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'I hate with a murderous hatred those men who, having lived their youth, would send into war other youth, not lived, unfulfilled, to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.'

–  Quote attributed to one Mary Roberts Rinehart (right), at, of all places, as a tag line of a page on a what-does-this-word-mean website. Further digging found that Rinehart, a Pennsylvania-born author who lived from 1876 to 1958, was so well known as a mystery writer that some called her "the American Agatha Christie." Among Rinehart's contributions to popular culture? A character that inspired another writer to create Batman, as well as a catchphrase venerated in mystery lore:

'The butler did it.'

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'Some say that Clinton diluted her energy and failed to achieve any signature triumphs, such as an end to the Syrian crisis. Others argue that through a thousand lesser-known efforts and initiatives, she has achieved nothing less than a transformative shift toward a more effective and modern American diplomacy.'

–  Reporter Stephanie McCrummen, writing in today's Washington Post about U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. McCrummen's thoughtful survey of Clinton's approach these last 4 years to her position as the United States' top diplomat –  a position from which Clinton has said she soon will resign –  is well worth a read. (credit for State Department photo of Clinton, at right, with Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and, since this past April, a member of the Parliament of Myanmar)

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'Shark fins do not constitute a traditional ingredient of the European diet, but sharks do constitute a necessary element of the Union’s marine ecosystem; therefore, their management and conservation, as well as, in general, the promotion of a sustainably managed fishing sector for the benefit of the environment and of the people working in the sector, should be a priority.'

– One of several amendments aimed at stiffening the ban on removal of fins of sharks aboardship, which the European Parliament adopted Thursday. A 2003 ban on the practice had been riddled with loopholes, prompting Rapporteur Maria do Céu Patrão Neves (right), a European Parliament member from Portugal, to propose the amendments just adopted, the full text of which may be found at pp. 104-10 of the document available here. (photo credits here and here) As posted, efforts to restrict shark finning appear to be on the rise.

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'For the first time, there was a traffic jam in the Senate women’s bathroom. There were five of us in there, and there are only two stalls.'

 –  U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), speaking earlier this week about a practical consequence of a development on which we posted last Saturday: the growing number of Senate women.

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'I continue to meet women and girls who tell me they are unable to exercise their right to family planning and end up having more children than they intend, burdening them economically, harming their health, and undermining opportunities for a better life for themselves and their families.
'Recent statistics show that 867 million women of childbearing age in developing countries have a need for modern contraceptives. Of that total, 645 million have access to them. But a staggering 222 million still do not. This is inexcusable. Family planning is a human right. It must therefore be available to all who want it. But clearly this right has not yet been extended to all, especially in the poorest countries.'

– Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin (right), Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the U.N. Population Fund.
The quote appears in his foreword to a 140-page report on the "state of world population 2012," released today and entitled By Choice, Not By Chance: Family Planning, Human Rights, and Development. Osotimehin, a physician who was born in Nigeria and educated there and in Britain, thus introduced the 1st express statement that contraception is a human right to be found in an annual report of the Population Fund.

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'A wiser approach would change course completely: The United States would distance itself from the Lobo administration, speak plainly about its deficiencies, and immediately cut police and military aid to Honduras.'

– Dr. Dana Frank (below right), Professor of History at the University of California-Santa Cruz, in "Honduras Gone Wrong," a scathing critique of U.S. foreign policy with respect to that Central American country, recently published in Foreign Affairs.
Frank notes inter alia that Honduras "now has the highest murder rate in the world," and faults the United States for supporting the administration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, elected in November 2009 balloting that itself drew international criticism. That vote followed a June 2009 coup d'état, about which IntLawGrrls posted at the time; our Honduras posts are available here.

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'Just as when African Americans were fully integrated into the military and DADT was repealed, lifting the combat ban on women would not threaten national security or the cohesiveness of military units; rather, it would bring formal policies in line with current practices and allow the armed forces to overcome their misogynistic past. In a modern military, women should have the right to fight.'

– Dr. Megan H. MacKenzie (right), a Lecturer in Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney in Australia, and author of Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone: Sex, Security, and Post-Conflict Development, published this past August by New York University Press. The quotation above is from MacKenzie's recent Daily Beast op-ed, in which she argued that combat assignments should be opened to women in the U.S. armed forces. The op-ed condensed MacKenzie's article in the just-released November/December edition of Foreign Affairs; that article is available for purchase here. IntLawGrrls' prior posts on women in the military are available here.

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'As long as we claim we are a democratic country, as long as we say we respect the rule of law, we have to ratify the treaty so we can try those criminal living among us.'

– Samira Ibrahim (left), quoted in an article entitled "Revolutionaries demand jurisdiction for International Criminal Court," which appeared Tuesday in the Daily News of Egypt. Last spring Time magazine named Ibrahim, a marketing manager in her mid-20s, one of The World's 100 Most Influential People for having sued Egypt's military for compelling women detained in protests to take virginity tests. (photo credit) The Daily News article reported that Ibrahim has called for a rally tomorrow in Cairo's Tahrir Square, aiming to pressure Egypt to join the ICC.

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'I will not sentence a man to 50 lashes with a whip and then 50 more for getting blood on the whip.'

– Senior Judge John C. Coughenour of the Seattle-based U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, quoted by New York Times reporter Kirk Johnson in an article on Wednesday's 2d resentencing of Ahmed Ressam. Months before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a federal jury had convicted the Algerian-born defendant of a 1999 plot to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport. Ressam cooperated with the government respecting other cases, and so his sentence was delayed until 2005, well into the aftermath of 9/11. At each sentencing hearing, the government sought higher sentences than the judge imposed, and the appeals court reverse. At Wednesday's resentencing, the government sought life in prison; the judge levied a term of 35 years. The above-quoted comment by Coughenour, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, reflected the judge's criticism of that prosecutorial stance.  Prosecutors justified it by pointing to the defendant's recantation of incriminating statements. The judge found the recanting to be "a deranged protest" against the sentence Ressam's already served – more than a dozen years so far, much of it in solitary confinement.

The judge's position bears added note given Hamdan v. United States (October 16, 2012), in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the 1st military commissions conviction after trial. The circuit opinion was written by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, an appointee of President George W. Bush, who established the military commissions at Guantánamo. The D.C. circuit held that at the time the accused, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, acted, the sole count of conviction, material support for terrorism, was not a war crime under controlling international law.

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'She said that when she joined eight men on the Supreme Court, there was no resentment or concern among her colleagues, although she did face a minor problem.
'"They didn't have a women's restroom," she said, to loud laughter.'

– The Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor, the 1st woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. (prior posts) Jill Tucker of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that O'Connor spoke to a sold-out lunchtime crowd yesterday at the city's Commonwealth Club. (credit for photo of Justice O'Connor) Also discussed were O'Connor's 1st law job (as an unpaid local government attorney in nearby San Mateo), her most difficult decision (Bush v. Gore (2000)), and the future of the Court. On the last, this from Tucker's article:

'Could she envision an all-female Supreme Court someday?
'"Of course I can," O'Connor said, simply and almost indignantly.'

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International Court of Justice, The Hague

'The ICJ’s judgment affirms that all 151 states parties to the CAT may insist on performance of obligations under the Convention, even if the alleged torture occurred before the applicant state joined the Convention and even if the alleged torturer or victims have no connection with the applicant state. This holding therefore allows more states to act to ensure accountability worldwide for acts of torture.'

– IntLawGrrls contributor and Southern Illinois University Law Professor Cindy Galway Buys (left), in an ASIL Insight entitled "Belgium v. Senegal: The International Court of Justice Affirms the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite Hissène Habré Under the Convention Against Torture." In it, Cindy provides a detailed analysis of the decision, issued this past July, in which the International Court of Justice held that Senegal had breached its obligation, as a state party to the Convention Against Torture, to extradite or prosecute a former Chadian dictator who'd taken refuge in 1990 in Dakar. Prior IntLawGrrls posts on the decision and consequent events here and here.

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'On this first International Day of the Girl, and for the sake of all victims of international crimes, I call again on the international community to execute these outstanding arrest warrants to put an end to their victims’ plight.'

– International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, in a statement calling for the capture of certain ICC fugitives – Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan, and Joseph Kony and Bosco Ntaganda, warlords in, respectively, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo – as a tangible means to advance justice on this 1st-ever, U.N.-declared International Day of the Girl Child.

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'The Obama Administration has declared that it has no “core” objections to the treaty, and the U.S. Department of State has articulated its support for a second diplomatic conference on an ATT. However, as noted, the National Rifle Association is lobbying actively against the treaty and has convinced more than half of the U.S. senators to oppose ratification, which dampens any prospect of immediate U.S. participation.'

– Our colleague, Professor Aaron Fellmeth of Arizona State's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, in a superb ASIL Insight with a catchy title: "The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty: Temporarily Holstered." Aaron carefully traces the nature of global arms trading. He then looks at the existing international legal framework for regulating weapons; in particular, the pervasive small arms and light weapons that spurred movement toward a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, known to insiders at ATT. Aaron next discusses negotiations at a diplomatic conference this past July which, as we then posted, moved toward, but did not quite reach, adoption of a text. Well worth a read.

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'That’s like me saying I’m going to lose weight by trimming my nails.'

–  Chicago Sun-Times television critic Lori Rackl, in her column on the GOP Presidential candidate's declaration during Wednesday's debate that in a Mitt Romney administration, Big Bird would be a critically endangered species – all to save the federal treasury.  Rackl reports that the savings from axing the Public Broadcasting Service's entire subsidy (not just BB) would be "$445 million ... about 1/100 of 1 percent of the federal budget." Hence the quote above, and our pause to recall a time when bipartisan arithmetic led to consensus that Sesame Street (prior posts) is a societal plus. (credit for 1970 photo of 1st Lady Pat Nixon welcoming Big Bird to the White House)

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'September 2012 marks one year since the Palestinian leadership introduced its bid for membership and recognition at the United Nations. Then, an international community – comprised of UN member states, NGOs, and Palestinians – watched the Palestinian leadership with apprehension and hope, eager that it would use the UN platform to embark on a new chapter of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. One year onwards, it is clear that this leadership is more committed to preserving its rule in a truncated statelet than achieving national liberation.'

–  Noura Erakat (above right), Abraham L. Freedman Teaching Fellow at Temple University, Beasley School of Law and the U.S.-based Legal Advocacy Consultant for the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, in an editorial entitled "Statehood Bid One Year Later: No State, No Bid, No Freedom," posted on Jadaliyya, the e-zine she co-edits.  As previously posted, Noura's scheduled to present her paper entitled "U.S. v. ICRC – Customary International Humanitarian Law and Universal Jurisdiction" at the ASIL Midyear Meeting to be held in Atlanta and at the University of Georgia School of Law, Athens, from October 19 to 21 (meeting registration here).

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'Maybe if some of you paid attention to the rest of the world as well, American presidents would be more cautious about expending blood and treasure abroad. That sounds crazy, but it’s true.'

– Daniel W. Drezner, Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, in a New York Times op-ed directed at the 95% of the U.S. electorate that he says, citing polls, do not vote with a presidential candidate's foreign policy in mind.

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'But when an international court proposes to send a man to jail for fifty years, and one of four judges who has heard the entire case thinks the man should not even be convicted, this should concern us.'

–  Our colleague William A. Schabas (left), in a post on his blog, in which he details the latest episode in the saga that began moments after a Trial Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone had announced its conviction of former Liberian President Charles Taylor: that chamber's alternate judge, El Hadji Malik Sow (right) of Senegal, attempted to give voice to his own concerns with the verdict, and his microphone was cut off. Since then, Judge Sow's been subjected to internal disciplinary proceedings, a consequence of which was his absence from the sentencing hearing. (IntLawGrrls' posts on these events here and here.)
This past Thursday, an Appeals Chamber of the Special Court rejected a defense motion to disqualify judges from taking part in Taylor's appeal of his conviction and 50-year sentence, for the reason that those judges had participated in postconviction proceedings involving Judge Sow. That Appeals Chamber panel comprised 1 alternate and 5 permanent judges. Notably, as Schabas reports, 1 of those permanent members of the Appeals Chamber, Judge Gelaga King (right) of Sierra Leone, filed a separate decision recording his objections to a proceeding against Judge Sow, and further reporting that he, Judge King, had "walked out" of a judges' meeting rather than "taking any further part." Schabas' post considers this internal turmoil, yet concentrates his commentary on the concern stated in the quote with which this quote begins: that for the 1st time in the known history of international criminal justice, conviction appears to rest on less than unanimity of all judges who evaluated guilt or innocence in light of the factual evidence presented to them at trial. Referring to Sow's cut-off discourse, Schabas argues:

'His views matter. If they are not considered by the Appeals Chamber, they may well be taken into account by history. For the time being, we should insist on knowing more about them. As a starting point, the Appeals Chamber might request that Judge Sow submit his full opinion on the case so that it can be taken into account.'

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'Ultimately, the question is, does "mankind" really need men?'

– A rather provocative quote in one of those every-so-often commentaries evincing concern that perhaps the male side of the species isn't so essential to, well, the species. (Random query: if women are the distaff side, are men the "staff"? The "dis"?) The author is Greg Hampikian, identified as "a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University and the director of the Idaho Innocence Project" – no surprise then that in this New York Times op-ed he voices public safety concerns, writing that the human male, unlike the female, "is given to lethal incidents and ends up impounded more often." Hampikian's thesis seems a wee bit over the top, but it's an interesting with-morning-coffee-read nevertheless.

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«Au-delà de ma personne, c'est toute l'institution militaire qui est visée à travers cette affaire. On ne peut pas citer à comparaître toute l'armée. On incrimine donc celui qui la commandait».

that is,

'In addition to me, this litigation implicates the entire military institution. They can't summon the whole army to appear. So it is the commander who is charged.'

– Khaled Nezzar, the former Minister of Defense of Algeria, as quoted in this article by Algerian journalist Hacen Ouali. Ouali himself quotes an interview between Nezzar and Soir d'Algérie, conducted in November 2011, after Nezzar had been questioned by Swiss authorities in connection with a criminal complaint brought against him by parties civiles who accuse him of war crimes and human rights violations during the political turmoil that, as IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune has posted, shook Algeria decades ago. As IntLawGrrl Evelyne Schmid posted last month, a Swiss court has held that Nezzar does not enjoy any immunity from the criminal case, which continues to go forward. Nezzar's quote is offered here not so much on account of this news, but because it succinctly states a trait of international criminal justice: the prosecution of persons alleged to be most responsible for atrocities executed by others. The aim is not just to punish the responsible leader, but also to serve a number of other goals; for instance, to vindicate victims, to deter others from similar wrongdoing, and to express the world community's condemnation. The accused minister's words oddly echo those uttered 67 years ago by Justice Robert H. Jackson in his opening statement as Chief U.S. Prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. As I quote here at page121, Jackson said this about the trial of Nazi leaders:

'What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have turned to dust. We will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power.'