On April 10

On this day in ...
... 1981 (30 years ago today), an inmate on hunger strike in a Belfast prison was elected to the British Parliament. Fifty-two percent of the electorate in the region of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Northern Ireland, voted for Bobby Sands, who ran as a candidate of the "Anti-H Block" campaign, a term that referred to the section of the Maze prison in "reserved for republicans and loyalists convicted of terrorist offences." (credit for photo of campaigners putting up pro-Sands poster) As stated by the BBC:

In spite of attempts by the European Commission on Human Rights to mediate, Bobby Sands died on 5 May 1981.
He was the first of 10 republican prisoners to die after hunger strikes.
They attracted international media attention and sympathy for the republicans.
The hunger strikes came to an end in October 1981.
However, the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher granted the republicans only a few minor concessions.

(Prior April 10 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

Today's Guest Bloggers: Christine Bell and Catherine O’Rourke

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome as today's guest bloggers Christine Bell (left) and Dr. Catherine O'Rourke (right), colleagues at the Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland.
► Christine serves as an Associate Director of the Institute (along with IntLawGrrls alumna Fionnuala Ní Aoláin), and also is a Professor of Public International Law at the university's Magee campus in Derry. She's the previous Director of the Centre for International and Comparative Human Rights Law at Queen's University in Belfast, her hometown. After reading law at Selwyn College, Cambridge, England, Christine earned an LL.M from Harvard Law School, supported by a Harkness Fellowship. Both a barrister and an attorney, she practiced for a period at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. She's served as chairperson of Belfast-based Committee on the Administration of Justice, as a founding member of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, and as a member of the European Commission’s Committee of Experts on Fundamental Rights. She has taken part in various peace negotiations discussions, and given advice and training to diplomats, mediators, and lawyers.
In 2007, Christine was a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. Her 2006 article "Peace Agreements: Their Nature and Legal Status" won the Francis Deák Prize, awarded annually "to a younger author for meritorious scholarship published in The American Journal of International Law." Among her other publications are 2 books: On the Law of Peace: Peace Agreements and the Lex Pacificatoria (2008) and Peace Agreements and Human Rights (2000).
► Catherine is a Lecturer in Human Rights and International Law at the University of Ulster and Gender Research Coordinator at its Transitional Justice Institute. She earned her LLB (Law and Politics) from Queen's University Belfast, her MSc Gender and Development from the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics, and her PhD from the University of Ulster. This past November, the Politics Studies Association of Ireland gave Catherine the Basil Chubb Prize, recognizing the year's best PhD thesis undertaken in Ireland in any field of politics, for her dissertation, "The Law and Politics of Gender in Transition: A Feminist Exploration of Transitional Justice in Chile, Northern Ireland and Colombia" (supervised by Christine and by Dr. Carmel Roulston, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Ulster). Catherine's other publications are here.
A Visiting Scholar in 2007-08 at American University School of International Service in Washington, D.C., Catherine also has been a Visiting Researcher at the law schools of Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, and Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She's been active in Amnesty International's Stop Violence Against Women campaign, provided guidance to the Northern Ireland women's sector on the Bill of Rights drafting process, and participated as a gender and security sector reform expert at the New York-based International Center for Transitional Justice.
In their guest post below, Christine and Catherine discuss the contents and analyze the findings of their empirical research into what impact, if any, U.N. Security Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women and Peace and Security may have had on negotiation and drafting of peace agreements.
Christine and Catherine dedicate their post to Marjorie "Mo" Mowlam (below left), who died from a brain tumor in 2005, at age 55. Mowlam, Christine and Catherine write, was

a British Member of Parliament and the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland during the peace negotiations and production of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. She was one of the first women negotiators of a peace process, brought a different style to the process, and as we now know, did so while fighting cancer of the brain. Whether one agrees with her role as British Secretary of State, she was a powerful, innovative and feminist woman whose remarkable ways of communication played a key role in achieving a peace settlement. All sides would acknowledge her impact. She suffered political marginalization as a women due to her success and had she lived would undoubtedly be one of the woman who could have played a key mediation role in other conflicts.

Today Mowlam joins IntLawGrrls' other foremothers in the list just below our "visiting from..." map at right.

Heartfelt welcome!

The Bombing of Claudy in 1972: Report of the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland

In 1972 the small Derry town of Claudy was devastated by the explosion of three car bombs by the IRA, causing the death of nine people and injuring thirty more. Information was made available shortly afterwards to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) suggesting the involvement of a Catholic priest, Fr James Chesney, in the bombings. Perhaps understandably, given the incredibly volatile situation existing in Northern Ireland at the time, a political approach was made to the Roman Catholic Church informing them of the suspicions against Fr Chesney. The Church's response was to speak to F. Chesney (who, it appears, denied involvement), and move him to a parish in Donegal within the Republic of Ireland. Fr Chesney, who died in 1980, was never again placed in a parish in Northern Ireland, the police investigation into his involvement was never followed up, and nobody has ever been charged in relation to the bombing of Claudy.
Yesterday the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland released his report in to the handling of the Claudy investigation by the RUC. Working within his remit--of considering whether there was police misconduct--the Ombudsman concluded that the investigation was deficient for its failure to pursue a line of questioning and investigation that would have either confirmed suspicions or resulted in Fr Chesney being eliminated from the investigation. This report has resulted in accusations of a Roman Catholic 'cover up' of Fr. Chesney's involvement and denial of same by the Cardinal of All Ireland, Fr. Séan Brady (Irish Times editorial). It has also resulted in an apology from the British government to the people of Claudy for the deliciency of the investigation and raised questions, as I noted here, of compliance with the investigation obligation in Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is to be assumed that moving Fr Chesney to a parish in Donegal did not, of itself, prevent the issuance of an arrest warrant against him. Indeed, although there is quite a substantial amount of criticism of the Church's role in this investigation (perhaps primarily because of revelations in Ireland about the extent to which the Church hierarchy covered up clerical child sex abuse), it does seem to me that the Church did not substantially impede police investigation. Whether they would have done so had the RUC determined to arrest Fr Chesney (and, indeed, whether the Irish government would have extradited him to Northern Ireland if charged) is a different question in relation to which only conjecture is possible.
What is really striking about the revelations in the Ombudsman's report is the extent to which politics played an important--if not determinative--role in the manner in which atrocities in Northern Ireland were investigated. Unlike in cases of collusion with Loyalist/Unionist paramilitary organisations which I have written about here on IntLawGrrls before, the decision about Claudy seemed to be motivated not by a desire for a cover-up but rather by an appreciation of the immense ramifications arrest of a Catholic priest for IRA involvement would have had in 1972 Northern Ireland. Indeed, the Ombudsman himself noted the possible political motivations for this course of action yesterday.
The reality, however, is that however and why-ever motivated the decision to cut off an important and seemingly viable line of investigation into the bombing was a flagrant breach of the rights (and, indeed, the needs) of the deceased and their families; families that, as evidenced by their interaction with the media yesterday, remain deeply and profoundly affected not only by their loved ones' deaths but also by the RUC's failure to fully pursue the perpetrators of the attack.

Guest Blogger: Fionnuala Ní Aoláin

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Dr. Fionnuala Ní Aoláin (left) as today's guest blogger.
Fionnuala holds the Dorsey & Whitney Chair in Law and is Associate Dean for Planning and Research at the University of Minnesota Law School, Minneapolis. She's also Professor of Law at the University of Ulster and cofounder and Director of the university's Transitional Justice Institute, with offices in Belfast and Derry, respectively the largest and 2d-largest cities in Northern Ireland.
In her guest post below, she discusses the release last week of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry report on the 1972 paratrooper killings of civilians in Derry, placing the event in the context of transitional justice discourse.
Fionnuala's previously been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School, Visiting Professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, Associate Professor of Law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and a Law & Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton University. She received her LL.B. and Ph.D. from the Law Faculty at Queen's University in Belfast, and also holds an LL.M. degree from Columbia.
As is evident from her list of publications (SSRN here), Fionnuala's an internationally published expert and scholar in the areas of human rights, gender, and other issues related to transitional justice, on feminist legal theory, and on states of emergency. Law in Times of Crisis (2006), which she co-authored with Minnesota Law Professor Oren Gross, received a 2007 Certificate of Merit from the American Society of International Law, the organization for which she just began a 3-year term as a member of the ASIL Executive Council. She's at work now on a book on gender, masculinities, and transitional justice, co-authored with IntLawGrrls Dina Francesca Haynes and Naomi Cahn.
Fionnuala's many awards include a Fulbright scholarship, the Alon Prize, the Robert Schumann Scholarship, a European Commission award, and the Lawlor fellowship.
The Irish government twice has nominated her to the European Court of Human Rights. Fionnuala served as a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission by appointment of the Minister of Justice, from 2000 to 2005. She remains an elected member of the Executive Committee for the Belfast-based Committee on the Administration of Justice, and is also a member of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
She's just been invited to serve on the U.N. Roster of Experts for the Crisis Communications Unit, having already taken part: in a 2008 Expert Seminar organized by the Working Group "Protecting human rights while countering terrorism" of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force; in 2003 as U.N. Special Expert on promoting gender equality in times of conflict and peace-making; and from 1996 to 1997 as a representative of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at domestic war crimes trials in Bosnia.
Fionnuala dedicates her post to the woman who was IntLawGrrls' 1st transnational foremother, whose anglicized name is Grace O'Malley (a favorite not only of yours truly, but also of IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Gráinne de Búrca). (credit for photo of statue of O'Malley on grounds of Westport House, County Mayo, Ireland) Referring to Grace by her Irish name, Fionnuala writes that

Gráinne Ní Mháille (c. 1530 – c. 1603), also known as Granuaile, was an important figure in Irish folklore and a historical figure in 16th century Irish History. While primarily viewed as a romantic and complex female pirate figure she represents for me a figure of feminist agency in a highly patriarchial society with much vigor and uniqueness in her tapestry of her life's story and choices.

Heartfelt welcome!

Bloody Sunday – Setting the Truth Free

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post)

After decades of legal and political struggle to vindicate the innocence of thirteen persons killed during a civil rights protest in Derry on January 30 1972, known as Bloody Sunday, the report by the Hon Lord Saville of Newdigate was released last week to their families and a watchful local and global community.
The Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry spans 10 volumes. As previously posted on IntLawGrrls, it is unequivocal that the deaths were “unjustified and unjustifiable” and that all those shot were innocent civilians who had given no cause for the use of force again them by members of the British paratroop regiment.
The symbolism of the Report’s delivery last Tuesday was deeply significant.
A packed house in the British House of Parliament in London and the crowd of which I was a part, at Guildhall Square in Derry (above left) -- both at centre stage -- waited and watched. (photo credit)
A newly elected and conservative British Prime Minister, David Cameron (below right), in a speech before the House of Commons, gave no political space for dissension. (photo credit) He confirmed that the army had fired the first shots; that no warnings were given before the soldiers opened fire; that none of the casualties were posing a threat; that soldiers lied about their actions; and that on behalf of the government and the country he was “deeply sorry”.
The Saville Inquiry was first commissioned by Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998 as part of the then-embryonic Northern Ireland peace process – a confidence-building measure aimed largely at the nationalist community, whose faith in the rule of law and the neutrality of the state had been seriously undermined by the events of that day, and the subsequent and much derided inquiry by Lord Widgery which had exonerated the soldiers and the state of responsibility.
The 12-year length of the Saville Inquiry proceedings was testimony to the complexity of the terrain it traversed, as well as to the continual obstacles placed in the way of proceeding by Britain's Ministry of Defence.
The Inquiry's outcome was unexpected for its clarity, for its directness, and for the starkness of its findings. It also tenaciously confirms the importance of redeeming and affirming the truth of contentious actions by the state.
The Report is received in the context of an ongoing political transition in a post-conflict society. It immediately raises the question of what comes next?
An obvious question is whether the prosecution of soldiers for offences of murder or manslaughter for their actions on the day by Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service will be sought. Despite the clarity of Saville’s report, success is less certain in an adversarial setting. Fair trial concerns for soldiers, the admissibility of hearsay evidence, the passage of time, as well as undertakings given by the Attorney-General in 1999 that witnesses who provided evidence to the inquiry would be protected, all pose prosecutorial challenges. It seems more likely that prosecution of witnesses (specifically soldiers) for perjury would be successful given the depth and scope of evidence in the report itself. The families of the dead and the wounded have stated that they will take some time to read and consider the report before making calls for further specific legal steps.
But, in a wider context, the report has significant precedential importance for transitional societies.
It demonstrates the capacity of determined victims to successfully challenge and force the state to account for its actions in violating human rights norms. In this, it has given great impetus to other families and communities who experienced human rights violations during the same conflict (including further incidents involving the same paratroop regiment). While the Prime Minister may have fervently hoped that Saville closes the circle of inquiry – it may well be that it has exploded the calls to deal fully with the “past” of the Northern Ireland conflict.
Nonetheless, it is an important vindication of the state – particularly for the democratic state that has engaged in serious human rights violations – as the Report breathes life into the capacity of the rule of law to respond adequately and meaningfully to harms experienced by its citizens.
This was deeply evident last Tuesday on the streets of Derry – as a community that has been largely alienated from the state clapped and cheered a British Prime Minister acknowledging the faults of the state and seeking forgiveness.
In this, the Report also underpins the symbolic and communicative function of law – in its capacity to mend and offer individuals the means to heal deep harms and to bring communities “in” rather than to leave them out. Lord Saville's Report is both symbolically and practically important – for Northern Ireland and other conflicted societies addressing the past.
The debate on “dealing with the past” in Northern Ireland has not likely been closed by this important report. Rather, it opens up the possibility of deeper and more sustained engagement as the transition goes forward.

Britain apologizes

Prime Minister David Cameron today stood in Parliament and apologized for military actions on January 30, 1972, in Derry, the 2d largest city in Northern Ireland. As we've posted, 14 civil rights marchers died from shootings on that Bloody Sunday, and an initial inquiry exonerated British troops. Cameron's statement marks today's release of the report of an inquiry commission headed by Lord Mark Saville, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Saville Commission found the killings were, "both unjustified and unjustifiable," to use Prime Minister Cameron's words today in the House of Commons. Here, courtesy of the BBC, is the full transcript of Cameron's remarks:

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is publishing the report of the Saville inquiry -- the tribunal set up by the previous government to investigate the tragic events of 30 January 1972, a day more commonly known as Bloody Sunday.
We have acted in good faith by publishing the tribunal's findings as soon as possible after the general election.
Mr Speaker, I am deeply patriotic. I never want to believe anything bad about our country. I never want to call into question the behaviour of our soldiers and our army, who I believe to be the finest in the world.
And I have seen for myself the very difficult and dangerous circumstances in which we ask our soldiers to serve.
But the conclusions of this report are absolutely clear. There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.
Lord Saville concludes that the soldiers of the support company who went into the Bogside did so as a result of an order which should not have been given by their commander.
He finds that, on balance, the first shot in the vicinity of the march was fired by the British Army.
He finds that none of the casualties shot by the soldiers of support company was armed with a firearm.
He finds that there was some firing by Republican paramilitaries but none of this firing provided any justification for the shooting of civilian casualties.
And he finds that, in no case, was any warning given by soldiers before opening fire.
He also finds that the support company reacted by losing their self-control, forgetting or ignoring their instructions and training and with a serious and widespread loss of fire discipline.
He finds that despite the contrary evidence given by the soldiers, none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers.
And he finds that many of the soldiers -- and I quote knowingly -- put forward false accounts to seek to justify their firing.
Lord Saville says that some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to the assistance of others who were dying.
The report refers to one person who was shot while crawling away from the soldiers. Another was shot in all probability when he was lying mortally wounded on the ground.
The report refers to the father who was hit and injured by army gunfire after going to attend to his son.
For those looking for statements of innocence, Saville says that the immediate responsibility for the deaths and injuries on Bloody Sunday lies with those members of support company whose unjustifiable firing was the cause of those deaths and injuries. Crucially, that, and I quote, none of the casualties was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury or indeed was doing anything else that could, on any view, justified in shooting.
For those people who are looking for the report to use terms like murder and unlawful killing, I remind the House that these judgments are not matters for a tribunal or politicians to determine.
Mr Speaker, these are shocking conclusions to read and shocking words to have to say. But Mr Speaker, you do not defend the British Army by defending the indefensible.
We do not honour all those who have served with such distinction in keeping the peace and upholding the rule of law in Northern Ireland by hiding from the truth.
There is no point in trying to soften or equivocate what is in this report. It is clear from the tribunal's authoritative conclusions that the events of Bloody Sunday were in no way justified.
I know that some people wonder whether, nearly 40 years on from an event, a prime minister needs to issue an apology.
For someone of my generation, Bloody Sunday and the early 1970s are something we feel we have learnt about rather than lived through.
But what happened should never, ever have happened. The families of those who died should not have had to live with the pain and the hurt of that day and with a lifetime of loss. Some members of our armed forces acted wrongly. The government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces and for that, on behalf of the government, indeed, on behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry.
Mr Speaker, just as this report is clear that the actions of that day were unjustifiable, so too is it clear in some of its other findings.
Those looking for premeditation, a plan, those even looking for a conspiracy involving senior politicians or senior members of the armed forces, they will not find it in this report.
Indeed, Lord Saville finds no evidence that the events of Bloody Sunday were premeditated, he concludes that the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland governments and the army neither tolerated nor encouraged the use of unjustified lethal force.
He makes no suggestion of a government cover up.
Mr Speaker, the report also specifically deals with the actions of key individuals in the army, in politics and beyond, including Major-General Ford, Brigadier McLellan, and Lieutenant Colonel Wilford.
In each case, the findings are clear. It does the same for Martin McGuinness. It specifically finds he was present and probably armed with a sub-machine gun but it concludes, and I quote, "we're sure that he did not engage in any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire".
Mr Speaker, while in no way justifying the events of January 30th, 1972, we should acknowledge the background to the events of Bloody Sunday.
Since 1969, the security situation in Northern Ireland had been declining significantly.
Three days before Bloody Sunday, two RUC officers, one a Catholic, were shot by the IRA in Londonderry, the first police officers killed in the city during the Troubles.
A third of the City of Derry had become a no-go area for the RUC and the Army. And in the end, 1972 was to prove Northern Ireland's bloodiest year by far, with nearly 500 people killed.
And let us also remember, Bloody Sunday is not the defining story of the service the British Army gave in Northern Ireland from 1969-2007.
This was known as Operation Banner, the longest continuous operation in British military history, spanning 38 years and in which over 250,000 people served.
Our armed forces displayed enormous courage and professionalism in upholding democracy and the rule of law in Northern Ireland.
Acting in support of the police, they played a major part in setting the conditions that have made peaceful politics possible.
And over 1,000 members -- 1,000 members -- of the security forces lost their lives to that cause.
Without their work, the peace process would not have happened.
Of course, some mistakes were undoubtedly made, but lessons were also learned.
And once again, I put on record the immense debt of gratitude we all owe to those who served in Northern Ireland.
Mr Speaker, may I also thank the tribunal for its work and all those who displayed great courage in giving evidence.
I would also like to acknowledge the grief of the families of those killed.
They have pursued their long campaign over 38 years with great patience. Nothing can bring back those who were killed, but I hope, as one relative has put it, the truth coming out can help set people free.
John Major said he was open to a new inquiry, Tony Blair then set it up. This was accepted by the leader of the opposition. Of course, none of us anticipated that the Saville inquiry would take 12 years or cost almost £200m. Our views on that are well-documented.
It is right to pursue the truth with vigour and thoroughness, but let me reassure the House there will be no more open-ended and costly inquiries into the past.
Today is not about the controversies surrounding the process, it is about the substance, about what this report tells us.
Everyone should have the chance to examine its complete findings and that is why it is being published in full. Running to more than 5,000 pages, it is being published in 10 volumes.
Naturally, it will take all of us some time to digest the report's full findings and understand its implications. The House will have an opportunity for a full day's debate this autumn, and in the meantime the Secretaries of State in Northern Ireland for Defence will report back to me on all the issues which arise from it.
Mr Speaker, this report and the inquiry itself demonstrate how a state should hold itself to account and how we should be determined at all times, no matter how difficult, to judge ourselves against the highest standards.
Openness and frankness about the past, however painful, they do not make us weaker, they make us stronger.
That is one of the things that differentiates us from the terrorists. We should never forget that over 3,500 people from every community lost their lives in Northern Ireland, the overwhelming majority killed by terrorists.
There were many terrible atrocities. Politically-motivated violence was never justified, whichever side it came from. And it can never be justified by those criminal gangs that today want to draw Northern Ireland back to its bitter and bloody past.
No government I lead will ever put those who fight to defend democracy on an equal footing with those who contine to seek to destroy it.
But neither will we hide from the truth that confronts us today.
In the words of Lord Saville, what happened on Bloody Sunday strengthened the Provisional IRA, increased hostility towards the Army and exacerbated the violent conflict of the years that followed.
Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland.
Those are words we cannot and must not ignore. But I hope what this report can also do it is mark the moment where we come together in this House and in the communities we represent to acknowledge our shared history, even where it divides us.
And come together to close this painful chapter on Northern Ireland's troubled past.
That is not to say we should ever forget or dismiss the past, but we must also move on. Northern Ireland has been transformed over the last 20 years and all of us in Westminster and Stormont must continue that work of change, coming together with all the people of Northern Ireland to build a stable, peaceful, prosperous and shared future.
And it is with that determination that I commend this statement to the house.

For today, 'nuff said.

Write On! Derry children's rights conference

(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers.) Papers are being sought for the regional conference of the International Society of Family Law, to be held June 18-20, 2010, at the School of Law, Magee, University of Ulster, Derry, N. Ireland. The theme of this multidisciplinary conferencem involving academics, practitioners, and students from in law, social work, and child protection, is "The Children's Convention at 21: The Rights of the Child Come of Age?"
Among the topics to be addressed:
► Domestic interpretation and implementation of the Children's Convention
► Juvenile justice
► Child protection
► Adoption/fostering and special guardianship
► Immigration
► Children's health
► 'Family life' and children's rights
► Children's rights as socioeconomic rights
► Parents' rights
Confirmed participants include: Patricia Lewsley (top right), the Belfast-based Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children & Young People; Emily Logan (left), the Dublin-based Ombudsman for Children; and Dr. Ursula Kilkelly (below right), Faculty of Law, University College, Cork.
Abstracts of approximately 250 words should be e-mailed to the Conference at childrensrights@ulster.ac.uk. Deadline for submission of abstracts is April 16, 2010; conference details are here.

On July 28

On this day in ...
… 2005, Joan Finney (right), Kansas governor, died at age 76 in Topeka. In addition to being the state's 1st female governor, she was its 1st Roman Catholic Governor, its oldest governor, and also one of the few pro-life Democratic Governors of her time. (photo credit) Finney'd served as State Treasurer from 1975 to 1991, and then was elected Governor, becoming the 1st woman to defeat an incumbent Governor in a general election. In 1996, she ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Presidential candidate Bob Dole.
… 2005, The Irish Republican Army (Óglaigh na hÉireann in Irish) called an end to its 30-year-long armed campaign in Northern Ireland.
From its statement:

All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms.
All Volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever.

In September 2008, the 19th report of the Independent Monitoring Commission stated that the IRA was "committed to the political path" and no longer represented "a threat to peace or to democratic politics," and that the IRA's Army Council was "no longer operational or functional." (photo credit)

(Prior July 28 posts are here and here.)

On April 20

On this day in ...
... 1914 (95 years ago today), a shot was fired at a Rockefeller-owned mine in Southern Colorado where labor activists and management had long been at odds. (One of IntLawGrrls' transnational foremothers, Mother Jones, had rallied striking miners there the previous autumn; her consequent imprisonment gave rise to the demonstration at right.) (credit) "The face-off raged for fourteen hours, during which the miners' tent colony was pelted with machine gun fire and ultimately torched by the state militia," according to a PBS site. A New York Times reporter recounted the scene left after this Ludlow Massacre:

The Ludlow camp is a mass of charred debris, and buried beneath it is a story of horror imparalleled in the history of industrial warfare. In the holes which had been dug for their protection against the rifles' fire the women and children died like trapped rats when the flames swept over them. One pit, uncovered [the day after the massacre] disclosed the bodies of ten children and two women.

A list of the victims, 19 in total, who ranged from a 3-month-old girl to a 56-year-old man, is here.
... 1974 (35 years ago today), with the discovery of the body of a gas station owner "found dumped on a roadside" in County Fermanagh, the death toll in the political violence known as Northern Ireland's "Troubles" reached 1,000 persons. "The milestone has been reached," the BBC reported, "amid a spate of killings and shootings over the past two days." By the time the it ended in 1998, the conflict had claimed more than 3,000 victims.

(Prior April 20 posts are here and here.)

On March 9

On this day in ...
... 1959 (50 years ago today), Barbara Millicent Roberts was born in Willows, Wisconsin. She was 11-1/2 inches (29 centimeters) long, and would not grow any taller during her half-century of life. Best known by her nickname, Barbie "is the top-selling toy in the world," and "has traveled the world and worked more than 100 different jobs," although, according to International Herald Tribune writer Jessica Michault, "Barbie's real profession is clothes horse." Not so sure that's right. Sure, Barbie's had tons of clothes, beginning with the zebra number at left. But for many a wee girl (and boy) it's the invitation to role-playing, to the trying-on of personalities through the dolls, that's made Barbie and her friends so perennially popular.

... 1973, persons who voted overwhelmingly favored keeping Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom, in a provincewide referendum boycotted by Roman Catholics.

(Prior March 9 posts are here and here.)

On October 5

On this day in ...

... 1968 (40 years ago today), in Derry, Northern Ireland's 2d largest city, the political violence known as The Troubles began when police "used batons and water cannon to break up a civil rights march," injuring at least 30 persons. Unrest would cripple the region for 3 decades, ending only with the Good Friday Accords of 1998. (credit for photo © Derry Journal)

... 1988 (20 years ago today), by a margin of 10 percentage points, Chilean voters rejected Augusto Pinochet's bid for another 8 years as President. This rejection by plebiscite would prove a milestone in ending the reign of Pinochet, who, as a military general, had seized power in a bloody coup on September 11, 1973. When he died in 2006 Pinochet -- though he had avoided extradition from Britain to Spain on international criminal charges -- faced "numerous court cases that had sought to bring him to justice" in Chile. (credit for 1988 photo of Pinochet, at far right)

On September 25

On this day in ...
... 1995, Dr. Bessie Delany (left), died at age 104 at her home in Mount Vernon, New York. She and her elder sister, daughters of emancipated slaves, had moved "from Jim Crow-era North Carolina" to New York during World War I; in 1923 she earned her DDS from Columbia University, the only African-American woman, and 1 of only 11 women, in the class. "Dr. Bessie" became a fixture in Harlem, a dentist who "treated the rich and poor equally." Late in life the sisters published a popular memoir, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (co-authored with Amy Hill Hearth and Emily Mann, 1992). Her sister Sadie Delany (above right), an accomplished schoolteacher, would die 4 years later, at age 109.
... 1983 (25 years ago today), 38 Irish prisoners escaped from an "H"-block of a prison outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, that was variously known as Long Kesh or the Maze -- a prison that British authorities had called the continent's most secure. A prison officer was killed in the mass breakout. Half the escapers were soon caught; a few remain at large to this day. Several were found in California in the 1990s. Among them was Jimmy Smyth, whom I helped to represent in extradition proceedings. Smyth won in the federal district court, but lost in the Court of Appeals. (My essay on the case begins at page 622 here.) Closure of the prison (right) occurred in 2000 as a result of the 1998 Good Friday peace accords.

On August 21

On this day in ...
... 1973 (35 years ago today), after an inquest jury returned an open verdict, "the Londonderry City coroner, Major Hubert O'Neill," said that British troops who'd opened fire on civil rights marchers on January 30, 1973, were responsible for "'sheer unadulterated murder.'" The shootings in Derry, Northern Ireland (coat of arms at right), on what's known as "Bloody Sunday," left 14 unarmed persons dead.
... 1878 (130 years ago today), in Saratoga Springs, New York, 100 attorneys from 21 states founded the American Bar Association. According to the ABA's website:

The legal profession as we know it today barely existed at that time. Lawyers were generally sole practitioners who trained under a system of apprenticeship. ...
The first ABA constitution ... defined the purpose of the ABA as being for 'the advancement of the science of jurisprudence, the promotion of the administration of justice and a uniformity of legislation throughout the country....'
Today, the stated mission ... is 'to be the national representative of the legal profession, serving the public and the profession by promoting justice, professional excellence and respect for the law.'

On August 15

On this day in ...

... 1998 (10 years ago today), 29 persons, among them 9 children "and a woman pregnant with twins," died in Omagh, following "the worst paramilitary bombing since the start of the Northern Ireland conflict three decades ago." Claiming responsibility was the "Real IRA -- a breakaway group formed after the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire."

... 1974, assassin's bullets intended for Republic of Korea President Park Chung Hee shot and killed Hee's wife, 1st Lady Yook Young Soo, and a 17-year-old girl, Chang Bong Wha, while Park was giving a Liberation Day speech before 1,500 people at a theater in Seoul. Later that year Korea honored Yook with the stamp at right.

Counterterrorism's spillover effect

News that an antiterrorism measure intrudes on settled civil liberties at times is met with a shrug. Case in point, a conversation I had with a self-proclaimed liberal law professor not long after the New York Times revealed in 2006 that U.S. officials had engaged in warrantless electronic surveillance. His response? A shrug, accompanied by, "Doesn't affect me."
Keep that response in mind while considering news in Britain: Local governments have been using a counterterrorist tool -- the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 -- to aid investigations with no link to terrorism. The Times of London reports:

Official ‘surveillance’ requests for details of telephone and internet records have surged to 1,400 a day, according to figures published yesterday.
The annual number of ‘spying’ requests for private communications data jumped to almost 520,000 last year, compared with an average of less than 350,000 in the two previous years.
Local councils have been criticised for seeking the information to tackle under age drinking, dog fouling, littering and even to find out whether a family lived in a school catchment area.

Translation: An antiterrorism mechanism's being utilized to police poop-scooping. And here, with inestimable understatement, is the article's next paragraph:

Although local authorities made up only a small proportion of the overall number of requests in 2007, they were criticised for misunderstanding the concept of proportionality in when ‘spying’ is justified to tackle a problem.

This spillover effect ought not to surprise. Nor should it surprise that an inurement to a context-specific curtailment of liberty might engender acceptance of an across-the-board curtailment. Indeed, Britain experienced some of this during The Troubles: measures passed to respond to terrorism in Northern Ireland, having been found to ease prosecution, eventually were embraced for all investigations in all areas of Britain.

Shruggers of the world might want to reconsider their response.

On this day

On March 28, ...
... 1970, Michelle Gildernew (right) was born into a farm family of 10 in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. After university studies, she traveled in Europe, the United States, and Australia, then returned home and entered politics as a member of the Sinn Féin party. In 1998 Gildernew was elected to represent Fermanagh/South Tyrone in the Northern Ireland Assembly, a post she continues to hold. In the Assembly Cabinet she serves as Minister for the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. She was a member of the 1st Sinn Féin delegation to Downing Street, residence of the British Prime Minister, in 1997.
... 1898 (110 years ago today), in the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited denial of citizenship to anyone born in the United States. The habeas petitioner, Wong (left), had been born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, yet was denied re-entry into the United States, after a visit to China, on grounds that he was not a U.S. citizen and that the Chinese Exclusion Act barred him from entering as an immigrant.

On January 30, ...

... 1972, in Derry, the 2d largest city in the North of Ireland, British paratroopers opened fire on unarmed civil rights demonstrators. In the end 14 persons died, all but 1 on the day, and others were wounded. In the Associated Press photo at left, Father Edward Daly waves a white hankerchief as others carry a casualty out of the line of fire.
Among those present on that Bloody Sunday was a youth who'd celebrated his 18th birthday just weeks before. When the shooting started he crouched behind a concrete abutment, just yards away from some of those who died. On the anniversary of the event in 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle published an op-ed by Peter D. O'Neill, that youth. The op-ed appeared on what happened to be the day of the much-vaunted elections in Iraq. O'Neill noted that after the shootings in Derry the local people had turned away from occupying troops, and, in words that proved sadly prophetic, wrote of his concern that the same thing might happen in Iraq:

It is the lesson of Bloody Sunday that, from Fallujah to Nasiriyah, from Mosul to Baghdad, we can expect violence every day that foreign troops remain on Iraq's soil. We can hope for no positive change without a full withdrawal of coalition forces -- a solution called for this week by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma -- so that Iraqis may take the lead in their own affairs. Based on Bush's second inaugural address, however, we can look only to four more years of unlearned and ineffective policy. And so we can muster no optimism about today's elections in Iraq.

... 1913, Britain's House of Lords rejected a bill that would have accorded to Ireland Home Rule, a modicum of self-government.

On January 16, ...

... 1919, the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Prohibiting within 1 year "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes," the amendment marked the culmination of a temperance movement that had been waged, often as a "Women's Crusade," for decades. The measure would be repealed in the early 1930s, thus bringing to a close a Prohibition Era notable for spurring gangsterism and flouting of laws and, conversely, the rise for the 1st time of federal law enforcement agencies engaged in transnational pursuit of offenders.
... 1981, as she went to awaken 1 of her 3 children at their home in Coalisland, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, rights activist and former Member of Parliament Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was shot in the chest, arm and thigh by armed gunmen. Depicted at right on a mural in Derry, the city in the North's northwest corner, Devlin had been the youngest-ever woman MP when elected in 1969. (image credit)

European Court of Human Rights Decides Cases on Northern Ireland Police Collusion

The European Court of Human Rights last week found violations of Article 2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom on the part of the United Kingdom. Of the 3 cases, McGrath v United Kingdom, McCartney v United Kingdom, and Brecknell v United Kingdom, the leading judgment is that handed down in Brecknell.
Brecknell concerned the attack on Donnelly’s Bar in 1975 in which three people were killed and six seriously injured. There had been some initial investigation but the investigation was reignited in 1993 when John Weir was released from prison.
John Weir was a police officer who was convicted of murder in 1980 and released in 1993. On his release Weir alleged Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC, cap at right) collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, and provided information relating to a number of incidents including the attack on Donnelly’s Bar. This information was investigated by both the Irish police and the RUC and, in connection with the RUC investigation, two internal reports were prepared (one in 2001 and one in 2003). In 2004 a Serious Crime Review Team investigation into the Weir allegations began (a new police force, PSNI, now having replaced the RUC) and the Independent Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland became involved.
The families of the deceased persons claimed that the investigation had been inadequate and engaged in judicial review at the domestic level that was, ultimately, unsuccessful. Before the European Court of Human Rights (below) the applicants claimed that the investigation into Weir’s allegations had been inadequate particularly since the Irish police had found him to be a credible witness but, on the same evidence, the PSNI had found him to be not credible. According to the complaint, Article 2 results in a positive obligation to conduct an independent investigation into Weir’s allegations, whereas the Government argued that, even if the allegations did trigger an obligation to investigate (which was denied), the investigation conducted was in compliance with Article 2.
In its judgment the European Court reiterated its well-established principle that there is an Article 2 obligation to carry out an effective investigation into unlawful or suspicious deaths and that this investigation ought to be prompt, independent and effective. It is not the case, according to the Court, that every new allegation or piece of information would trigger this positive obligation. But

where there is a plausible, or credible, allegation, piece of evidence or item of information relevant to the identification, and eventual prosecution or punishment of the perpetrator of an unlawful killing, the authorities are under an obligation to take further investigative measures.

(para. 71) In this case Weir’s allegations were serious and were prima facie plausible, therefore an obligation to investigate arose.

The initial investigation, which was carried out by the RUC itself, was found by the Court not to be sufficiently independent and therefore failed to comply with Article 2 at the early stages at least. As a result, there was a violation of Article 2. It does appear, however, that the later stages of the investigation operated by a Serious Crime Review Team and involving the Ombudsman, would satisfy the requirements of Article 2, thus highlighting (once more) the fundamentality of the change in policing in Northern Ireland since adoption of the Patten plan.

Take care not to court insecurity

"George Bush Goes for Consensus in Naming Michael Mukasey for Justice," reads the minutes-old headline at Le Monde. It spins with the Associate Press story that surmises, "Mukasey appears unlikely to face a bruising confirmation battle in the Democratic-controlled Senate."
No quibbling about the credentials of Mukasey (left), who presided over high-profile terrorism trials while a Chief Judge at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, to serve as Attorney General of the United States. Still, there's good reason for Senators to take a hard look at the nomination.
Fresh in mind is the U.S. citizen whom the U.S. executive kept in "enemy combatant" detention for years before permitting him to stand trial in federal court in Miami. Prosecutors set out the case against José Padilla in an open and public proceeding, without resort to classified evidence -- and jurors promptly returned the verdict of guilty that likely will permit his incarceration for life. Putting to one side the difficulties presented to the defense by the taint of prior detention, many saw the result as proof positive that persons suspected of terrorist acts can and should be handled through the justice system in place before attacks on Washington and New York set the stage for efforts to establish a newfangled system. (See here, for example; I'd written as much here before the verdict.)
The administration's called this new mechanism "military commissions," though, as the Supreme Court recognized in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in many respects -- respects particularly menacing to the U.S. tradition of fundamental fairness in the substance and procedure of criminal law -- the system deviates from past commissions. Despite Congress' near-rubberstamp of the system in the post-Hamdan Military Commissions Act, the newfangled system continues to falter: the latest halt occurred because military judges concluded that the government was asking them to act illegally.
Against this backdrop, consider now the op-ed that Mukasey published in the Wall Street Journal a week after the close of the Padilla case. In stark contrast with many other commentators, Mukasey saw the result not as an affirmation of existing practice, but rather as evidence that "current institutions and statutes are not well suited to even the limited task of supplementing what became, after Sept. 11, 2001, principally a military effort to combat Islamic terrorism."
To solve the problem that he maintains is at hand, Mukasey commends his readers, and Congress, to give "careful scrutiny" to proposals for "a new adjudicatory framework" -- the so-called Homeland Security Court or, more often, National Security Court, idea that's been percolating in certain thinktanks for a year or more now. It remained out of the larger public discourse until a recent bipartisan publication in support.
Have yet to read anything in support that demonstrates genuine need for this legal contraption. Proponents tend to ignore statistical analyses -- like this chart in the ABA Journal -- indicating that the Justice Department's scarcely a failure in playing its part in the U.S. antiterrorism campaign. And just as the "new paradigm" proponents of a few years back (some of the same folks now calling for this "new court") acted as if history offered no cautionary lessons, proponents today do not mention difficulty and criticism (some from the pre-9/11 United States) visited upon other countries that've pursued this path. Think of the nonjury Diplock courts in Northern Ireland, or the special terrorism tribunals in places like Egypt, Turkey, and Peru. These examples show that such courts, though established in the name of enhancing security, not infrequently make guarantees of due process, public assumptions of the fairness and legitimacy of judicial decisions, and, in extreme cases, public safety, less secure.
With benefit of hindsight, Mukasey's August op-ed looks much like an audition for the position of next Attorney General. And with more than a year remaining for implementation, the Senate ought to use the confirmation hearings to test whether the nomination's intended to pave the way for a final Bush legacy: for the 1st time in the history of a centuries-old country that's faced many a threat to peace, even to its very existence, establishment of a permanent, due-process-lite National Security Court.