Go On! Human rights & cultural heritage

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Jennifer Kreder, who contributes this Go On! guest post)

With the political turmoil in the Middle East and recent devastating earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and Turkey, the timing is – unfortunately – excellent for Human Rights and Cultural Heritage: From the Holocaust to the Haitian Earthquake, a conference to be held March 31, 2011, at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, 55 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
Cohosting in addition to Cardozo's Art Law Society are the Cultural Heritage and the Arts Interest Group of the American Society of International Law (an interest group for which I serve as co-chair), the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, and the Hofstra Law School Art and Cultural Heritage Club. Generously supporting the conference are the Commission for Art Recovery and the New York law firm Herrick Feinstein, LLP.
The daylong conference will include an impressive group of diverse perspectives – including a keynote address by Howard N. Spiegler, partner and co-chair of Herrick Feinstein's Art Law Group – and will cover a broad range of topics relating to the intersection of human rights and cultural heritage across the globe.
The schedule of speakers and topics is available here. Space is limited, so be sure to register soon!

Guest Blogger: Monika Kalra Varma

Honored to welcome Monika Kalra Varma (right) as IntLawGrrls' guest blogger today.
Monika is the Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights in Washington, D.C., where she develops and oversees programming, day-to-day operations, longterm strategies. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts.)
Since joining the center in 2002, she's spearheaded innovative economic and social rights advocacy, including efforts to hold international actors accountable for extraterritorial economic rights violations. Advocacy campaigns she's led have targeted the United Nations and its member states, various branches of the U.S. government, members of the Organization of American States and other regional bodies, international financial institutions, and corporations.
Monika serves on the editorial board of Health and Human Rights: An International Journal, published by the Harvard-based François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, and she is a steering committee member of the Lawyers Emergency Response Network for Haiti. She is also a member of the advisory board for the Global India Fund.
She speaks regularly with policymakers and members of civil society about domestic and international human rights issues, and has published commentary in, to name a few, the Boston Globe, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, and Jurist.
Today she contributes to IntLawGrrls. Monika's guest post below discusses her recent visit to Western Sahara as part of an RFK Center delegation -- a visit that produced a just-published report.
Prior to joining the RFK Center, Monika worked at The Hague. As a legal officer in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, she was a member of the trial team which secured the ICTY's first indictment and eventual conviction of the crime of terror. Accused, and eventually convicted, was General Stanislav Galić, the Serb military commander in Sarajevo from 1992-1994.
Monika earned her B.A. degree from the University of California, San Diego, and her J.D. from the University of California, Davis, School of Law. Indeed, I'm proud to say that she is a former student of mine, and the author while a student of a pathbreaking article, "Forced Marriage: Rwanda’s Secret Revealed," 7 University of California Davis Journal of International Law & Policy 197 (2001). We're been honored to name her a featured alumna on the website of our California International Law Center at King Hall, and also to work with her on the Darfur Project (described in posts available here) undertaken jointly between CILC and the RFK Center.
A truly heartfelt welcome!

On February 7

On this day in ...

... 1991 (20 years ago today), on the 5th anniversary of the exile of "Baby Doc" Jean-Claude Duvalier's flight into exile, the Catholic priest who'd received 65% of the vote in December elections, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was sworn in as the 1st democratically elected President of Haiti. (credit for photo of Aristide, in center) He would be ousted in a coup later in the year, would be reinstated in 1994, would fail in one re-election bid and win another. Aristide has been in exile since 2004. Following the return of "Baby Doc" (prior posts here and here), Aristide's indicated that he too wants to come back to Haiti, despite U.S. opposition.

(Prior February 7 posts are here, here, and here.)

Inter-American aid to Haitians

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Caroline Bettinger-López, who contributes this guest post)

Great news:
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted, in large part, a request for precautionary measures to stop the U.S. deportation of Haitians under current circumstances of cholera, social unrest, political chaos, and general post-earthquake disorder.
The order, issued on Friday, stemmed from a request made last month by a coalition of groups. One is the new Human Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law, for which I serve as founding Director. Also in the coaliton are the law school's Immigration Clinic, the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the advocacy nonprofit Alternative Chance, and the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic + Center for Social Justice at Loyola New Orleans College of Law.
Our coalition's press release on the decision is here. More on the decision, captioned Precautionary Measures 5/11 — Gary Resil, Harry Mocombe, Roland Joseph, Evel Camelien, and Pierre Louis, United States, may be found here and here.
Unfortunately, the Inter-American Commission's decision only extended to persons with serious illnesses or U.S. family ties. This is nevertheless a tremendous victory:
► Most deportees will fall into one or both of these categories, particularly the "family ties" category; moreover,
► This result is not unexpected. The Commission's prior reports and recommendations on the merits of deportations cases have focused exclusively on these two categories of deportations (illness and family ties to the United States), and so the Commission chose to follow its past guidance on these specific points.
The organizational collaboration in this case has been a tremendously rewarding experience, and our Miami law students played a crucial role in every aspect of this process – from drafting legal memos and declarations, to interviewing family members of deportees and expert witnesses, to organizing the brief. Along with colleagues who teach in our Immigration Clinic, Becky Sharpless (far right) and Farrin Anello (near right), I have been truly impressed by the students' commitment, tenacity, and sharp legal minds.
Thanks too to the nearly 300 individuals and organizations who signed onto a January 10 letter in support of the petition – your voices made a difference!
I and several members of our team will be traveling to Haiti on Tuesday to document the stories of the 27 deportees and the condition of the police station cells in which they were held (and in which future detainees will presumably be held).
We will continue to move forward in our efforts to persuade the U.S. government to issue a moratorium on deportations until conditions in Haiti improve.

Read On! Once (& future?) Haiti

(Read On! ... occasional posts on writing we're reading)

A long-exiled leader's come home and offered to save his country -- if only someone would free up his assets, frozen for the last year.

Suspicious, but not sure why?

Good time for a good read of The Comedians, the 1965 novel in which Graham Greene painted a picture of the Haiti of the time.
It was, as Greene famously wrote, a "Nightmare Republic" (p. 50), in which paramilitary thugs in dark glasses -- nicknamed after evildoers of Haitian folklore, the Tontons Macoutes -- served the ends of a corrupt regime by killing, maiming, terrorizing, anyone, anytime. Among those caught up were Graham's "comedians," 3 of the many outsiders who, in myriad ways, mired themselves in Haiti's woes.

At the head of that nightmare regime?

François Duvalier, known to all as "Papa Doc" (below, far left). Once a respected physician, following his election in 1957 he ruled with an increasingly brutal hand until his death in 1971. Succeeding him was his son Jean-Claude (below, near left), whose 15-year regime likewise was marked by killings, torture, and corruption. (photo credit)

As Hope posted, it is that son, "Baby Doc," now 59, who's returned to Port-au-Prince. And though prosecutors may thwart his goal, it seems he wishes to play a self-styled, and highly suspect, role of Haiti's savior.

Breaking News: "Baby Doc" in Haitian Court

Former self-appointed “president-for-life” Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was questioned by a Haitian prosecutor and a judge at his hotel outside Port-au-Prince and then “escorted” to court according to this BBC News report. At the time of posting, it is unclear whether he is being arrested or being subjected to further questioning. Reports indicate some unrest outside the courthouse.
International human rights NGOs and Haitian abuse survivors called for Duvalier’s immediate arrest after his mysterious return to the island on Sunday. Forced to leave Haiti during a popular uprising in 1986, “Baby Doc” Duvalier has been living in exile in France for more than two decades without arrest. His regime was characterized by widely and reliably documented human rights abuses.
Charges?

In addition to arguing Duvalier’s liability under Haitian law for alleged misappropriation of public funds and other violations, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Bureau des Avocats Internationeaux (BAI) called for international human rights legal accountability (see press release here).

This legal documentation is supplemented by an extensive public record of Mr. Duvalier’s human rights violations, including the torture and disappearances of political dissidents at the Fort Dimanche prison and other crimes committed by organizations under his control including the Armed Forces of Haiti and the Volunteers for National Security (Tontons Macoutes).

Another Year...
For previous IntLawGrrls takes on Haiti, including by Marjorie Florestal, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, and yours truly, Hope Lewis, see here and here. One year after the 12 January 2010 earthquake, I wish I could suggest an accountable, effective, and sustainable pathway for rebuilding, recovery, and transformation. One thing is clear—the core of sustainability lies with the Haitian people and the Haitian Diaspora. Still, the rest of us must play our roles--even if that role is to remember the physician's oath "first, do no harm...."

As Dr. Martin Luther King said all human beings are “tied together in an inextricable web of mutuality.” Trade, humanitarian, human rights, migration, labor, tourism, and business laws and policies do have transnational implications. What "we" do has an impact in Haiti. What happens in Haiti matters wherever “we” are. Stay tuned.

Speaking (Soft) Law to Power

Just in time for the one-year anniversary of the Haitian earthquake, and just when the cholera crisis made one think that life could not get any worse for the Haitians, the Department of Homeland Security is planning to resume deportations of Haitians with criminal convictions. Yesterday, several immigrants' rights and civil rights groups including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and the human rights and immigration clinics at the University of Miami (the former run by guest/alumna Carrie Bettinger-Lopez) filed a petition for precautionary measures with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, asking that it prevent the United States from resuming deportations to Haiti.
Though the petition is long, it's worth a read if only just for the brief but devastating portrait of U.S. policy towards Haitian immigrants since the early 1960s. The stories of the named petitioners in the case demonstrate the ongoing cruelty of our immigration laws. None of the petitioners have been convicted of violent crimes; one is being deported for two counts of drug possession with intent to sell, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison. All face likely imprisonment upon arrival in Haiti simply for the fact of being criminal deportees from the United States. All have lived in the United States for at least a decade and have significant family ties with U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Most were permanent residents themselves before removal proceedings were initiated against them. None have close relatives in Haiti who survived the earthquake, and as a result will have nobody to bring them food and water in prison or advocate for their release.
An older petitioner who suffers from serious medical conditions has not received proper medical care in immigration detention in the United States; one can only imagine what will happen to him in Haiti. A younger petitioner has a 6-year old U.S. citizen son who suffers from a serious medical condition that has worsened since his father has been detained. Another is the sole financial provider for his four U.S. citizen and permanent resident children. Approximately 350 Haitians are in the immigration detention system; 100 were transferred to Louisiana in mid-December to await deportation to Haiti.
The petition alleges violations of five provisions of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (sic). The deportation of these Haitians abrogates their right to life given the inhumane prison conditions they will face at home, particularly during the cholera epidemic, which has hit prisons particularly hard. Their removal also breaches their right to freedom from cruel, infamous, or unusual punishments due to the severe lack of medical care and social services in post-earthquake Haiti. The arbitrary detention these criminal deportees will face upon return violates their right to security of person. The petition also argues that the failure of the U.S. immigration system to offer a humanitarian defense to deportation, either by measuring the impact of removal on U.S. citizen family members or assessing the gravity of conditions in their home country violates the Haitians' right to family life and their right to due process and a fair trial.
Though aspirational in nature, the Inter-American Court and Commission on Human Rights have held the American Declaration's obligations to be binding on members of the Organization for American States, an approach necessitated by the United States' failure to ratify the American Convention on Human Rights (as always, in good company, alongside Cuba). Given the dearth of domestic options to appeal or even obtain information about ICE's deportation policies, and given the Inter-American Commission's recent decision finding that some aspects of U.S. immigration law violate the American Declaration, the Commission seems a wise choice of forum. But even if the Commission finds in favor of the petitioners, will the U.S. follow its precautionary measures? Unlike the Medellin case, here the execution of the orders in question lies in the hands of the federal government. And despite the recent shellacking, it remains a Democratic administration, one that will hopefully be willing to engage the human rights issues at stake.

On September 30

On this day in ...

... 1991, military leaders took control of Haiti, ousting the elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and sending him into exile in France. Contending that "[a]fter seven months of democratic experience, the country once again finds itself a prey to the horrors of uncertainty," Brig. Gen. Raul Cedras said in a broadcast. "Today, the armed forces find themselves obligated to assume the heavy responsibility to keep the ship of state afloat." The coup took place just days after Aristide's return from his speech before the U.N. General Assembly and a celebration among Haiti's New York-based diaspora. The junta would rule for 3 years, until the arrival of a U.N. backed multinational force, and the eventual restoration of elected governments.

(Prior September 30 posts are here, here, and here.)

Wyclef for President?

In 2004, Wyclef Jean--the noted Haitian activist, singer and former member of the Fugees-- released a song titled "If I were president," which served as a campaign promise of sorts. Here's a snippet:

If I were president
Instead of spending billions on the war,
I can use that money so I could feed the poor.
Cause I know some so poor,when it rains that's when they shower.
Screaming "Fight the power". That’s when the war should devour.

Jean might just get the chance to discover what he could. Last week, he announced his intention to run for the Haitian presidency (against his own uncle and several others) The incumbent and much maligned Rene Preval cannot run again, thus Haiti will have a new president. Is Wyclef Jean the right man for the job?

The Haitian presidential line is filled with despots and dictators, members of the elite class and former Roman Catholic priests, illiterates, medical doctors, the powerful and the powerless. We haven't yet had a singer. Certainly, Jean's status as a well-known singer should not preclude him from serious contention; if Schwarzenegger with his dubious acting skills can govern the most powerful state in the Union (as a California resident, I might take issue with whether he's actually done a decent job, but that's a point for another day) why not a singer for Haiti? But does Wyclef Jean have what it takes to bring Haiti out of the darkest moment in its 216 year history?

On the one hand, Jean has strong support from the Haitian poor who see him as a local boy made good who never abandoned them. Although he moved to Brooklyn as a teenager, Jean takes great pride in the fact that he never renounced his Haitian citizenship in favor of the more advantageous American one (if he had, the Haitian presidency would be closed to him as Haiti does not recognize dual citizenship). When Jean faced sharp criticism over Yele Haiti, an organization started by Jean to help Haitians, he pulled together a press conference and brandished his passport as both a sword and shield. Surely one who retained his Haitian nationality years after leaving the island could never be guilty of the terrible acts his organization was accused of? Acts such as not paying taxes and spending donors' money on lavish travel and on Jean himself, for example. While I might argue that many who have brandished the Haitian passport before him have done those things and much worse, Jean's tactics seemed to endear him more to the Haitian community at home and abroad--my own family included. Organizational irregularities aside, Jean has strong ties to the Haitian community and has served as Haiti's Minister of Culture and Ambassador at large. Moreover, unlike much of Haiti's elite, Jean's wealth was not created on the backs of Haiti's poor. He doesn't have ties to Haiti's strongly entrenched and regressive ruling class. He is an outsider who presumably could not be so easily co-opted.

On the other hand, Jean has little experience to guide Haiti through this delicate period in its history. Billions of dollars has been pledged in the Haitian rebuilding effort, although much of it has not yet materialized. Will Jean know how to pressure the international community to provide the funds it has promised? Will he put the proper mechanisms in place to police corruption and ensure the funds are well spent? Does he have a viable plan to create a new economy for Haiti? Haiti's administrative capacity was lamentable before the earthquake, now it is simply non-existence. Can Wyclef Jean create a professional cadre of civil servants that can get the functions of the state working again for Haiti's ordinary citizens? Jean gave an interview to Rolling Stone recently where he addressed many of these concerns (see it here).

Even if Wyclef Jean win's the Haitian presidency, all is not done. Haiti's elite has a long history of brutally doing away with leaders they cannot control. But Jean has a song to sing for all of them:

If I was president,
I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday,
buried on Sunday. then go back to work on Monday.

Hope for Haiti?

This past weekend, I got together with some Haitian friends to size up our experience with the Haitian reconstruction effort. I met these friends shortly after the devastating earthquake of January 12, and we have served as a Board of Advisers of sorts for each other; we've provided moral support and recruited each other into our various projects for Haiti. We've grown quite close over the last few months -- I suppose tragedy has a way of bringing people together. But I was still surprised when we all seemed to share the same sentiment: Haitians have become disillusioned with the reconstruction process. Turns out our experience is more that just anecdotal. Despite the record pledges for aid to Haiti--pledges that both Clintons had a hand in organizing-- the reality on the ground is not much different than it was a few months ago.
In a recent article summing up the relative failure of reconstruction, the author cites the following statistics:

• Amount pledged for Haiti's reconstruction over the following 18 months at the March 31 UN conference: $5,300,000,000
• Percentage of this amount that has been paid: 1.9
• Amount of pledged U.S. bilateral search and rescue assistance to Haiti that was delivered in the wake of the earthquake: $0
• Value of aid the French government has promised Haiti through pledged contributions to UN agencies, NGOS and the Red Cross: $180 million
• Quantity of this aid that has been delivered: $0
• Estimated number of Haitians who remain homeless after the earthquake: 1,500,000
• Amount that has been collected for Haiti relief by U.S. charities: $1,300,000,000
• Number of Haitians without even tents or tarps for shelter: 232,130

Less than 2 % of international funds pledged for Haiti has actually made its way to the island? None of the US bilateral aid or French support through the UN or NGOs has been disbursed? The international community made many promises for a "New Haiti" that would provide the institutions and resources the Haitian people so desperately need to succeed. But that is not possible without the pledged funding. There were also promises that the Haitian voice would not be lost; Haitians living on the island and throughout the diaspora were to play a central role in the rebuilding process. These promises are not materializing and Haitians are losing hope. Fast.

Protecting Women's Rights in the Reconstruction of Haiti

It is easy to forget, what with the millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, with scores of ethnic Uzbeks being killed in Kyrgyzstan, and with the blocking of vital aid to Gaza , that the humanitarian crisis sparked by January's earthquake in Haiti rages on.

Of the hundreds of thousands enduring an epic lack of food, shelter, and medical care, Haitian women and girls remain among the most vulnerable in the aftermath of that natural disaster. (credit for May 19, 2010, photo, © UNICEF/NYHQ2010-0779/LeMoyne, of mother who's just had her daughter vaccinated at health centre in Haiti)

The lack of security on Port-au-Prince's streets and temporary camps, all of which host thousands who have been rendered homeless, has catapulted the rate of violence against women in Haiti. Already endemic before the earthquake, the rate has reached new highs. Prior to the earthquake, violence against women in Haiti was described as "widespread" and "alarming." Over 90 percent of Haitian women were estimated to have experienced gender-based violence at some point in their lives.

The insecurity following the January 12 earthquake has not only exacerbated that state of affairs but presented an opportunity for change as well. Governments, donors, and international organizations -- if not the global citizenry -- are providing humanitarian assistance to the tiny Caribbean nation as it struggles to rebuild its homes, schools, and roads. In addition to the bricks and mortar work being done, development agencies have observed the need to rebuild Haiti's justice and security systems.

No one appreciates the absence of rule of law in Haiti better than its women, who have long struggled to access health care services, police investigations, prosecutions, and enforceable sentences against their aggressors.

On June 7, one of those women, Malya Villard-Apollon, testified before the U.N. Human Rights Council. Villard-Apollon is a member of KOFAVIV, a grassroots organization that has worked with victims of sexual violence in Haiti for six years. Since the earthquake, KOFAVIV has recorded 242 cases of rape but has yet to see a single prosecution. Villard-Apollon urged the Council to take action, saying:

Although violence against women is common, rape survivors like myself refuse to believe that it cannot be stopped and neither should the members of the Council.

She cited a lack of education and security as reasons for the alarming rates of violence against women, as well as "ineffective" aid distribution and aid agencies' failure to consult with local organizations. Villard-Apollon reminded donors of the United Nations' Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and urged aid providers to consult with Haitian women in the delivery of aid. Principle 18 of the Guiding Principles calls specifically for the involvement of displaced women in the distribution of water, food, shelter, and medical care.

The importance of consulting with women in Haiti's reconstruction was echoed by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in her June 11 report on human rights during the rebuilding of Haiti.

Involving women in the reconstruction of Haiti does not simply satisfy international legal obligations, it also makes good development sense. Participatory development has been a buzzword in the field of international aid since the 1990s, when development agencies began shifting away from top-down programming to more bottom-up initiatives. Since this time, many aid organizations have been working with grassroots groups to set the development agendas for their own communities, understanding that such involvement leads not only to project ownership but also to initiatives that are more tailored to participating communities and ultimately, to more sustainable outcomes.

This development philosophy, together the international legal principles prescribing participation of women in humanitarian relief, may translate into reconstruction efforts in Haiti that will not only stem the current crisis of gender-based violence but also prevent its recurrence in the future.

On the Job! Haiti country consultant

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

The American Jewish World Service, an international development organization, seeks a person experienced in community development and/or human rights, with particular focus on the needs of women, youths, and/or persons with disabilities, to be its full-time country consultant for Haiti.
This country consultant will work directly with the organization's grants team on developing, implementing, and monitoring a plan to strategic plan for aid in post-earthquake Haiti.
Experience and knowledge respecting Haitian society, politics, and economy, as well as skill in English and Kreyol, are required. Applications should be submitted no later than April 30. For details, contact aestrella@ajws.org.

'Nuff said

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

The gap between this periodic need for the international community to intervene in a state’s management of environmental disasters and the prohibition on intervention could be filled by an extension of a relatively new norm to this situation.

-- Our colleague Linda A. Malone (below left), Marshall-Wythe Professor of Law and Director of the Human Security Law Program, William and Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia, in "The Responsibility to Protect in Haiti," an ASIL Insight that carefully explains how the concept of responsibility to protect may be employed to encourage action by the U.N. Security Council in time of environmental disasters like that pictured above right (credit) -- the aftermath of the January earthquake in Haiti.

Haiti: Rewired

The donor conference is over and the figures are in: Nearly 50 countries have pledged $9.9 billion to Haiti for the rebuilding effort. As Secretary Clinton has said, "that is an impressive sum by any standard." Indeed, this is an impressive sum, and it far exceeds the $3.9 billion the Haitian government had sought. Not all of it will be disbursed immediately, but nearly $5 billion will be made available to Haiti in the next 18 months. Problem solved?

Most experts in development circles recognize that such vast sums of money--if not properly managed--can create more problems than it solves for a country like Haiti. Corruption permeates much of Haitian society, and it would be a simple matter indeed for this money to get lost in the abyss. How are we to manage the process so that the money goes to its intended beneficiaries--Haiti's poor and neglected masses? There appears nearly uniform agreement that the Haitian government cannot manage the effort on its own. Based on its past track record, there is simply no reason to believe that it would properly manage the funds. But so far, the international community is not articulating a clear process for all stakeholders to have an input. In particular, the voices of Haitians themselves are absent. Without buy-in from Haitians who feel they have an ultimate stake in the outcome, there is no way for this process to be successful. It is time for us to learn from past mistakes. Haitians do not want to be passive observers in their own story. It is time for us to listen to their voices.

'Nuff said

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

We as a nation should be humbled that the Haitian people, a people who rose above slavery, a people of great resilience and survival, wish to become part of our community. They want only the basics: education, food and shelter. In return they offer their cultural riches – their resilience, their art, their music, their beloved food and their beautiful laughter. The United States government should grant humanitarian parole to the Haitians in need ....

-- My colleague Holly Cooper (above left), Lecturer in the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California, Davis, School of Law (Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall), in an op-ed in London's Guardian, entitled "How the US can help Haiti: Thousands of Haitians lost everything in the earthquake. The US should open its borders and start granting humanitarian parole." Holly's essay deftly invokes the Greek myth of Persephone in recounting her experiences earlier this month in Haiti, where she was part of "a human rights delegation intent on finding individuals for whom we could request humanitarian parole into the US."

Can Exploitively Low-Pay Jobs Help Haiti?

You might think this a rhetorical question--surely the answer is obvious? Alas, it is not so obvious to the architects of the rebuilding plan for Haiti. Central to the Haitian recovery effort is a plan to revitalize the textiles and apparel sector, which has existed in Haiti since the time of the Duvaliers in the 1950s. UN Secretary General Ki-moon, President Clinton, President Obama and the U.S. Congress have all touted the plan, as has Haitian officials. In principle, it is not a bad idea: Factory owners in South Korea and elsewhere would relocate to Haiti to produce garments; their incentive would be cheap and abundant Haitian labor (unemployment even before the quake was somewhere around 80%), and duty free access to the U.S. market guaranteed through programs like HOPE II. The problem? At $3.09 a day, wages for garment workers are at 1984 levels and are not enough to sustain the worker, let alone her family.

All seem to agree that wages are simply too low. Indeed, the $3.09 was a significant increase brought about when lawmakers raised the minimum wage up from just $1.72 to $5 a day last year in response to protests. But factory owners complained, and President Rene Preval worked out a compromise allowing garment workers to be paid less. "It's not enough to make a decent living, but it's the first step," says the President of Haiti's Association of Industries. It is a refrain Haitian workers have heard for decades.

Relying on jobs that pay so low they cannot meet the basic needs of the worker is not a sustainable recovery plan for Haiti. It is a recipe for disaster.

photo credit

Haitians Speak Out: An Interview with Pierre Imbert

Two months after the Jan. 12 earthquake, Haiti struggles to find its footing in a world irrevocably changed. Plans for Haiti's future are being constructed, but the voices of Haitians are often missing from the discussion. In a series of one-on-one interviews, I attempt to reintegrate Haitians and Haitian Americans into the debate. These intereviews explore a side of Haiti foreigners too often miss, and it examines our hopes and fears for Haiti's future.


"What makes me angry is the degree to which we have failed the Haitian people." Pierre Imbert chokes back tears as he considers the plight of Haitians trying to survive the aftermath of January 12, 2010. "We allowed Haiti to descend into chaos. We allowed unscrupulous people to run Haiti into the ground." Although Imbert left Haiti decades before as a university student in search of a better life, he never truly lost his connection to his homeland. Just one month after the earthquake, he felt compelled to head back to Haiti to lend his support and bear witness to the devastation. What Imbert saw there moved him beyond words.

"It was an unbelievable scene," he said "and it hit you all of a sudden that you were entering a war zone." The images are ones Imbert is not likely to forget: children playing among the chaos of destroyed buildings, makeshift tents, and deep crevices in the land evidencing the enormous seismic shifts brought on by the earthquake; women with packs on their heads wandering aimlessly in the streets; and the long, endless and often dehumanizing queue of people standing beneath the harsh, unrelenting Caribbean sun in hopes of receiving a packet of rice from the aid trucks. Strangely, these sights gave Imbert hope. These people who had so long been mistreated by their own leaders, ignored by the international community, and forgotten by some of Haiti's more successful expats, were heading off in search of life. It mattered not that they did not know where they were going or how they were going to get there; it mattered even less that they did not know what they would do once they finally arrived. For Imbert, hope lay in the journey.

"What gives me hope," Imbert concludes "is that Haiti has sons and daughters that have labored through and survived . . . Haiti has sons and daughters all over the world that are finally focusing on it . . . with a renewed determination to build a new society."

You can find my full interview with Pierre Imbert here and here (video).

Will Aid be the Death of Haiti?

"We should be helping Haitian companies instead of companies in Florida"

-- Alex Zamor, owner of a drinking-water factory in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Ilia Alsene is a Haitian merchant who supports herself by selling food, water and other tidbits on the side of the road near Champ des Mars Plaza in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The life of a street merchant in Haiti is difficult by any measure.

Obtaining supplies can be a challenge, which is why the women's (and men's) rickety tables often will sport just a few items: a handful of bags of peanuts, three bottles of soda, some purified water encased in plastic bags. Getting pedestrians to stop and shop can be a challenge. The narrow streets of Port-au-Prince are packed with cars weaving around traffic and potholes and other obstructions, children walking to and from school, stray dogs, and the occasional chicken. Enticing a would-be shopper in the midst of all that frenetic energy is not easy. But the greatest challenge for a merchant by far is managing to come home with enough goud to feed the family and purchase the next day's supplies.

After the January 12 earthquake, Ilia and merchants just like her must face one additional challenge: How to compete with the food aid being distributed for free? No one denies the critical necessity of getting food, water and other basics to Haiti's devastated populace. But one of the foreseeable consequences of shipping in thousands of tons of foodstuffs purchased from abroad is that Haitian businesses are being squeezed out of their own market. "I have fewer customers now," says Ilia "because they are handing out free food down the street."

If this were the story of just one merchant or even a handful, the cost-benefit analysis would suggest we do nothing. But Ilia is a key player in the Haitian economy. Frederic Madsen, CEO of Haiti's largest beverage company, makes the case for helping women like Ilia: "When women like that don't make enough money, they stop buying my products," Madsen says. "They are the backbone of this economy." Alex Zamor, owner of a drinking-water factory, cannot afford to rehire 200 workers who were on his payroll before the quake because sales of his product are down ". . . nobody wants to buy water if there's free water on the streets," he says.

The challenge facing Ilia, Frederic Madsen and Alex Zamor is neither unforeseen nor maliciously created. The relief agencies that went into Haiti just days after the quake faced a difficult task; it would have been made insurmountable if the supplies they needed could only be sourced in Haiti. For one, Haiti did not have the capacity necessary even before the January 12th earthquake. Plus, Haitian businesses suffer from real or perceived problems of quality and ineptitude. In short, many are simply unwilling to deal with local suppliers.

Without a well-orchestrated campaign to place Haitian businesses at the center of the rebuilding effort, Haiti's post-quake revitalization will be an abject failure. No country can survive in the long term through the beneficence of others. Foreign aid, no matter how well intentioned, will not create a meaningful future for Haiti. Jobs are necessary; a robust middle class is necessary; a self-sufficient agricultural sector is necessary. None of that comes about through foreign aid. In her hard-hitting New York Times Bestseller Dead Aid, Zambian-born Dambisa Moyo makes the case that foreign aid creates learned dependency rather than prosperity. We have decades of empirical evidence suggesting she is right. Moreover, it separates a government from its constituency. What hope can Haitian voices have of influencing government policy when actors in Europe and America hold the purse strings?

So, what are we to do? Those in charge of the rebuilding effort make noises about understanding the problem, but the solutions are too complex and nuanced to rely on a handful of "experts". Organizations like Peace Dividend Trust, a Canadian NGO, is doing an invaluable job by making this issue more visible. PDT has started a "Haiti First" campaign urging aid agencies to buy goods and services from Haitian suppliers whenever possible. "A 'Haiti First' approach can help turn a tragedy into an opportunity by driving millions if not billions of new investment into the Haitian economy."

We too must do our part when we contribute to Haitian relief. Just last night, for example, I was invited to keynote at a benefit concert for Haiti. It was an inspiring event that moved me beyond description at the capacity of humans to join with each other in moments of crisis. But at the end of the concert, our host mentioned he had enlisted the help of a friend who owned an auto dealership to send trucks to Haiti.

But Haiti has auto dealerships. How much more effective would that money be if it were spent on Haitian soil? The Haitian auto dealer could pay her employees, and those employees in turn could feed their children with the food Ilia sells from her street corner in Port-au-Prince. That would have a real impact on the Haitian economy.

Dealing with Corruption in Haiti

Seconds after the Chile tremors subsided, the comparisons began: Haiti suffers a category 7.0 earthquake and well over 200,000 die (President Rene Preval recently has been predicting 300,000 as the final toll ). Chile experiences a category 8.8 quake--roughly 500 times stronger than Haiti's--and the death toll hovers at less than 200. In the last few days, I have read multiple variations on this theme, and you know what surprises me? That anyone is surprised.

The very idea that a middle income country like Chile, with its strong building codes, low level of perceived corruption, and responsive government could be compared with Haiti is just ludicrous. Chile is a Latin American "dream" poised to become the first OECD member from that region, and Haiti is widely regarded as the poorest country in the Hemisphere. Is it so surprising that their experience of any catastrophe would be vastly different? (Not to mention, of course, that Haiti's earthquake centered around its densely populated capital, while Chile's hit its more remote outer region.) It seems to me the more relevant question is this: How do we help prepare Haiti for the next inevitable crisis?

Experts credit Portugal's 1755 earthquake--which demolished the city of Lisbon, killed as many as 40,000 residents, and precipitated multiple fires and a devastating tsunami--as "the first modern disaster." Citizens demanded change in the way government prepared for and responded to natural disasters. As a result, Portugal reconstructed Lisbon with the zeal of the newly converted: a scientific inquiry into the mechanics of earthquakes was launched, strict zoning rules were passed, and Portugal became the first country in Europe to adopt building codes for seismic activity. In short, Portugal's 1755 catastrophe became the vehicle for change. Is that likely to happen to Haiti as well? Probably not.

The US Geological Survey recently predicted even more seismic activity in the region. There is no question that Haiti (and the island of Hispanola) is likely to experience further significant tremors. But rather than allowing the information to galvanize them into action, the Haitian government is engaged in more of its business-as-usual antics. The Washington Post reported President Rene Preval interrupted a high-level meeting with Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to chide Post reporters for publishing stories of government corruption. "There is no corruption here," Preval reportedly declared. "We have a high sense of morality." Preval is either woefully uninformed or simply unwilling to tackle a serious problem that threatens Haiti's future.

Transparency International ranks Haiti 168 out of 180 countries in terms of the level of perceived corruption of the country's public sector (Chile is ranked 25). Preval might believe there is no corruption, but Haiti's international business partners would respectfully disagree. Indeed, even as Preval was adopting his "no corruption here" mantra, stories abounded of Haitian customs officials demanding humanitarian organizations pay exorbitant "taxes" on donated goods entering the country to aid the millions of displaced Haitians. It seems even in the midst of this epic crisis, the Ministry of Economy and Finance found the time to adopt a new set of procedure for getting supplies into the country: Organizations now were to sign over the goods to the Haitian Department of Civil Protection, which would review their request to get a tax exemption before releasing the goods. The rationale for this new, onerous procedure? To prevent businesses from sneaking in goods tax free under the banner of relief agencies. Ministry officials quickly denied they were taxing humanitarian goods. But for organizations who have volunteered a week or two of service to Haiti, the burdensome new procedures simply ensure the work they went to do would not get done.

There is no great mystery here. We know how to rebuild Haiti's infrastructure to avoid the kind of catastrophic outcome that occurred on January 12: Adopt strong building codes and land use planning procedures that avoid building in hazardous areas, and appoint government agents to ensure compliance. Chile (and Portugal) has shown us the way. But none of that is likely to happen until Haiti's pervasive corruption is resolved . . . or at least circumvented.

Why not appoint an authority responsible for overseeing Haiti's rebuilding effort (I admit here that I am building on a proposal offered up by another at a wonderful conference on Haiti hosted by California State University Sacramento last week)? The authority would be composed of Haitian government officials, to be sure, but also Haitian businesses and citizens, NGOs, and international donors, all of whom have an ultimate stake in the outcome. Who would demand that Haiti establish such an authority? Certainly the Haitian people should, but Haiti's government is not susceptible to the popular will. The international community, which is bringing in millions of dollars to sustain Haiti, does have the clout to demand the creation of such an authority. We should use it.

The Haitian earthquake is a catastrophe of unfathomable proportions. It should serve as a galvanizing force for change in the way Haiti has functioned. This cannot happen without a fundamental shift in the way Haiti does business. We need change.

Haiti Quake: Next Steps in a Sustainable Response

IntLawGrrls continue to follow developments in Haiti. Posts discussing the 12 January 2010 Haitian earthquake, humanitarian assistance, immigration status for Haitians located in the U.S. and France, human rights and disaster response, and participatory and sustainable recovery and development policies appear here.
Recent or Upcoming Developments
►Montreal Meeting. An international donors meeting on Haiti was held in Montreal, Canada in late January. Haiti was represented by its Prime Minister, Jean-Max Bellerive. The European Union and 14 other countries participated.

►CARICOM Response. CARICOM (the Caribbean Community) pledged its continued support to the Haitian recovery, initially in the area of health, to be followed by support for long-term sustainable development.
►UN New York International Donors’ Conference. The Montreal meeting will be followed by another international donors’ conference at UN headquarters in New York on 31 March 2010.
►Lawyers’ Earthquake Response Network (LERN). U.S.- and Haiti-based lawyers organized a network focused on human rights and other legal issues (sponsored by the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti).

►ASIL Panel. The program committee has just added a late-breaking panel on Haiti at the American Society of International Law 104th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. (I will chair the panel; also see post on “Women at ASIL” here). The panel is scheduled for Thursday, March 25, at 10:45 (web program will be updated shortly).
Current Priorities
All that Diane Marie Amann, Marjorie Florestal, Naomi Norberg, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, and I have said in earlier posts remains true. Emergency responses must continue as coordinated by the Haitian government and people and the international community under the mandate of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The many NGOs on the ground themselves coordinate through umbrella organizations such as InterAction and use resource sites such as ReliefWeb.
Housing and Sanitation
More than 1 million people in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in Haiti are living in tent cities or other make-shift shelters as the rainy season and hurricane season approach.
Although tents are an emergency quick fix for those with no other choice, they cannot be a long-term solution. The overcrowded tent cities do not have proper sanitation and potable water distribution facilities. This situation leads to the rapid spread of infectious disease (especially among those who’ve already been injured). Immediate attention must be given to the acquisition and distribution of more sturdy structures, along with the necessary temporary infrastructure for sanitation and water. Because so many things are interrelated, the overcrowding and lack of adequate shelter cannot be addressed without attention to rubble-removal and voluntary decentralization of the population.

The challenges are difficult and of unprecedented scale, but there are international guidelines and strategies for disaster response and recovery. Those guidelines should be implemented and supported by the Haitian government and by the international community.
Disability
As noted in a recent New York Times news story, crush injuries were common after the earthquake. Many amputations resulted from immediate trauma, while others became necessary because of the lack of proper medical facilities and antibiotics in the days and weeks following the quake. Other survivors were blinded, lost hearing, or suffered brain or spinal injuries. Even (especially) in the midst of disaster, the rights of persons with disabilities must be respected, protected, and fulfilled. (See Disability Rights series.)

Local disability resources were devastated by the quake. Haitians now need adaptive equipment (canes, crutches, walkers, rough-terrain wheelchairs, etc.) and trained physical therapists. These resources can help the newly-disabled recover and participate in the rebuilding of the nation. Unless you are a trained physical therapist or health professional, or a non-profit willing to donate appropriate equipment, the best way to help is through existing disability NGOs that already work closely with the people of Haiti.
The following governmental and private organizations provide links to a range of disability NGOs working in Haiti:
►United States International Council on Disability (USICD) (US government site coordinating NGO work).
►Mobility International USA (webpage on Haiti resources).
►PBS Newshour report on the non-profit Whirlwind Wheelchair International ( discusses the group's work to build rough-terrain wheelchairs). As was the case where a large number of amputees resulted from the use of landmines in armed conflicts, responses that are participatory, generate local jobs, training, and owenership, and focus on the empowerment of people with disabilities are to be applauded. Haitian people with disabilities can help build and fit prosthetic devices and wheelchairs, as well as train others in their use.
Those involved in large-scale rebuilding projects for housing, government buildings, or private sector buildings should ensure both accessibility under international standards and durability to withstand the risks of natural disasters.

Note: As this post was being written, news was coming in that an 8.8 earthquake has hit Chile. Our thoughts and solidarity are with all those affected.