Responsibility to protect, Libya to Japan

(Thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post)

On September 16, 2005, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted by consensus a resolution recognizing the responsibility to protect. The core of the responsibility to protect (R2P) as adopted by the both the General Assembly and Security Council was first embodied in Paragraph 138 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome declaration:

'Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it.'

Paragraph 139 continues:

'The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to helping States build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assisting those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.'

The original, and broader, formulation of the responsibility to protect was included in the December 2001 report, The Responsibility to Protect, from the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). As a basic principle, this report concludes that

'where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.'

For military intervention to be justified for human protection purposes, there must be:

'serious and irreparable harm occurring to human beings, or imminently likely to occur, of the following kind:
'A. Large scale loss of life, actual or apprehended, with genocidal intent or not, which is the product either of deliberate state action, or state neglect or inability to act, or a failed state situation; or
'B. Large scale ‘ethnic cleansing’, actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forced expulsion, acts of terror or rape.'

In dealing with what should occur if the Security Council fails to fulfill its responsibility or to do so “in a reasonable time,” “alternative options” are:
► Consideration of the matter by the General Assembly in Emergency Special Session under the “Uniting for Peace” procedure; and
► Action within area of jurisdiction by regional or sub-regional organizations under Chapter VIII of the Charter, subject to their seeking subsequent authorization from the Security Council.
The ICISS report cautions:

'The Security Council should take into account in all its deliberations that, if it fails to discharge its responsibility to protect in conscience-shocking situations crying out for action, concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation –and that the stature and credibility of the United Nations may suffer thereby.'

Speaking from the perspective of September, 2001, the Commission concludes that it is impossible to find a legal consensus regarding humanitarian intervention without UN authorization but does not rule out the possibility of such intervention. It is for this reason that the Commission remarks that when a state or states intervene because the UN has failed to do so, and the states or state do so successfully, there may be “enduringly serious consequences for the stature and credibility of the UN itself.”
This R2P framework illuminates current events in Libya and Japan.

Libya
There are four basic sanctions against Libya in Security Council Resolution 1973 (prior IntLawGrrls post); specifically, the:
► Assets freeze;
► No-fly zone;
► Arms embargo; and
► Protection of civilians.
The assets freeze is left to individual states and does not involve force, so can be set aside for purposes of this discussion. (credit for March 2011 Goran Tomasevic/Reuters photo of airstrike in Libya)
The resolution authorizes states to “take all necessary means” to protect civilians. On March 24, 2011, NATO announced that it would be assuming responsibility for the arms embargo and the no-fly zone, and a few days later for protection of civilians as well.
Resort to the responsibility to protect, although cited by some commentators in reference to the resolution, is unnecessary to the legal authority of the resolution. The three-prong authorization of force falls easily within prior precedents predicated on a finding of a threat to peace or breach of peace under Chapter VII and authorization of collectively authorized humanitarian intervention within the term threat to peace.
Indeed, the crimes precedent to triggering the responsibility to protect may or may not have been sufficiently established to give rise to the responsibility. This responsibility is triggered only when a state has “manifestly” failed to protect its population from acts constituting genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity.
The resolution refers to Libya’s responsibility to protect the Libyan population, the “widespread and systematic attacks in the Libyan Arab Jamahariya” which “may amount to crimes against humanity,” and the referral to the International Criminal Court of these possible crimes. It does not declare that Libya has committed any of these crimes. More importantly, a state’s failure to protect its own population from these crimes triggers a collective responsibility to protect using peaceful measures. With respect to force, the formulation says only that the international community is “prepared” to use force in such circumstances, not that it has an affirmative responsibility to do so. In short, resort to force remains as discretionary in terms of Security Council authorization as it was when predicated on a threat to peace.

Japan
Earthquakes, tsunamis, and climate disruption have focused international attention on environmental disasters, natural and anthropocentric, and the ability of the global community to respond adequately and immediately. Whatever the magnitude of the humanitarian violations in Libya, they are eclipsed by the sheer magnitude of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Japan. (credit for NOAA animated model)



UN officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, have been quick to deny that the responsibility to protect applies to environmental crises, including specifically climate change and its consequences. Nevertheless, the four specified crimes can encompass situations of abusive governments or non-state actors inflicting environmental damage.
In Iraq, for example, Saddam Hussein's destruction of the natural resources essential to living conditions of the Marsh Arabs could have been considered “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated” to bring about the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part.
The ICISS formulation calls for intervention even by force whenever there is large-scale loss of life, coupled with a state’s unwillingness or inability to act.
The reality of a deteriorating planet and multiple environmental disasters, which even the most well-prepared and well-intentioned state may find itself unable to address, highlights the shortsightedness in the UN position that the responsibility to protect should not be formulated to address environmental disasters.
Is there a humanitarian disaster which calls for global responsibility to respond and protect, with or without a state’s consent, more than a convergence of environmental disasters?
There is a pressing need for reconsideration of the responsibility in an environmental context, before the next disaster occurs in a state that is unable, and unwilling, to act.

Gender and Disaster

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Fionnuala Ni Aoláin, who contributes this guest post)

Given recent events in Japan it seems like an opportune moment to reflect on the gendered dimensions of natural and other kinds of disasters. The reflections here are part of a more sustained analysis I make in an article forthcoming in the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law entitled "Women, Vulnerability and Humanitarian Emergencies."
The catastrophic dimensions of humanitarian emergencies are increasingly understood and more visible to states and international institutions. There is also some recognition of the gendered dimensions of humanitarian emergencies in policy and institutional contexts.
It is generally acknowledged that women are overrepresented in the refugee and internally displaced communities that typically result from many humanitarian crises. Women bear acute care responsibilities in most societies, and also disproportionately bear familial and communal care responsibilities in communities affected by disaster, war and natural emergencies. Women, given their disparate social and legal status in many jurisdictions, may have less access to capital, social goods and other legal means to protect themselves when crises arise. While tacit acknowledgement of this reality increasingly permeates academic and political discourses, the depth of the descriptive often fails to capture and fully grasp the extent of gender harms and gender insecurity.
Moreover, as experts and policymakers calculate how best national and international communities should respond to such emergencies, women are frequently substantively and procedurally sidelined. This follows from the dual effects of a dearth of women decisionmakers in the relevant high-level fora and the failure to meaningfully imagine and include solutions to the particular issues affecting women in communities emerging from various emergencies. Disaster-related research suffers from considerable bias, revealing an asymmetrical distribution of gender themes, an absence of data on women’s lives and a male bias in identifying the channels from which information is sought.
The recent events in Japan offer us further opportunity to reflect on the intersection of women’s experiences with situations of humanitarian crisis. My goal is to give greater traction to a feminist analysis of women’s experiences in situations of extremity.
In particular, I argue that in order to fully understand the context of women’s specific vulnerabilities, we have to widen and deepen the frame of investigation. In short, we need to take account of pre-existing conditions. We must start by contextualizing the ordinary experiences shaping women’s lives, which form the bedrock upon which a specific crisis is then foisted. The specificity of vulnerabilities subsequently identified in the moment of crisis can only be completely understood and fully addressed by reference to the backdrop. But, accepting the reality of such situated vulnerability does not take us far enough. Institutionalizing helplessness and propagating its inevitability continues to perpetuate a conceptual framework that fails to address the underlying causes of women vulnerability in situations of extremity. This requires a more nuanced approach, seeing compounded vulnerabilities for women in which prior discrimination, exclusion and social marginalization interplay with the specific harms and vulnerabilities foisted on women in situations of crisis. These two elements [the prior and the present] are in constant interplay. Moreover unless experts accept the predictability of such crises their planning will suffer from obvious, gender-biased defects.
By extending and reframing our understanding of why vulnerability is pronounced for women we may both expose and address the limits of current international legal obligations in addressing women’s harms and needs in the context of humanitarian crises. We do so by returning to basics, addressing the persistent social, economic and political discriminations that are routine for most women in most societies, most of the time.

(photos from post-tsunami Japan (c) 2011 Associated Press, available in slide show here)

Separating natural & environmental disasters

The twin natural disasters that struck Japan this month, earthquake and tsunami, left a trail of devastation in their path. Entire villages were lost. The death toll currently stands at more than 8,000 but is expected to rise much higher (more than 13,000 are missing). (Prior posts here and here.)
Even as survivors struggle for shelter, warmth and food, the natural disasters are being rapidly overshadowed by the unfolding disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. (right) (photo credit)

The key difference is that the nuclear disaster didn’t have to happen.
The earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear meltdown are all wrapped up together right now as one big human tragedy. But it is important not to blur the lines between risks that are inherent to living on planet earth, and risks that we have created for ourselves. Natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes or tsunamis are woven into the very fabric of the earth’s geological systems. There is no way to avoid them, though obviously we can take steps to minimize their impacts.
Anger after Hurricane Katrina was not directed at the hurricane for forming and coming ashore, but at the federal, state and local governments for failing to prepare and respond adequately, and at corporate priorities that devastated Louisiana’s (protective) wetlands in order to facilitate shipping. (left) (photo credit) But for those human decisions—to channel the Mississippi in a fashion that prevented soil accretion; to cut channels through the marshes; to underinvest in the poorer parts of New Orleans; to neglect adequate evacuation planning—the natural disaster might never have become a human catastrophe.
Environmental disasters, by contrast, are catastrophes that flow directly from human-created risks.

In Japan, Reactor #3 may already be releasing MOX (mixed oxide), and all six reactors at the site are compromised, with at least three in partial meltdown. One of the most surprising aspects of this disaster has been our collective inability to get accurate information about the quantity of radiation that has been released, and how dangerous it might be. Turns out the radiation detectors were dependent on the same sources of power as the reactor cooling system, making them unavailable just when they matter most. While it may be unclear how much radiation has been released, both the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric have acknowledged that the released radiation is potentially fatal.
How does this disaster fit with industry assurances that nuclear power is safe and clean? It turns out the roots of this crisis date back to a 1973 decision by the Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor agency to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) that

'the environmental effects of the uranium fuel cycle have been shown to be relatively insignificant.'

In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this decision—shutting the door to rigorous assessment of the environmental threats from spent nuclear fuel. At issue in the case, Vermont Yankee v. NRDC, was the AEC’s fuel cycle rule—which had concluded that the environmental effects of spent fuel rods would be so negligible that they could safely be disregarded. At a 1973 hearing on this fuel cycle rule, environmental groups raised the question of what would happen if a disaster caused the water cooling system for a spent rod storage facility to fail. Speaking for the agency, Dr. Frank Pittman responded that it would take a week for the cooling water to boil away, allowing time for “various corrective actions” to be taken. These corrective actions remained conveniently unspecified.
Now we see why.
In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami, all six of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors lost power, and the backup generators failed. Thus these reactors were left in exactly the plight environmental groups predicted in the 1973 hearing. With the risks of catastrophic meltdown looming, Tokyo Electric found itself with neither the time nor the capacity to implement “various corrective actions.”
In desperation, the Japanese military resorted to dropping seawater via helicopter, and Japanese police re-purposed water cannons from riot control to reactor cooling.
These last-ditch measures harken back to BP’s similarly flailing attempts to cap the gushing Macondo well. (right) The BP oil spill, which killed 11 workers and created one of the worst environmental disasters in United States history, flowed from a lethal combination of corporate greed, operational hubris and lax government oversight. (photo credit) I suspect we’ll find the same to be true in Japan. In both disasters, the economic, human and environmental toll is still being tallied, but will be immense.
Japanese regulators will inevitably face the same question American regulators faced after the BP oil spill: Why are we finding out that there is no Plan B only after disaster has struck?
It is foreseeable that a nuclear plant in an earthquake zone might lose power, and that its auxiliary backup generators might fail, just as it was foreseeable that a blowout protector might fail and thus not stem a gushing oil leak. In fact, not only were these disasters foreseeable, they were actually foreseen. It has been three decades since scientists inside the Nuclear Regulatory Commission first warned of design flaws in the Mark I reactors used in Fukushima. And, the scenario unfolding there is precisely the situation that Dr Pittman so blithely dismissed in 1973 -- that of a catastrophic accident causing the kind of containment system used at the Fukushima Daiichi facility to fail, subjecting everything and everyone nearby to dangerously high radiation. Similarly, almost a decade ago the Coast Guard began warning (p. 22-23) that oil companies were not developing adequate clean-up technology to keep pace with their newly acquired deep drilling capacities.
Yet, those warnings fell on deaf ears.
In both situations, regulators charged with protecting the public and the environment willingly accepted industry assurances not only that disaster would not happen, but also that it could be easily managed if it did. The corporations seeking regulatory approval made safety claims they could not back up, and the regulators too readily went along. This corporate equivalent of “don’t worry your pretty head about it” infects virtually every industry—leading to a dearth of worst case scenario planning. The local communities and the environment bear the brunt when things go disastrously awry.
It is the self-inflicted nature of the wounds that makes environmental disasters particularly galling.
► Yes, it was BP that cut corners in drilling the Macondo well.
► Yes, it is Tokyo Power that stored more than 11,000 spent rod assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi site. (Incidentally, there are 23 boiling water nuclear reactors in the United States that share the same Mark I containment system design as the crippled Japanese reactors.)
► And yes, the corporate actors in charge of those facilities made these choices with an eye toward profit.
► But, to the extent that we demand cheap and reliable energy, we are all complicit.
The line of causation between the glittering lights of the Ginza and the unfolding Fukushima Daiichi disaster is fairly direct, as is the connection between the millions of U.S. automobile owners and the BP oil spill. In a very real sense, our insatiable thirst for more energy to power our growing collection of televisions, air-conditioners and electric toothbrushes is also responsible.
That means that fixing the problem has to proceed on both fronts at once.
► Clearly government agencies need to be re-invigorated and re-inspired. We can no longer allow politicians to dismantle our regulatory agencies under the false pretense that private actors, pursuing private ends will voluntarily safeguard the public interest. We must adequately fund oversight and enforcement of existing safety and environmental laws, and improve them where they are lacking. We must also stop the revolving door that corrupts agency values and leads regulators to confuse industry interests with the interests of their true client—the public. A hollowed out government cannot ensure public safety.
► At the same time, we also need to learn to slake our energy thirst, and thereby remove the political justification (and economic incentive) for these risky gambles.

(Cross-posted at CPRBlog)

Japan and the bugaboo of nuclear waste management

Poor Japan. Surely suffering a 9.0 earthquake and a devastating tsunami is disaster enough for one country to bear. At least 5,000 people are dead, and hundreds of thousands more are displaced. The scope and scale of the natural disaster is overwhelming. Yet, these twin natural disasters are rapidly being overshadowed (at least in the news coverage targeting those of us half a world away) by the unfolding nuclear disaster. (prior post)
A meltdown that was supposed to be “incredible” is happening before our eyes in prime time. A series of explosions and fires have created an industrial emergency of the first order. Units 1, 2 and 3 are in partial meltdown, while the spent fuel rods stored at Unit 4 exposed to the environment and releasing radiation. Worst of all, Unit 3 may be releasing MOX (mixed oxides). Radioactive cesium and iodine have been detected outside the Fukushima Daiichi The best case scenario at this point would be if authorities manage to pump, spray or airdrop enough seawater to cool the fuel rods, easing the crisis. In that case, the radioactivity released by this disaster would be limited to the unknown quantity already spewed into the air by explosions or controlled venting.
Yet, that best-case scenario is still pretty grim. The long-term effects of the radiation that has already been released are unclear. So far prevailing winds are directing the radiation plume toward the open ocean. That is surely good news for Tokyo’s 34 million inhabitants. But, the fact that no major human population centers are being directly affected (right now) does not mean that the radiation has gone “away.” There is no such place as “away.” The radiation is instead going into the sea where it will be yet another factor impacting an already stressed ocean ecosystem. We don’t know much about the risks to oceans and fisheries from radioactive fallout, or for that matter from more routine nuclear waste disposal.
Radioactivity will surely enter the ocean food chain, with unclear results. Indeed, Ireland and the UK have been locked in a bitter, decades-long legal struggle over the environmental effects of MOX contamination in ocean waters. Researchers have documented decreased wildlifepopulations and diversity, as well as increased animal deformities around Chernobyl. (the Fukushima Daiichi situation has not released anywhere near the radiation of Chernobyl, but it is not over yet.)
Shockingly, the environmental consequences associated with this kind of disaster were completely disregarded when regulators assessed the risks and benefits of nuclear power. Indeed, the key architect of the United States fuel cycle rule considered potential environmental effects to be a “bugaboo” based on unjustified fears. Based on his testimony, United States regulators dismissed negative environmental effects associated with radioactive releases from stored spent fuel rods as incredible. That decision, which focused on the Vermont Yankee nuclear facility approved the kind of boiling water reactor with above-ground spent rod storage used at the Fukushima Daiichi facility. So, even though the vulnerability of this kind of nuclear plant has been clear for decades, there are at least 32 such facilities continuing to operate around the world.

Nuclear moratorium

In "a change in tone over 24 hours" that Le Monde deems "spectacular," Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared a 3-month moratorium in Germany on old nuclear power plants.

Prompting the longtime proponent to halt production in certain plants is, of course, the nuclear disaster looming in Japan. There, plant explosions have led to a "much higher than normal level" of radiation in Japan since the 9.0 earthquake last Friday. (credit for map showing Japan's nuclear power plants)

In the United States, the Obama administration reportedly seeks "to reassure Americans that nuclear power is safe."

That effort contrasts with Merkel's announcement of plans for inspection of Germany's 17 reactors, some with designs much like that in Japan. (In similar vein, French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed "disquiet" over the still-unfolding tragedy.)

Merkel described the catastrophe in Japan as a moment for reflection by "the entire world."

Let's hope that reflection entails robust application of the precautionary principle.

On December 13

On this day in ...
... 1921, in Washington, D.C., was signed a Treaty Between the United States of America, the British Empire, France, and Japan, by which the 4 countries agreed to "respect" one another's "rights in relation to their insular possessions and insular dominions in the region of the Pacific Ocean." This Four-Power Pact, as it was known, was among several agreements reached in the Washington Naval Conference that had begun the previous month and would run till the next February. Convening the conference outside the aegis of the League of Nations was U.S. President Warren G. Harding; leading the U.S. delegation was Harding's Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, later Chief Justice of the United States. (credit for 1922 photo of Secretary Hughes, in top hat, aboard U.S. Navy ship bound for Brazil's Centennial Exposition).

(Prior December 13 posts are here, here, and here.)

Brooking no apology

Show me a land known by multiple names, and I'll show you a dispute over territory.
And so it is with the East China Sea islands called Diaoyutai in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. (map credit)

'The Senkaku islands are Japan's own territory,'

reports yesterday quoted Japan's Naoto Kan (right), Prime Minister of the country since June.
At about the same time, this statement from Jiang Yu (below left) (credit), spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry:

She reiterated that the Diaoyu Islands have been integral part of China's territory since ancient times.

The current dispute over this ancient standoff stems from a collision earlier this month in the waters near the islands. After a Japanese Coast Guard vessel and a Chinese trawler collided, the former seized the latter and detained the 14 fishing folk aboard. Sanctions that China was considering were reported to range from export and tourist curtailment to military exercises. Yesterday Japan released the trawler's captain, a decision that a prosecutor told the Tokyo newspaper Asahi Shimbun was related to "'the effects on the people of Japan and the future of Japan-China relations.'"
China still wants an apology.
Japan still says no.
What's at stake here?
Internal politics seem at play; for example, factions in Japan complain that it's backing down too much to China.
Power politics between the once-dominant Japan and the now-resurgent China surely matter.
No surprise that energy resources also figure in the mix. It's reported that the islands are located "near natural gas fields, and that "China and Japan have yet to implement an agreement signed in 2008 to jointly develop the fields."

On July 30

On this day in ...
... 1900 (110 years ago today), in response to anti-Japanese ferment in British Columbia, Japan forbade its people to immigrate to Canada. The provincial legislature nonetheless passed a statute further restricting Japanese immigration, in contravention of the Commercial Treaty of 1894,

which guaranteed Japanese the 'full liberty to enter, travel, and reside in any part of the Dominion of Canada.'

(credit for circa 1900 photo of Japanese emigrants ready to disembark) Canada's federal government stepped in and put an end to this and other subnational efforts to block immigration. (Sounds a bit like the current federal-state showdown on immigration (and see post above) to the United States, yes?)

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

On July 26

On this day in ...
... 1939, amid the increased tensions that would 2 years later lead to entry into World War II, the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Commerce and Navigation concluded in 1911, was denounced by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Once it took effect in 6 months, the move would free the United States to impose an embargo or other economic action against Japan. London's Telegraph reported "wide approval in America, even among the isolationists," while The New York Times wrote of concern in business circles in the United States.

(Prior July 26 posts are here, here, and here.)

Coming soon to the ICJ: Australia v. Japan over whaling

In a joint release, Australia's foreign and environmental ministers announced yesterday that early next week, "Australia will initiate legal action in the International Court of Justice in The Hague against Japanese 'scientific' whaling in the Southern Ocean."
The twin goals, they said, are:
► in the shorter term, "to bring to an end Japan's program of so-called 'scientific' whaling" (prior IntLawGrrls posts here and here), and
► in the longer term, "to do what it takes to end whaling globally."
The decision comes after the failure to date of diplomatic efforts, not only with Japan on a bilateral plane, but also, on a multistate level, with member states of the International Whaling Commission (logo above left). Yesterday's release was notably pointed in its criticism of some in the latter group:

Recent statements by whaling countries in the Commission have provided Australia
with little cause for hope that our serious commitment to conservation of the world's whales will be reflected in any potential IWC compromise agreement.

How will the decision affect bilateral relations? The Australians said:

Both Australia and Japan have agreed that, whatever our differences on whaling, this issue should not be allowed to jeopardise the strength and the growth of our bilateral relationship.

While a Japanese minister said upon hearing yesterday's announcement:

I do not wish to harm Japan-Australia relations over all, but I hope to assert that what’s wrong is wrong.

He did not mean to refer to his own country's practices.

On May 8

On this day in ...
...1895 (115 years ago today), the Treaty of Shimonoseki entered into force, weeks after it was signed at the Shunpanrō Hotel (right) (credit), in the treaty's namesake Japanese city. By this pact, which ended the 1st Sino-Japanese War, China "recognise[d] definitively the full and complete independence and autonomy of Korea." Furthermore, China ceded many territories to Japan, among them the island then known as Formosa, now Taiwan.


(Prior May 8 posts are here, here, and here)

On May 4

On this day in ...
... 1974, Naoko Nakaseko, Masako Uchida, Mieko Mori, and Jambu Sherpa became the 1st all-woman group to reach the summit of the 8th tallest mountain in the world -- the 8,100-plus-meter Manaslu (left), in the Himalayas. In fact, theirs was 1st women's group ever to ascend a mountain above 8,000 meters. The next day Sadako Suzuki, a member of a different group among the 13-member Japanese women's team, fell to her death; her body was never found.

(Prior May 4 posts are here, here, and here)

On January 18

On this day in ...

... 2005 (5 years ago today), a 4-day World Conference on Disaster Reduction began in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan. It had been convened pursuant to U.N. General Assembly Resolution A/RES/58/214 (2004), with the purposes that diplomats both review developments in responses to disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, since the previous such conference, at Yokohama, Japan, in 1994, and make plans for the future. (The importance of such efforts is evident in Haiti's current earthquake-spurred catastrophe.) Among the products of the conference was the Hyogo Declaration and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015.

(Prior January 18 posts are here and here.)

On December 29

On this day in ...
... 1934 (75 years ago today), U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull expressed "genuine regret" at receiving Japan's formal notice of its renunciation of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, in which Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States had agreed to limit armaments on their naval vessels. (credit for image of diplomats at 1922 Washington Naval Conference) The withdrawal came 21 months after Japan had quit the League of Nations (prior posts here and here).


(Prior December 29 posts are here and here.)

On October 12

On this day in ...
... 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education ordered that Japanese children be be taught in racially segregated public schools, and so touched off "a diplomatic crisis between Japan and the United States." President Theodore Roosevelt sent native Californian Victor Metcalf, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, to urge school officials to rescind the order. Metcalf is depicted in the cartoon at right, begging a white schoolchild,

'For heaven's sake do not embarrass the Administration!'

while a Japanese mother and son look on. (credit) In a December speech to Congress, Roosevelt denounced the schools' order as a "'wicked absurdity,' asked Congress to grant citizenship to those Japanese immigrants who wanted it, and vowed to protect the rights of all Japanese residents in the United States." His request was not popular. A 1907 "Gentlemen's Agreement" was entered, by which the united States informally agreed not to restrict Japanese immigration or schooling and Japan agreed not to permit further migration from Japan to the United States.


(Prior October 12 posts are here and here.)

On October 6

On this day in ...
... 1937, the League of Nations "adopted a resolution censuring Japan" for its aggression in China, "and inviting members to give China what aid they could -- recommending, however, 'further efforts to secure the restoration of peace by agreement.'" Sanctions would follow the next year; however, since Japan had withdrawn from the League long before, and so the resolution had no effect.

(Prior October 6 posts are here and here.)

On October 5

On this day in ...
... 1614 (395 years ago today), a fleet of Japanese ships carrying Ambassador Hasekura Tsunenaga arrived in Spain, at the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Hasekura's mission, known as the Keichō Embassy, had begun the prior year and already included Spanish ports of call in North America. Hasekura was the "first Japanese political envoy to visit the American continent." He tried to negotiate trade agreements in Madrid, where he converted to Roman Catholicism, and eventually traveled to the Vatican to meet with the Pope (above) (credit). Having failed to secure trade pacts, Hasekura returned to Japan and died from illness. No Japanese embassy would return to Europe for 200 years.

(Prior October 5 posts are here and here.)

Guest Blogger: Jennifer Lind

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Dr. Jennifer Lind (left) as today's guest blogger.
Jennifer's an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she teaches International Politics, East Asian Security: Theory and Practice, and The Politics of Memory. The courses correspond to her research interests, which include East Asian international security, Japanese security policy, U.S. foreign and military policy, and historical memory in international relations.
Among her publications is Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (2008), which she discusses in her guest post below.
Jennifer's worked as a consultant for RAND and for the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense, and also has lived and worked in Japan. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master’s in Pacific International Affairs from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Heartfelt welcome!

Sorry States

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

As a graduate student studying international relations, I watched Japan’s wartime atrocities haunt its foreign affairs. Koreans and Chinese fumed when a Japanese leader visited a controversial war shrine (below right), when a new history textbook glossed over past events, or when a Japanese official blurted out a denial of a past atrocity. In contrast, I noticed that Germany had offered remarkable contrition for its past atrocities and aggression, and also had successfully reconciled with its wartime adversaries. I decided to write a book showing that countries needed to apologize and otherwise remember past violence before international reconciliation was possible.

Well, as I doubt I have to tell the savvy 'Grrls of this blog, things don’t always work out as planned. I didn’t write that book.

Examining the cases of South Korean relations with Japan and French relations with Germany, my book, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (2008), shows that denials of past atrocities fuel distrust and inhibit international reconciliation. Japan’s denials damage its relations with South Korea, China, and Australia, more than sixty years after the war. In contrast, Bonn’s willingness in the 1950s to acknowledge Nazi-era crimes, coupled with the absence of denials among mainstream West Germans, reassured Germany’s World War II adversaries. Sorry States thus argues that a country's acknowledgment of past misdeeds is essential for promoting trust and reconciliation after war.

My book, shows, however, that many countries have been able to reconcile without much contrition at all. In the early years after the war, Bonn offered very little: although it offered a lukewarm apology and paid reparations to Israel, West German commemoration, education, and public discourse ignored the atrocities Germany had committed, and instead mourned German suffering during and after the war. Nevertheless, at this time West Germany and France concluded a stunning reconciliation. Bonn’s most famous gestures of contrition — wrenching apologies, candid history textbooks, and memorials to Germany’s victims (below left) — had not yet occurred. Many other World War II enemies (Japan and the United States; Britain and West Germany; the United States and West Germany; Italy, Austria, and their neighbors) reconciled despite little or no contrition.

Finally, Sorry States points out that contrition is highly controversial domestically, so can actually be counterproductive. As evident in Japan and elsewhere, expressions of contrition often prompt a backlash. Conservatives in particular are likely to offer a competing narrative that celebrates — rather than condemns — the country’s past and justifies or even denies its atrocities. Thus contrition can be counterproductive: foreign observers will be angered and alarmed by what the backlash suggests about the country’s intentions. The great irony is that well-meaning efforts to soothe relations between former enemies can actually inflame them. Remembrance that is less accusatory, conducted bilaterally or in multilateral settings, holds the most promise for international reconciliation.

I describe my argument further in "The Perils of Apology," published in the May/June 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs. For additional engaging and fascinating reading, I recommend Troubled Apologies Among Japan, South Korea, and the United States (2008), by one of my favorite 'Grrl scholars, Dr. Alexis Dudden, Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut.

(credit for top right photo of Yakusuni shrine; credit for bottom left photo of Berlin Holocaust Memorial)

On August 7

On this day in ...
... 1964 (45 years ago today), Congress voted in favor of a resolution that President Lyndon B. Johnson had requested as a means "to strengthen his hand in dealing with Communist aggression in Southeast Asia." This Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave "prior Congressional approval of 'all necessary measures' that the President may take 'to repel any armed attack' against United States forces and 'to prevent further aggression,'" passed the House of Representatives 416-0 and the Senate 88-2. Decades later serious questions would be revealed about the incident that had supposedly triggered the need for the resolution, an attack on U.S. ships in the gulf off Vietnam. (credit for photo of Johnson signing resolution 3 days after Congress' vote)
... 1942, amid World War II, 11,000 U.S. Marines landed at Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands (right), then under Japanese control, and took over the airfield. A bloody jungle battle would ensue, leaving thousands dead before Japan retreated in February 1943.

(Prior August 7 posts are here and here.)