Foreign interventions - When to hold and when to fold

The Economist has a useful review of a recent publication focusing on the issue of intervention - perfect for our consideration of human rights. The book in question is Can Intervention Work? by Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus, published by W.W. Norton, 2011 (236 pages):

CAN we intervene in foreign countries and do good? Can we stop wars and genocides and get rid of evil dictators? Can we then build modern, democratic states that thrive in our wake? The answer depends on who you ask. An anti-Qaddafi Libyan will have nice things to say about NATO’s role there right now. But you will get very different views from an Afghan, an Iraqi, a Bosnian or a Kosovar.

Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus are well placed to pose and answer these questions. Before Mr Stewart became a Conservative MP, he was a deputy governor of two Iraqi provinces. He also walked across Afghanistan and wrote a bestseller about the experience. Mr Knaus, a political economist, runs the European Stability Initiative, a Berlin-based think-tank founded in Sarajevo in 1999, which has been particularly influential in the Balkans.

The book is structured as two essays with a lengthy joint introduction. Mr Stewart has written a colourful account of his time in Afghanistan and his failed attempts to stop what he sees as a self- defeating build-up of ambitions, troops and plans. He skewers gobbledygook notions of bringing Afghans accountable governance and Western-style rule of law. It is not that he is against such things, but that he doubts the ability of foreigners to impose it all. He cites a pragmatic admonition from English Mountain Rescue: “Be prepared to turn back if conditions turn against you.”

Writing about Bosnia, Mr Knaus deploys heavy artillery in arguments that he has made before. Intervention there has been a stunning success, he says, given the state of Bosnia at the end of its devastating war in 1995. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have returned, not a single intervening soldier was killed (after the war), and today’s problems are of the conventional political sort, not the kind that herald another war. Not only does Bosnia enjoy free and fair elections, but also it has relatively little crime. Mr Knaus argues that the only missteps came from assumptions held by those like Lord Ashdown, when he was de facto governor of Bosnia, that well-meaning envoys could behave like imperial viceroys, sacking elected yet obstructive leaders at will.

From rather successful interventions, defined as Bosnia and Kosovo, the authors convey an important lesson: that is, the experience garnered in one place is generally not much use elsewhere. Bosnia was a success because the intervention came as part of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement, which ended the war and which all the exhausted sides committed themselves to. In Kosovo the vast majority of its people—ethnic Albanians, nearly all of them Muslims—were very grateful for what they saw as their America-led liberation from the Serbs. Mr Knaus also argues that the United Nations war-crimes tribunal was vital as a form of closure and for removing from the political scene characters such as Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian Serb general now on trial for genocide in The Hague.

So, does intervention work? As any Bosnian peasant may tell you, “maybe yes, maybe no.” It depends on the circumstances and requires modest ambitions. Muddle through with a sense of purpose, says Mr Knaus. Do what you can, where you can and no more, agrees Mr Stewart. In policy terms that sounds a bit like “yes” to Libya, “no” to Syria and so on.

Economist: Human rights - A tigress and her tormentors

The Economist reviews the changing guard at the United Nations Human Rights Council, with mixed approval and approbation (full article follows):

A long-despised watchdog wakes up, barks and even bites

In its five years of life the United Nations Human Rights Council has been more pilloried than praised. The pious posturing of countries renowned for beastliness to their citizens incenses critics. So does the triumph of politics over humanitarian principle, the knee-jerk condemnation of Israel and a blind eye turned to most other countries’ abuses. Yet in this unpromising setting, some positive signs are visible.

Next week a Haitian official will deliver the final report in the first cycle of the Universal Periodic Review, a unique (for the UN) four-year process in which every government must submit an account of its human rights to the scrutiny of its peers. Few believe that this will change behaviour in Iran, Myanmar or North Korea. Even in milder cases, the practical gain will be clear only in the second four-year cycle when the council hears how governments have responded to the 20,000-odd recommendations from the first round.

But human-rights lobbyists say it has helped to highlight their cause, not least by giving local campaigners new opportunities to berate their rulers. Many governments spend a lot of time and resources polishing their act before they come to Geneva. A report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch bestows rare praise on the council in its response to emergencies. In the year to June 2011 it launched international investigations in Côte d’Ivoire, Libya and Syria; it appointed an investigator to monitor developments in Iran; and it extended the mandates of rapporteurs for Myanmar, Cambodia, Somalia and Sudan.

Much of the credit for all this goes to Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, along with Zambia and even tiny Maldives. The United States is newly engaged too, having returned to an active role in the council under the Obama administration. Earlier this year it brokered a successful cross-regional initiative promoting freedom of assembly and association.

The question now is whether new members who joined the Council in September, which include India, Indonesia, Costa Rica and Peru, will play the same activist role as their predecessors. The early signs are not promising. In October one group, under the politically correct rubric of promoting transparency and accountability, sought (so far unsuccessfully) to nobble the budget, and thus the independence, of the Office of the High Commissioner, Navi Pillay. The main instigators were Cuba, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, all of which strongly oppose an interventionist approach to human rights. Ms Pillay, a South African of Tamil extraction, had outraged the Sri Lankan government by calling for an independent investigation of alleged atrocities and war crimes by both sides in the war against the Tamil Tigers. The pro-government media there vilified her as a bullying, racist “Tamil Tigress”. In the world of UN human rights, such insults may count as compliments.

BBC news: Somalia - Rights group says all sides guilty of crime

From BBC News this morning, an article based on the report on 'the state of Somalia' currently issued by Human Rights Watch:

Human Rights Watch has said all sides in Somalia's are guilty of serious violations of international law.

The campaign group says civilians are bearing the brunt not just of a terrible famine but also a failure by any side to protect them.

It says Islamist group al-Shabab is guilty of unrelenting brutality, while government troops carry out arbitrary arrests and detentions.

HRW also criticises the West for not exerting pressure to stop the abuses.

A spokesman for the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) denied the accusations, and said the body was committed to human rights.

The HRW report, You Don't Know Who to Blame (link), says all sides in the conflict should end abuses against civilians and ensure Somalis have access to aid.

The report's author, Ben Rawlence, told the BBC that al-Shabab carries out unrelenting daily repression and brutality in areas under its control, taxing the population for access to water, forcefully recruiting men so they cannot grow crops and restricting access to aid agencies.

"Al-Shabab must carry the burden of that responsibility for the way in which the demands of the fighting has led to human rights violations which have contributed to famine," he said.

Mr Rawlence said al-Shabab often fired from within populated areas towards TFG troops and UN peacekeepers, who responded "without paying too much attention to who is there".

The report also accuses the TFG of carrying out arbitrary arrests and detentions, and says those who flee the country face more problems, enduring rape and extortion, allegedly by the Kenyan police.

Mr Rawlence said support for the TFG had to come with pressure for it to respect human rights and improve accountability of its security forces and government.

But Abdi Rashid Aseed, a spokesman for TFG, said the information used for the report was inaccurate and denied the accusations in it.

"When you are restoring law and order certain things are going to happen; collateral damage happens not only in Somalia but in all parts of the world where there is trouble and wars," he told the BBC.

"This Transitional Government is committed to human rights. We are happy to listen but criticism has to be constructive."

Somalia has been without an effective government for 20 years - much of southern and central Somalia is controlled by al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda and has imposed strict Sharia law.

Some 1.4 million people have been displaced within the country and hundreds of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries to escape fighting and food shortages. The World Health Organisation estimates that 2.8m people are in need of food aid.

UN Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

From Wired Magazine's Threat Level section yesterday:

A United Nations report said Friday that disconnecting people from the internet is a human rights violation and against international law.

The report railed against France and the United Kingdom, which have passed laws to remove accused copyright scofflaws from the internet. It also protested blocking internet access to quell political unrest (pdf).

While blocking and filtering measures deny users access to specific content on the Internet, states have also taken measures to cut off access to the Internet entirely. The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from internet access, regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of violating intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The report continues:

The Special Rapporteur calls upon all states to ensure that Internet access is maintained at all times, including during times of political unrest. In particular, the Special Rapporteur urges States to repeal or amend existing intellectual copyright laws which permit users to be disconnected from Internet access, and to refrain from adopting such laws.

The report, by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, comes the same day an internet-monitoring firm detected that two thirds of Syria’s internet access has abruptly gone dark, in what is likely a government response to unrest in that country.

Economist: Responsibility to protect - The lessons of Libya

Outsiders had good reason to intervene in Libya. But their cause may suffer from it.

So fears The Economist newspaper today in a useful article reviewing the ongoing intervention in Libya by NATO forces:

For those who back muscular humanitarian intervention, both the words and deeds of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi provided absolute moral clarity. “Come out of your homes, attack [the opposition] in their dens,” he told his supporters on February 22nd. He called the protesters “cockroaches” and “rats” who did not deserve to live: language chillingly reminiscent of the broadcasts of Radio Mille Collines, which spurred on the perpetrators of Rwanda’s genocide in 1994.

As he spoke, his forces had set their sights on Benghazi, their adversaries’ stronghold. According to Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, government forces had already killed 233 people in the preceding week. A bloodbath beckoned, in a city of 700,000 people. The United Nations Security Council invoked a fateful formula, urging the regime to meet its “responsibility to protect” its people. On March 17th the council, “expressing its determination to ensure the protection of civilians”, ordered air strikes.

That set the stage for the first full-blown test of a principle that the UN adopted in 2005 and has been refining since. The doctrine of “responsibility to protect” (R2P) holds that when a sovereign state fails to prevent atrocities, foreign governments may intervene to stop them. Human-rights advocates say it saves lives. Sceptics see it as too easily misused to be useful: a cover for imperialism, or even an incentive to kill (because even if a massacre is not looming, an unscrupulous warlord might be tempted to engineer one against his own people to spur outside support).

Previous uses of R2P have been solo ventures. In 2008 Russia used it to justify attacking Georgia, and France cited it after the cyclone in Myanmar, implying that humanitarian aid might have to be brought in by force if the regime persisted in stonewalling (it backed down). But before this year, no mission had been authorised by the UN Security Council that so explicitly cited the new principle.

At first it looked likely that the doctrine would either triumph or die in Libya. But two months and thousands of air strikes later, war’s messy reality has merely hardened views on both sides. On one hand, the decision to go to war was made in good faith at a time when the risk of massacres seemed real. As Mats Berdal, a professor at King’s College London, points out, the world’s leading powers had good reason to think they were “avoiding a Srebrenica”—the massacre of Bosnians which UN forces failed to avert in July 1995.

But as the war drags on and NATO strikes more widely, sceptics also feel their case has been bolstered. “For those of us who feared that R2P was just a warrant for war, our fears have been vindicated,” says David Rieff, an advocate-turned-critic.

Responsibility to protect gained ground after ghastly mass killings in the late 20th century, including massacres by the Khmers Rouges in Cambodia in the 1970s; the use of chemical weapons in Iraq in 1988; and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. In 1999 NATO unleashed an air war, without a UN blessing, to stop a Serbian campaign in the province of Kosovo. It argued that the need to protect civilians was an overwhelming moral imperative. The UN gave a sort of retrospective blessing by endorsing an international tutelage for the territory, led by Bernard Kouchner, a French pioneer of humanitarian intervention.

But the terrible civil war in Iraq that followed America’s invasion in 2003—portrayed as intervention against tyranny—shrivelled support for the doctrine. A possible result of that may have been hesitancy in intervening to stop the Sudanese government’s genocide in Darfur.

Seeking to restore liberal hawkishness’s good name, a group led by Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister, pushed the UN’s 60th anniversary conference in 2005 to endorse the idea that the world has a “responsibility to protect” civilians. Eventually 150-plus countries agreed to allow armed intervention through the Security Council “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.”

So much for the theory. What about the practice? Colonel Qaddafi provided an all-but-unique test. Regional leaders loathed him and readily dumped him. The Arab League’s support for the intervention stopped Russia and China wielding their vetoes. And the concentration of the rebels in the east, combined with flat desert terrain, at first made the regime’s forces easy bombing targets. “The stars were well and truly aligned in the Libya case,” says Mr Evans. “All the criteria were satisfied.”

The immediate goal of protecting Benghazi from massacre was achieved within days. Having destroyed Libya’s air defences, Western bombers and missiles pummelled the advancing troops into a speedy retreat.

Harder decisions followed. Libya’s army continued to shell other rebel-held cities, and its snipers were plainly targeting civilians. Protecting all Libyans, not just those in the east, would require the end of Colonel Qaddafi’s rule—an outcome that both Western and Arab governments had already called for. NATO stepped up its military campaign, bombing retreating columns as well as advancing ones, and attacking command-and-control centres frequented by Colonel Qaddafi and his family. On April 30th an air strike killed one of his sons. The line between curbing atrocities and an air war for regime change blurred—though a land operation is ruled out, for the moment.

Both sides of the debate will eagerly cite Libya the next time mass murder seems imminent. It shows that a modest dose of air power can save lives; but also that the rhetoric of civilian protection can be stretched to justify a creeping mission. Power politics decides which lives get saved, and which policy aims triumph.

Mr Rieff decries a “two-tiered system of interveners and intervened upon”, where the “old imperial powers” make the rules. But which powers exactly? The Libyan vote passed only because non-Western Russia and China withheld their Security Council vetoes: all but unimaginable until recently. Both countries are now getting cold feet, claiming misuse of the resolution’s elastic language. For different reasons Mr Evans bemoans excess zeal too: he wants to preserve the purity of R2P, and fears an interpretation that allows for “all-out aggressive war”. A lot rides on this war—and not just for the Libyans.

Guardian: Saudi Arabia flogs orphan girls

The Guardian today has a gruesome story of apparent human rights violation:

Six girls aged between 12 and 18 receive 10 lashes each for attacking head of orphanage

Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 have been flogged in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official has said. The girls received 10 lashes each at a women's prison in Medina, Islam's second holiest city.

"The order against the six orphans is a legitimate court order," Mohammed al-Awadh, the public relations manager at the ministry of social affairs, told Reuters. "The ministry does not have the right to interfere in a court order."

He gave no details of the ruling, but the Arabic language Okaz newspaper said the girls had been convicted of "acts of mischief" and attacking the director of the orphanage. The girls defended their actions, saying they were harassed by the director, Okaz reported.

International human rights groups have criticised the Saudi justice system for applying corporal punishment for petty crimes, as well as limb amputations for thieves and beheadings for murderers under its strict interpretation of Islamic law. Saudi officials say the practice is widely approved by Saudi society and is a deterrent to crime.

In January 2010, a teenage girl was sentenced to 90 lashes and two months in prison for hitting her school principal on the head with a cup when she took away her mobile phone.

Awadh said the ministry would continue to care for the girls after the floggings were carried out. "What it will do is rehabilitate and take care of the girls' social wellbeing, which is part of its duties and responsibilities," he added.

BBC News: Beijing 'back-sliding on rights'

BBC News brings news that a top US diplomat has accused China of "back-sliding" on human rights, after two days of dialogue in Beijing....

Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner said he had raised the subject of the recent crackdown on dissidents and lawyers in China. But he said that no headway was made when specific cases such as that of detained artist Ai Weiwei were raised.

A Chinese spokesman said that US should not use human rights issues to interfere in China's internal affairs. Rights groups say the most extensive government crackdown on dissent in years is taking place. Government critics including lawyers, bloggers and activists have been targeted.

The BBC's Michael Bristow, in Beijing, says that some believe China has launched this crackdown because it fears unrest similar to that taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. Others believe that politicians looking to be promoted in next year's leadership reshuffle are trying to show how tough they are.

Mr Posner said that the two sides had "tough" discussions about issues "deeply" concerning to the highest levels of the US government. "In recent months we've seen a serious back-sliding on human rights, and a discussion of these negative trends dominated the human rights dialogue," he said.

He said that he had raised cases of several prominent dissidents, such as artist Ai Weiwei - a government critic who has not been seen since his arrest as he tried to board a plane to Hong Kong. The authorities say they are investigating him for "economic crimes".

"On that case, we certainly did not get an answer that satisfies," he said. "There was no sense of comfort from the response or the lack of response." He also raised cases including that of missing lawyer Gao Zhisheng and Liu Xia, the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, who is under house arrest.

The two sides also discussed the issues of Tibet and Xinjiang, both areas where minority groups seeking greater autonomy from China exist.

Mr Posner said the issue could harm bilateral ties. "Human rights is an essential feature of what we do, and so to the extent that there are serious human rights problems, those problems become an impediment to the relationship," he said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said both sides "had frank and thorough exchanges on issues of mutual concern." "At the same time we oppose the United States using human rights to interfere in China's internal affairs," he added.

Gareth Evans: Hypocrisy and War (R2P)

Gareth Evans, former Australian Foreign Minister and author of Responsibility to Protect, writes usefully, eloquently and at length on the principles behind R2P in an article syndicated today (text follows—and yes, you should read it!):

All the world hates a hypocrite. When states preach virtues they do not practice, or set lower hurdles for allies, trading partners, or co-religionists than they do for others, irritation and non-cooperation are the least they can expect. International policymaking is a hardheaded, cynical business, but tolerance for double standards has its limits.

Russia discovered that when it invoked the “responsibility to protect” doctrine to try to justify its 2008 invasion of Georgia. Democracy promotion by the United States and the European Union generates ridicule when it extends only to elections producing winners found palatable, as Gaza’s vote for Hamas in 2006 did not. Nuclear-weapons states keep learning the hard way that strengthening the non-proliferation regime is a tough sell when they drag their feet on disarmament.

And the invasion of Iraq in 2003 is a gift that keeps on giving to the world’s malcontents: embracing the Security Council only when you get your way, but ignoring or undermining it when you don’t, is no way to promote a cooperative rule-based international order.

But in the real world, how consistent is it possible to be in responding to genocide and other mass atrocities, treaty breaches, border violations, or other serious trespasses against international law? To demand that every case that seems to look alike be treated alike might set the bar impossibly high, and certainly runs the risk of becoming hostage to critics – like those who attack the intervention in Libya – who assert that if you can’t act everywhere, you shouldn’t act anywhere.

The hardest cases, always generating the strongest emotions, involve the coercive use of military force. Why strike in Libya but not in Darfur – or in Yemen, Bahrain, or Syria? If military intervention in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire were correct decisions, why wasn’t the Iraq invasion in 2003, given Saddam’s many crimes? What credence can the responsibility to protect have when we know that however bad things get in Tibet, Xinjiang, or the Northern Caucasus, military action against China or Russia will always be off limits?

Former US President George W. Bush famously did not “do nuance.” Nor do most of the world’s foreign-policy pundits. But nuance is exactly what is required. And there are tools for applying it in the five tests of legitimacy for the use of force – in any context, not just mass atrocity crimes – recommended by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the High Level Panel he appointed to advise the 2005 World Summit on reforms to the global security system.

These guidelines have not yet been formally adopted by the General Assembly or the Security Council, and remain only background noise in current international debates. But their practical utility, combined with long philosophical pedigree, justifies much greater visibility.

The first test is seriousness of risk: Is the threatened harm of such a kind and scale as to justify prima facie the use of force? The risk of an imminent civilian bloodbath was as real in Benghazi and Abidjan last month as it was in Rwanda in 1994. By contrast, there was no such imminent risk in Iraq in 2003, though there certainly had been a decade and more earlier for the country’s northern Kurds and southern Shiites.

The current situations in Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria are on the cusp: ugly, but smaller in scale and perhaps retrievable by pressure short of military action (of which the US and its allies could usefully apply much more).

The second test is whether the primary purpose of the proposed military action is to halt or avert the threat in question. Libya passes, as would most other recent cases: had oil – or regime change – been the primary motivation, the Arab League and the Security Council would never have endorsed military intervention. Russia, by contrast, found it hard to find any takers for its assertion that civilian protection was the primary rationale for its South Ossetian adventure in 2008.

The third test whether every non-military option has been explored and found wanting. Libya again followed the textbook: Resolution 1970 applied targeted sanctions, an arms embargo, and the threat of prosecution at the International Criminal Court to concentrate Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s mind on civilian protection. Only when that failed did Resolution 1973 embrace the military option. In Iraq in 2003, lesser options had far from run their course, which is arguably true now in Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria.

The fourth test is one of proportionality: Are the scale, duration, and intensity of the proposed military action the minimum necessary to meet the threat? As military stalemate looms in Libya, there will be a growing temptation to stretch the UN’s legal authority – and the moral and political support that goes with it – to the breaking point, and NATO is now close to that line. It must not cross it if it wants to preserve its own credibility, and the world’s capacity for intervention in similar conscience-shocking cases.

The final, and usually toughest, legitimacy test attempts to balance the consequences: Will those at risk be better or worse off? This was always the showstopper in Darfur: any attempted invasion of Sudan would have been disastrous for the two million displaced people, and would have re-ignited the country’s even deadlier north-south conflict.

This test explains the effective impunity of China, Russia, or any other major power; however badly it behaves internally, any attempted invasion would trigger a much larger conflagration. Resolving Libya’s agony will take more than military action. But, as in Côte d’Ivoire, it is hard to argue that the use of force will cost more lives than it will save.

Steering a course between double-speak and necessary selectivity is hard. But, when examined against the right criteria, cases that initially look alike are often very different. Even when they’re not, a higher principle surely comes into play. When our common humanity is under threat, even if we can’t do everything we should, shouldn’t we at least do what we can?

UN (and France) move to stop another bloodbath in Ivory Coast

Humanitarian intervention seems to be firmly back on the agenda these days—first NATO and a few Arab partners in Libya, now France and the UN working together in the Ivory Coast. The Independent this morning has a convenient summary of developments overnight:

The United Nations and France joined the offensive to dislodge Ivory Coast's presidential pariah Laurent Gbagbo last night, launching air strikes against forces loyal to the man who has refused to cede power after losing an election.

The battle for Abidjan took on an unprecedented international aspect as the UN responded to days of attacks against its peacekeepers by stretching its mandate to protect civilians to the maximum with a show of force. ...

... In what appeared to be a premeditated move to support the forces of Mr Ouattara, France quickly authorised its military to join in the UN campaign. Last night, the attack was intensified with rockets fired at targets close to Mr Gbagbo's official residence in Abidjan.

Ivory Coast's rival presidents have been locked for days in a violent stand-off in the commercial capital, with hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped amid the fighting.

The sudden escalation came after diplomats in New York confirmed warnings by the UN's special representative to Ivory Coast, Choi Young-jin, that peacekeepers were planning to use "air assets" to fire back at Gbagbo forces who have wounded 11 UN personnel in recent days.

An especially strongly worded resolution passed last week by the UN Security Council condemned "in the strongest terms the recent escalation of violence throughout the country which could amount to crimes against humanity". The unanimous resolution also stressed the Council's "full support" for the UN peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast "to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence... including to prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population."

 Read the rest of the article in an effort to gain good insight into this developing current example of outside intervention motivated by humanitarian concerns.

China and US among top punishers but death penalty in decline

The Guardian has a summary today of the latest report regarding global use of capital punishment (the death penalty) by the human rights watchdog Amnesty International:

China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the US carried out the most executions last year, bucking a global trends towards abolition of the death penalty, a report has said.

China again was by far the world's most prolific executioner in putting to death thousands, said Amnesty International in its report on the death penalty worldwide. Amnesty does not provide a precise figure of executions in China as Beijing keeps such figures secret.

Instead, it has challenged the Chinese authorities to publish figures for the number of people sentenced to death and executed each year to confirm claims of a reduction in the use of the death penalty.

China, however, last year did move to cut down the number of offences that carry the death penalty, which applies to no less than 68 crimes. If the changes go through, the death penalty would be removed for such crimes as tax fraud, and for smuggling valuables and cultural relics. Amendments to the criminal code may also remove it as a punishment for those over 75. In all, the changes would affect 13 death penalty offences.

Setting China aside, Amnesty said at least 527 executions were carried out last year. Almost half of those took place in Iran (252). North Korea executed 60, Yemen 53 and the US 46. The minimum number of executions was down from at least 714 in 2009.

Methods of execution included beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and various kinds of shooting (by firing squad, and at close range to the heart or the head). No stonings were recorded in 2010, but stoning sentences were reported in Nigeria, Pakistan and Iran, where at least 10 women and four men remain under stoning sentences. At least 2,024 new death sentences were imposed during 2010 in 67 countries, including 365 in Pakistan alone, meaning it has some 8,000 people currently on death row. Amnesty expressed particular alarm that a significant proportion of executions or death sentences recorded in 2010 were for drug-related offences. They accounted for more than half of 114 sentences in Malaysia. Meanwhile, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates ignored international prohibitions and imposed death sentences on child offenders -people aged 17 or less when alleged crimes were committed, with Iran executing one such offender named as Mohammad A.

The underlying trend on the death penalty, however, is strongly toward abolition, Amnesty said, with 31 countries removing the punishment in law or in practice in the last 10 years. Last year, Gabon became the 139th country to either abolish the penalty outright or to cease to use it in practice.

"In spite of some setbacks, developments in 2010 brought us closer to global abolition," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general. "The President of Mongolia announced a moratorium on the death penalty, an important first step as capital punishment is still classified as state secret. For the third time and with more support than ever before, the UN general assembly called for a global moratorium on executions. Any country that continues to execute is flying in the face of the fact that both human rights law and UN human rights bodies consistently hold that abolition should be the objective."

If you're interested (and you probably should be!), the original AI report can be found on their website for free download (PDF). Altogether, a timely report, considering that we are about to start examining Human Rights as a topic in class!

Guardian Comment: Kosovo - a template for disaster

David Gibbs in The Guardian's Comment is Free section argues today that the idea that Kosovo is a model for humanitarian intervention in Libya is based on a series of myths...

This is important reading for us as the NATO bombing of Serb forces in Kosovo to protect ethnic Albanians in the late 1990s is often cited as a successful example of humanitarian intervention. Current events in Libya are heightening the debate over the use of the R2P (Responsibility to Protect) doctrine. There are also long-held concerns as to just how effective just air power can be in resolving issues over the long term.

An introductory excerpt:

As they weigh up whether to support the attack on Muammar Gaddafi's regime, some western commentators are taking comfort from the 1999 Nato air war against Serbia, which is widely viewed as a successful humanitarian mission that protected Kosovans from Serbian aggression. Moreover it was done at low cost to the intervening powers, who suffered no combat casualties. And ultimately it led to the ousting of Serbia's villainous leader, Slobodan Milosevic. The Libya intervention, it is hoped, will have a similarly positive outcome.

In reality, Kosovo presents little basis for optimism with regard to Libya. Its success is based on a series of myths.

Guardian: A no-fly zone over Libya? The case for and against

As the UN Security Council currently debates the issue, Julian Borger in a balanced article appearing in The Guardian today looks at the arguments for and against implementing a no-fly zone over Libya.

Definitely worth a read for our most current example of (possible) intervention! Particularly useful for those studying Global Issues is the article's exploration of arguments concerning the notion of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and R2P, while providing some historical background as to how the doctrine developed.

Observer: Iran 'using child soldiers' to suppress Tehran protests

The Observer today reports allegations of further examples of the abuse of human rights under the current Iranian regime—this time, involving children:

Iran's Islamic regime is using "child soldiers" to suppress anti-government demonstrations, a tactic that could breach international law forbidding the use of underage combatants, human rights activists have told the Observer.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says troops aged between 14 and 16 have been armed with batons, clubs and air guns and ordered to attack demonstrators who have tried to gather in Tehran. The youths – apparently recruited from rural areas – are being deployed in regular riot police roles and comprise up to one-third of the total force, according to witnesses.

One middle-aged woman, who said she was attacked by the youths, reported that some were as young as 12 and were possibly prepubescent. They had rural accents, which indicated they had been brought in from villages far from Tehran, she said.

Some told her they had been attracted by the promise of chelo kebab dinners, one of Iran's national dishes.

"It's really a violation of international law. It's no different than child soldiers, which is the custom in many zones of conflict," said Hadi Ghaemi, the campaign's executive director. "They are being recruited into being part of the conflict and armed for it."

The UN convention on the rights of the child requires states to take "all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities".

The allegation comes amid efforts by Iran's opposition Green movement to revive the mass protests that challenged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in 2009, which opponents say was rigged. Drawing encouragement from the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, organisers have vowed to stage demonstrations every Tuesday.

Protesters who gathered on 1 March and a week later were met by a blanket security presence, which activists say refined the tactics used to crush the post-election revolt, when smaller detachments of youths were used informally by the hardline Basij militia.

Last Tuesday youthful riot squads formed along Valiasr Street, Tehran's central thoroughfare, and forced pedestrians to run an intimidating gauntlet. Protesters chanting anti-government slogans were attacked. Multiple arrests were reported.

"They are very keen to display violence. Teenage boys are notorious for that," said Ghaemi. "They are being used to ensure there is a good ratio of government forces to protesters and because the average policeman in Tehran could have some kind of family connection to the people they have to beat up. It's a classic tactic to bring people from outside, because they have no sense of sympathy for city dwellers."

The renewed clampdown coincides with concern over the whereabouts of the Green movement's nominal leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. Both were apparently placed under house arrest last month and then reported to have been taken into detention, despite official denials.

New Republic: Tyranny, the West, and the Rest

This morning, Josef Joffe in The New Republic asks in a single brilliant article: "Why is everyone acting so shocked about Muammar Qaddafi’s crackdown?":

When Casablanca’s corrupt police captain Louis Renault closes down Rick’s Bar Américain to please Major Strasser, he huffs: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” A second later, the croupier hands him a pile of money: “Your winnings, sir.” It took the West and the Rest 42 years to be shocked by what has been happening in Muammar’s Café Libyien. And it wasn’t gambling.

Now, it’s no more U.N. Human Rights Council for Qaddafi. Now, the International Criminal Court is investigating. Now, the E.U. is cutting off arms supplies and freezing bank accounts. Even the supple Swiss are getting religion, sequestering funds thought to belong Gaddafi and relatives. The U.N. Security Council, no assembly of choirboys, suddenly performs as the world’s conscience. It has imposed an asset freeze and a travel ban on the Qaddafi clan. Foreign ministers vie with one another in the shrillness of their indictment of a tyrant variously called “mass murderer,” “state terrorist,” or “psychopath.” “Outraged,” President Obama demands, “He must leave.” The U.S. and Britain are mulling “no-fly zones” to pin Qaddafi’s air force to the ground.

There is no reason to be “shocked, shocked.” Everybody—and that goes for the West as well as for Arabs, African, and Asians—has been able to see all along what’s been happening in Libya. But the Human Rights Council did not seem notice—perhaps because it was too busy passing 32 resolutions against Israel since its creation in 2006, almost half of the total it’s issued. The Council must have acted in a fit of dizziness when it elected Libya as a member.

The African Union—with around 50 members, depending on who is suspended when—anointed Qaddafi as chairman in 2009. This was the same Qaddafi who attacked Egypt in 1977 to demonstrate his displeasure with Cairo’s shift toward peace with Israel, and who invaded Chad in 1978 for a bit of territorial enlargement. In the 1980s, Qaddafi never met a terror outfit he didn’t like, supporting each and all with cash and arms—all the way to Ireland and the Philippines. He graduated from paymaster to puppet master with the PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie. Though he never assumed responsibility, Libya did offer to pay $2.7 billion in 2002 as compensation to the families of the 270 victims. Compared to this blood orgy, you might call the three American soldiers killed in a terror attack on West Berlin’s La Belle disco in 1986 an act of restraint.

And yet. The only time shock led to counter-shock was when Reagan ordered the bombing of Tripoli in 1986. The attack unleashed an uproar in Europe; this was worse than the slaughter of Libyan civilians, it was neo-imperialism! Four years earlier, a delegation of German Greens—idealists and pacifists all—had come to Tripoli to pay their respects to “Brother Leader.”

Yes, there were also economic sanctions, such as America’s Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996. But it didn’t keep American, let alone French and Italian, oil companies from doing business with Libya. There was simply too much cash in the country, such as a sovereign wealth fund worth $ 70 billion. Formalized in 2007, the fund, reports The New York Times,drew into its “orbit” the Great and the Good, “including the Rothschild family, Prince Andrew, the former European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, the cream of corporate society in Italy” as well as a couple of big-time U.S. investors.

In 2009, while Qaddafi was in Rome, Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi praised him as “man of deep wisdom.” In 2007, French President Sarkozy’s “good friend” got to pitch his tent in the middle of Paris, presumably rent-free. But never mind. The visit brought in a deal worth 10 billion euros for a little nuclear reactor here, 14 Rafale combat planes there.

And now, he is our friend no more. “Treason,” the cynic Talleyrand pontificated, “is a matter of date.” “Unfriending,” too, we might add. Apropos of date: Britain and the U.S. came down really hard on Qaddafi in 2003, right after spectacular victory in Iraq. A few weeks later, Qaddafi came clean on his nukes, promising to scrap whatever he had and opening his country to inspections. The moral of this tale is that power talks. When there is the demonstrated will to use it, even the worst tyrants start purring.

Yet nobody told Qaddafi to stop being Qaddafi: an oppressor of his own people who would have made NKVD/KGB and the Gestapo proud. How is 2011 different from the 41 years before? The current mayhem does not bespeak a new quality; it is just more visible. So why the new outrage? Talleyrand might have mused: “Never go after tyrants before they falter, but hit them hard when they can’t hit back.” In German: Realpolitik beats idealpolitik; power and interest matter more than decency.

As we can see now, however, an excess of self-interest always begets an excess of self-righteousness. Unfortunately, to indulge in piety afterward is always easier than to walk that fine line between justice and expediency beforehand—in human affairs as well as in the life of nations. Nor will this ever end. Only in the movies do flawed heroes like Rick and Louis dispatch Major Strasser and go on to join the Free French Forces in Brazzaville.

Human Rights: Libya and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

The New York Times today published analysis of an important decision regarding events in Libya taken by the UN Security Council on Saturday night:

In response to Muammar el-Qaddafi’s continued assaults on civilians in Libya, the United Nations Security Council adopted a unanimous and historic resolution in an unusual Saturday night session.

It imposed an arms embargo on Libya, targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against Qaddafi, his family members and senior regime officials, and referred the situation to the International Criminal Court for investigation and potential prosecution of those involved in what was referred to as possible crimes against humanity.

In its statement condemning the violence, the Security Council included a critical reference to Libya’s “responsibility to protect” (RtoP) its own citizens from mass atrocities.

At the U.N. World Summit in 2005, more than 150 heads of state and government unanimously adopted a declaration on the responsibility to protect authorizing international collective action “to protect [a state’s] population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” if that state is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens, or worse, as in the case of Libya, if that state is the author of such criminality.

Since then, the doctrine has been only applied once — in the case of Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007-2008. And this is the first time it has been explicitly invoked by the Security Council regarding the situation in a specific country.

Do take the time to read the whole opinion piece. This decision constitutes an important  formal step towards Responsibility to Protect (R2P, or RtoP) by the international community and therefore represents an extremely valuable current example of the protection (potential, or otherwise) of human rights in North Africa for our Unit 4 responses.

News Flash: The Taliban Violate Human Rights (Hitchens)

The human rights community finally notices the Taliban's war crimes.

Christopher Hitchens gets stuck into the Taliban—and also into the 'human rights community' that appease them—in a wide-ranging and acerbic article published today in Slate magazine:

Even in a week that concentrated all eyes on the magnificent courage and maturity of the people of Cairo, a report from Kabul began with what must surely be the most jaw-dropping opening paragraph of the year. Under the byline of the excellent Rod Nordland, the New York Times reported:

International and local human rights groups working in Afghanistan have shifted their focus toward condemning abuses committed by the Taliban insurgents, rather than those attributed to the American military and its allies.

The story went on to point out that the Taliban was culpable for "more than three-fourths of all civilian casualties" and informed us that some human-rights groups are now so concerned that they are thinking of indicting the Taliban for war crimes. "The activists' concern," Nordland went on, "would have been unheard-of a year ago," when all the outcry was directed at casualties inflicted by NATO contingents.

The story became more mind-boggling as it unfolded. One had to ask oneself what had taken the human-rights "community" so long. ....

Hitchens then proceeds to expose the rights abuses of the Taliban (once again), before contrasting the aims and actions of NATO operatives in the region. He may have a point. Read the whole thing.

Wired: Iran, China Block Outside Sites to Muzzle Mideast News

Wired Magazine's Danger Room reports on somewhat predictable behaviour from two regimes peculiarly sensitive to public protest—even when it's not happening at home:

The authoritarian regimes in Iran and China are playing a double game, when it comes to the unrest in the Middle East. Tehran and Beijing are doing their best to spin the protests in their favor, when they talk to the world. But at home, they’re pursuing a different strategy: trying to muzzle anything but the official line on the upheaval


Commentators have been keen to liken the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia both to the 1979 revolution that brought the Iranian regime to power and the electoral protests of the Green Movement which tried to unseat it. Not surprisingly, the Iranian government has preferred to use the latter comparison. ....

.... With large economic interests in Egypt, China’s hopes for Egypt are decidedly less ideological. In public, Beijing is asking for just one thing: quiet.

“We hope Egypt will restore social stability and normal order as soon as possible.” That’s been the consistent refrain from China’s Foreign Ministry when quizzed on its reaction to the events.

At home, China has blocked internet searches for “Egypt” and reportedly ordered Chinese media to follow the state-run news service Xinhua’s line on the protest movements, which has emphasized the disturbance caused by the protests at the expense of explanations of their political grievances.

Worth reading the whole piece for yet another current example of state censorship, propaganda and manipulation of human rights.

Visualisation: "So You Still Think the Internet is Free...."

Click on this link to view a brilliant web visualisation of web censorship around the world—and the reasons for it...

Iran hanged 47 people in three weeks, say human rights groups

The Guardian reports recent claims made by a number of respected human rights organisations:

Iran has hanged almost 50 people during the past three weeks, according to human rights groups.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) said 47 prisoners, or an average of about one person every eight hours, have been put to death since the beginning of the new year. Most of the executions are believed to be related to drug-trafficking crimes, although at least two were of political activists.

The news came as it emerged today that Iranian officials had apparently suspended the sentence of hanging for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old woman whose sentence of death by stoning for adultery sparked an international outcry....

.... According to the ICHRI, Iran executes more people per capita than any other country, and in absolute numbers is second only to China. Iran executed at least 179 people in 2010 and 388 in 2009.

The two known political activists hanged recently were Ali Saremi, accused of waging war on God, and Hossein Khezri, a Kurdish prisoner accused of belonging to the Pejak, an armed Kurdish opposition group.

Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the ICHRI, said: "There are many questions about proper legal proceedings, charges against executed people, and even their identities. There are serious concerns about the abuse of the judiciary by intelligence and security forces to push their agenda through such widespread executions."

 Read the whole article.

Guardian: 'Beware those who sneer at 'human rights imperialism'

A few days back, the Guardian newspaper published a timely and incisive article by the Iranian-American writer and activist Sohrab Ahmari:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/jan/04/human-rights-imperialism