Where is the Outrage?

Here is a perfectly dreadful story I missed last week in the heat of the US election: a 13-year Somali girl who was raped by three men was stoned to death for "adultery" in front of a crowd of 1000 onlookers.

At Huffington Post today, Amitai Etzioni is asking why there is not more focused outrage at these types of events:

Public voices that are often raised (frequently for very good reasons!) to criticize many of the policies of the Bush Administration (and Israeli policies in dealing with the Palestinians), are mum about atrocities committed by extremist Muslims. I wonder why we do not hear a peep from these voices when a 13 year old girl is stoned to death for the "sin" of having been raped, as just happened in Somalia. There are good people who are concerned about the pain inflicted on those executed in the United States during the last minutes of their lives by the chemicals they are injected with--a valid concern--but why are these same voices strangely mum when they learn about the particularly prolonged, painful, agonizing death of a child?

Nor did I hear from feminists about the special insult that emanates from blaming the victim of rape for having committed a sin. Or, from anybody about the Taliban who behead their countrymen on buses in Afghanistan --countrymen on their way to visit family or start a new job-- to show that they are in control and not the Karzai government, or to make some other such point.

I am told that public intellectuals refrain from criticizing these Somali and Taliban barbarians (I can practically see some of my colleagues raising their eyebrows as high as they go for my use of such a "harsh" word) because they believe that these killers cannot be reached. "Why waste one's breath?" I hear the otherwise silent public intellectuals whispering. In contrast, they say, condemning Americans (and Israelis) may yield some good results.

I think there is another reason for this. Horrible as these events are, many liberals in the West are more comfortable criticizing members of our own communities than casting stones at others. How effective can we be at spreading feminist or humanitarian ideals when we fall so short of such standards as a nation ourselves? Too, some may argue that "democratic" governments who claim to champion women's equality have a greater responsibility for living up to these ideals. This explains why organizations likeAmnesty International regularly disproportionately singles out the US in its country reporting, for example.

I'm not saying this is the correct view, only that this view may be part of the problem. To the extent that it's valid, I would turn Etzioni's question around and ask why moderate Muslims are not speaking out against this sorts of atrocities taking place in their name. Of course, some are.

Human Rights and Human Trafficking

James Hathaway has a post of note up at Opinio Juris on the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which is an addendum to the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. The whole thing is worth reading; here's the abstract:

"It is doubtful that the advent of the Trafficking Protocol deserves anything approaching the nearly unanimous support it has received from those committed to the promotion of international human rights. To the contrary, the Trafficking Protocol has enabled governments to hive off a tiny part of the global problem of slavery as the focus of international attention and resources, leaving the overwhelming majority of slaves to depend on largely irrelevant and ineffective supervisory structures. Governments invoked the Trafficking Protocol to recast the duty to end slavery as best pursued through antitrafficking efforts, allowing states to claim the moral high ground in the fight against slavery despite the irrelevance of the new commitments made to most slaves."

Freedom For Political Bloggers Isn't Free

We bloggers in North America have it good and shouldn't take it for granted.

From Al-Jazeera:

"One of Malaysia's most prominent bloggers and a high-profile critic of the government has gone on trial for sedition. Raja Petra Kamarudin, who is already being held under Malaysia's Internal Security Act (ISA), could be sentenced to three years in jail if he is convicted.

In an entry on his Web site - Malaysia Today - he allegedly implied that Malaysia's deputy prime minister, Najib Tun Razak, was involved in the high-profile murder of a young Mongolian woman.Raja Petra denies the allegation and supporters have criticised what they say is a government attempt to gag critics and suppress freedom of speech.

Raja Petra's blog is here. Interesting that the lead post dates from 2005, though the events he is accused writing about didn't take place until 2006. I'm interested to know if at some point the transnational community of political bloggers will develop its own professional association devoted to promoting the human rights of bloggers. So far it's easy to find bloggers who write about human rights, and human rights organizations that address free speech violations against bloggers, but it seems like there is a niche to be filled here.

Responsibility to Protect

I was recently asked to post a bit of background on the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine (aka R2P).

This concept was first articulated by an Independent Commission established by the Government of Canada to attempt to resolve the tension between the norm of state sovereignty, on which the entire UN Charter regime rests, and the protection of civilian populations from grave human rights abuses at the hands of their own governments – a parallel set of principles also espoused by the UN Charter preamble and articulated in two further sets of treaties – human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The tension between these principles had become evident in the 1999 Kosovo crisis, which posed a choice between two competing principles: 1) do something to prevent what many thought to be a looming genocide and 2) do something legally. Under the UN Charter regime, military intervention in a sovereign state is never legal unless authorized by the UN Security Council, which requires a 2/3 vote and no vetoes by those holding Permanent Status on the Council (the US, UK, Russia, China and France). Because the Council is split on the legitimacy of intervention even in cases of genocide, such consensus is rarely forthcoming.

The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), peopled by prominent scholars and jurists, produced a landmark report in 2000, redefining sovereignty as responsibility. Previous, sovereignty had been understood as a claim to absolute autonomy within one’s territorial borders. The R2P doctrine places the burden of proof on the state to govern responsibly so as to protect its civilian population. If it fails to do this or directly threatens its citizens’ bodily integrity rights, it sacrifices its claim to sovereignty; at that point, the responsibility to protect is transferred to the international community.

The seemingly brilliant concept has worked well as a rhetorical device. It has been legitimated through adoption in a number of UN documents, including the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in 2004 and the 2005 UN Millennium Conference Outcome Document. However, it does not really provide a road-map to the mechanism for triggering a legitimate intervention. The criteria it gives for an appropriate intervention do not improve on just war theory, which dates back at least to Augustine. Its lofty language of “just cause,” “right intention,” “last resort,” “proporotional means” and “reasonable prospects” already framed the debate on Kosovo. And the section on “what do to when the Security Council will not act” lists primarily the exact same types of non-coercive operations that currently exist as band-aid efforts to mitigate suffering of civilians in armed conflicts.

Since “grave human rights abuses” are in the eye of the beholder, the big question of who should decide when violations of sovereignty are justified remains unanswered and a subject of controversy among governments. This is the context for Nikolas K. Gvosdev’s recent suggestion at the Washington Realist that the norm be revised to apply only to non-democracies. But I think that idea only skirts the same issue: who should decide who counts as a democracy?

"Captain Kidd, Human Rights Victim?"

Abu Muqawama seconds John Burnett, ripping on Britain in today's NY Times about its lax security policy toward piracy on the high seas:

"The British government... to the incredulity of many in the maritime industry, has taken a curiously pathetic approach to piracy. While the French were flying six of the captured pirates to Paris to face trial, the British Foreign Office issued a directive to the once vaunted Royal Navy not to detain any pirates, because doing so could violate their human rights... The British attitude has come a long way since the days when pirates were chained to pilings at Wapping and left there until the tidal water of the Thames ebbed and flowed over the bodies three times. So much for Britannia ruling the waves."

It's a well-written editorial, and Burnett's book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the resurgence of maritime piracy. However, the critique of Britain here is off the mark. Of course pirates have human rights - do we really wish to return to the days of gibbeting? And Captain Kidd was a human rights victim by today's standards - the conditions of his imprisonment before his execution included a year of solitary confinement and were said to have driven him partially insane.

What Britain should be scolded for is not pointing out that pirates have rights (as do all criminals, however heinous their behavior), but letting them go to avoid responsibility for protecting their rights. Britain fears not that detaining them would violate their rights - of course criminals can be detained, tried and punished, as France is correctly doing - but that if it keeps them in custody it will be responsible for a costly trial and detention. Much better to turn them loose now to countries like Somalia, where they will face torture and grisly death at the hands of the Islamic justice system.

Britain's behavior is Machiavellan, not pathetic, and certainly not an example of a soft, lilly-livered country upholding the rights of the accused.

Blog of Note

This week I discovered a new blog the anti-torture-minded among you may wish to check out regularly and link to - BanTorture.org. Thoughtful coverage of the USG's violation of the Torture Convention and strategies to change this. Though, a sad commentary on our times that such a site would be necessary. The description:

"Ban Torture is my humble effort to stop the use of torture and make torture unequivocally illegal. This site is a tool to build awareness, encourage grassroot support, and urge federal and state officials to ban torture through legislation or constitutional amendment. I need your help. Please speak up and get involved!"

Check it out.

Ack!-tivism

Amnesty International sent me this plea for donations the other day. Go check it out.

From the Mouths of Babes

My smallish son and I watched Robin Hood: Prince of Theives this weekend, which of course begins with an awful prison scene in a Jerusalem dungeon circa 1050 A.D. He wasn't too traumatized by the floggings, brandings and mutilations, since the film rather quickly moved onto jollier subjects like trouncings with quarter-staffs, outlaw trickery, fencing, archery and good old fashioned romance.

But later he asks, "Are our jails like that?"

I tell him, no, we take care of our prisoners because we believe that even criminals have rights.

"Even if they're our enemies, like in the Crusades?" he asks. "We would still give them food and take care of them? Because we're good guys, right?"

I pause.

Guantanamo Detention Facility Marks Sixth Anniversary

Amnesty International has organized a global day of rallies in protest of the internment of over 800 so-called "enemy combatants" at the Detention Facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

What may be more significant than the calls to close the facility (because of course some of the detainees will have to go somewhere else) is the case under review at the Supreme Court over whether they have the right to challenge their detention in court.

I will have more to say about this issue in due course, but for now I'll post the follow short clip:

See What I Mean?

Recently I blogged about the domestic impact of the emerging international anti-death-penalty norm, even in countries who are unlikely to ever sign a new treaty abolishing capital punishment.

Today, al-Jazeera reports that China is Moving Toward Humane Executions:

"China has announced plans to step up use of lethal injection instead of shooting as the means of carrying out executions, a senior law enforcement official has said.

Jiang Xingchang, vice president of the Supreme People's Court, was quoted by the China Daily on Thursday as saying death by lethal injection was 'considered more humane.'"

Death Knell for the Death Penalty?

According to Foreign Policy's latest "web exclusive":

"Its critics call the practice barbaric. The United Nations General Assembly is voting to outlaw it. Yet, a closer look at the death penalty—and the countries that still use it—reveals that it’s far too early to pronounce a death sentence against capital punishment just yet."

When I first read this sentence I was eager to peruse the article, which I assumed would be a carefully-thought-out defense of capital punishment on empirical grounds. However, the sole evidence for this statement is to list a number of countries who have no intention of abolishing the death penalty including China, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and the United States. These are compared according to the number of people executed annually as well as the type of crimes.

So, the claim seems to be not that the death penalty shouldn’t be abolished, but that steps in the direction of total abolition are empirically insignificant since these five countries, among others, are definitely not on board.

I beg to differ. Many important advances in human rights law took place without the involvement of a few renegade countries, and almost all took place without US ratification. Secondly, for the practice to actually be abolished in 189 governments of the world would constitute an unprecedented historical shift, even if certain holdouts took longer to come around to the newest standard of “civilization.”

Indeed, the campaign to abolish the death penalty may affect the incidence or nature of the practice among pro-death-penalty states. For example, while the US insists on the right to execute its criminals, it continues to attempt to humanize the means by which this is done. As for China, Foreign Policy acknowledges that executions have declined by 40% since Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics.

Alex Gibney has released a new documentary about the treatment of detainees in the Global War on Terror.



The film, "Taxi to the Dark Side," which has already won the best documentary award at the Tribeca film festival, will be released in January 2008. Not quite in time to enjoy it with your family over the holidays, but perfect to digest with impressionable middle-schoolers, now being fed a diet of "civics" that includes pledging daily their blind allegiance to our republic.


Of the film, Bill Larsen writes:

Have we, by pursuing such ruthless means, lost the moral high ground in the war on terror and made ourselves less safe? Even more important, have we compromised our own sense of humanity, our democratic values and our effectiveness as a world leader?

In my view, to even phrase these comments in the form of questions is to suggest a desperate naivete about the impact of our government's actions on our standing in the world. The truth is, we should all be more frightened than ever of our enemies.

Say WHAT???

According to the Washington Post, "Evidence from Waterboarding Could be Used in Military Trials":

"The top legal adviser for the military trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees told Congress yesterday that he cannot rule out the use of evidence derived from the CIA's aggressive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, a tactic that simulates drowning.

"Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, who oversees the prosecutors who will try the detainees at military commissions, said that while "torture" is illegal, he cannot say whether waterboarding violates the law. Nor would he say that such evidence would be barred at trial."

It was bad enough when the USG practiced waterboarding, allegedly to gain "actionable intelligence" in extreme cases, in violation of international and domestic law. But out and out claiming it is defensible as a means of gathering evidence for military trials must constitute some kind of bizarre tipping point.

What is the deal with this guy? Is he actually representing the policy of the USG or has just committed a political and legal blunder that will cost him his career? Let's hope the latter: distancing itself quickly from this argument and seeking the Hartmann's resignation would seem to be a no-brainer for the Bush Administration.

Comments on this article from the Post blog suggest such a move would have widespread support:

"This filthy sonofabitch should be drummed out of the military on his totalitarian fascist derriere. Even Republican Lindsay Graham can't stand him."

"With your support of using "evidence" obtained by torture you have smeared America, our constitution and our honor with your feces."

"God help this country. Can someone help me out with what to tell my kid about this, about what this country stands for?"

In reponse to that last, tell your kid this country stands for speaking out when your leaders predictably become corrupted by power. We as a people are not defined by the barbarism of our government's practices, so long as we actively oppose it. Let's hope the Senate Judiciary Committee remembers this.

Blowing the Whistle on Torture

Ian over at The Agonist follows Michael Froomkin in berating lawmakers who knew of water-boarding as early as 2002 for failing to raise their concerns on the floor of the House and Senate. Froomkin makes an interesting point that:

"The emerging consensus in the blogosphere seems to be that even if they had the presence of mind to object, the Representatives and Senators who were briefed were in a bind: as members of the Intelligence Committees or the leadership, they signed various secrecy pledges which stopped them from going public... All this misses a critical aspect of our constitutional structure. Thanks to the Speech and Debate Clause there was a way for any Senator or Representative who wanted to blow the whistle to do so in a way that involved no risk of jail or fines – at worst they might have lost their security clearances (and even there the law is a little murky)."

To support his argument, Froomkin excerpts Article 1 of the US Constitution which reads:

"The Senators and Representatives... shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place."

Note, however, the exemption for acts of “treason,” defined in Article 3 of the US Constitution:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

Who supposes a government who can claim water-boarding is not torture wouldn’t happily call such whistle-blowing “aiding and comforting the enemy” and thus the construct the whistleblowers as traitors?

I endorse the idea that any right-minded congressperson should have gladly gone to prison if necessary to blow the whistle on these practices. But let’s not “misunderestimate” the gravity of the personal choice they may have faced.

Why Would Jesus Not-Torture?

Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has admitted he is firmly against torture, after meeting in Des Moines with a group of human-rights-minded military personnel. He includes waterboarding in his definition, though it's unclear whether he would also include needles inserted beneath fingernails or all other "unpleasant" interrogation techniques.

Ironic, though, that the candidate some believe is “too moral” to be President would oppose torture not because it’s immoral, but because it supposedly wouldn’t work. (Hear his logic in this stream from NPR.)

“If only” torture were effective, no problem; Christian ethics per se be damned.

Prince Faisal: International Community "Unfairly" Denigrates Saudis

Prince Faisal has distanced the Saudi government from a court's condemnation of a gang-rape victim to 200 lashes, but said "the judgment was being used to vilify the Saudi government." However ridiculous this statement is, it does tell concerned citizens something about the audience they need to persuade with their letters and phone calls.

Why not lobby the Saudi government on its own terms? One hardly must invoke Western standards of women’s rights or universal human rights to oppose this ruling: the sentence is unjust even according to Saudi standards (for a discussion of her lawyers' arguments click here). The ruling challenges (and justifies) King Abdullah’s efforts at judicial reform. And since the rapists were Sunni and their victim Shi’a, failing to commute the sentence will only make the “Girl from Qatif” a flashpoint for ethnic tensions in the Kingdom - something the authorities might care to defuse.

If advocates were to play on these concerns rather than invoking Western notions of gender justice or calling for invasion, they are likeliest to provoke a constructive response, rather than defensiveness.

In between calling the Saudi embassy, they might also lobby the Western media to stop giving a bully pulpit to the Justice Ministry’s claims that the victim has “confessed to adultery,” which if true can carry a sentence of death, rather than flogging.

Instead, reporters should focus on other under-reported aspects of the story:

The courage demonstrated by the victim’s husband in standing up for his wife in a culture where he is expected to kill her himself.

The fact that she is at as much risk from members of her extended family as from the state.

And how about the politically incorrect fact that both her companion and their rapists face flogging (up to 1000 lashes) as well? These too are human beings, eh?

Human rights? We've got your rights, now where's the human?

While breaking my fast today, I idly scanned the latest headlines, and was both amused and saddened (though hardly surprised) to find the State Department tap-dancing around whether the Geneva convention applies to those interned in Guantanamo Bay, our very own latter-day Hanoi Hilton.

The Administration's stance remains that because the prisoners are "non-state actors", that is, they were alleged to be fighting with a guerrilla group at the time of their capture, that we needn't trouble ourselves with the Geneva Convention, not to mention the Constitution, the Magna Carta, or the Ten Commandments.

Consider the reverse implications; we've bewailed the treatment of US servicemen captured in Vietnam, but by our own interpretation of the "rules", there should have been two very different standards applied to US prisoners during the Vietnam War; those captured by the NVA, the military branch of a recognized state, should in fact have received their rights under the Geneva Convention (including between 8 to 75 Swiss francs monthly, depending on their ranks) - while those prisoners captured by the Viet Cong, an unrecognized insurgent group, could have been tortured, errr, I mean of course, questioned with no regard to any pesky "rights"...

Let's decipher the State Department's pontificating. What they're really trying to say is "When is a human not a human?" When kidnapping becomes "extraordinary rendition", when torture becomes "robust interrogation", when politicians and state-sponsored lawyers begin rewriting the lexicon; when Nationalist sentiment is on the rise, when you're a Jew in Berlin in the 1930s, when you're a Muslim in Iraq just after the turn of the millenium, it makes you wonder.

To paraphrase the Bard; "If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh? If you torture me, do I not scream?"

Apparently, there are no screams in Guantanamo, just the hearty exclamations of "robust answers".

Welcome, For Better or Worse.

We are a junior political scientist and a soldier of misfortune who have been arguing since childhood about political ethics and global social order. The basic question that informs our discussions is how, whether and on what terms the gap might be closed between national and human security. Can global governance "as if people mattered" be achieved?

As you will see, this range of interests gives us plenty of room to maneuver. Besides military doctrine, international law, and global civil society do not be surprised if you find the topics on this blog to include, among others: 1) the care and feeding of young megalomaniacs; 2) the relationship of science fiction and video games to geopolitics 3) and the so-called universality of human rights (cannibalism: barbaric primitive practice, or the other, other white meat?).

Why blog at all, and why now? We have different reasons.

Diodotus: "Political science today prizes abstract theorizing and number crunching over practical wisdom for citizens and statespersons. But as Einstein said, 'Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.' Theory may be my bread and butter, but one hungers to be of use to the real world. It has taken me a few years and some inspiration from other academic bloggers to recognize that six hours a week with students is not enough."

Cleitus the Black: "Why, I choose to blog so the radiance of my inspired eloquence may illuminate the the grey matter of the downtrodden masses, of course! People should actually thank me for doing their thinking for them; it's "outsourcing" at its very best!"

Our blog’s name reflects the influence of Orson Scott Card, who foresaw the political blogosphere back in the late ‘80s when writing his famous novel Ender's Game. In the story, two brilliant middle-schoolers manage to influence world events by writing polemical commentaries under the pseudonyms “Locke” and “Demosthenes.” Of course all possible variations of those derivative titles were snapped up by other Card fans long before we took to the blogosphere ourselves, so we drew on one of our favorite Card quotes instead.

As for our own psuedonyms, interpret them as you please. We hope you enjoy reading and participating in our virtual debates, and if you find the material useful or illuminating, please feel free to recommend this page to your friends and enemies alike.