MaxedOutMama
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
The Right Question
Tom Carter (and many others) are asking the right questions about the slaughter in Darfur. But who has the answers, and is our international system of law broken? Did it ever exist? Tom links to a column in which an observer speaks:
Update: The Barking Dingo has a post reviewing the Darfur situation and placing it in the context of international law. This is a superb highly informative, article that you will not want to miss. An example of great, great blogging, in which we share our individual areas of expertise to contribute to general knowledge.
"Every single day you go out to see another burned village, and more dead bodies," he said. "And the children - you see 6-month-old babies that have been shot, and 3-year-old kids with their faces smashed in with rifle butts. And you just have to stand there and write your reports." ...Tom asks:
Will another President of the United States have to go there in a few years and apologize to another million ghosts?I realize that it is hard for Americans to contemplate having to take action outside of the international system of law again. Who knows, maybe Blair could rope the Canadians in on this one - it can't always be just the US, UK, Australia and Poland. I still can't get over the fact that the UN report said it wasn't genocide. It wasn't, of course, because under the UN rules action is required to prevent genocide. So of course there is no genocide. Nope. No genocide here. Just dead people of the same ethnic group, and no real action.
Update: The Barking Dingo has a post reviewing the Darfur situation and placing it in the context of international law. This is a superb highly informative, article that you will not want to miss. An example of great, great blogging, in which we share our individual areas of expertise to contribute to general knowledge.
Comments:
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I am currently working with a group of other lawyers on this issue. What is happening there fits all the qualification for genocide as laid out in Art 5 of the Geneva convention. Here is the political problems:
1) Money - no on wants to pay. Many African nations have offered to send troops, but can't afford to keep them there.
2) Nations like China are just as guilty and don't want to set precident.
Here are the problems with the international law aspect.
1) All nations have sovereignty in civil matters to quell "civil rebellions" as the Sudanese government is calling this (of course we all know that is just a smoke screen). It just happens that the rebels are all of one ethnic group.
2) for the international criminal court (ICC) to have jurisdiction, the country where the actions are taking place must be signatories to the treaty. Of course, Sudan is not a signatory. So, the ICC has no more jurisdiction there than is does in the US.
3) the only way for the ICC to have jurisdiction over a non-signatory state is for it to go through the UN security council and be referred to a special prosecutor to investigate. This is actually starting to progress, but very slowly.
The only way this conflict will ever be resolved is with a combination of peace keepers and prosecution of the criminals. Getting them both done is going to be a huge problem. Right now, the biggest crisis is getting aide to the refugees. There is just not enough security to get food and medicine in to the camps.
1) Money - no on wants to pay. Many African nations have offered to send troops, but can't afford to keep them there.
2) Nations like China are just as guilty and don't want to set precident.
Here are the problems with the international law aspect.
1) All nations have sovereignty in civil matters to quell "civil rebellions" as the Sudanese government is calling this (of course we all know that is just a smoke screen). It just happens that the rebels are all of one ethnic group.
2) for the international criminal court (ICC) to have jurisdiction, the country where the actions are taking place must be signatories to the treaty. Of course, Sudan is not a signatory. So, the ICC has no more jurisdiction there than is does in the US.
3) the only way for the ICC to have jurisdiction over a non-signatory state is for it to go through the UN security council and be referred to a special prosecutor to investigate. This is actually starting to progress, but very slowly.
The only way this conflict will ever be resolved is with a combination of peace keepers and prosecution of the criminals. Getting them both done is going to be a huge problem. Right now, the biggest crisis is getting aide to the refugees. There is just not enough security to get food and medicine in to the camps.
Thank you for the information, it's GREATLY appreciated.
Do you have any recommendations for the average person such as myself? What can we do? What do you think can be done? If they had funding, would the African Union be capable of going in there and providing security? Is the leadership in place?
It is both tragic and upsetting that the world has sent (rightly) so much money for tsunami aid but nothing really effective is being done to address this situation.
Do you have any recommendations for the average person such as myself? What can we do? What do you think can be done? If they had funding, would the African Union be capable of going in there and providing security? Is the leadership in place?
It is both tragic and upsetting that the world has sent (rightly) so much money for tsunami aid but nothing really effective is being done to address this situation.
Well, blogging about it is a start. I would contact your Congressmen and tell them that you want action taken on this matter. That is how the South Africa policy shift started.
I just put up a backgrounder on my blog if you want to know more about the ICC.
Darfur and ICC
I just put up a backgrounder on my blog if you want to know more about the ICC.
Darfur and ICC
Oh, yeah, and as for the AU. The problems there is that the quality of the troops is not very good (as seen in the Congo). They are poorly trained, poorly disciplined, and often corrupt. But, I suppose it is the lesser of two evils.
Dingo, that is truly an excellent post and I have updated mine to direct people over to you.
If anyone knows of other such resources, please leave them here in the comments or let me know that they are posted on your site/blog.
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If anyone knows of other such resources, please leave them here in the comments or let me know that they are posted on your site/blog.
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