Michael Ratner (born 1943, Cleveland, Ohio) is an attorney and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York, New York.
Ratner is known for his human rights activism.
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 booksA Prosecution by Book, Against War with Iraq and What the World Should Know, as well as 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 and New Jersey Nets owner, Bruce Ratner. He is a 1966 graduate of Brandeis University. He received his law degree from Columbia Law School.
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 mock 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 US 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 try to stop the Gulf War, the Clinton administration to try to stop the strategic bombing during the Kosovo War, 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.
2009, Courage of Conviction Award on behalf of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights
2008, William J. Butler Human Rights Medal from the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights at the University of Cincinnati College of Law for leadership on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights for the defense of prisoners on Guantanamo.
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 is the President of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin and serves on the boards of non-profits including The Culture Project and The Brandeis Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life.
"Alberto Gonzales has his hand deep in the blood of the conspiracy of torture." Democracy Now! | Michael Ratner: 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?" washingtonpost.com: Statutes of Liberty
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."
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
2008 International Human Rights Litigation in U.S. Courts with Beth Stephens, Judith Chomsky, Jennifer Green, Paul Hoffman, ISBN 978-1571053534
2008 "The Prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book" ISBN 1595583416
Book chapters
2004, America's Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the "War on Terror" (with Barbara Olshansky and Rachel Meeropol), ISBN 1-58322-645-1
2006 “Civil Remedies for Gross Human Rights Violations” Human Rights in the World Community: Issues And Action (Richard Pierre Claude, Burns H. Weston) University of Pennsylvania Press
2003 “The War on Terrorism: Guantanamo Prisoners, Military Commissions and Torture” in Lost Liberties: Ashcroft and the Assault on Personal Freedom (edited by Cynthia Brown), The New Press
“International Law” (with Jules Lobel) Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralism and Global Strategy After September 11 (John Feffer), Seven Stories Press, 2003
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
2008 "The Lawyer’s Story” in The Coroma Textile Recovery Story
2007 “Guantanamo: Five Years and Counting” (with Sara Miles) Salon.com
2007 “War Criminals “Is Waterboarding Torture? Ask the Prisoners” Salon.com November 6, 2007
2007 “Above the Law” (with Sara Miles), Salon.com, March 31, 2007
2006 “Keep the Great Writ Alive” (with Sara Miles) Salon.com, September 26, 2006
2005 “Wrong About Rights” (with Sara Miles) Salon.com, November 10, 2005
