Go On! AI annual meeting in San Francisco

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

Amnesty International USA will host its Annual General Meeting this weekend, March 18-20, in San Francisco. Registration details here; full agenda here. (photo at right is from last year's meeting)
Amnesty is convening a special session for human rights lawyers on Friday, March 18 at the Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason Street, from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. The event is free, but registration is recommened. Topics will include:

• the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,


• the Torture Victims Protection Act,


• the Alien Tort Statute,


• corporate accountability for complicity in human rights violations, and


• applying actions from international human rights mechanisms in U.S. courts.

Here is the full schedule:

9:00 – 9:30 Welcome and Opening Remarks: Jessica Carvalho Morris (left), Vice-Chair AIUSA Board of Directors and Director of the International and Foreign Graduate Programs, University of Miami School of Law
9:30 – 11:00 Civil Actions to Hold Human Rights Violators Accountable: Successes, Obstacles, and Future Challenges

• William S. Dodge, Professor of Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law

• IntLawGrrl Chimène Keitner, Associate Professor of Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law (right)

• Andrea Evans, Litigation Director, Center for Justice and Accountability (left)

11:00 – 12:30 No Safe Haven: Criminal and Administrative Enforcement

• IntLawGrrl Pamela Merchant, Executive Director, Center for Justice and Accountability (left, at podium)

• IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack, Associate Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law (below left)

• Theresa Harris, AIUSA Board of Directors and Executive Director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA (right)

12:30 – 2:00 Lunch

2:00 – 3:30 Corporate Accountability: Emerging Standards

• Paul Hoffman, Schonbrun, Seplow, Seplow, Harris, Hoffman & Harrison, LLP

• IntLawGrrl Natalie Bridgeman Fields, Founder and Executive Director of Accountability Counsel (right)

• Morton Winston, Founding Chair of the AIUSA Business & Human Rights Group

3:30 – 4:00 Discussion and Closing Remarks

Hope to see you there!

Look On! The Invisibles

In conjunction with Amnesty International, the Mexican actor and director Gael Garcia Bernal has released on YouTube four short films together entitled The Invisibles. The films are the most powerful effort I've seen, cinematographic or otherwise, to depict the grave human rights abuses suffered by Central American migrants as they pass through Mexico on their way to the United States (prior post). The films are to be lauded for presenting the voices of the migrants themselves describing their motivations for undertaking this risky journey as well as the consequences of the harms they suffer. Readers of this blog might be particularly interested in the film Six Out of Ten, which refers to the ratio of female migrants who are sexually assaulted on their northward journey. The film notes that many women take contraceptive precautions before the trip because they are aware of the horror stories, but still desperate to reach the United States. In their own voices, female migrants explain that they migrate despite the grave risks so that they can provide adequately for their children (prior post). Each of the movies is under ten minutes long, and you don't even have to leave your chair to watch them. What are you waiting for? Look on!

(photo credit)

Coming to America

Given the harsh immigration law enacted in Arizona last week, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the toll that our border enforcement policy levies on migrants journeying from Central America to the United States. On Wednesday, Amnesty International released a report, Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico, that documents the serious human rights violations suffered by migrants traveling through the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Veracruz en route to the United States. At the margins of society, these Central American migrants are kidnapped, threatened, and assaulted by criminal gangs, other migrants, and corrupt officials, yet these crimes are rarely acknowledged, let alone prosecuted.
It is a challenge to gather reliable data on these abuses, but human rights organizations, academics, and shelters have conducted surveys that suggest that these migrant populations suffer high levels of violence and other wrongdoing, including arbitrary detention, extortion, beatings, robbery, sexual assault, and even murder. Some highlights:

• A report published last year by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission estimated that between September 2008 and February 2009 nearly 10,000 migrants were kidnapped by criminal gangs, often in collusion with the police. The study suggested that the vast majority of these migrants were threatened with guns and knives and received death threats against them and their relatives.
• Women and girl migrants are particular risk of sexual violence. Local and international NGOs and health professionals working with migrant women suggest that as many as six in ten migrant women and girls are raped -- many at the hands of state officials.
• Many migrants are killed or disappear in Mexico. Very few of these deaths are investigated by state law enforcement and attorney generals, and federal and state authorities do not systematically gather data collection on these abuses. As a result, the families of these migrants often do not know the fate of their loved ones who've journeyed northwards.

As the Mexican government plays an increasing role in protecting its nationals in the United States, it's sadly ironic that it fails to uphold its international commitments to protect migrants within its borders. But while the Mexican authorities must make greater efforts to prevent human rights abuses against migrants, the U.S. government also bears responsibility for immigration laws and policies that push migrants to embark on these risky journeys in the first place. A more humane immigration system would enable migrants to travel lawfully and safely to the United States, respecting their dignity as human beings. In the words of a Mexican man who provides shelter and food to migrants in need,

The train carries hundreds of lives, human beings who have suffered. They leave their homes because of the extreme poverty of where they come from, the journey north is a nightmare for them but they do it for the families they have left behind.

On April 12

On this day in ...
... 1980 (30 years ago today), 28-year-old Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe seized power following a "surprise" coup in Liberia, during which the democratically elected President, William R. Tolbert Jr., was killed at the executive mansion. The New York Times reported that the coup occurred 3 days after Amnesty International released a report criticizing the Tolbert regime for a "'crackdown'" against opposition party members. Pictured at right (credit) with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1982, Doe would be killed 10 years later amid a civil war led by Charles Taylor, now on trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone.


(Prior April 12 posts are here, here, and here)

Therapeutic Abortion In Nicaragua, cont.

We've blogged before on the issue of therapeutic abortion and its criminalization in a handful of states, including Chile, El Salvador, Malta and the Philippines.

Women’s Link Worldwide along with other organizations that form part of the Strategic Group for the Decriminalization of Therapeutic Abortion in NICARAGUA -- including the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, the OB-GYN Society, the New Family Association (ANFAN), the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), and IPAS Central America -- recently requested the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) to order the Nicaraguan government to adopt urgent precautionary measures to protect the life of a 27-year-old Nicaraguan woman and mother of a 10-year-old child. The case is premised on the fact that the Nicaraguan health system refused "Amalia" (or "Amelia" -- the petitioner's pseudonym) both a therapeutic abortion and treatment (chemotherapy and radiotherapy) for metastatic cancer.
On February 26, in an unprecedented move, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, under the leadership of President Luz Patricia Mejia Guerrero (right), apparently adopted urgent precautionary measures on behalf of the petitioner (the text of the measures is not yet available on the Commission's website, see more here, here and here). Women's Link Worldwide reports that in its ruling, the IACHR called on the government of Nicaragua to

• ensure that the petitioner has access to appropriate medical treatment for her condition, and
• undertake this treatment in consultation with Amalia and her designated representatives.

In addition, the Commission has apparently required an account of Amalia’s progress within five days. There are some reports that Amalia did finally receive treatment for her cancer, although this cannot be confirmed.

Nicaragua is under considerable internal and external pressure to amend its law. At the recent session of the U.N. Human Rights Council that considered Nicaragua's first Universal Periodic Review of its human rights record, the Council recommended that the law be abolished. Nicaragua reportedly took note of the recommendation, but did not accept it or even offer to study it as it did with respect to other recommendations. The Nicaraguan representative countered that the law was a reflection of Nicaragua's sovereignty. In addition, four other human rights bodies -- the Committee against Torture, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women -- have determined that the law violates Nicaragua's treaty-based human rights obligations. Amnesty International has taken up the case, and feminist activists have launched an Urgent Action on Amelia's behalf. The Constitutional Court has yet to rule on the constitutionality of the measure.
Stay tuned....

Therapetic Abortion in Nicaragua

As we’ve blogged before in connection with the sad case of La Rosita, abortion is prohibited in most Latin American states, with the exception of Cuba. Several Latin American states, however, have taken the ban to extreme limits, penalizing even the provision of therapeutic abortion. For example, Nicaraguan law completely prohibits abortion, regardless of the circumstances and even if the health of the woman is at risk from the continuation of the pregnancy. Prior to 2008, Nicaraguan law permitted “therapeutic abortions” only for those women and girls whose life or health was threatened by the continuation of their pregnancy and, in some cases, for victims of rape.
The revised penal code repealed this provision. See Law No. 164, Penal Code of the Republic of Nicaragua. Nicaraguan law now completely prohibits abortion, regardless of the circumstances and even if the health of the woman is at stake, and if the woman has been raped or is the victim of incest. Abortion is also prohibited (and penalized) if the baby is unviable as in cases of ectopic pregnancy (when the fetus implants somewhere outside the womb such as the fallopian tubes (left)) or anencephaly—a neural tube defect in which the fetus fails to develop a brain or skull vault and is born with dramatic physical defects (below right). The latter condition is uniformly fatal; the baby is literally born dying and usually survives only a few days, although there are cases of children living beyond one year with aggressive and expensive medical interventions.
The Nicaraguan law now imposes prison terms for both doctors and women or girls who carry out, or seek, an abortion (Article 143) and for doctors who cause unintentional harm to a fetus while administering medically necessary treatment to a pregnant women or girl (Articles 145, 148, and 149). Article 143, for example, provides:

Whosoever causes an abortion with the consent of the woman shall be sanctioned with a penalty of one to three years in prison. If the person is a medical professional or health worker, the penalty will simultaneously include being prohibited from working in medicine or as a health worker for two to five years.

The woman who intentionally causes her own abortion or agrees with someone else
to provide an abortion will face a penalty of one to two years in prison.

With strong backing from the Catholic Church and evangelical leaders, the law was put in place during the contested presidential election in 2006, when none of the candidates wanted to alienate church leaders. (Pro-choice protest at left). Legislators supporting the ban invoked fast-track procedures normally reserved for national emergencies.

Legislation like this is felt most acutely by

• women and girl survivors of rape and incest,
• women and girls who need essential medical treatment for life-threatening illnesses (such as cancer) while pregnant or pregnancy-related medical conditions (such as eclampsia, spontaneous abortion/miscarriage, obstructed labor, premature labor, ectopic pregnancy, pelvic disproportion),
• women and girls carrying non-viable pregnancies or pregnancies where the baby will not survive long after birth (as in the case of anencephaly), and
• women and girls in need of post-abortion care, whether for a miscarriage or induced abortion. (Indeed, it is often difficult to distinguish between spontaneous and induced abortions).

The law also prevents doctors from having a meaningful discussion with their patients about treatment options.

A number of United Nations treaty expert committees and special rapporteurs have determined that such bans breach states’ obligations to protect women and girl’s human rights. The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, for example, determined that laws that criminalize medical procedures only needed by women—such as Nicaragua’s law—constitute barriers to women’s access to appropriate health care. See U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, General recommendation No. 24: Article 12 of the Convention (women and health). See also similar Concluding Observations from the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR, concluding observations on Chile, U.N. Doc. E/C.12/1/Add.105 (2004), para. 52; Kuwait, U.N. Doc. E/C.12/1/Add.98 (2004), para. 43; and Nepal, U.N. Doc. E/C.12/1/Add.66 (2001)) and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (Committee on the Rights of the Child, concluding observations on Chad, U.N. Doc CRC/C/15/Add.107 (1999)). Likewise, the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Radhika Coomaraswamy (right), has stated that,

Acts deliberately restraining women from … having an abortion constitute violence against women by subjecting women to excessive pregnancies and childbearing against their will, resulting in increased and preventable risks of maternal mortality and morbidity.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1997/44, Addendum: Policies and practices that impact women’s reproductive rights and contribute to, cause or constitute violence against women, UN Doc E/CN.4/1999/68/Add.4, paragraph 57, 21 January 1999.

In response to a petition filed against Nicaragua, the Committee Against Torture ruled:

The Committee expresses its profound concern at the general prohibition of abortion in Articles 143 and 145 of the Criminal Code, including in cases of rape, incest or where continuation of the pregnancy poses a threat to the life of the mother, which in many cases directly result from crimes related to gender based violence. This situation particularly implies that those groups of women (aforementioned) are exposed to a constant risk of violations committed against them, which one supposes must cause extreme traumatic stress with the risk of suffering long-term psychological problems, such as anxiety and depression. The Committee also notes with concern that women who require an abortion in the circumstances mentioned, now run the risk of criminal sanctions. Also, it is of concern to this committee that the law which authorized therapeutic abortion in such circumstances was repealed in 2006 and since the adoption of this prohibition there have been various cases documented of women dying in pregnancy as a result of lack of medical treatment which could have saved her life, in clear violation of numerous codes of professional medical ethics. In this way, the Committee observes with concern that medical professionals can be investigated and criminally sanctioned by the state for practicing therapeutic abortion.

Consideration Of Reports Submitted By States Parties Under Article 19 Of The Convention, Concluding observations of the Committee against Torture, CAT/C/NIC/CO/1 (10 June 2009). Amnesty International’s brief in this case is available here. See Amnesty International, Nicaragua: The Impact of the Complete Ban of Abortion in Nicaragua: Briefing to the United Nations Committee Against Torture, Index No. AMR 43/005/2009 (April 29, 2009). Amnesty’s campaign on the Nicaragua law is available here. Human Rights Watch’s report is here.
In the heart-wrenching case of K.N.L.H. v. Peru, the Human Rights Committee, which supervises state compliance under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ruled that Peru’s failure to offer an abortion to petitioner, whose fetus was anencephalic (right), violated petitioner’s rights to privacy, to special protection as a minor, and to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The latter ruling stemmed from the fact that petitioner was forced to give birth to an anencephalic baby and to care for the baby until she died several days later, which plunged the mother into a depression.
The Nicaraguan court has yet to issue a ruling, which was expected in May 2009, on the constitutionality of the anti-abortion law. One media report suggests that a draft decision has been written but still needs to be reviewed and approved by the entire bench. According to this report, the decision declares the law unconstitutional. Let’s hope this prognosticator is accurate… Stay tuned.

Call for Nominations: Ginetta Sagan Award in Children's Rights

Amnesty International has put out a call for nominations for the Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children's Rights. Sagan, a survivor herself with an incredible life story, was a human rights activist who worked tirelessly on behalf of political prisoners and others whose rights were in jeopardy. The annual presentation of the Ginetta Sagan Award

honors the 'ordinary' women who have the courage to change their world.

Here are the details of how to nominate someone:

The purpose of the Ginetta Sagan Fund of Amnesty International USA is to recognize and assist women who are working to protect the liberty and lives of women and children in areas where human rights violations are widespread. The 2010 award will be given to a woman who works on behalf of the human rights of children.

The Ginetta Sagan Fund recognizes individual accomplishment, but also serves as a beacon of hope to women everywhere who are fighting for human rights.

The Award:

• Recognizes outstanding achievement, often at great personal risk.
• Enhances the recipient's ability to live and work freely, and protects the recipient's capacity to continue her work, by bringing a new level of international attention to her accomplishments and the obstacles she faces.
• Brings increased international scrutiny to the crisis, region or issue for which the recipient works.
  

Awardee Qualities:

• Founder and/or Executive Director of an organization.
• Under threat for her activism.
• Proven effective at addressing human rights issues.
• Has brought about significant change in her country, region, or issue through her work.
• Not a political party leader or government official / employee.

The creation of the Ginetta Sagan Fund emphasizes that more human rights work must be done by and for women. The $10,000 award is announced and presented each year at the Annual
General Meeting (AGM) of Amnesty International USA. The 2010 AGM will be held in
New Orleans, Louisiana.

The $10,000 award can be used by the awardee at her complete discretion.

For information about previous awardees, please visit here and click on “Previous Years’ Winners” on the left menu bar.


HISTORY OF THE GINETTA SAGAN FUND

For more than three decades, the late Ginetta Sagan, (1925-2000), recipient of the 1996 Presidential Medal of Freedom, fought for the lives and rights of prisoners of conscience throughout the world. A tireless crusader and eternal optimist, Ginetta and her passionate dedication inspired generations of human rights advocates. In honor of her humanitarian achievements, Amnesty International USA created the Ginetta Sagan Fund in 1994, one of AIUSA's first permanently endowed funds and the only fund that specifically addresses the needs of women and children. The Ginetta Sagan Fund ensures the continuation in perpetuity of Ginetta's human rights legacy and brings worldwide attention to the abuses perpetrated on women and children.

NOMINATION GUIDELINES

LETTER OF NOMINATION
This letter of nomination should inform the Selection Committee why the candidate should receive the Ginetta Sagan Award for Women’s and Children’s Rights. To the extent that it is relevant, please include any personal background related to human rights. Please include answers to the following questions:

• What kinds of personal interactions have you had with the candidate? How would you characterize those interactions?
• What compels you to nominate this candidate?
• How has the candidate impacted and/or transformed her community through her work? Examples from past nominees include changes to legislation, raising the profile of the issue in her country and internationally, providing life-saving services, etc. Please be as inclusive as possible.
• Any other relevant information you would like to include.

Please submit a signed electronic nomination letter (signature scanned, sent via email) or a hard copy of the letter that contains your signature.

TWO LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
These two letters can be from anyone familiar with the candidate’s human rights work. If possible, please have these two letters sent along with the nomination package. If sent by email, please put the nominee’s full name in the subject line.

SUPPORTING MATERIALS
Any material that can help the Selection Committee gain insight into the candidate would be very helpful. Electronic materials are especially welcome. This can include website links to press, interviews, one electronic or printed portrait photograph (if available), and any other relevant information. Please note that supporting materials will not be returned.

DEADLINE
Nomination and letters of recommendation must be received by OCTOBER 1, 2009.

SEND NOMINATION TO:

Email: gsf@aiusa.org

- OR -

The Ginetta Sagan Fund
c/o Amnesty International USA/GSF
350 Sansome Street, Suite 210
San Francisco, California 94104

Please send all inquiries to gsf@aiusa.org (preferred) or 415.288.1800 ext. 300.

CHECKLIST
• Letter of nomination (if submitted electronically, please send a scanned version that contains your signature)
• Two letters of recommendation
• Nomination Form
• Supporting materials
o Photograph
o News / articles
o Interviews
o Weblinks

On January 27

On this day in ...

... 1914 (95 years ago today), "Lacking any military support," Haiti's civilian President, Port-au-Prince lawyer and Senator Michel Oreste, resigned and went into exile aboard a German ship. At once Marines from Germany, France, and the United States landed in Haiti's capital city. A Haitian military leader was installed as President, but his reign also would be short-lived. (map credit)

... 1904 (105 years ago today), in Paris, France, a son was born to an expatriate couple who in a little over a decade would go on to become icons in the Irish revolutionary movement: Irish-born Major John MacBride, whom the British would execute for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising, and his wife Maud Gonne, described as "an English-born Irish revolutionary, feminist and actress, best remembered for her turbulent relationship with William Butler Yeats." (Had this IntLawGrrl not chosen a certain 16th C. Irishwoman as her transnational foremother, the nod well might've gone to Gonne, ally of IntLawGrrl Fiona de Londras' foremother Countess Markievicz, and the subject of a superb biography by Dr. Margaret Ward.) The couple divorced; their son, Seán Mac Bride, went on to a distinguished global career. Among his achievements: Ireland's Minister of External Affairs and President of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers from 1949 to 1950, a position from which he spearheaded adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights; a cofounder of Amnesty International; Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists; a drafter of the Constitution of the Organization of African Unity; and co-recipient of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize. Following his death in 1988, he was buried in Dublin cemetery near his wife and son -- and his mother. (credit for mid-20th C. photo of Maud Gonne and Seán MacBride)

Sex and Death

On Friday, Amnesty International reported the stoning death of a 13 year-old-girl in Somalia (map credit here). According to Amnesty, a group of approximately 50 men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death in a stadium with about 1000 spectators. Duhulow had apparently been raped by three men and reported the rape to the armed opposition group in Kismayo. Rather than investigate the rape, members of the al-Shabab militia accused Duhulow of adultery, detained her, and executed her.
In 2003, the international women’s human rights community mobilized to stop the stoning death of a Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal, who was accused of adultery under Islamic law. Lawal was convicted of adultery in March 2002, but the Katsina State Shariah Court of Appeals overturned the conviction on September 26, 2003.
Although the details vary, these stories represent modern, violent community-based efforts to control women’s sexuality. And the stories are replicated all over the world. From the domestic violence victim in the United States whose partner beats her whenever she speaks to another man to the rape victim accused of adultery in Somalia, the narrative is similar. Women’s sexuality is seen as a threat not only to morality but, more importantly, to male power as well.
The international movement to combat violence against women offers some hope. In only a decade and a half, the international movement to end gender-based violence has gained momentum and enjoyed some limited success. But to have widespread impact, the movement will need to confront deeply held beliefs – all around the world – that men may, indeed should, control women’s sexuality. Despite the early successes of the anti-violence movement, the pace of real cultural reform is painstakingly slow, and Duhulow’s story serves as a heart wrenching reminder of the task ahead.

Welcoming IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune

It's IntLawGrrls' great honor to welcome our newest member, Karima Bennoune.

Professor of Law and Arthur L. Dickson Scholar at Rutgers School of Law, Newark, New Jersey, Karima (left; photo credit) is currently a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, from which she earned, simultaneously, her J.D. cum laude, an M.A. in Middle Eastern and North African studies, and a Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies. She is a noted expert in human rights, having taken part in human rights field missions in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Pakistan, South Korea, southern Thailand, and Tunisia. In 1995 Karima served as a Center for Women's Global Leadership delegate to the NGO Forum at the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing; for the next 4 years, she was a London-based legal adviser at Amnesty International. A member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Constitutional Rights, she also served on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA.

Karima is the first Arab-American to win the Derrick Bell Award from the Section on Minority Groups of the Association of American Law Schools. Her publications concentrate on issue's of women's rights, religion and secularism, human rights and humanitarian law, and counterterrorism. In keeping with today's 7th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Karima discusses her latest article, Terror/Torture, in her 1st post below.
Karima dedicates her work on the blog to Nadia Younes (below left), an Egyptian who served as Chief of Staff to Sergio Vieira de Mello in Iraq. Younes, 57, and de Mello, 55, were among the 22 persons killed in the bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on August 19, 2003. Before her secondment to Baghdad, Younes had served in the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and as Executive Director for External Relations and Governing Bodies at the World Health Organization. Today Younes joins other IntLawGrrls transnational foremothers in the list just below our "visiting from..." map at right.

Heartfelt welcome!

On the Job! Amnesty & counterterrorism

(On the Job! pays occasional notice to interesting intlaw job notices)

Among the positions for which Amnesty International USA is seeking applications are 2 that caught IntLawGrrls' eye because they pertain to an issue on which we frequently post; that is, the relation of law to terrorism and counterterrorism. The positions are:
► Director, Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Human Rights, a full-time post in New York or Washington; and
► Advocacy Director, Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Human Rights, a full-time post in Washington.
See here for other AIUSA job notices.

Peace through Pastry

I would like to follow up on Jaya's horror story of Friday with a story of one attempt to "humanize the other". As Jaya points out, making human rights norms applicable to immigration authorities both means and requires humanizing immigrants. In Europe, human rights norms are applicable to immigrants and asylum seekers through the European Convention on Human Rights, though their enforcement often leaves much to be desired. As human rights activists well know, humanizing the other - including immigrants and, as Hope discussed yesterday, persons with disabilities - is a process of education key to developing and enforcing human rights norms. For example, Amnesty International and other such groups publicize individuals' stories to make abstract legal concepts concrete. Humanizing the other is also key to making and maintaining peace, and a group of French Jewish and Muslim women called the Bâtisseuses de Paix (Peace Builders) has taken on the task of humanizing each other and their respective communities (though they don't use this term) in a delectable way--by making pastry.
One thing I've learned about "Islamic" terrorism is that it is fueled or reinforced by the Israelo-Palestinian conflict. In reading about the bâtisseuses, I learned that this conflict also fuels hostility between the Jewish and Muslim populations in France (the largest such communities in Europe), as French Jews identify with Israelis and French Muslims identify with Palestinians. To build solidarity between the two groups, former journalist Annie-Paule Derczansky founded the group in 2002 after a trip to the Middle East during the second intifada revealed that despite the breakdown of political communication, women's mixed Israeli-Palestinian cultural groups remained intact and functioning. Back in Paris, Derczansky created a space where Jewish and Muslim women could share recipes in an attempt to block the transfer to France of the conflict in the Middle East. The problem for detractors of the group's method is that its golden rule is to discuss anything and everything but that conflict: they see only hypocrisy and little to no chance of having any affect on resolving issues between Jews and Muslims, either in France or in the Middle East. Supporters such as Evelyne Berdugo, head of the Jewish women's organization Coopération Feminine, see it as "practical work on the ground....[No] big words [or] speeches, but action with regular people." One participant sees it as separating the Israelo-Palestinian conflict from one's daily life in France so that it doesn't pollute relationships with neighbors, and they all seem to recognize that their work, like their pastry, is for their children. If it helps them grow up without knee-jerk hostility based on a foreign conflict, perhaps they will be able to address that conflict in a spirit of neutrality and solidarity. And maybe given time, even if the group's golden rule doesn't bend, some the participants will take on the "elephant in the room" in another setting. As a staunch supporter of grassroots projects to bridge religious or cultural divides, even with flour and butter, to reduce humans' inhumanity to humans, I say "pass the cornes de gazelle" (image credit).

On May 28

On this day in ...
... 1952, all adult women in Greece secured the right to vote in national elections; they would cast their 1st votes in parliamentary elections 4 years later. Though some women in Greece (flag at left) had been able to vote since 1934, suffrage had been limited to those who were literate and over 30 years of age.
... 1961, British attorney Peter Benenson published an essay entitled "The Forgotten Prisoners" in England's Observer. His account of prisoners of conscience -- in his words, "the several million people" who were "being imprisoned, tortured or executed because [their] opinions or religion are unacceptable to [their] government" -- led to the launching in Belgium next year of the nongovernmental organization Amnesty International.

21st C. turn of an Arendtian phrase

"Memo to the next president" is the title of Los Angeles Times reporter Tim Rutten's commentary about how hard it will be for the administration that takes office on January 20, 2009, to get the United States out of the complex mess that's typically subsumed within the single word "Guantánamo" -- how hard it will be, that is, for the United States to pull back from abusive rendition-and-detention-for-interrogation policies pursued since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and yet to work effectively to combat terrorism. Essential to Rutten's exposé is a critique of "torture memos" like those discussed in posts here and here. He writes:

America's version of banal evil lurks in the bloodless abstractions of mid-level lawyers, rather than in the gray efficiency of faceless bureaucrats.

The reference, of course, is to a term coined fully 45 years ago, in the trial reportage compiled into the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (left). As described in this post, Banality philosopher Hannah Arendt's account of that early effort by a nation-state, Israel, to prosecute an individual in its national courts for internationally condemned crimes. In describing actions "so obscene in their nature and consequences" as "'banal,'" it's explained here, Arendt

meant to contest the prevalent depictions of the Nazi's inexplicable atrocities as having emanated from a malevolent will to do evil, a delight in murder. As far as Arendt could discern, Eichmann came to his willing involvement with the program of genocide through a failure or absence of the faculties of sound thinking and judgement. ...

For a time after 9/11, the use of words from a totalitarian past to describe the American present instant sparked controversy. Recall, for example, the furor in 2005 over Amnesty International's characterization of detention practices as an "American gulag." That harsh criticism now receives due consideration in the mainstream media -- indeed, as in Rutten's case, is set forth in the mainstream media -- is an advance in our avowedly open society. But that there remains cause for that criticism is no advance at all.

Eradicating abusive policies and, at least as importantly, the institutional structures within which they found root, indeed must be a priority item on the next President's to-do list.

(cross-posted at Slate's Convictions blog)

Our Neighbor's Assessment: Failure to Protect

Yesterday, the Canadian Federal Court issued an opinion in the case Canadian Council for Refugees, Canadian Council of Churches, Amnesty International, and John Doe v. Her Majesty The Queen. This case challenges the "Safe Third Country Agreement" between Canada and the United States that came into force in December 2004. This agreement provides that, with limited exceptions, individuals who first enter either Canada or the United States and then attempt to cross a land border into the other country in order to lodge an asylum claim must be returned to claim asylum in the first country they entered. In assessing the constitutionality of the agreement, the Canadian Court found that the United States does not comply adequately with Article 33 of the UN Refugee Convention, which prohibits return to persecution, or Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits return to torture -- specifically naming the Maher Arar case as an example of the United States' failure to protect. As one of the experts who described the ways in which U.S. asylum law (in particular, the one-year filing deadline) violates international law, I am proud to note that the court found "the Applicant's experts to be more credible, both in terms of their expertise and the sufficiency, directness and logic of their reports" and "more objective and dispassionate in their analysis and report" than the government's experts. Of particular note, the Court found that "it would be unreasonable to conclude that the one-year bar, as it is applied in the U.S., is consistent with the Convention Against Torture and the Refugee Convention" and that this bar "has a disproportionate impact on gender and sexual orientation claims" for asylum. The Court also found that women making asylum claims based on domestic violence are not sufficiently protected under U.S. law. The long decision is well worth a read, and while it bodes well for asylum seekers in Canada (assuming that the judge's final order, after further submissions, follows this opinion, and that the decision survives appeal), it reads as a damning critique of the treatment of those seeking protection in the United States.

On October 14, ...

... 1906, Hannah Arendt, among "the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century," was born in Hanover, Germany, to secular parents of Jewish ancestry. Forced by Nazism to flee in 1933, she lived in Paris until immigrating in 1941 to the United States, where she held academic positions till her death in 1975. Works of particular interest to international law include The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), recently republished with a foreword by Samantha Power, as well as the New Yorker dispatches from the Jerusalem trial that served as the basis for her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. (1950 photo of Arendt courtesy of Library of Congress)
... 1981, a call for independent inquiries was made by Amnesty International (logo at left) into a number of cases in which, it asserted, "the Federal Bureau of Investigation fabricated evidence and used other means to put leaders of black, Indian and other American minority groups behind bars" for life. Concern with the FBI's Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) center on Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a Black Panther Party leader convicted of a California robbery-muder in 1972, and Richard Marshall, an American Indian Movement leader convicted of a South Dakota barroom killing in 1976. Proof of tainting of evidence would result in Pratt's release 12 years later.

On September 29, ...

... 1960, pounding on the table with both fists, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev interrupted the speech of his British counterpart in praise of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, made during a session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Khrushchev demanded that Hammarskjold "be replaced by a three-man executive representing the western, Soviet and neutral camps." Though Khrushchev continued this attack through the next month, no action was taken. In a plane crash 1 year later Hammarskjöld died, en route to Congo peace talks; he was the posthumous recipient of the 1961 Nobel Peace Prize.
... 2005, Algerians went to the polls to vote on amnesty; that is, on the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, a proposal of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika that they "forget the violence of a civil war that left more than 100,000 people dead and to offer amnesty to many of those responsible." In the end, 97% of voters approved the referendum; turnout was 80%.

In the hands of justice

Alberto Fujimori's "in the hands of justice," proclaims today's special edition of the Lima daily La República. Peru's former President arrived on an overnight flight, having been transported from Chile less than a day after a 5-judge chamber of Chile's Corte Suprema ruled that there is sufficient evidence of crime in 7 of the dozen events for which Peru had sought the Fujimori's extradition. In so doing, it overruled another Supreme Court judge's July ruling in favor of Fujimori, and credited instead the June recommendation in favor of extradition by Mónica Maldonado (left), the court's prosecutor. Among the cases now cleared for trial in Peru, the Santiago Times reported,

are two emblematic human rights abuse cases – the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres – which took place in 1991 and 1992 respectively. Twenty-five people, including a small child and a professor, were murdered in the two massacres. The killings are believed to have been carried out by an infamous, government-backed death squad known as the Colina Group. Prosecutors contend that Fujimori had direct knowledge of and may have even ordered the Group’s anti-subversion operations.

"From an international law standpoint," Helena Marambio of Amnesty International Chile said, the court found Fujimori "to be responsible for the character of his time in office. Let’s hope they continue to process him in Peru."
Meanwhile, Peru's Minister of Justice María Zavala (left) insisted at a press conference in Lima that the judges who will try the former President "must not be politicized."

The Olympics card

The approach of the 2008 Beijing Olympics is giving China increased international attention -- some of which Chinese leaders no doubt would be happy to do without.
With Mia Farrow in the lead, some celebrities advocate boycotting what they've begun to call the "Genocide Olympics" unless China urges Sudan, its trading partner, to stop the violence in Darfur and let U.N. peacekeepers in. When Steven Spielberg, artistic director for the '08 games, expressed concern, China appointed a special envoy to the region.

Members of Congress have joined in, proposing resolutions to pressure China on Darfur. "'With the Olympics coming, China is now in the international spotlight," U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) noted, then declared that it's time for "'China, finally, to join the world community and acknowledge that genocide is taking place.'"

China's new Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, lashed back: "'There is a handful of people who are trying to politicize the Olympic Games. This is against the spirit of the Games. It also runs counter to the aspirations of all the people in the world, and so their aims will never be achieved.'"

Yang thus endeavored to disregard decades of politicization of the Olympics. The 1992 Barcelona games were the 1st in modern history that no country boycotted for some political reason. Among the political disputes that has played out in Olympic arenas -- and continues to do so -- is China's chronic tiff with Taiwan.

Still, Yang's response to Darfur-related pressure counsels care in playing the Olympics card. Is a boycott in fact possible, and if not, is threatening it a good idea? The complexity of China's relationship to Sudan and Darfur -- and to the rest of the world -- was evident yesterday: U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, on "The News Hour" to promote the U.S. increase in sanctions against Sudan, took pains to state that although Chinese leaders do not support sanctions, "they appreciate the importance of this situation and they, along with us, have worked hard to impress upon the government of Sudan the importance of Sudan accommodating the wishes and demands of the international community in regard to Darfur."
In any event, is Darfur the best reason to play the card? Surely it is not the only one. Last month Amnesty International asked the International Olympic Committee to pressure China on account of repression within China itself -- a concern that's particularly noteworthy today, just 5 days short of the 18th anniversary of the Tiananmen killings. Of additional concern ought to be China's newfound penchant for giving foreign aid with no human rights strings attached. To the extent that it displaces the tradition of conditional aid, China's new policy of unfettered assistance promises to undermine a key means by which donor states from regions like North America and the European Union have prodded beneficiary states to treat their children -- and their women and men -- well.

NGOs bear witness

2 days, 2 nongovernmental organizations, 2 annual reports that show how civil society can shape debate on matters of international interest:
"The politics of fear" as practiced by states and armed nonstate actors "is fuelling a downward spiral of human rights abuse in which no right is sacrosant and no person safe," Irene Kahn (left), Secretary General of the 46-year-old, London-headquartered Amnesty International, declared in announcing the release yesterday of the organization's annual report. Country-by-country, the report documents abuses from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, placing special emphasis on excesses of antiterrorism and repression of persons who use the internet as their medium for freedom of expression.
Another NGO zeroed in on its keystone concern: "Justice with a price tag is no justice at all," stated Huguette Labelle (right), chair of Transparency International, a 14-year-old group headquartered in Berlin. Her comments marked today's release of the 2007 Global Corruption Report. It traces the infiltration of bribery and political interference in all corners of the planet and at all points in the legal process -- from 1st encounters with police, to prosecutorial investigation, to adjudication itself. The report then sets forth ways to reduce corruption, among them greater transparency in selection and removal of court officials, stronger enforcement of anticorruption measures, unfettered media coverage of proceedings, and vigorous scrutiny by bar associations, private persons, and other sectors of civil society.