On November 23

On this day in ...
... 1984, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 39/17, discussing the "Importance of the universal realization of the right of peoples to self-determination and of the speedy granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples for the effective guarantee and observance of human rights." Occasioning the restatement of the self-determination right were a laundry list of events: continuing apartheid in South Africa, occupation of Namibia and part of Angola by South Africa, and recent invasion of Lebanon by Israel.

(Prior November 23 posts are here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

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

Nearly a third of Namibians under 5 years of age have no legal existence. ... Fifty-one million children born in 2007 were not registered, of whom 9.7 million were in sub-Saharan Africa. In Somalia, scarcely 3% have a birth certificate.
This absence of legal existence works many harms on families and children.

-- Le Monde article, written in Windhoek, Namibia, and based Progress for Children: A Report Card on Child Protection, a just-released UNICEF report. The problem described by Le Monde stands at odds with Article 16 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states: "Everyone shall have the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." The news article attributes the problem both to governmental deficiencies and to cultural practices. It also offers other sobering statistics to be found in the report; for instance: "More than a billion children now live in a country or territory plagued by armed conflict. 5.8 million of them are refugees, living outside their birth country."

Guest Blogger: Gay McDougall

It's IntLawGrrls' immense honor to welcome Gay McDougall (right), the United Nations' Independent Expert on Minorities, as today's guest blogger.
Gay was appointed to serve in that post for a 6-year term in 2005. From 2006 until 2008, she also held an appointment as Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, D.C. (home institution of IntLawGrrls). From 1994 to 2006, Gay was the Executive Director of the human rights advocacy group Global Rights, leading the development and implementation of programs in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Americas.

Gay was the 1st American to serve on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the U.N. treaty body that oversees the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. While in that position, she drafted and sponsored for adoption General Recommendation No. 25: Gender related dimensions of racial discrimination. From 1997 to 2000 she was a member of the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, and was U.N. Special Rapporteur on the issue of systematic rape, sexual slavery, and slavery-like practices in armed conflict. In the latter capacity she presented to the United Nations a then-groundbreaking study that called for international legal standards for the prosecution of acts of systematic rape and sexual slavery committed during armed conflict.
In 1994, she was appointed the only American member of the 16-member 1994 Electoral Commission of South Africa, which organized the process that resulted in the election of President Nelson Mandela. For the previous 14 years, she'd worked with South African lawyers for the release of thousands of political prisoners. Gay also founded the Commission on Independent Elections that monitored Namibia’s transition to democracy.
Gay earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1972 and her LL.M. from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1978. She holds honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Georgetown University Law Center and the City University of New York Law School.
Among her many honors is a 1999 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, awarded on account of what the foundation called her “innovative” work in international human rights.
In her guest post below, Gay discusses her work as the United Nations' expert on minorities, about which IntLawGrrls earlier posted here, here, and here.
Heartfelt welcome!

On May 21

On this day in ...
... 1979 (30 years ago today), the newly formed National Assembly of Namibia abolished racial discrimination. The body was not recognized internationally, and Namibia (flag at left), which had been under control of South Africa's apartheid regime for much of the 20th century, would not gain full independence until 1990.
... 1997, the U.N. Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses was adopted. It sets out a framework for conservation of surface and groundwater that crosses international boundaries. The treaty has not yet entered into force. (credit for photo of Mekong River, which runs through China, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia)

(Prior May 21 posts are here and here.)

On December 22

On this day in ...
... 1998 (20 years ago today), South Africa signed a pact agreeing to withdraw from southwest territories -- thus paving the way for Namibian independence -- in exchange for "an end to Soviet and Cuban involvement in the long civil war in neighboring Angola." The agreement was known as the New York Accords because it was signed at U.N. headquarters (left) in that city.
... 1967, Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau announced a sweeping reform of Canada's criminal laws. His Omnibus Bill proposed inter alia to increase restrictions on guns drunk driving, and to relax them on matters such as abortion, divorce, and homosexuality. With regard to the last of those 3, Trudeau (right), who would go on to serve as Prime Minister uttered, as may be seen in this Canadian television clip, "unforgettable words":

There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.

On July 10

On this day in ...

... 1999, a Ceasefire Agreement respecting the armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (map at left) was signed by that country as well as Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Witnessing the signing were delegates from Zambia, the Organization for African Unity, the United Nations, and the Southern African Development Community. The Movement for the Liberation of the Congo signed the agreement on August 1; the Congolese Rally for Democracy on August 31.

... 1919, President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered to the U.S. Senate the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I and established the League of Nations. It was the 1st such personal delivery since the founding of the Republic in 1789. His presentation did not go well:

[H]e strained to read from typewritten notes on small index cards. Perhaps suffering from the effects of a small stroke, Wilson inadvertently omitted words as he proceeded. Realizing this, he stopped and repeated the garbled sentence, only to drop more words and repeat more sentences. Only near the end of his forty-minute address did Wilson approach eloquence. Setting aside his cards, the president turned to the Republican side of the chamber, where members sat in sullen hostility. He declared that treaty approval was their only option. "The stage is set, the destiny disclosed. It has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God. We cannot turn back. The light streams on the path ahead, and nowhere else." His conclusion evoked only scattered applause.

In November 1919 and again in March 1920, the Senate rejected the treaty. (credit for photo of "Big 4" -- from right, Wilson, France's Georges Clemenceau, Italy's Vittorio Orlando, and Britain's David Lloyd George -- during negotiation of treaty in Paris)

Deadly Prisons

Barry Bearak, the co-bureau chief of the New York Times’s Johannesburg bureau, recently recounted his brief but harrowing imprisonment in Zimbabwe (read his account here). Bearak, who was arrested for ‘committing journalism’ on April 3, 2008, spent four nights in jail before being released and fleeing to Johannesburg.
Bearak’s bleak description of prison conditions in Zimbabwe undoubtedly resonates with those who advocate on behalf of prisoners throughout Africa. Human Rights Watch, among others, has attempted to expose the horrifying prison conditions in a number of African countries (Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia). The Legal Assistance Center (LAC), an active and well-respected human rights organization in Namibia (map at left), recently conducted a fact-finding investigation concerning the care and treatment of HIV-positive inmates in the national prison system. The fact-finding delegation, of which I was a part -- along with eight students from the University of Wyoming College of Law -- discovered that the prison conditions that Bearak describes were quite similar to the conditions in Namibia. Worse yet, HIV-positive inmates often lacked access to life-saving treatment and basic medical care. (Look for the complete report on LAC’s website in late summer). A number of factors contribute to the exceptionally high HIV transmission rates within Namibia’s prison system, including consensual, unprotected anal sex and rape. As in most prisons in the U.S., prison authorities refuse to distribute condoms despite their potential to prevent HIV transmission in many cases. Sadly, as Bearak experienced in Zimbabwe, prison conditions are often abysmal; for HIV-positive inmates the conditions may, indeed, be deadly.