Appeal - letterhead, Nov. 14, 1994
- ↑ Rosenberg Fund for Children Letterhead June 19 2003
- ↑ http://www.rfc.org/staffandboards
- ↑ H a n s - L i t t e n – P r i z e A w a r d i n g 2 0 0 6 , B e r l i nT o M i c h a e l R a t n e r , N e w Y o r k
- ↑ H a n s - L i t t e n – P r i z e A w a r d i n g 2 0 0 6 , B e r l i nT o M i c h a e l R a t n e r , N e w Y o r k
- ↑ H a n s - L i t t e n – P r i z e A w a r d i n g 2 0 0 6 , B e r l i nT o M i c h a e l R a t n e r , N e w Y o r k
- ↑ Board of Directors