Libya inquiry appointed

'We have a tough task ahead but I will personally exert all my efforts to come up with an objective report that reflects the reality in Libya and convey the voices of victims of human rights violations.'

So stated Asma Khader (left) in an interview appearing in today's Jordan Times. (photo credit)
Khader, a lawyer, rights activist, and former government minister in Jordan, is among 3 persons whom the U.N. Human Rights Council has selected as a commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Libya. The commission was authorized earlier this month; its work will run in tandem with the investigation of the International Criminal Court undertaken pursuant to a separate resolution of the U.N. Security Council. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts available here.)
Chairing the Libya inquiry will be our colleague M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Chicago's De Paul University and a human rights expert whose U.N. service includes chairing the Security Council's Commission to Investigate War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia.
Completing the three-member panel will be Philippe Kirsch, the Canadian jurist who served as the ICC's 1st President, from 2003 to 2009.
The commission reportedly will begin its work in weeks, with an eye to reporting at the June session of the Human Rights Council.
In the Jordan Times interview, Khader framed her appointment itself as a milestone; in her words, it

'proves that we have eligible experts in the Arab world and that Arab and Jordanian women are qualified to take on such a tough responsibility along with their male peers.'

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

He played a small but meaningful role in this unique gathering of princes, presidents, and kings-in-waiting, sitting down face-to-face with Emir Faisal ibn Husayn, who would briefly be king of Syria and then of Iraq. Faisal's translator and adviser was none other than T.E. Lawrence, fresh from the exploits in insurgency that earned him the nickname Lawrence of Arabia. Working with Lawrence, Frankfurter negotiated an exchange of letters expressing mutual support for the national hopes of Jews and Arabs alike -- a kind of hopeful entente that prefigured later cooperation between the Zionists and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

-- A story of the bit part that Felix Frankfurter (above left) played in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (prior posts) that led to the Versailles Treaty and many other post-World War I agreements. Recounted at p. 30 of in Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices (2010), by Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman. Frankfurter was among those those "greats," according to Feldman. The others (4 out of 9 FDR appointees) were Robert H. Jackson, Hugo Black, and William O. Douglas. In Feldman's telling, the 4 were instrumental in the entrenchment of theories of constitutional interpretation that persist to this day: respectively, judicial restraint, pragmatism, originalism, and legal realism. (credit for circa 1927 photo of Frankfurter, then a Harvard Law professor)

On February 18

On this day in ...
... 1162, during the time of the Crusades, one Amaury 1er (Amalric the First), born into a family with roots in France, was crowned King of Jerusalem. He was permitted to ascend to the throne on the death of his brother, on one condition: that he repudiate his wife, Agnès de Courtenay, whom barons deemed a frivolous schemer, "unworthy" to become "queen of a city as important as Jerusalem." (Their complaints bear echo to some of those levied recently against 1st ladies in Tunisia and Jordan (here and here).) Agnès would marry 4 times. After the death of her royal ex-husband and enthronement of their son, Agnès would return to court -- and to court intrigues. (credit for depiction of the 1162 "annulment" of Agnès and Amaury following a marriage that had produced 2 children)


(Prior February 18 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On September 28

On this day in ...
... 1995 (15 years ago today), a 400-page agreement to give control over a significant portion of the West Bank to Palestinians was signed by the leaders of Israeli and the Palestine Liberation Organization at a ceremony in the White House, as U.S. President Bill Clinton, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and King Hussein of Jordan looked on. The signing leaders, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, then shook hands. Rabin would be assassinated in just 6 weeks; Arafat would die from natural causes 9 years later. As discussed in the press briefing at right by President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and envoy George Mitchell, a new round of talks between current leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority was launched earlier this month.

(Prior September 28 posts are here, here, and here.)

On December 21

On this day in ...
... 1973, in Switzerland, diplomats from Egypt, Israel, and Jordan launched face-to-face negotiations. (A place was set for Syria, though it did not attend.) Noting that the peace talks had begun just 6 years after Arab leaders meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, had renounced all negotiation with Israel, The New York Times wrote:

Not for a quarter of a century--the entire history of modern Israel's existence--have the belligerents of the Middle East entered upon a solemn and direct encounter such as is now about to open in Geneva.

The meeting did not end in any agreement. (credit for photo of December 24, 1973, session) But it is viewed here as a forerunner to later, bilateral pacts.

(Prior December 21 posts are here and here.)

On December 14

On this day in ...

... 1955, by Resolution 109, the U.N. Security Council admitted 16 new member states to the United Nations. Simultaneously admitted were Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon (today, Sri Lanka), Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, and Spain. The vote was 8-0-3; abstaining were Belgium, China, and the United States.

(Prior December 14 posts are here and here.)

On October 8

On this day in ...
... 2008 (today), is marked the annual International Day for Disaster Reduction. The U.N. General Assembly set aside the 2d Wednesday of October to raise awareness of ways that humans can reduce the suffering that results from natural disasters. Efforts are coordinated by the U.N.'s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, working in conjunction with the World Bank and the World Health Organization. This year the day "falls on the third anniversary of the massive 2005 South Asian Earthquake that devastated a whole region of Pakistan."
... 2002, at 3 a.m. at the Manhattan detention center where U.S. officials had held him since his September 26 arrest at JFK airport on his way from Zurich back home to Ottawa, Maher Arar, a 30-something tech worker, was chained and placed on a private jet that hopscotches 3 continents before landing in Amman, Jordan. Soon Arar, a Canadian citizen, would find himself in the birthplace from which he and his from which he and his family had emigrated when he was 17 -- Syria. There, for nearly a year he endured brutal interrogation, notwithstanding multiple visits to him by the Canadian consul. Syrian officials released Arar in October 2003. As IntLawGrrls posted here and here, Canada eventually paid $10.3 million and apologized to Arar for its role in his extraordinary rendition. (credit for photo of Arar and family in Canada) In the United States, meanwhile, the Manhattan-based federal appeals court, which had rejected Arar's lawsuit, agreed to rehear the matter. According to the Boston Globe,

the move ... was unusual not only because the full circuit assembles for a case only once or twice a year, but because Maher Arar's attorneys had yet to even ask for a full hearing.

On May 25

On this day in ...
... 1946, the emirate of Trans-Jordan became the independent state now known as Jordan (flag at left), with the coronation of its former emir as King Abdullah Ibn Ul-Hussein in what the New York Times' correspondent peculiarly called "spectacular ceremonies and amid a setting that in some respects resembled a frontier town in the Western United States when the first railroad came through." The 1st king was assassinated in 1951 en route to al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem; his great-grandson, Abdullah II, now rules the country.
... 1810, Argentinians asserted their autonomy from Napoleonic Spain, 1 of many events in what came to be known as la Semana de Mayo during which the "United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata" were established. A declaration of independence would not be formalized for another half-dozen years; a constitution not until 1853. Today is celebrated as el Día de la Revolución de Mayo in Argentina.

Go On! ASIL/"Politics of International Law"

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest) The theme of the 102d annual meeting of the American Society of International Law, to be held from April 9 to 12, 2008, at the Fairmont Hotel, in Washington, D.C., is "The Politics of International Law."
Program details will be posted closer to the date. For now, here're the keynote speakers: Grotius Lecturer is Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein, Jordan's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations (an early supporter of the International Criminal Court and, based on his role at emcee of the Nuremberg conference I attended in last summer, a great speaker); Plenary Keynote, Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq (in hot water with some factions of the Bush Administration that appointed him, for daring to next to an Iranian diplomat at a recent meeting).
Register now, as the meeting's the same week as D.C.'s annual Cherry Blossom Festival, and rooms are filling up fast.

The Forced Migration Count

Kelly O'Donnell and Kathleen Newland, both of the Migration Policy Institute, have just released a new report on the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. The facts and figures are grim:
► Between September and December 2007, over 45,000 Iraqis returned from Syria to Iraq. Almost 70 percent returned not because of improved security, but because they could not afford to live in Syria, as they faced stricter visa policies and difficulty finding work.
► As reported here, Syria introduced visa restrictions for Iraqis in October 2007. Prior to these restrictions, an estimated 2,000 Iraqis entered Syria each day. Jordan closed its borders in 2005, and Saudi Arabia is building a 560-mile border fence with Iraq to keep out undocumented immigrants. In Lebanon, Iraqis have no legal status; the government detains them indefinitely until they agree to return to Iraq.
► Of an estimated 2.2 million externally displaced, only 5,000 Iraqis had been resettled in third countries by December 2007. Although the United States allocated space for 7,000 Iraqi refugees and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) referred over 10,000 Iraqis to the U.S., only 1,608 Iraqis were resettled to the United States during fiscal year 2007.
► Iraqi asylum claims in the 36 industrialized countries that report data to UNHCR more than doubled in the first six months of 2007 compared to the first six months of 2006.
► UNHCR estimates that 60,000 Iraqis per month, or just over 80 people each hour, are being displaced within Iraq.
► Due to restrictions on internal movement within Iraq, many of the 2.3 million internally displaced are forced to return to neighborhoods plagued by the sectarian violence they were trying to flee. Former employees of the US government are particularly at risk. (photo credits here and here)
In the words of Newland (right) and O'Donnell, "the international response to the humanitarian crisis resulting from the war in Iraq is, thus far, wholly inadequate . . . [U]rgent action, beginning today, is needed to build toward an enduring, comprehensive solution . ..."
'Nuff said.

Reisekarte von Nürnberg

Wish you’d been there:
Just back from a megaconference, Building a Future on Peace and Justice, cosponsored by the governments of Finland, Germany, and Jordan, the International Center on Transitional Justice, and Crisis Management Initiative. Standing in the same courtroom (above) where the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg once tried vanquished Nazis for war crimes, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier opened the event by stating that it was there that Germany began its "return to the community of respected nations."
Conference highlights:
► The insistence on the presence of women at every peace parley, by Elisabeth Rehn (below), who's served as Sweden's 1st woman Minister of Defence and as Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Rehn cited the view of some women she’d met in conflict situations: "‘The men have messed up enough. Now it’s time for us.’" She concluded, "Women have to be at the negotiating table."
► Statements by stakeholders, among them Rwot David Onen Acana II, Paramount Chief of the Acholi people involved in peace talks over Northern Uganda.
► The number and variety of participants, ranging from Prince Zeid Ra’Ad Zeid Al-Hussein, Jordan’s Ambassador to the United States and former President of the International Criminal Court's Assembly of States Parties, to a host of women and men who do humanitarian work in the world’s most troubled regions.
Proceedings are to provide the basis for a 2008 Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice.

Go On! IntLaw Summers Abroad

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest.) Unable to attend this month's AALS/ASIL exploration of international law teaching and writing on account of a summer abroad? Then check out upcoming conferences in Europe:

"Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Women in Violent Conflict" will be the topic under study June 17-19, at an Amsterdam conference cosponsored by Emory University's Feminism and legal Theory Project and the Netherlands Defence Academy. To begin with addresses by Emory's Martha Albertson Fineman and by Major-General Patrick Cammaert, former Force Commander of the U.N. Mission to the Congo, the conference will feature speakers, military and civilian, women and men, academics and activists, from around the world.

"Building a Future on Peace and Justice" is the project at hand for a 3-day conference that will open on June 25 with a session at the Nuremberg courthouse (left, then and now) where the International Military Tribunal convened 6 decades ago. Cosponsors are the governments of Finland, Germany, and Jordan; plenary speakers form a pantheon of state and international officials working on postconflict and justice. (Yours truly will comment at a "Legal Framework" panel.)

"Criminal Jurisdiction 100 Years after the 1907 Hague Peace Conference" will be examined June 28-30 at the 8th Hague Joint Conference on Contemporary Issues of International Law. Cochaired by Michael Scharf, for the American Society of International Law, and Willem van Genugten, for the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, this too has a rich offering of speakers and topics.

On June 5, ...

... 1851, abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe (left) began publishing serial installments of Uncle Tom's Cabin: or Life Among the Lowly in a Washington weekly. Her account of slavery in the South was an instant bestseller when issued in book form the following year. President Abraham Lincoln is said to have declared on meeting Stowe in 1862, "So this is the little lady who made this big war? "
... 1967 (40 years ago today), marked the beginning of what is now known as the Six-Day War, when Israel engaged in pre-emptive strikes against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
... 1947 (60 years ago today), U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech at Harvard University (below) in which he outlined the Marshall Plan for reconstruction of a Europe still foundering in the aftermath of World War II. Unless the United States helped struggling economies the "demoralizing effect on the world at large" would make possible "disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people," risking detrimental "consequences to the economy of the United States," warned Marshall, 1953 Nobel Peace Prizewinner. "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist." His tacit reference to the Soviet Union revealed a Cold War subtext: "Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full cooperation," but all "which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States."
... 2007 (today), is World Environment Day, a U.N.-sponsored opportunity to learn more about "Melting Ice -- A Hot Topic?"

Queen for moms for peace

"[M]any of today's leading peacemakers are themselves mothers."
So writes American-born Jordanian Queen Noor in a commentary published at CNN.com. She's joined a coalition working to Reclaim Mother's Day for Peace. Reviewing history we've discussed, the queen states that the "vision" and "call to action" that animated 19th century Mother's Days "could not be more relevant today." Women, she argues, are well-placed to answer that call:

Having traditionally occupied a paradoxical position at the heart of society but on the fringes of power, women often bring unique strengths, talents, and perspectives to the quest to resolve conflict and establish freedom. They are willing and able to cut across ethnic, religious and tribal barriers, and break through obstacles through peace in order to do what is best for their families.

Let's hope that as they win places at the heart of power, women, mothers or no, prove her statement true.