News---Battlefield of Glendale Virginia on the Block for $4.1 Million: Civil Preservation Trust's Final Push for the Last $1.1 Million

“Never, before or after, did the fates put such a prize within our reach. It is my individual belief that on two occasions in the four years, we were within reach of military successes so great that we might have hoped to end the war with our independence…the first was at Bull Run [in] July ’61…this [second] chance of June 30th ’62 [at Glendale] impresses me as the best of all.” – Brigadier General Edward Porter Alexander, CSA

A year ago in October, Jim Lighthizer asked for funds to purchase "319 acres of hallowed ground at Frayser’s Farm / Glendale, just outside of Richmond, Virginia, at a total purchase price of $4.1 million." A year later he explains the good news and bad news of the situation on The Civil War Preservation Trust's website.

"The good news is that you and your fellow members have been so generous that we have been able to raise $3 million of the $4.1 million. The bad news is that – with the economy as it is right now, and with the downturn in year-end giving I am already bracing for – I am concerned about what will happen if we cannot raise the remaining $1.1 million by June 2009, just eight months away. That is when we must make our final payments to the landowners, who already generously gave us two years interest-free to give us time to raise funds to save this hallowed ground."

Lighthizer gives two very compelling reasons why it is in the best interest to finish paying off this effort as soon as possible:

"First, while I cannot divulge any details just yet, I can tell you it is possible – even likely – that we will have an opportunity to save even more core hallowed ground at Glendale in 2009, pushing us even closer to completely saving this battlefield. Second, the developers are in a frenzy to buy open land right now. Here is a copy of yet another letter we recently received from a sneaky developer (posing as a local individual buyer, complete with computer-generated handwriting), offering to purchase part of the Glendale battlefield from us! You know if they are targeting us, they are targeting the other local landowners, too! The pressure is on! And while we pride ourselves on being able to multiply your generosity through matching grants, Glendale presents its own challenges. Let me explain . . .

You see, the difficulty is that because of the way the official National Park Service boundary lines are drawn, these 319 acres are considered to be “inside the boundary” of the Richmond National Military Park (even land inside a park boundary can be owned by private landowners). Unfortunately, in this case, that means we cannot apply for any federal matching funds. (The original intent of the federal Civil War Battlefield Protection Program only allows us to use these special funds to protect hallowed ground that is “outside of park boundaries.”)

Also, even though the Commonwealth of Virginia recently set up a $5-million matching grant program to save Civil War battlefield land, this particular transaction happened too far in the past to be eligible for those funds – it cannot be “grandfathered” in! And of course, in the Richmond suburbs, land-hungry developers are still encroaching from every point on the compass, even given the downturn in the housing market. They are looking to “buy and hold.”

"So where does that leave us? It means if the heart of the Glendale battlefield is going to be truly saved for future generations to learn from and enjoy, just as you and I enjoy Vicksburg or Antietam today . . . then you and I are going to have to save it on our own."

CWL: The Pennsylvania Reserve Division was in the middle of the battle. As a matter of fact, the Rebel with the flag on the Union artillery piece was shot to death within seconds of getting on the canon by the Pennsylvania Reserve regiments. CWL happens to be a Pennsylvania Reserve reenactor; the Ninth Pennsylvania Reserves, a reenactment unit founded in 1981, of which I am on the executive board, contributed $100 to the CWPT in January of this year for the Glendale battlefield. I'll ask the unit again to send another $100 this year.

News---2009: Happy 200th Birthday Mr. President!

Myriad Events Planned to Honor 16th President, Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post,October 31, 2008.

The items he had in his pockets the night he was assassinated. The bullet that killed him. The pearl jewelry his wife wore. The kind of oysters he liked to eat. His speeches, sayings, health, clothing. The 60 books about him set to be published in the next 18 months. Abraham Lincoln, who carried a penknife, wore a patched vest and mended his eyeglasses with string, would have been mortified at the fuss. But starting next week, the District will kick off its part of the year-long global celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth on Feb. 12, 1809. No aspect of his existence, it seems, will go unexplored.

Yesterday, tourism, museum and government officials previewed some of the 80 exhibits, lectures, tours and programs that will be part of the city's celebration of the Lincoln Bicentennial, "Living the Legacy: Lincoln in Washington DC." The preview, at the Smithsonian Institution's American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, was attended by two Lincoln impersonators, who noted that 50 "top hats" from their Association of Lincoln Presenters will be coming to town for their annual convention in April. "It would be nice to have him back," impersonator Jim Rubin, a retired psychologist from Prosperity, W.Va., said of the 16th president. Despite his whiskers, Rubin looked as much like Franklin D. Roosevelt as he did like Lincoln.

Washington has a vast trove of Lincoln artifacts and much of it is being pulled from archives, to be scrutinized, bathed and readied for what is likely to be a focal point of the bicentennial. The Library of Congress, for example, has the Lincoln presidential papers. It has a set of first lady Mary Todd Lincoln's pearl and gold jewelry. It has the penknife, mended eyeglasses, wallet and Confederate bill that Lincoln had in his pockets the night he was assassinated at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. The library also has a copy of the Gettysburg Address as well as the short but moving speech Lincoln gave as president-elect when he left his home in Springfield, Ill., for Washington.

These, as well as historic letters from Lincoln to his Civil War generals, will be part of a huge library exhibit opening Feb. 12. Conservators have started studying the items for display, many of which have grown fragile over the years. On Wednesday, senior paper conservator Mary Elizabeth Haude displayed a draft of the May 23, 1860, letter Lincoln penned accepting the Republican Party's presidential nomination. Haude noted that the three-paragraph letter was written with iron gall ink, which over time corrodes paper. And in places where Lincoln crossed out a word, the excess ink has eaten tiny gashes in the paper.

Haude said the document would probably be bathed to remove any residual iron and perhaps patched with delicate long-fibered paper. The National Museum of American History, which reopens next month after an $85 million renovation, will display the White House copy of the Gettysburg Address, followed in January by two major Lincoln exhibitions. Next Friday, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery will unveil "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln," which will feature the haunting, rarely seen original Alexander Gardner photograph of a care-worn Lincoln taken a few months before he was assassinated.

Easter Sunday, April 12, will see a reenactment of opera singer Marian Anderson's 1939 performance on Easter at the Lincoln Memorial, featuring mezzo soprano and Washington native Denyce Graves. And the Lincoln Memorial will be rededicated on Memorial Day. Ford's Theatre, where the assassination took place, will reopen in February after a $50 million renovation, although its refurbished museum, containing the clothing Lincoln wore the night of his death, won't reopen until spring. The National Museum of Health & Medicine, which has the bullet that killed the president, plans an exhibit on his death. The Lincoln Cottage, on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, which Lincoln used as a getaway, will unveil an exhibit on Lincoln collections in February.

And the Smithsonian American Art Museum, on Jan. 31, will re-create Lincoln's famous second inaugural ball, which was held in the museum building March 6, 1865. There are an estimated 60 books being published about Lincoln in the next 18 months, according to the national Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. Symposiums are planned in France, England and India. Even Lincoln's food tastes will be celebrated. William A. Hanbury, president of Destination DC, said yesterday that local restaurants plan to serve a Lincoln favorite: scalloped oysters.

Top Photo: Alexander Gardner's 1865 "cracked plate" photograph of Abraham Lincoln. (Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

Second Photo: Lincoln, February 1860, NYC, at the time of the Cooper Union Address (LOC)

Text and Top Photo Source: Washington Post, October 31, 2008

Deja Vu in the Congo

As 45,000 Congolese flee the internally displaced persons camp near Goma where they sought refuge, it's become clear that the festering wound of the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has once again burst open. The political origins of the crisis are too complex to go into here (or, quite frankly, for yours truly to understand); suffice to say that the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC have been the epicenter of massive refugee flows since 1994. Though I've never been, I have vivid pictures of the beauty of Lake Kivu and its surrounding region in my head, imprinted by my earliest asylum clients, who had fled the area after the violence resulting from the Rwandan genocide. After the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front gained control of Rwanda, the Hutus fled into the Kivus, resulting in years of border skirmishes and at least two wars between the Hutus and Tutsis on either side of the border. MONUC, the UN Mission in the DRC, has been in place (under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter) for nearly ten years, since 1999. Today, 850 Indian soldiers from MONUC are the only military force in Goma, as the government soldiers have fled and the rebels have announced a unilateral cease fire before taking Goma so that civilians can flee. While the European Union "considers all options" and the UN sends in 80 more Guatemalan soldiers from its 17,000 strong MONUC forces, by all accounts chaos has broken out in Goma, and its population is forced to flee once more.
And so it's deja vu all over again; the bitter internecine tribal feuds, the hand-wringing and delays on the part of the international community, the neighboring countries all too eager to get involved in return for their share of mineral wealth, and the suffering of the residents of the region, particularly the women and girls, who have been sexually assaulted by all comers including UN troops. The crisis highlights the impotence of international law in controlling, accounting for, and preventing such atrocities; the law is simply overwhelmed by the short-term self-interest of all of the power players involved. (map credit)
How can we put an end to the vicious cycles of violence that have plagued the Eastern Congo for nearly fifteen years? Can we possibly put this Humpty back together again? In an ideal world, we would seek a solution both more local and more global than those we've seen thus far (posted about here and here and discussed in IntLawGrrl Elena Baylis' excellent article here); more local in that it would be rooted in relevant moral authority and speak to all sides in the conflict and more global in that it would recognize the culpability of all players -- including other nations -- in creating and perpetuating the violence in the Eastern Congo. But all the king's horses and all the king's men have a long way to go before we can even begin to think about post-conflict justice for Goma.

Write On! Cutting-edge papers for ASIL

(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers.) In preparation for its next annual meeting, to be held March 25-28, 2009, in Washington, D.C., the American Society of International Law has issued a call for abstracts of papers to be presented at a "Cutting Edge Panel." Papers must relate to the conference theme, "International Law as Law."
All applicants -- students as well as junior and senior practitioners and academics -- are invited to submit proposals to be reviewed in a competitive selection process. Selected speakers must be Society members by the time of their presentation. Strong preference will be given to papers not already published.
To enter, submit:
► a 1,000-to-2,000-word abstract of the paper (applicants who've already completed their paper are welcome but not required to submit it at this time);
► a statement of 200 or fewer words explaining the stage of progress of the paper (e.g., yet to be drafted, fully drafted but not yet accepted for publication, accepted for publication, published);
► contact information; and
► a statement of whether the applicant would or would not also like to be considered for a new poster session format.
Details here. Submissions should be e-mailed to 2009annualmeeting@asil.org by the deadline of December 1, 2008.

On October 31

On this day in ...

... 1883 (125 years ago today), Marie Laurencin was born in Paris. Her mother sent the teenaged Marie to Sèvres, home of a famed porcelain-painting factory. When she returned to Paris she entered an art academy and became acquainted with artists who would form the Cubist School, among them Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, and Guillaume Apollinaire. Her own paintings featured "mainly lyrical motifs like graceful, dreamy young girls in pastel coloring and soft shading," a "color-sensitive inventiveness" that "leads to a variation of repetitions of form and motifs." "During World War I Laurencin took refuge in Spain where, feeling painfully exiled, she produced few works. " In addition to her paintings, Laurencin is known for designing sets for Serge Diaghilev's ballets and for illustrating a 1930 edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. She died in Paris in 1956. (credit for photo of Laurencin; credit for her 1923 painting, "Portrait of Mademoiselle Chanel")

... 1968 (40 years ago today), in a televised speech dubbed an "October Surprise," U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he was halting "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective the next day. Five days later, Johnson's preferred successor, his Vice President Hubert Humphrey, lost the Presidential election to Richard M. Nixon (right), the Republican who had served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Vice President in the previous decade. The Vietnam War continued for another 7 years.

Breaking News! Taylor (Chuckie) Convicted

CNN has just reported the conviction of Charles "Chuckie" Taylor, Jr. for torture and conspiracy to commit torture, the first conviction ever under the U.S. statute providing for universal jurisdiction over acts of torture. (The courtroom sketch at right is from the CNN blurb). The statute in question (18 U.S.C. sec. 2340) provides:

(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit
torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.

(b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—

(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.


(c) Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

We've discussed the case before here. Now we know it can be done.

Kamera skannerina


Ainoa omistamani skanneri on halpis tasomallinen Canon Lide 25, jolla voi hätätilassa digitoida paperikuvia tai muita paperilla olevia kuviota, kuten kirjoitusta. Valokuvien skannausjälki on oikeastaan ihmeen hyvä tällaiselle halpamallille. Negojen tai diojen skannaus tuolla härvelillä ei tietenkään onnaa. Pengoin vanhoja negojani ja halusin niistä muutaman numeeriseen muotoon. Nuo nimenomaiset negat olivat 120-filmille kuvattuja ja kooltaan 6x6 cm, joten ihan tavallinen filmiskannerikaan ei kelpaisi.
Päätin kokeilla valokuvaamalla. Laitoin negan valopöydälle, maskasin mustalla pahvilla kuvattavan ruudun ja kuvasin. Käytin 35 mm objektiivia, koska se sattui olemaan kamerassa kiinni :-) Laiskana kuvasin käsivaralta aukolla 4, jolloin ajaksi tuli 1/125 sekuntia ISO 500:lla. Lähimmällä tarkennusetäisyydellä nega ei täyttänyt koko ruutua, mutta lopputulos on kooltaan n. 1800 pikseliä kanttiinsa, joka riittää pieniin tulosteisiin ja nettiin aivan hyvin.
Negan kääntäminen posaksi voi olla hankalaa, mutta selvisin siitäkin kohtuullisen vaivattomasti. Kuvasin RAWia, tietenkin, ja Lightroomissa otin pipetillä valkotasapainon värinegan punaisen ruskeasta pohjasävystä. Avasin sitten kuvan Photoshopissa, jossa käänsin negan posaksi invert-komennolla. Värit menivät lähes kohdalleen ja pieni väribalanssin hienosäätö lisättynä pienellä kurvien kääntelyllä asettivat väriskaalan suht hyvin tasapainoon.
Tämä on kohtuullisen toimiva keino satunnaiseen negojen digitointiin, jos ei satu omistamaan filmiskanneria. Makro-objektiivilla ja jalustalla saa paremman tarkkuuden sekä myös kinonegat tallennettua.
Huomenna kerron miksi reprosin vanhoja negojani ja näytän myös muutaman lopputuloksen. 

Panoraama



Panoraamakuvien tekeminen on ihan oma lajinsa, jota olen tosi vähän harrastanut. Nykyään panoraamoja tehdään yleisimmin liittämällä monta kuvaa toisiinsa, mutta filmiaikoina piti olla tarkoitukseen oma kamera. Minullakin on venäläinen panoraamakamera, mutta siinä valovuoto, johon en ole vaivautunut syventymään ja vehje on lähinnä kerännyt pölyä komerossa.
Kuvien liittäminen toisiinsa on kiinnostava vaihtoehto panoraaman tekemisessä, koska siinä ei tarvita ainakaan erikoista rautaa. Panoraamojen tekoon on hommaa varten kehiteltyjä ohjelmia, jotka tekevät kuvien yhdistelyn automaattisesti tai ainakin melkein. Olen joskus vuosia sitten kokeillut yhdistellä kuvia käsipelillä Photoshopissa, mutta se on kyllä lähinnä kehnoa ajanvietettä, jos aihe on valkoista seinää monimutkaisempi. Nykyisin Photoshopissa on erityinen panoraamatyökalu, jolla kuvat liittyvät toisiinsa käsipeliä helpommalla.
Latasin Panorama Factoryn testiversion ja tein muutaman pikaisen kokeilun. Kuvasin Porvoon vanhassa kaupungissa jalustaa käyttäen kuusi pystykuvaa, jotka yhdistin mainitulla ohjelmalla. Kuvakulma on noin 130 astetta.  Lopputulos yllätti, sillä jopa puiden oksat osuivat kohdilleen eikä mitään hienosäätöjä tarvinnut tehdä. Kaikki ihan automaattisesti. 
Seuraavaksi kokeilin yhdistää Pariisin upealla Pére-Lachaisen hautausmaalla kuvaamani sarjan kuvia. Kuvakulma tässä on noin 180 astetta. Nämä kuvat otin käsivaralla ja sarjassa on kahdeksan pystykuvaa. Homma ei mennyt enään ollenkaan putkeen ja haamukuvia tuli sinne ja tänne. Kokeilin käsin säädellä kuvien liitoskohtia, mutta homma tuntui aivan liian vaikealta, koska halusin hienoa heti ja äkkiä. Avasin samat kuvat Photshopin panoraamatyökaluun, jolla hyväksyttävä tulos syntyi napin painalluksella.
Tämä pikainen kokeilu on täysin epätieteellinen ja suosittelen testaamaan Panorama Factorya, jonka kokeiluversio on täysin toimiva, mutta tekee vesileiman kuvan keskelle. Jalusta on erittäin suositeltava varuste ja jos panorointiin hurahtaa ihan täysillä, niin sitten hankintaan menee panoraamapää, jolla kuvauksen voi tehdä tieteellisellä tarkkuudella. Käsivarallakin voi kuvata, jos vaikka lomalla sattuu sopiva kohde eteen eikä jalusta ole kainalossa juuri sillä hetkellä. Kamera täytyy pitää suorassa ja valotus tietenkin vakiona kaikissa kuvissa, myös jalustalla kuvatessa. 
Panoraamakuvat ovat komean näköisiä ja sopivia kohteita löytyy helposti. Kannattaa kokeilla.

News---Georgia Builds Civil War Heritage Museum at Resaca Battlefield For $3 Million

Georgia To Build Civil War Visitor CenterResaca Battlefield State Historic Site To Open In 2010, The Citizen, October 28, 2008.

In anticipation of the American Civil War’s sesquicentennial (2011-2015), the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has broken ground on the future Resaca Battlefield State Historic Site in Gordon County. During an Oct. 27 ceremony, Civil War re-enactors fired musketry on the site for the first time in 144 years. Resaca Battlefield State Historic Site will serve as Georgia’s gateway to its numerous Civil War attractions.

Located just off I-75 near the Georgia/Tennessee border, its strategic location welcomes casual visitors as well as history buffs as they enter the state — helping generate tourist dollars for not only Gordon County, but all of Georgia. According to the 2000 Georgia Traffic Flow Map, nearly 56,000 vehicles pass the site daily. Visitors to Resaca Battlefield State Historic Site will learn about the battle of Resaca, then gather information for traveling on to Kennesaw Battlefield, Andersonville National Historic Site, Pickett’s Mill Battlefield State Historic Site, Fort McAllister Historic Park, Fort Pulaski National Monument and other locations.

“Because of its location near a major interstate, this new visitor center has the potential to bring many more tourists into Georgia, generating revenue for our communities,” said State Representative John Meadows. “I’d like to particularly thank Governor Sonny Perdue, DNR Commissioner Noel Holcomb and the Friends of Resaca Battlefield for their efforts on this project.” During the ceremony, the Friends of Resaca Battlefield presented a $10,000 donation to the DNR for building the visitor center. The donation was made possible in part by a grant from the Calhoun Gordon County Community Foundation, an affiliate member of the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia.

“Today’s groundbreaking ceremony is a dream come true,” said Friends President Ken Padgett. “It represents more than a decade of work by our members, state legislators and many other agencies.” Resaca Battlefield State Historic Site will open in 2010 and will include interactive displays, artifacts, retail and a theater. The project is funded with $3 million in bond funds. Between 2000 and 2003, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources purchased 512.85 acres of the battlefield site and has a conservation easement on an additional 61.74 acres. The Department of the Interior has recognized this historic battlefield as one of 25 sites chosen by the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission for funding under the American Battlefield Protection Program. Currently, there is no public access to the site.

The visitor center was designed by BRPH of Marietta and will be LEED certified for environmental responsibility. Out of respect for those who fought and died at the site, the building was specifically designed to represent this particular battle. Situated near a wooded area, the low-profile building has minimal intrusion on the field. Numerous roof angles represent the war’s conflict, and the footprint follows actual lines of the battle.

The Battle of Resaca occurred May 13-15, 1864 and represents the first significant confrontation in Major General William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. Resaca was the only battle during this campaign where the full might of both armies faced each other in open battle. Here, Sherman hoped to destroy the Confederate Army of Tennessee led by General Joseph E. Johnston — yet there was no clear winner. When it was over, more than 5,500 men lost their lives, and many believe this was a low estimate. The three days of fighting produced nearly 10 percent of the combined casualties sustained during the Atlanta campaign.

Text Source: The Georgia Citizen.com
Top Picture: Robert C. Jones Copyright 2008 by Robert C. Jones (Robert C. Jones, POB 1775, Kennesaw, Georgia 30156)

Middle Picture: Friends of Resaca board members move uphill along the east ridge toward Confederate entrenchments. Image Source: Friends of Resaca Battlefield

European Court of Human Rights considers domestic violence

This October the European Court of Human Rights (left) heard arguments in the case of Opuz v Turkey (ECtHR press release) in which the applicant claimed a violation of the Convention on the basis of Turkey’s alleged failure to take action against the applicant’s husband who repeatedly subjected her to domestic abuse and killed her mother. The applicant complained of violations of her right to life (Art. 2), the right to be free from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment (Art. 3), the right to an effective remedy (Art. 13) and the right to be free from discrimination (Art. 14--in this case it was a claim of gender discrimination). (photo credit)
The case is particularly important as it opens the vista for a recognition at ECtHR level that states have enforceable and justiciable positive obligations to take reasonable steps to protect individuals from domestic violence. Of course, states’ positive obligations in relation to the right to life and to the right to be free from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment have been long-established under the ECHR, but a finding that domestic violence engages those obligations would be enormously important from the perspective of effective protection. Should the Court find in Mrs. Opuz’s favour, this could significantly chip away at the public/private divide which has traditionally obstructed attempts to use international law to protect vulnerable individuals (and especially women and children) from intimate forms of violence. The Court has already held that states have positive obligations to protect children from sexual abuse and corporal punishment from their parents (Z v United Kingdom (2002) and A v United Kingdom (1998), for example) and so the integrity of this public/private dividing line is not in issue, but whether it will be pierced from a gender perspective remains to be seen. [Aside: this is not intended to deny that men are at times the victims of domestic violence, but rather to reflect the fact that such victims are primarily women].
It seems to me to be quite probable that the applicant will succeed under Arts. 2 and 3, particularly since the violence was frequently reported and the state did not effectively investigate and protect, but success under Art. 14 (non-discrimination) is arguably somewhat less likely. Nevertheless, the case represents an important opportunity for the Court to make a decisive mark against a ‘hands off’ approach to domestic violence and rather to recognise that such violence must be combated. The date of the judgment is not yet known, but there is little doubt that it will be noted and discussed here on IntLawGrrls!
INTERIGHTS are a joined party in this case and their summary of the arguments is available here.

International Crimes and Statutes of Limitation

We’ve blogged before on open doctrinal questions that will face the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (below right) once they face the merits of the allegations against the former Khmer Rouge defendants in custody. An obvious additional question relates to the applicable statute of limitations, if any, in light of the fact that the ECCC are an exercise of historical justice, whose jurisdiction is limited (pursuant to Article 1 of their constitutive instrument) to crimes committed in 1975-1979 when the Khmer Rouge held power.

The ECCC have jurisdiction over the core international crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes). In addition, Article 3 of the establishing law grants the Chambers jurisdiction over certain domestic crimes that were penalized by the 1956 Code Pénal et Lois Pénales (homicide, torture, and religious persecution), which remained extant—but unenforced—during the Khmer Rouge era. Pursuant to the latter provisions, the ECCC is essentially charged with interpreting “dead law,” which has not been applied for a generation.

A multilateral treaty promulgated in 1968, the U.N. Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, declared that international crimes are not subject to statutes of limitation. The operative section provides:
No statutory limitation shall apply to the following crimes, irrespective of the date of their commission:
(a) War crimes as they are defined in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Nürnberg, of 8 August 1945 … the “grave breaches” enumerated in the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for the protection of war victims;
(b) Crimes against humanity whether committed in time of war or in time of peace as they are defined in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Nürnberg, of 8 August 1945 and confirmed by resolutions 3 (I) of 13 February 1946 and 95 (I) of 11 December 1946 of the General Assembly of the United Nations, eviction by armed attack or occupation and inhuman acts resulting from the policy of apartheid, and the crime of genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, even if such acts do not constitute a violation of the domestic law of the country in which they were committed.

This treaty entered into force in 1970, prior to the Khmer Rouge's ascent to power. But it has only 52 members at the moment.

A similar treaty within the Council of Europe, dating from 1974, abolishes statutes of limitation for genocide, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, “any comparable violations of the laws of war,” and “any other violation of a rule of custom of international law which may hereafter be established and which the Contracting State concerned considers … as being of a comparable nature.” The treaty applies only to offenses committed after its entry into force or to prior crimes whose statutory limitations have not yet expired. This treaty entered into force in 2003, although has only 4 ratifications (Belgium (2003), Netherlands (1981), Romania (2000), and Ukraine (2008)) and 2 additional signatories (Bosnia-Herzegovina (2008) and France (1974)).

These treaties might suggest a customary law basis for overcoming any defense of prescription by the Khmer Rouge defendants with respect to the international crimes for which they have been charged. They do not, however, expressly apply to any domestic crimes, even where such crimes provide the predicate act for international crimes. Accordingly, Article 3 of the law establishing the ECCC extended for an additional 30 years the applicable statute of limitations for these crimes:

The statute of limitations set forth in the 1956 Penal Code shall be extended for an additional 30 years for the crimes enumerated above, which are within the jurisdiction of the Extraordinary Chambers.

Under the old Cambodia Penal Code, felonies (designated as crimes) carried a 10-year statute of limitation from the date of commission as compared to misdemeanors (délits), which carried a 5-year statute of limitation. Khmer Rouge defendants will undoubtedly advance arguments that any effort to resuscitate penal liability for these domestic crimes, which lapsed due to the passage of time, constitutes impermissible ex post facto legislation.

In connection with domestic prosecutions for World War II defendants, the European Court of Human Rights has addressed efforts to abolish statutes of limitation for international crimes. In 1964, France enacted a law (No. 64-1326 of Dec. 26, 1964) providing that crimes against humanity, as discussed in and defined by General Assembly Resolution 3 (concerning the extradition and punishment of WWII war criminals) and the Nuremberg Charter, “are imprescriptible by their nature.” In the 1980s and 90s, France prosecuted several World War II defendants—including Paul Touvier (left) (photo credit) and Maurice Papon (right) (photo credit)—for crimes against humanity in reliance on this legislation.
Both Touvier and Papon challenged their convictions before the ECHR on the grounds that they ran afoul of Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides:

No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed.

This article shall not prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.

In both cases, the ECHR ruled that the French law fell within the exception to retroactivity recognized in sub-section 2 above, as the Nuremberg Charter did not contain a period of prescription for its crimes.

Because this analysis depends on the prior criminalization of the crimes at Nuremberg, under a constitutive charter with no reference to an applicable statute of limitations, it will be of only limited use to Khmer Rouge defendants who might challenge any counts brought pursuant to domestic law.

Under U.S. law (Stoger v. California, 539 U.S. 607 (2003)), a law extending a criminal statute of limitations after the existing limitations period has expired violates the U.S. Constitution's ex post facto clause when it is applied to revive a previously time-barred prosecution. Such a statute creates the kind of “manifestly unjust and oppressive” retroactive effects that the ex post facto clause seeks to avoid, because it essentially aggravates a crime as compared to when it was committed. A vigorous dissent from the Court’s conservative wing in Stoger argued that the California statute should have been left standing because:
  1. it did not criminalize previously innocent conduct,

  2. the punishment was limited to what could be assigned at the time the offense was committed so there was no aggravation of the offense,

  3. it did not alter the government’s burden vis-à-vis the elements of the crime, and

  4. Any concern about stale evidence can be dealt with by the jury and the applicable burden of proof.
Assuming defendants are charged with these domestic crimes, the ECCC will have to determine the legality of reviving criminal liability. It remains to be seen whether the ECCC will consider itself subject to a robust ex post facto prohibition (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is loosely incorporated by reference into the Cambodian Constitution) or whether it will fashion a generous tolling regime in light of the existence of repression, war, instability, amnesia, fear, etc.….

On October 30

On this day in ...
... 1938 (70 years ago today), on the eve of Hallows Eve, Americans were thunderstruck by CBS' nationwide announcement that Martians had landed "in giant machines with metal legs" and "destroyed everything in their path with a heat ray." Within minutes switchboards jammed. Even before the end of Orson Welles' radio broadcast "War of the Worlds" -- adapting H.G. Wells' 1898 novel -- the Associated Press "issued a bulletin at 8:48 pm that there was no invasion from Mars," and the host of the next radio show began with these words:
'Mr. and Mrs. America, there's no cause for alarm. America has not fallen.'
... 1995, voters in the Québec province of Canada narrowly answered "No" to a secession referendum, which asked in relevant part: "Do you agree that should become sovereign, after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership ....?" The razor-thin margin -- 50.56% opposed -- led to the 1998 Canada Supreme Court decision holding that Canada was respecting and ensuring the right of self-determination of the people of Québec (flag at left), so that those people had no right under law to secede from the state.

Go On! "Transcending the Boundaries of Law"

(Go on! is an occasional item on symposia of interest) Next week, from Thursday to Saturday, the Feminism and Legal Theory Project (FLTP), now hosted at Emory Law School, will celebrate 25 years of cutting edge scholarship in feminist legal theory with a major conference entitled Transcending the Boundaries of Law. The conference will feature papers from some of the most prominent legal academics working in feminist legal theory across various different areas of law and society. The incredibly impressive programme is available here, and, inter alia, features papers from a number of people working in international law (including myself, Laura Spitz, Fionnuala ní Aoláin and Siobhán Mullally).
The FLTP was founded by Professor Martha Fineman (below right) while she was in the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and it travelled with her as she progressed through her career at Columbia, Cornell (where she held the first endowed chair in feminist jurisprudence in the United States), and most recently, Emory. (photo credit) In a recent interview with our colleagues at Feminist Law Professors, available here, Martha explained her motivation for establishing the FLTP thus:

My tenure decision at the University of Wisconsin was delayed a year when one of the [liberal] senior professors pulled his letter of support from my file because I published an article arguing that formal equality was not the model to use for family law reform. He was outraged that I rejected liberal precepts. He later changed his mind and apologized. Another colleague condescendingly told me that even if I questioned formal equality he knew I didn’t want any “special treatment” simply because I was the single mother of four children. I told him I didn’t want special treatment, but perhaps deserved some recognition that I had managed to meet all the tenure requirements while balancing family circumstances that probably would have defeated many others on the faculty (I meant him, with his stay-at-home wife who not only raised the children, but also edited his papers). Those and other encounters taught me there was a real need for a supportive environment to encourage feminist work, particularly of the kind that challenged traditional assumptions and received wisdom, and was based on women’s lived experiences.

For many of us--myself included--the Project and Martha have offered (and, indeed, continue to provide) a supportive and warm environment in which rigorous debate, scholarship and lots of writing have taken place. All the indications are that next week’s conference will carry on in precisely that refreshing, challenging and creative vein.

News---Richmond's 1810 'A Burial Ground For Negroes' Value Set At $3 Million

Slaves' History Buried in Asphalt, Maria Glod, Washington Post, October 27, 2008.

Barely audible over the whirr of traffic, Duron Chavis offered a prayer as he poured water into the earth at the edge of a parking lot between a train trestle and Interstate 95. "We are here to honor our ancestors," Chavis told a group that encircled him one moonlit night this month. "Unfortunately, African Americans have been separated from our blood. We're disconnected from our languages, disconnected from our culture."

For the almost two dozen people gathered here, this nondescript slice of pavement represents a long-hidden heritage. Beneath the blacktop are the graves of slaves and free blacks from the 18th and 19th centuries. The city gallows once stood nearby, where a slave named Gabriel was hanged for planning a revolt. Everyone agrees that the cemetery will be commemorated. But exactly how to do that has led to debate in a city that was once the capital of the Confederacy and still struggles with those ghosts.

The state's largest school, Virginia Commonwealth University, bought the parking lot this year and has agreed to carve out a piece of it for a public memorial. But a prominent anthropologist at the College of William & Mary, along with many residents, contends that the graves probably extend beyond the strip that the university is donating. They are leading a movement to identify and reclaim the entire site. "We want all of it," said Dieyah Rasheed, who lives in nearby Henrico County. "It is sacred to me as a black woman. My ancestors were buried there. They were the ones who built Richmond. They were the nurses. They were the maids. They were the field croppers. They deserve some honor and respect."

The 250-year-old cemetery, used until about 1816, faded from public memory as the city grew up around it. But several years ago, a local historian stumbled on records of its existence. Gabriel was executed there after a failed 1800 rebellion, and some historians believe he could be buried there. Last year, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) symbolically pardoned Gabriel and said his "quest for freedom was part of a great American legacy." In recent years, the city has made efforts to commemorate the trials and contributions of slaves. The Richmond Slave Trail Commission has created a walking tour from the James River port where slaves arrived, to a slave jail that is being excavated. The trail also includes a slavery reconciliation statue that was unveiled last year.

Still, some African Americans note the proliferation of memorials here to the Confederate past. Monument Avenue honors Confederate leaders such as Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. One exception is a statue of black tennis great Arthur Ashe. The drive to preserve the cemetery gained momentum after VCU bought the three-acre downtown lot for $3 million in February. A few months later, as the university took steps to repave the lot and improve its lighting, a small grass-roots protest raised questions about the project's impact on a place of historical interest. Work was halted to allow the state to delve into the land's history.

In June, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources concluded that much of the old cemetery and the site of the gallows lay under the interstate and that old records don't define the burial ground's limits. It's unclear how large the cemetery was. But some graves are believed to extend past the highway and into the parking lot, under 10 to 15 feet of fill. The department, drawing on the work of a local historian, also considered the possibility that the graveyard's edges could be defined by a label on an 1810 map that notes "Burial Ground for Negroes." VCU, citing that interpretation, has agreed to turn over a 50- by 200-foot piece of the lot, worth about $350,000, to the city for a memorial.

But last month, Michael L. Blakey, director of William and Mary's Institute for Historical Biology, said there was no reason to assume the mapmaker's label encompassed the entire cemetery. Blakey called the estimation of the boundary "implausibly small." He estimated that there could be graves under most, even all, of the parking lot, and recommended digging archaeological trenches, which would not disturb the remains, to determine the cemetery's scope. "If it is important to the community," Blakey said, "there is a way to know the truth about the extent of the burials."

VCU officials said they recognize the site's historical and spiritual importance, and that is why they are ceding land for a memorial. But the only practical option is to use the remainder of the lot for student and staff parking because the university is relying on parking fees to pay for the purchase, said Don Gehring, VCU's vice president for government relations and health policy. "We have reached a consensus that this is the most reasonable way to memorialize the site and recognize its significance and at the same time go forward with our purpose for parking," Gehring said. He said VCU would sell the property -- for the $3 million it is paying -- to anyone who wants to preserve the entire site.

Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the historic resources department, said her staff reviewed available records and research to study the cemetery. "Nothing short of archaeology will determine the actual boundaries," she said. "But I don't want to lose sight of the larger goal, which is how best to memorialize the site. The issue is where we go from here to get it right, to honor the people there and to educate the public." She said the department has agreed to work with the Slave Trail Commission to raise money to buy the land.

To some in the community, ownership of the land is a much deeper question than who holds the deed. "That land does not belong to Virginia Commonwealth University. It belongs to the black community of this city and this country," Phil Wilayto, a member of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, a community group pushing for preservation, said this month at a community meeting. "If this was George Washington's mother buried here, it wouldn't be a parking lot. It would be a nice grassy area," said Chavis, of Richmond. "Though we have moved forward, with Obama running for president, there are still these issues that are with us."

Richmond's is not the first such cemetery to be rediscovered. Freedmen's Cemetery in Alexandria, which opened in 1864 to bury former slaves, was forgotten for years but is now commemorated with a park. At the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan, uncovered in the early 1990s in a construction project, more than 400 skeletons were examined and then reburied at a site that has become a memorial.

Blakey, who was scientific director of the excavation and preservation for the New York burial ground, said the decision to excavate and study the Richmond remains should be the community's. Much of the recorded history of slaves was written by owners who considered them property, not people. But the New York graves, Blakey said, offered a glimpse of humanity. "A story is written in things that were placed in the ground," Blakey said. "There is real reverence. Small things matter: the choice that was made to leave a silver earbob in a child's coffin rather than to keep it and use it for the living. That small act has great meaning."

Doug Egerton, a Le Moyne College history professor and author of a book about Gabriel, said the slave was 24 when he plotted to win freedom for slaves by seizing the capital and taking Governor James Monroe hostage. A furious storm disrupted his plan and the plot was uncovered. Gabriel stood more than six feet, unusually tall for the time, Egerton said, and his remains could be under the lot.

"I think in many ways finding the bodies, learning what we can and placing them back with some kind of dignity and honor would be a real signal that Richmond can come together," Egerton said. He noted that there is a statue of George Washington not far from the graveyard. "There's no reason we can't honor Washington on his pedestal, and a mile away honor these people who also fought for freedom."

Text Source: Slaves History Buried In Asphalt, Washington Post, October 27, 2008

Photo: Michael L. Blakey, a College of William & Mary professor, discusses the site of the burial ground at a community meeting this month in Richmond. Photo by Lisa Billings For The Washington Post.

CWL asks, "Who owned the cemetery in 1810?" and can the chain of ownership be documented to 2008? Also, can't a parking lot at a downtown institution of higher education, where parking with limited/controlled access is nearly non-existent, be viewed as equal access to education for descendants of slaves who are enrolled students?

CWL recommends: African American Cemeteries online

New (to us) international tribunal finds Niger liable for failure to protect from slavery

Just when we thought we knew the gamut of new international and internationalized courts and tribunals, along comes this news:
On Monday Niger was found liable for having failed to prevent enslavement, and thus was ordered to pay € 15,000 ($19,000), plus costs and interest, to its enslaved national, Hadijatou Mani (above).
A dozen years ago, at the age of 12, Mani was sold for $500, Le Monde reports, "to a master who exploited her not only as a domestic and agricultural servant, but also as a wahiya, a sexual slave." This "master" was a friend of someone who "years earlier, had reduced Mani's mother into slavery." Eventually Mani "desired to marry someone else," and sought recourse in Niger's courts. For her trouble, she was convicted of bigamy under local customary law, and put in prison. (credit for Agence France-Presse photo by Boureima Hama)
Aided by the NGOs Anti-Slavery International, Interights, and Timidria, Mani sought recourse in an international tribunal: the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, established 17 years ago as part of the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS), a 23-year-old regional international organization comprising the 15 member states of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo -- and, of course, Niger. (map credit)
Decisions of the 7-member Court are binding and nonappealable. The Court has jurisdiction to hear allegations that a state has violated a right articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 of that 1948 instrument states:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Monday's decision marked the 1st time that Niger's been found liable for failing to protect a citizen from slavery -- notwithstanding the NGO estimate that as many as 43,000 of Niger's 12,000,000 people are slaves.
Anti-Slavery International's Romana Cacchioli said of the decision:
It demonstrates that a woman from the least favored class in society has rights.
To which Niger's representative replied:
We obey the law and will respect the decision.
Mani herself had this to say:
I am very happy with this decision. I feel that I am a human being like everyone else.

On October 29

On this day in ...
... 1863 (145 years ago today), in Switzerland, a committee set up by the Geneva Public Welfare Society to work to implement Henry Dunant's proposals for alleviating some of the suffering in armed conflict (see prior post) concluded a 4-day conference of states, organizations, and individuals. The meeting ended with adoption of the Resolutions of the Geneva International Conference, calling for national relief bodies organized under the auspices of what would become the International Committee of the Red Cross.
... 1938 (70 years ago today), in Barcelona, Spain, Dolores Ibárruri, the Communist Party activist whose nom de guerre was La Pasionaria, gave a resounding farewell to the International Brigades, the non-Spaniards who had fought fascism during the Spanish Civil War and now were retreating by order of a commission that expelled all foreign fighters. (Note: Various sites give various dates in this same week for these events.) Now an artifact on a website entitled "Modern American Poetry," Ibárruri's speech included these words:
Mothers! Women! When the years pass by and the wounds of war are stanched; when the memory of the sad and bloody days dissipates in a present of liberty, of peace and of well­being; when the rancors have died out and pride in a free country is felt equally by all Spaniards, speak to your children. Tell them of these men of the International Brigades.
(credit for photo of La Pasionaria rallying troops in Madrid)


The Gettysburg Daily Is Like The First Cup of Coffee

The Tipsy Historian responded to my review of Ethan Rafuse's Robert E. Lee book with a referral to a new Joseph T. Glatthaar article Everymans War: A Rich and Poor Man's Fight in Lee's Army in the September issue of Civil War History published quarterly by Kent State (Ohio).

Scanning the online contents of last three issues of Civil War History I found an essay by Ethan Rafuse entitled "Poor Burn?" The Antietam Conspiracy That Wasn't in the spring 2008 issue. While at the Tipsy Historian's weblog I found The Gettysburg Daily, a weblog with lots of current photographs and news including this interactive map (left) and an update on the Wills House (below).

Check out the Tipsy Historian's weblog and The Gettysburg Daily

CWL---Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South

Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South, A Brief History with Documents, Paul Finkelman, Bedford St. Martins Press, chronology, index, bibliography, 228 pp., $13.95

One of The Bedford Series in History and Culture series, Defending Slavery places the words of Southerners in the hands of the reader. Beginning a small portion of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia(1787)and concluding with Josiah Nott's Instincts of Races (1866), this book displays the knowledge and opinions that Southerner's held regarding slavery and blacks. In a forty-four page introduction, Paul Finkelman outlines the legitimacy of slavery in the classical world, colonial America, Revolutionary America, and the early national period. He makes the case that the first defenses of slavery that were based upon races appeared after the American Revolution and were an attempt to reconcile the Declaration of Independence with the fact of perpetual forced labor. Outlining antebellum proslavery thought, Finkelman sets forth the racial theories and ideologies promoted by Southerners. Primary documents reveal the historical and classical defenses of slavery and the religious, economic, legal, political and racial defenses of slavery.

The economic, legal, political rationales are provided by famous men in Southern and Confederate history. In an 1837 senate speech John C. Calhoun argues that slavery is indispensable for the peace and happiness of both whites and blacks. Edmund Ruffin argues that slavery treats blacks better than the North treats wage laborers. Thomas R. Cobb states that slavery is essential for blacks because there are no examples of blacks achieving prosperity outside of forced servitude. James Henry Hammond understands that wage labor and slavery are necessary for a prosperous culture which needs a mudsill people to perform onerous tasks. Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens declares in 1861 that slavery is the cornerstone of the Confederate nation and culture.

Ministers reflect upon the duties of Christian masters, the Bible's presentations of slavery, slave marriages and divine revelation. Judges and courts weigh in on the definitions of slavery and its foundation in natural law. Diseases particular to blacks, physical peculiarities of Negroes, and the instincts of the races are forcefully and bluntly states by Southern doctors and naturalists.

Finkelman's introductory essay and his selection of documents are approachable for the student, the layman and the specialist. With a clear and concise narrative style and a precise use of vocabulary, Finkleman develops both the context and the content of the Southern frame of reference for the institution of slavery.

Vähemmän onkin enemmän, ehkä.


Olen lähes koko digiajan kuvannut kahdella rungolla, joissa kummassakin zoomi kiinni. Toisessa rungossa 24 - 70 millinen ja toisessa 70 - 200 millinen. Näin minun ei juurikaan tarvitse vaihdella objektiiveja eikä kameran kennolle pääse helposti pölyä. Zoomit ovat jo pitkään olleet optisesti laadukkaita ja valovoimaakin on tyydyttävästi. Zoomit ovat myös painavia ja isoja, ainakin Canonin valovoimaiset L-sarjan vermeet. 
Filmiaikoina minulla oli kolme Nikon runkoa, joissa kiinni olivat 24, 35 ja 85 milliset objektiivit. Näillä hallitsin 90% kuvaustilanteista helposti. Kaikki nuo objektiivit olivat valovoimaisia, mutta silti suhteellisen pienikokoisia.
Eilen minun oli määrä kuvata erään yrityksen toimitusjohtaja lehden kuvitukseksi ja päätin jättää zoomit kotiin pitkästä aikaa. Toiseen runkoon kiinnitin 35 millisen ja toiseen 85 millisen objektiivin. Kamerareppu oli oudon kevyt ja puoliksi tyhjä. Tiesin, että kuvaus hoituisi mainituilla polttoväleillä, mutta silti jännitti hieman, koska olen jo tottunut zoomien joustavuuteen. Kuvaus sujui mainiosti ja mieleen tulivat vanhat hyvät ajat. Taidan vastaisuudessa kuvata enemmän kiinteillä laseilla. Kuvat ovat terävämpiä kuin zoomilla otetut ja suurempi kuvausaukko tekee terävyysalueen ulkopuolisesta osasta kauniimman. 
Kuvaa tulee myös ehkä suunniteltua huolellisemmin, koska objektiivin polttoväli pitää päättää etukäteen ja polttovälivalikoima on rajallinen. Jos kuvaaminen teknisenä suorituksena vaatii hieman ponnisteluja, niin silloin yleensä miettii huolella etukäteen miten kuvauskohteen haluaa tallentaa. 
Yllä oleva kuva on valaistu kuvassa näkyvillä valaisimilla sekä vasemmalta tulevalla salamalla, joka on kääntösuodattimella muutettu keinovalon väriseksi. Näin kaikki kuvassa olevat valonlähteet ovat suunnilleen samanvärisiä. Yritys, jossa kuvasin maahantuo ja myy valaisimia kotiin, toimistoon ja muualle, joten otin siksi valaisimia kuvaan mukaan. Valotus aukolla 2 ja ajalla 1/160 sekuntia.

Onnittelut!

Uusin Photo District News, eli tuttavallisesti PDN lopsahti postiluukusta jo ainakin viikko sitten, mutta nyt vasta ehdin kunnolla selailla ja lukea lehteä. Lehden puolivälin kieppeillä okulaariin osui tuttu nimi DSREPS, joka on vanhan ystäväni Deborah Schwartzin yritys Amerikan Kaliforniassa. Debbie on valokuvaajien agentti, tai rep, kuten Amerikassa sanotaan. Viime vuonna DSREPS sai kunniaa ja mainetta PDN:n ja Nikonin järjestämässä Self-Promo kisassa. No, samaa rataa menee, sillä uusimmassa PDN:ssä oli tämän vuoden kisan tulokset ja Debbien firma sijoittui toiseksi sarjassaan. Hienoa ja onnittelut!

Workplan on Business & Human Rights

In June 2008, John Ruggie, the Special Representative to the U.N. Secretary-General on the Issue of Business and Human Rights (SRSG) issued his final report under his 2005 mandate. I have summarized and analyzed that report here and blogged on it here. After unanimously welcoming the framework established in that report, the Human Rights Council extended the SRSG’s mandate for another three years, asking that he use his renewed mandate to “operationalize” the framework.
The framework is built on three principles: first, the State duty to protect against human rights abuses; second, corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and third, the need for more and improved access to remedies for victims of abuses.
The new mandate addresses each of these principles and requests that they each be furthered.
Earlier this month, the SRSG released a preliminary work plan for his current mandate. It provides illustrations of the policy and legal approaches the SRSG is committed to or is considering pursuing. They include a number of facets, as follows.

Under the state duty to protect:
► Improving access to judicial remedies.
► Continuing the SRSG’s work on investment treaties and host government contracts.
► Examining the role of export credit and investment guarantee agencies.
► Exploring the particular difficulties of operationalizing the framework in conflict zones.
► Encouraging a corporate culture of respect through various means, including the possibility of using corporate law tools to this end.

Under the corporate responsibility to respect:
► Developing “a set of guiding principles on the corporate responsibility to respect and related accountability measures.”
► Further elaborating concepts such as “the scope and nature of corporate due diligence to avoid human rights abuses.

Under access to remedies:
► Identifying legal and practical obstacles to accessing judicial remedies.
► Developing information dissemination and collection tools regarding non-judicial grievance mechanisms.
► Identifying prospects for improving and/or increasing the number of non-judicial mechanisms.
►Exploring the relationship between judicial and non-judicial remedies.

Readers interested in the work of the SRSG can follow developments here.

(Cross-posted at The Conglomerate business/law/economics/society blog)

Write On! I•CON explores citizenship

(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers.) Editors of the International Journal of Constitutional Law -- which goes by the snappy acronym of I•CON -- are seeking papers for a symposium edition on citizenship.
The focus of the symposium will be the "evolving concept of citizenship in constitutional law"; that is, "the constitutional dimensions of citizenship," approached by "exploring contemporary similarities between and differences among nation-states." Papers should address at least 1 of these themes:
► the effects of international law on national citizenship;
► citizenship in ethnically divided societies; and
► the effect of international migration on citizenship.
To submit an entry, send a 500-word abstract; a cover sheet including your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information; and your c.v. to law.icon@nyu.edu. Authors of abstracts that are chosen will be notified in early January and asked to produce a manuscript of 10,000–15,000 words, including footnotes, by June 1, 2009. Much nearer in time is the abstract-submission deadline: next Tuesday, November 4, 2008.
Questions? E-mail I•CON Managing Editor Karen L. Barrett, karen.barrett@nyu.edu
.

On October 28

On this day in ...
... 1983 (25 years ago today), the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution "'deeply deploring' ... as a 'flagrant violation of international law,'" the invasion that the United States had led into Grenada. The United States -- which had intervened militarily after the previous week's coup in the Caribbean island state -- stood alone in opposition to the resolution. The 11 countries voting in favor included U.S. allies France, the Netherlands, and Pakistan; among the 3 abstainers was another U.S. ally, Britain. (credit for photo of leaflet dropped during U.S. intervention)
... 1914, having entered the 1st World War being fought in Europe, Canada announced wartime measures at home. Thus Canada's "War Cabinet order[ed] the registration of all 'alien enemies,'" and further "provide[d] for establishment of 'concentration camps' to house internees and their families in exchange for work such as clearing bush and cutting lumber in the national parks." The measures had grave effects on recent immigrants to Canada. (credit for 1916 photo of internees at work camp, Otter Creek, British Columbia)

Lämpövoimalan katolla


Tänään oli vaihteeksi keikka, jota kuvaisin ilmaisulla peruskauraa. En tarkoita, että kuvaus olisi ollut jotenkin vähempiarvoinen, mutta sellainen peruslehtikuvaus. Olen sitä mieltä, että jos työn ottaa vastaan, niin sitten se pitää tehdä niin hyvin kuin osaa. Kohteena oli vaneritehtaan lämpövoimala. Siis todella seksikäs aihe :) Ajoin kuvauspaikalle Vammalaan lähes kolme tuntia. Paikalla tehtaan johtaja otti minut ja toimittajan vastaan ja johdatti pelipaikalle ilman suurempia muodollisuuksia. Hyvä niin. Toimittaja alkoi tehdä omaa työtään ja minä pyysin voimalan käytöstä vastaavaa henkilöä näyttämään paikkoja kuvausta varten. Halusin ainakin yhden kuvan, jossa tehdas näkyisi taustalla. Pyysin opastani kiipeämään kuvassa näkyvän purusiilon päälle ja itse vuorostani kiipesin viereisen rakennuksen seinustan kierreportaita kunnes näkymä oli mieleinen. Tulos näkyy yllä. Objektiivina oli jälleen Canonin 24 - 70 zoomi. Otin tietty muitakin vaihtoehtoja, pystyä, vaakaa jne.

Guest Blogger: Chimène Keitner

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome as our guest blogger today Chimène Keitner (right).
An Associate Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, Chimène specializes in International Law and International Tribunals, International Law in U.S. Courts, Comparative Law, and Complex Litigation. Among her publications is her 2007 book, The Paradoxes of Nationalism: The French Revolution and Its Meaning for Contemporary Nation Building.
Born in Canada, Chimène earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard; her J.D. from Yale, where she was awarded a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, served a student director of the immigration clinic and an editor of the Yale Law Journal and the Yale Journal of International Law; and her doctorate from Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. Following law school she clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, then practiced at a firm in San Francisco before entering academia. She's worked on human rights litigation and advocacy in cooperation with the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights First, and the Center for Justice and Accountability.
She guest-posts today on her forthcoming article respecting the Alien Tort Statute -- a most timely topic, given the début today in San Francisco of a trial based on that human rights statute.
Chimène wishes to honor Emily Greene Balch, the 1946 Nobel Peace Prizewinner whom we've profiled below.
Heartfelt welcome!


Complicity & the Alien Tort Statute

Many thanks to IntLawGrrls for inviting me to say a few words about my forthcoming article, Conceptualizing Complicity in Alien Tort Cases, in this guest post.
As many of you know, corporate liability for violations of international law under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) remains hotly contested as a matter of domestic law and policy. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts, on the statute and on many of the cases I discuss, may be found here here.)
U.S. State Department Legal Adviser John B. Bellinger III recently lamented the failure of the U.S. Supreme Court to muster a quorum to consider the cert petition in Khulumani v. Barclay National Bank, an ATS case alleging corporate wrongdoing in conjunction with South African apartheid. Other pending corporate ATS cases include Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, which is awaiting oral argument before the Second Circuit, and Bowoto v. Chevron, which is about to be tried to a jury in federal court in San Francisco (voir dire is scheduled for today). Although legal issues in Bowoto may resurface on appeal, the factual dispute revolves around whether Chevron assisted the Nigerian government in using lethal force to remove peaceful protesters from one of Chevron’s offshore platforms, or whether Chevron legitimately sought help from Nigerian forces to displace a violent band of hostage-takers from the platform. (credit for photo of Chevron facility in Nigeria)
In the absence of Supreme Court guidance, lower courts have failed to agree on a consistent doctrinal approach to liability in corporate ATS cases. My article clarifies an important, and disputed, puzzle in these cases: whether U.S. law or international law governs the standard for aiding and abetting liability under the ATS. I conclude that international law governs aiding and abetting liability, and that the prevailing international law standard holds accomplices liable for knowingly providing assistance that has a substantial effect on the principal’s commission of a violation. I respectfully disagree with Bellinger, who suggested in his remarks that the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Sosa vs. Alvarez-Machain, which did not involve corporate liability, should be interpreted to bar virtually all of these cases. Courts may certainly invoke Sosa to support a finding of lack of subject matter jurisdiction in cases where plaintiffs have not alleged a sufficiently well established violation of international law, just as they may invoke a range of abstention doctrines to decline to exercise jurisdiction in appropriate circumstances. As it stands, however, courts have failed sufficiently to differentiate these aspects of their analyses, resulting in confusion over the proper application of the ATS and the scope of liability for aiding and abetting international law violations.
On a more reflective note:
We as academics may justifiably wonder if courts actually read what we have to say about doctrinal questions. (I must confess that, when I clerked for the Canadian Supreme Court, I relied almost entirely on case law and rarely, if ever, took a detour into scholarly literature to inform my legal analyses.) On the question of accomplice liability, however, I would respectfully suggest that no court opinion has yet articulated what I believe to be the most accurate and compelling analysis. My article presents this analysis, which I hope other scholars and, ultimately, judges, will find helpful and persuasive.

 
Bloggers Team