Recommended Listening: Guatemala's Bomberos

Friend-of-the-blog Myles Estey has a fascinating radio report from Guatemala City, where he spent several nights with the volunteer paramedics/firemen who respond to emergency calls from the wrong side of the (figurative) tracks.  You can listen here (scroll down), see pictures from Myles's trip here, and read more about the Bomberos here.

WTF Friday, 10/7/11

MSF leaves Thailand after negotiations to provide care to migrant workers and undocumented foreigners fails. It's cool. They have a really awesome registration scheme.

"With Gaddafi and his sons gone, Al Alem is optimistic Libya's new leaders, the National Transitional Council, will pay more attention to sport.." Dude, take it from me, that's a slippery slope.

Oh, by the way this exists.

Not Live from the Great Lakes Policy Forum Conference on Congo Advocacy

Amanda and I were tragically absent from the second panel of the GLPF Congo Advocacy event, because we had Important Business to attend to elsewhere. Fortunately, Laura Seay and Daniel Solomon were both live-tweeting the proceedings, and some other members of the audience graciously shared their impressions with me as well.

Apparently, it was highly similar to yesterday's panel along the dimensions of muffinlessness and derailment of the Q&A period by nonsensical rants. (Very disappointed to have missed what sounds like an epic intervention by a megalomaniacal anthropology student.) However, the heavy reliance on sausage-metaphors-of-questionable-taste was new, and, unlike yesterday, not all of this morning's panelists were snappy dressers. -One may even have neglected to wash his hair.

While the themes of engagement with Kinshasa and paying more (any) attention to local voices carried through across both days, today's panel got more directly into the "Conflict Mineral Advocacy: Friend or Foe" debate. Despite the presumably universal appeal of one panelist's call for finding a way to improve transparency in the mining sector while limiting the costs to the affected population, a meeting of the minds did not occur. My sense is that this comes down to intractable disagreement on two points: (1) whether or not the violence in the Kivus has "economic roots", and (2) whether the negative impacts of the de facto embargo can be attributed to Dodd-Franck (and therefore to conflict mineral advocacy).

So the conference probably didn't move anyone off of their entrenched positions on the conflict mineral question. (I haven't changed my mind, anyway.) However, important points got brought up that have been generally missing from the debate. For instance, yesterday's money quote: “If it’s about U.S. consumers, please don’t call it a Congo strategy.” Additionally, several panelists raised the issue of how conflict framing by the international advocacy community can produce perverse incentives for local organizations and individuals. This is something I've wondered crankily about before, so it was useful to hear about the phenomenon from a more informed perspective.

And for my money, the most interesting point made over the two days was a comment by one of today's panelists.  He observed that conflict mineral advocacy, by locating the causes of violence in private sector activity, limits itself to private-sector-focused solutions. Something to think about...

Live from the Great Lakes Policy Forum Conference on Congo Advocacy

Morning internets!  We're on a field trip to the Great Lakes Policy Forum Conference on Congo Advocacy today.

We're live-blogging live, but the conference policy of "on the record but not for attribution" means that we are apparently only allowed to tell you what is being said, not who is saying it.  So, to set the scene:

We have three panelists and one moderator, making up a total of three distinguished gentlemen and one distinguished lady who is a friend of the blog and is named Laura Seay.* Three of them are wearing suits!  One moderator is wearing a tie! And Tom from A View from the Cave is sitting behind us, which is awfully exciting.

*Laura has given us permission to attribute her statements, so this is not as much of a flagrant rule violation as you probably thought it was. Fooled you!

9:45: Not-to-be-identified-speaker-in-spiffy-yellow-tie notes that international advocacy around Congo is not a new phenomenon. Mark Twain FTW!

9:49: Broad theme for this panel is “how is the narrative of the Congo conveyed in Washington?” (Somehow we think the answer to that question is going to be “not that well, actually.”)

9:52: Oooh! A map!

9:53: Focus on eastern DRC means “we have ignored the rest of the country altogether.”

9:54: Your interest has been captured by eastern DRC, so those are the stories you tell. You think you are doing something good for the Congo, but you’re not. You’re arguably doing something for this region, but ignoring the rest. The result has been terrible.

9:56: Shout out to a great moment in "WTF Congo Advocacy" history - Secretary Clinton's video cameras for rape victims initiative. Whatever happened with that, anyway?

9:57: No one asks about the Congolese government when something bad happens. When women get raped, we send NGOs, and students from good law schools to run clinics on how to prosecute people that no one has the power to arrest.

9:58: First reference to Dr. Mukwege. Who thinks we’ll get to ten mentions by 11:30?

10:01: What is lacking in the advocacy in this town is the courage to tell the truth. You’re thinking of your next job, and what people will think of you.

10:02: Explanation of who Edward Morrell was is probably not necessary - suspect 100% of this audience has read “King Leopold’s Ghost.”

10:03: Oooh, burn. Report saying that 48 women are raped every hour is “most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.” If you take a holistic view of all rape in a country, then the U.S. is in serious trouble too. Maybe we need to build a Panzi hospital here.

Read more »

International Law for Dummies (and/or Former Heads of the IMF)

Good afternoon! Welcome to today's installment of "LOL international law"

I'm sure that all of you have google alerts set up for "diplomatic immunity" just like I do, so you are probably aware that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, everyone's second-favorite International Man of Mystery-and-Rape-Accusations, has recently moved to dismiss the civil suit filed by his alleged victim, on the grounds of diplomatic immunity.

Exhaustive searches of the internets have not revealed a copy of the motion itself, but according to the New York Times, Strauss-Kahn is making a rather novel argument: He claims that because he was managing director of the IMF at the time of the alleged assault, "he was entitled to the protections adopted in 1947 at the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of Specialized Agencies." Noting, correctly, that the United States is not actually a party to that Convention, his lawyers nevertheless claim that it is "applicable in American courts because it had been adopted under customary international law."

Unfortunately, as DSK's lawyers would know if they had taken my introductory international law class, there are a couple of teensy little problems with that argument.

As a primary matter, it's not at all clear that the convention in question actually is part of customary international law ("CIL" to its friends). In a nutshell, customary international law is a form of international common law that is derived from the practices of states - if the majority of affected states consistently follow a rule out of a belief that is a legal obligation, then that rule can become part of customary international law. Sometimes treaties reach this status, but not that often. Whether this particular treaty has is somewhat debatable, but even if that's the case, it may have been superseded in this country by the United States's more specific agreement on the subject.

However, even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the Convention is part of CIL, DSK still has some issues. The Convention clearly states that the executive heads of specialized agencies are entitled to two separate types of immunity: (1) absolute immunity for all acts and communications performed in their official capacity, and (2) the immunities ordinarily afforded to diplomats under international law. Both types of immunity have their pros and cons. Category 1, functional immunity (fancy Latin term: immunity rationae materiae), is pretty rad because it's permanent. If you do or say something in your capacity as head of the IMF - like, say, bailing out much of southern Europe - and people later get pissed off about that, then you're protected. You can't be sued or prosecuted for it, ever, even once you leave office. However, that kind of immunity is limited to official acts - think making speeches and arranging bail-outs, not your sex life. On the other hand, the second type of immunity, personal immunity (immunity rationae personae) is basically the reverse. It protects the diplomat from suits and prosecutions arising out of private acts as well as public ones, but it ceases as soon as the individual in question leaves the diplomatic post, or as soon as the immunity is waived by the sending organization or state. When that happens, the diplomat is no longer protected from lawsuits or prosecutions for acts that occurred during his diplomatic tenure - diplomatic immunity protects the office, not the individual. Thus, for DSK's argument to fly, he'd have to show that his actions in that hotel room are covered by one of those two types of immunity.

I think he's got an uphill battle with respect to category 1 (functional immunity). It's pretty clear that he was in New York on personal business - lunch with his daughter. And even if he were in town for international monetary activities of some sort, sex with hotel maids - consensual or otherwise - is simply not in the IMF head's job description. (Which, I imagine, comes as a relief to Christine Lagarde.) So the accusations in the civil case don't arise out of activity that would be covered by official immunity. I just can't see a way for DSK to win dismissal on that basis.

For category 2 (personal immunity), he has a different problem. If we assume that the Convention applies, then he was theoretically covered by personal immunity at the time of the alleged assault. That type of immunity does provide blanket protection from judicial process, even for acts done in a personal capacity. However, DSK resigned from his position on May 19, long before the civil suit was filed. When he did so, he lost his diplomatic immunity. That means that he's now unprotected from suits in U.S. courts, even the suits arise out of acts that took place while he was still IMF head.

So, no: you can't haz immunity.

(Photo credit: our Science Person Emily's new kitten, Max. Hi Max!)

WTF Friday, 9/30/11

"Prime Minister Putin is the most authoritative politician in our country, and his approval ratings are somewhat higher." Wow, nothing complex about that inferiority.

I didn't really read this article but I guess ICP played in Yemen? No wonder Saleh wasn't trying to step down yet.

What does wood have to do with a concert in Madagascar? Just get DJ Rajo on the 1's and 2's.

Congo Advocacy Hits New Low

Sweet Jesus, people.  Sometimes, you think you've seen everything in the way of badvocacy and then along comes six minutes of rape porn masquerading as informed activism.

Yeah, you read that right.  The latest Congo-themed assault to my efforts at maintaining a healthy blood pressure is a short called "Unwatchable" (to which I'm omitting a link on account of intense disapproval) that reimagines the violence in the Eastern DRC as atrocities visited on wealthy British people.

Because clearly, the reason conflict persists in the region is that no one has been forced to think: "How would I feel if these were pretty blonde teenagers being gang-raped by soldiers?"  (And man is PETA going to be upset that they never thought to produce a video showing Pamela Anderson being skinned and turned into a coat...)

The video is part of an independent conflict mineral campaign aimed at generating pressure on UK mobile phone manufacturers to stop using minerals sourced in the Congo.  It appears to be affiliated with Save the Congo, which ought to be embarrassed to be associated with this nonsense.

Setting aside for now my disagreement with the claims underlying conflict mineral focused Congo advocacy in general (although if you want a refresher, see "Is My Cell Phone Full of Rape, Redux"), the particular link this campaign draws between rape and cell phones is completely illogical. From their FAQ:

Q. What is the link between the minerals and the use of rape as a weapon of war in DRC? 

A. Running a rebel group is a costly business. In DRC armed groups rely on Congo’s easily appropriable and highly valuable natural resources to finance their insurgencies, which the rich world has a capacious appetite for. Hence mines or mineral trade routes (where they can extort money from miners) are key targets for the armed groups. To gain access to these rich mining areas or roads, regional national armies or their proxies lay siege and rape as many as possible until the whole village packs and leave. Rape is cheaper and much more effective than guns or bullets. If armed groups were to raid a village and force the population to leave by shooting at them, NGOs could be alerted and the UN would have to react. However if they lay siege to or raid a village and then rape as many as they can, regardless of how loud the women scream or cry its less likely that NGOs could hear them and therefore less likely that the UN would intervene.

W...T...F...?  Rape is cheaper and much more effective than guns or bullets??? No.  Rape is not a "cheap" coercive strategy.  It's time-consuming and it exposes the perpetrators to injury and potential STD infection. Armed groups absolutely use it anyway, but not because it's cheaper than bullets.

And, [i]f armed groups were to raid a village and force the population to leave by shooting at them, NGOs could be alerted and the UN would have to react??  This is surely news to the scores of NGOs, both local and international, who have worked tirelessly to document and publicize the use of rape as a weapon of war throughout the last decade and a half of conflict in the region.

Look, I realize that grassroots activism often plays a fundamental role in political change, and has been particularly important to the history of the human rights movement, but seriously, this "the news made me sad / I can haz NGO?" nonsense has got to stop.  Time to invoke Amanda's "Love Actually Test" on a wider scale, I think.

I have to go take a sedative and lie down now.

ECCC Continues to Confuse Everybody, Especially Me

Remember Case 002 before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (a.k.a. "ECCC" a.k.a. "Khmer Rouge Tribunal" a.k.a. "KRT")?

In case you don't, it's the trial of Khmer Rouge regime leaders Nuon Chea ("Brother Number Two"), Khieu Samphan (Cambodia's head of state during the Khmer Rouge period), Ieng Sary (Foreign Minister), and Ieng Thirith (Minister of Social Affairs).  As I've blogged previously, because Pol Pot is dead, these four defendants represent the KRT's best shot at convictions of those "most responsible" for the deaths of millions of Cambodians under Khmer Rouge rule.

Last week, the Trial Chamber decided to split Case 002 "into a number of discrete cases that incorporate particular factual allegations and legal issues." This decision was undertaken pursuant to a new procedural rule that allows the Trial Chamber to proceed on a limited section of the indictment where such a move is "in the interests of justice." According to the press release announcing the order, the particular interest of justice being served here is speediness; the rights of victims to timely justice, and the rights of the accused to an expeditious trial.

However, the way they've chosen to divide the case up leaves some doubt as to whether the trial time will actually be any shorter. It appears that the Trial Chamber intends to split the case in order to proceed through the charges more or less chronologically. Consequently, the first case to be tried will be those charges related to the forced movement of population; both the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh in April of 1975, and the forced transfer into the North and Northwest Zones in September and October of 1975.

But the Chamber also indicated that it will hear issues related to the structure of the government of Democratic Kampuchea and the role of each accused in its hierarchy, with the intention of relying on these findings in the cases to be tried subsequently. This seems like an odd choice given that the four accused did not assume their positions of authority until after the forced movement of population. Thus, establishing the chain of command and responsibility in the government of Democratic Kampuchea would not be relevant to proving the counts now being charged in the first case. And, according to sources familiar with the Tribunal's work, these issues of structure and responsibility will be among the most laborious to try, making it unlikely that the first case can be disposed of quickly.  Furthermore, it is unclear what would happen in the case of an appeal of the first case.  Would trials on the later charges have to wait until all the appeals were exhausted?

So basically, I'm confused about the theory here. And also concerned on a more practical level about logistics - like having to bring the same witnesses back multiple time for different trials. Anyone want to explain to me why this actually makes good sense?

WTF Friday, 9/23/2011

I feel kind of sad that "narco pets" is now in my lexicon. Just glad there were no "drug mule" puns. (Thanks, Melinda!)

Zambia's new president is nicknamed "King Cobra," supports Robert Mugabe, and is maybe warding off evil spirits in this picture.

Rick Perry pronounces "Palestine" as "Pahl-ee-steen." This is actually shrewd. No matter what happens at the UN he can always just say he was talking about something else.

Russian Diplomacy: Ur Doin It Wrong

Apparently the Russian Ambassador in Belgrade, Aleksandr Konuzin, thinks that "diplomacy" involves "repeatedly insulting your hosts, and making a strenuous attempt to inflame nationalist tensions."

At the Belgrade International Security Conference, Konuzin, who appeared to be drunk, belligerently slurred insults at the panel, and at one point openly shouted at the moderator.  In an apparent play to Serb nationalism, he asked if there were "any Serbs" in the audience, and accused them of failing to protect Serb interests from NATO and the U.N.'s forces in Kosovo. Which is great, obviously, because when has Serb nationalism brought the world anything other than flowers and puppies in the past?



(H/T EJIL Talk's Marko Milanovic, and one of my students, who pointed me in the direction of Milanovic's post over the weekend.)

WTF Friday, 9/16/11

Dang I can get this classic on Amazon for $0.99 new, $0.27 used. A steal for a book on human rights co-authored by a guy who appeared in all three Ocean's movies.

I do not have a good feeling about this.

Is this Reuters headline meant to be a pun? If so I'm conflicted between feelings of admiration and repulsion.

World's Most Powerful Telescope, Coming To South Africa?

This has my inner nerd all aflutter:

"Magnus and his colleagues are aiming to build the world's biggest telescope. It will cost £1.3bn and consist of thousands of dishes with a total surface area of one square kilometre. It will generate enough raw data to fill 15m 64 GB iPods every day, requiring a supercomputer 1,000 times faster than currently exists. It will peer back to a time before the first stars and galaxies formed and offer our best chance yet of detecting alien intelligence.

And there is a strong chance the telescope will be African. Bids will be submitted on Thursday to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an instrument that turns radio waves into pictures of galaxies, exploding stars and other space phenomena. The contest pitches South Africa (in partnership with eight other African countries) against Australia and New Zealand."

My first thought was "coooool," in accordance with the aforementioned nerdery. But I can't help but notice what a nice change this makes from the usual land-of-rape-and-lions coverage:

"The SKA could be a galvanising moment for its intellectual capital, self-confidence and prestige around the world. "I work in a world class field and now I can do it at home, I don't have to go overseas," said Magnus, commissioning scientist at the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT-7), a prototype of the SKA. "If it comes to Africa, conversations will happen that never could have happened.

"If you were to think about the way to impact people here with science, there's no better way. Children already know there's something big going on – it's broadening their horizons. It's very different from the daily toll of war, famine and poverty."

Africa: land of telescopes and scientific discoveries?

(H/T Kevin Hsu)

More links:
Why Does Africa Need The Square Kilometer Array? (National Society of Black Physicists)
African Astronomical Society
African Physical Society

Meet The Land-Stealing Illegals of Yesteryear, A.K.A. The Pioneers Who Built This Country

Timothy B. Lee, writing in Fortune:

"Everyone knows that America was settled by immigrants. But few realize how much of this settlement was done illegally. Shortly after winning independence, Congress enacted legislation that called for newly acquired western lands to be divided into large 640-acre plots and sold for a dollar an acre.

This scheme proved proved impractical. As economist Hernando de Soto has written, few settlers had either $640 or the legal expertise to navigate America’s cumbersome property laws. And so thousands of migrants simply ignored the law and settled illegally on vacant land."

The government tried harsh enforcement measures, including evicting the illegal squatters and destroying their homes. However, it eventually became clear that state and federal governments lacked sufficient resources to evict people in sufficient numbers, and the states took steps to normalize the populations, turning them from "illegal squatters" into "voters."

"Kentucky was one of the first states to offer squatters a path to legalization. Under the Kentucky system, any squatter whose claim went unchallenged for seven years, and who paid taxes on the land during that period, was eligible for a clear title to the property regardless of who had owned it previously. This system was controversial at first, but other states gradually saw the need for reform. Congress finally acknowledged defeat in 1862 with the passage of the Homestead Act, which gave settlers free federal land if they cultivated it for five years. The Act didn’t so much establish the practice of homesteading as formalize what settlers had been doing illegally for decades."

Hmm, remind you of anyone today?

"Today, poor people still flock to the United States seeking a better life. And they face a dilemma not so different from the one their predecessors faced two centuries ago. Just as a cumbersome property system put formal land titles out of reach for many would-be pioneers, so today’s antiquated immigration system puts green cards out of reach for many migrants.

[...]

So should we follow our ancestors’ example and offer a path to legalization? Critics charge that this would reward their lawbreaking and undermine America’s values. But this gets things precisely backwards. America has always attracted ambitious people who hate being told what to do. The Pilgrims preferred to risk their lives taming a new continent than obey the Church of England. Our founders illegally dumped other peoples’ tea in Boston Harbor. When Congress banned alcohol in 1919, millions of Americans ignored the law and kept drinking. Every year, many of us celebrate our nation’s independence by lighting illegal fireworks."

Lee's post is definitely worth reading in full. I've always thought that the strident "but my ancestors came here legally" cry uttered by so many anti-immigration activists was ridiculous. For one thing, it's often uttered by people who go on to brag about how many hundreds of years their families have been here, conveniently overlooking the fact that colonialism and slavery were the cause of a great deal of the early "legal immigration" to America. I mean, I'm descended from this dude, who arrived in this country quite early, but he also owned slaves and did his level best to make Illinois a slave state, so you'll have to forgive me for not considering that ancestry a source of moral legitimacy.  Lee's post adds a gentle reminder that "came here legally" is not inconsistent with "then stole a whole bunch of land from the government."

Lee's even better point, though, which is that when the law doesn't square with reality, the American way is to quietly stick with reality, and wait for the law to catch up. States like Kansas benefited from that strategy back in the day. States that protect immigrants will benefit from it today.

Private Cities Coming To Africa

Renaissance Partners, a Russian property development firm, is taking a (relatively) new tack on urban development: it builds private cities from scratch. 

According to Bloomberg, Renaissance is currently in the process of building Tatu City, a $5 billion project outside of Nairobi.

In Nairobi, where the population has been increasing about 4 percent a year over the last decade, one in four residents lacks access to piped water and about 40 percent of people use open-pit toilets, according to Kenya’s statistics agency. Tatu City, a 2,500-acre site about nine miles north of the capital, will eventually have 62,000 residents and include a stadium, technology park, hospital, shops, office towers and playgrounds, the firm said in October, when it started the project. The Nairobi Stock Exchange is in talks with Renaissance about relocating there, Meyer said.

[...] Renaissance is now installing electricity and water lines in Tatu, which will function as an independent municipality, and expects the first buildings to be erected by the end of 2013, Meyer said. The firm will sign an agreement with Kenya’s government next week to include Tatu in the country’s Vision 2030 plan, designed to boost infrastructure.

 The firm has also acquired land outside of Lubumbashi for a similar project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

[Renaissance Partners] plans to build a 6,400- acre city in the Democratic Republic of Congo as it seeks to benefit from Africa’s urbanization.

The Russian firm is working on a master plan for the new urban center after securing the land outside Lubumbashi, the country’s second-largest city, Arnold Meyer, Renaissance Partners’ managing director in charge of real estate in Africa, said in an interview in London. Renaissance is considering similar projects in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Rwanda, he said.

I'm curious about this. On the one hand, I have no theoretical problem with private developers creating city-sized developments. (Although it might be more accurate to call them town-sized, as a population of 62,000 is not actually that large.) On the other, I am skeptical of utopian ventures generally, and this certainly sounds utopian to me.

I wonder how these projects will fare on the basic priorities I suggested here.  My guesses would be:

• Dealing with the problem of poop: +1.  It sounds, from the press coverage at least, like sanitation infrastructure will be touted as one of the Renaissance cities' major benefits, so I assume they'll follow through on that. 
• Making disputes resolvable by means other than violence: +0.  My expectation is that these new cities will be part of the countries' existing court systems, so I don't expect much value to be added there.  On the other hand, there are some interesting things that could be done with alternative forms of dispute resolution, via an opt-in system for resident people and corporations.  (Memo to Renaissance: if you are going to do that, and could use a lawyer to help you, I'm interested.)  On a related note, I am curious about how policing will work in these cities.  Will they be government-employed "real" police? Renaissance-employed "security guards"? A mixture of both?  I can think of about a million potential human rights problems with this off the top of my head, but I'm not sure any of them are much worse than the status quo for urban policing in Kenya or the DRC.
• Reliable infrastructure links to other cities:  +0.2.  This will depend on the relationship between the Renaissance cities and the governments of the countries in which they are located.  I would expect Renaissance to invest heavily in this area to ensure that the cities are viable.  However, unreliable transportation and other infrastructure links would be an obvious way for government officials to exert control over the cities and extract rents from them, so I think there's strong potential for killing the goose that lays the golden eggs here.  (Maybe less so if the stock exchange actually moves to Tatu City?)
• Making Citizenship Meaningful: -1.  A private city, which provides goods that the government is supposed to provide but doesn't, and is limited to the privileged, does not seem like it is good for the project of making citizenship meaningful.  In fact, I think one could be forgiven for perceiving it as an admission that citizenship isn't very meaningful at all.

Total: +0.2.  So, a net positive, but a pretty weak one.  And, of course, they may also do very well on the more varsity-level services, like schools, parks, and public transportation.  All in all, I am definitely curious to know more about this.

Have any of you had direct experiences with the Nairobi and Lubumbashi developments?  What are your thoughts?

(H/T Marginal Revolution.)

WTF Friday, 9/9/11 (Actually 9/10/11)

So the racially motivated attacks by the Libyan rebels have been (sort of) well reported, but this is troubling to say the least.

You really shouldn't be surprised when you name a place "Christmas Island" and a bunch of kids show up.

New York Fashion Week cancels the show of Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Uzbek dictator, Islam Karimov, giving a HRW researcher the opportunity to point out that "Enslaving children and torturing dissidents is never chic." Thank you for that one.

The Peace vs. Justice Debate: Not Just for Developing Countries Anymore?

If you're reading this blog, chances are that you're familiar with the peace vs. justice debate about the value of international accountability mechanisms in post-conflict settings. I won't inflict my opinions about this on you again, except to note one thing:  These arguments are invoked with regard to developing countries in which violent conflict is ongoing or newly ended, but some recent comments by a member of the Obama transition team about the decision not to pursue trials for Bush administration officials for the use of torture against detainees have surprising resonance with this debate.

In a panel discussion on 9/11 last week, Berkeley Law School dean Christopher Edley, Jr. apparently remarked that the decision not to prosecute was undertaken in part because "it was thought that the CIA, NSA, and military would revolt."  I assumed (correctly, it turns out*) that he meant "revolt" in the fuzzy, metaphorical sense of the word where maybe some NSA analysts would just start showing up late to work with one too many shirt buttons undone.  However, the interwebs are taking it a different, more coup-y, way, which prompted me to wonder: "peace vs. justice:  not just a concern for developing nations anymore?"

The thing is, as shown by Round 1 of this Economist-sponsored throw-down between Richard "Justice on Principle" Dicker and Jack "Pragmatic Peace" Snyder, the two sides of this debate are arguing from very different premises.  While Team Justice does make consequentialist arguments (for instance, that impunity can breed future instability), their emphasis is generally on the normative claim that it is morally right to punish perpetrators through criminal prosecutions. Consequently, their response to Team Peace's consequentialist arguments (that pushing for accountability can undermine prospects for peace by creating perverse incentives for actors who fear prosecution) is often to treat them as beside the point at best, or as spurious dictator-coddling excuses at worst.

However, the fact that criminal trials were viewed as too risky by the Obama administration - in a setting characterized by strong institutions and entrenched democracy -  underscores just how high the stakes of pursuing accountability for the crimes of a previous regime are.  If the view looks that way from Washington D.C., where the trade-off is "smooth institutional function vs. justice", imagine what it looks like in contexts where institutions are weak, and the resort to violence is common.

*Updated at 2:40pm following confirmation that Dean Edley was, in fact, speaking metaphorically.

WTF Friday, 9/2/2011

Thanks to a reader from Denver for pointing out this fucked up and weird comic to us. Credit to commenter "Kaiser Dragon" not only for the Final Fantasy reference but also for noting the obvious point of this comic: "I like the part where they talk like stereotypical black people, cause they are from Africa and that makes it funnier."

"Dude, check it out I'm in Libya revolutionizing in my throwback and shit."

Now this is a strange one. Maybe well-intentioned? Still, nothing is ever gonna make me feel comfortable about seeing "asylum-seeker" and "game show" in the same sentence. Plus, how much an asylum-seeker knows about Dutch culture is pretty low on the list of reasons to allow them to stay in the Netherlands. And, as Joshua Keating points out, "You have to wonder about anyone who would actually enjoy watching this." Also, that slow zoom on Geert Wilders in the video is probably the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. That is all.

Beware Of "Invitations" From "Government Personnel"

As many of you know, the CIA has gone to extraordinary, dubious lengths to keep its illegal rendition program secret by invoking the "state secrets" privilege to shut down litigation about it. Unfortunately for them, they apparently forgot the "don't hire squabbling sub-contractors who will sue each other and make everything public anyway" bit of that plan.

Apparently, the CIA subcontracted with Dyncorp for the rendition flights, which in turn hired and Richmor, both "small aviation companies whose previous experience involved flying sports teams across the country," to provide planes and crews. The latter two subcontractors are now embroiled in a billing dispute with each other in upstate New York, and have introduced substantial details of the program as part of the court record there.

Their sports-team experience apparently meant that they were a little slow on the uptake initially:

At first, the subcontractors thought they were working for the State Department, which gave Richmor official letters saying it was providing “global support to U.S. embassies worldwide.” The letters also authorized Richmor to deviate from stated flight plans.

They caught on pretty quick, though:

One letter is dated March 1, 2003, the date of the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. That suggests that the Richmor plane was used to transport him out of Pakistan, but there is no invoice for the relevant flight in the court record.

Ryan, Richmor’s attorney, said the company president became aware of what the planes were actually being used for shortly after the flights began.

“It was obvious,” he said. “They flew to Guantanamo and Germany and the Middle East with regularity.”

Or, as Richards put it while on the stand: “We were transporting government personnel and their invitees.”

"Invitees", eh?

Enough details of the rendition programme generally have now been disclosed to know that men on these flights were usually sedated through anal suppositories before being dressed in nappies and orange boiler suits, then hooded and muffled and trussed up in the back of the aircraft. The precise conditions in which suspects were transported on Richmor flights are not known.

Well, sure. As anyone who has ever come to my apartment for dinner knows, forcibly administering anal suppositories is just a standard part of being a gracious hostess.

Although Richmor reportedly earned more than $6 million over three years from its participation in the CIA program, they were apparently none too happy once their involvement became public.

The Richmor plane — tail number N85VM — was identified publicly in 2005 after it was used in the rendition of Abu Omar, a Muslim cleric who was snatched off the streets of Milan and flown to Egypt. The company was managing the plane for its owner, Phillip Morse, vice chairman of Fenway Sports Group, parent company of the Boston Red Sox.

Richmor changed the tail number of the Gulfstream and complained in a letter to Sportsflight that it became the subject of “negative publicity, hate mail and the loss of a management customer as a consequence of the association of the N85VM with rendition flights.”

It's true, the worst part of finding oneself involved in an illegal rendition program is that damned negative publicity. It's like the public doesn't even understand how much private jet owners suffer when they get paid $6 million to help kidnap people.

h/t @chrisalbon, @NaheedMustafa

Vote for Alex!

My friend Alex, a brilliant international lawyer, is in the running to become the new columnist for The Tennessean newspaper, but he needs a little help from his friends. That's me, and I'm hoping it will be you, too.

The Tennessean is running a contest to pick their next columnist. Each candidate has published an "audition" column for readers to vote on, and voting ends today. Alex is currently in second place, down about 50 votes. I would consider it a favor to both me, and the readers of The Tennessean, if you would vote for him.

There's no sign-in necessary. Just click this link, select "Alex Little" from the list of potential columnists on the right, and you're done!

An excerpt from Alex's column, which you can read in full here:

"Last year, Nashville made headlines for its ability to come together to respond to the flood. This year, state legislators stole the show. And the result wasn’t pretty. Lawmakers skipped meat-and-potato issues like building roads in favor of cotton-candy issues that offered little more than a rush of publicity.

Their proposals this year included legislation to criminalize the religious practices of Muslim-Americans, deny birth certificates to some U.S. citizens, and ban discussion of homosexuality in schools. The resulting headlines put Tennessee in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Then, the General Assembly attacked Nashville head-on, passing a bill to strip the city of its ability to choose what sort of businesses to partner with. At issue was Nashville’s decision to contract with businesses that had non-discrimination policies that included sexual orientation.
The contrast was stark: Local leaders chose to work only with businesses that treat all people equally; legislators from the rest of the state insisted that it’s fine to fire someone for being gay.

Worse yet, in its haste to veto Nashville’s policy, the General Assembly used a chainsaw rather than a scalpel. The new statewide legislation manages to abolish and forever bar local ordinances that protect veterans, people with disabilities and families from discrimination.

Let that sink in. Now, if a city in Tennessee wants to make it illegal for landlords to refuse to rent to disabled individuals — even war veterans with families — it can’t do it."

Once again, the link is here. Voting ends today at 6 PM EST, and last time I checked, Alex was in second place, down only about 50 votes, so things are close enough for your vote to really make a difference.

Do Improv, Win Friends, Influence People

The UCB's Will Hines, on why everyone should do improv:

Improv can make you funnier, will likely make you a better actor, and could maybe even get you work. But one thing it will definitely do is make you better at having conversations.

You listen better, you speak to the heart of the matter more, you lie less, you speak more concisely.

But also, you will be better because most of the human race is so unbelievably bad at conversations. After years in improv, I can barely stand speaking to anyone who either isn’t an improviser or is someone who would just naturally be good at it.

Most people, in conversation, speak solely about themselves, and in a way that matters only to themselves, with no ability to sympathize for the other conversational party may think or feel. They listen to other people only for opportunities to speak about things they want to and once they get going cannot be dissuaded. They speak inefficiently and amazingly redundantly. They rarely laugh at what’s funny and instead only at what makes them nervous or at recognizable references to famous things.

Improvisers do all these things too but less often and they know enough to feel badly about it.

There is lots more here. Other posts are good, too - like this one.

(Oh, and confidential to the dude in Will's story: Learning To Eat Soup With A Knife.)