IntLawGrrls |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2010 12:30 PM PST  What to make of Jamie Rubin's blithe Farewell to the Age of the Treaty?In an op-ed yesterday Rubin, a State Department spokesperson back when Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State, posited that treaties aren't "even worth the trouble anymore." The "trouble," it appears, is not with international agreements themselves. Troublesome, rather, is securing 2/3 consent of the Senate, a constitutional sine qua non for U.S. ratification of a treaty. The requirement's now bedeviling President Barack Obama's bid for ratification, detailed here, of the U.S.-Russia New Start disarmament treaty. (prior posts) (credit for White House photo of April 2010 signing) "'Fortunately, there is an alternative,'" Rubin breezed. He argued that statutes, which pass upon simple majorities of both houses of Congress, usually "will work just fine." Even putting aside the glib assertion that "the international system has most of the rules it needs," Rubin's argument falters on a number of points:  ► History: The op-ed's ahistorical in its implication that this is a new problem. Presidential struggles to clear the 2/3 Senate hurdle are "nothing new," as our Opinio Juris colleague Duncan Hollis pointed out. Failure to secure approval dates at least to President Woodrow Wilson, and the Senate's rejections of the Versailles Treaty (right) and the League of Nations Covenant, in 1919 and again in 1920 -- years surely within the putative "Age of Treaties." Rubin himself no doubt recalls President Bill Clinton's CTBT debacle back in 1999.► Politics: Also implicit is an assumption that congressional majorities easily may be obtained. Rubin points to legislative efforts on climate change as an example of his position "already being used." He pretermits, however, that these efforts have yet to bear statutory fruit. Given that the New Year will inaugurate a House of Representatives with a heavy GOP lean, getting Congress to okay internationally aimed reforms would seem far from simple. ► International Relations: Rubin's solution seems unlikely to give U.S. status abroad the hefty boost he suggests. Statutes and treaties are quite different legal animals. A statute may be altered, even repealed, at any time. Preferring the legislative path thus adds instability to the United States' foreign relations. What's more, a statute is the unilateral enactment of a single sovereign. In contrast, a treaty embodies that sovereign's consent not just to act, but to do so out of an international obligation. Treaties represent a deeper level of commitment, a promise to pursue global cooperation even if domestic political winds shift. Opting always for the U.S. statutory fix, at a time when other countries are urged to join treaty regimes, seems unlikely to ease what Rubin rightly calls "international frustration with American leadership." Hard to see the op-ed's effort -- in essence, to put a brave face on an inferior option -- as much more than advance spin should New Start founder in the Senate.  |
| Centre for women's law in Africa Posted: 23 Nov 2010 03:11 AM PST (Delighted to welcome back alumna Bonita Meyersfeld, who contributes a 2-part series of guest posts on international law in Africa. Part 1 is below.)  I recently attended a workshop at the Southern and Eastern African Regional Centre for Women's Law (right). Primarily is a postgraduate teaching and research institution, SEARCWL focuses on issues related to women's multiple interconnections and intersections with the law in all its pluralities. It's run by Professor Julie Stewart (below left) of the Faculty of Law at the University of Zimbabwe.Among the Centre's features is a Masters in Women's Law programme which focuses on using a human rights compliance and implementation framework to assess, promote, implement, and conduct research on the rights of women's and girls. I was amazed at the quality of work being done and the far-reaching impact of each student's work. Each research project was intellectually sound, academically consistent with international developments and grounded in principles of international law. I came away with a sense that the work being done in this small location in the heart of Harare will probably have some of the most important impacts in bringing international human rights law theory to communities in Africa. Above all, because it is  based on a 'grounded theory of research' which challenges assumptions in an honest and liberating way, the work being done at SEARCWL really does have the potential to change the application of laws to women's lived experiences. Topics include:► Political rape against supporters of a certain political party in Zimbabwe; ► Deficiencies in the prosecutions of gender crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a study being undertaken by an ICTR prosecutor; ► Women's access to water in the "grabbed" land in Zimbabwe; and ► The experience of women in and after ethnic killings in 2007 in Kenya. (prior IntLawGrrls posts available here) The Centre hosts some of Africa's finest developing academics, and is a source of scholarly work which integrates the advancing academic theories in international law with the communities that international law academics often theorise about but never actually meet. Specifically: ► In teaching, researching, reforming, and implementing human rights, law reform and laws as they affect women, the Centre seeks to undertake a holistic examination of all aspects of a problem. Each and every piece of research undertaken must examine the human rights implications of the problem; it must examine the constitutional and legal implications within the laws of the country being researched. A gender perspective (and not a women's perspective) must be a fundamental part of the research plan, including an analysis of how men and women are affected by the conditions surrounding the identified problem. ► All and any research conducted under the Centre's auspices must be grounded in the realities of the lives of people. To this end, the Centre works on developing theory and methodology in tandem. The best illustration of this is the research and theorizing cycle, which helps students to see where they fit into the intellectual processes, but which also informs how they should move forward in any research process. This is illustrated by the diagram below. ► Most research adopts the international and regional human rights frameworks. Local constitutions and national laws are evaluated for compliance. This framework also allows for comparison between countries in the region and internationally. The Centre sees nothing exceptional in what it does. It views itself, rather, as using the various capacities of human rights, from aspiration to litigation, to drive forward benefits for women and girls while recognizing the needs of men and boys. In so doing, it tries to build synergies that positively benefit both sexes and both genders. In tomorrow's post, I will set forth projects through which the Centre endeavors to achieve these goals.   |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2010 02:05 AM PST (Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)
-- Our colleague William A. Schabas (below right), Professor and Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland-Galway, in yesterday's New York Times article by Marlise Simons, entitled "For International Criminal Court, Frustration and Missteps in Its First Trial." Blogreaders will recognize the subject of Simons' critique as the on-again/off-again ICC proceedings about which we've frequently posted -- the trial of Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for illegal recruitment of child soldiers. Problems cited include:  ► The "'ugly and healthy'" relations, as Schabas termed them, between judges and the prosecution, stemming out of an evidentiary dispute that implicates the due process rights of the accused.► Continuing doubts about the strength of the case -- about whether "'all this time and effort was worthwhile,'" in the quoted words of Lorraine Smith, who's monitoring for the International Bar Association. ► The decision of the prosecution not to press charges of sexual crimes, a complaint voice by IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Brigid Inder, the Women's Initiatives for Gender justice representative who posted on the issue a while back. Scarcely a welcome account on the same day that trial #2 commenced, against Jean-Pierre Bemba.  |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2010 01:04 AM PST  On this day in ...... 1984, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 39/17, discussing the "Importance of the universal realization of the right of peoples to self-determination and of the speedy granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples for the effective guarantee and observance of human rights." Occasioning the restatement of the self-determination right were a laundry list of events: continuing apartheid in South Africa, occupation of Namibia and part of Angola by South Africa, and recent invasion of Lebanon by Israel. (Prior November 23 posts are here, here, and here.)  |
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