In progress, a human rights text for Central Asia

Greetings from Kyrgyzstan!
I am serving here in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's capital, as Deputy Director of the Tian Shan Policy Center and Law Professor at the American University of Central Asia.
I would so appreciate the sage comments of IntLawGrrls readers on this Table of Contents, for the international law cases/materials book I'm helping law faculty here in Kyrgyzstan put together. The book (cover below) is 500+ pages, so I'm not sending that along.
When the book is published, it will be available for free to supplement teaching by faculty and student legal education in Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian countries, where they have no such resources and almost no books.
The Table of Contents gives you a sense of the excerpts of cases/materials we are including by topic – some picked for their relevance to the region.
We could only include International Court of Justice and international tribunal documents, United Nations materials, and a few articles, because copyright from some publishers is just too expensive.
We would welcome anyone to take a look and let us know, at michelletleighton@yahoo.com, if you think any thing is glaringly missing, we'd all be very grateful. If you have articles you've written that we can excerpt, as well, please let me know and we'd be happy to include.
Warm regards to all!

Introducing Sarah Paoletti & Nicole Phillips

It's our great pleasure to welcome Sarah Paoletti and Nicole Phillips as IntLawGrrls contributors.
► Sarah (top right) directs the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia, where she's also a Practice Associate Professor of Law. (prior posts) Before beginning work at this international human rights and immigration clinic, she taught at American University Washington College of Law – in the International Human Rights Law Clinic, as well as a seminar on the labor and employment rights of immigrant workers. As reflected in her numerous publications, Sarah's areas of specialty include international human rights, migrant and immigrant rights, asylum law, and labor and employment. She has presented on the rights of migrant workers before the United Nations and the Organization of American States, and also works closely with advocates seeking application of international human rights norms in the United States. On behalf of the US Human Rights Network, Sarah coordinated civil society participation in the U.N. Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of the United States.
► Nicole (middle right) is a Staff Attorney at the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, which, in a lawsuit against the United Nations, represents more than 5,000 victims of a cholera epidemic that has broke out since the January 12, 2010, earthquake in Port-au-Prince. Nicole joined the Institute after the earthquake; before that, she'd been a partner in a union labor firm, Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she served as general counsel to unions and employee benefit trust funds across the country, arbitrated collective bargaining disputes, and managed a caseload in federal and state courts involving labor, employment, health insurance, and environmental regulations.
An Adjunct Professor and Assistant Director for Haiti programs at the University of San Francisco School of Law, also the home institution of IntLawGrrls contributors Connie de la Vega and Michelle Leighton. Nicole is a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Advocates, a Berkeley-based nongovernmental organization. She has appeared before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Counsel, Human Rights Committee, Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination, and Commission on the Status of Women on various human rights issues.
In their post below, which appears on the 2d anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti, Nicole and Sarah outline the Universal Periodic Review that the Human Rights Council is examining Haiti's human rights record. Complementing it is Amy Senier's post above on the quake's aftermath.
Sarah and Nicole dedicate their post to Sonia Pierre (left), with whom Nicole had the pleasure of working both in the Dominican Republic and at the United Nations. Born 48 years ago in a "batey – the name given to settlements for sugar cane cutters working for the Dominican sugar industry" – Pierre was among 12 children in a family of Haitian descent. At age 13, Pierre led a march for workers' rights, and so was arrested for the 1st time, jailed for a day, and threatened with deportation to Haiti. Thus began a career of human rights activism that included the founding of the Movement of Dominican Women of Haitian Descent. Pierre died from a heart attack on December 4, 2011. In 2006, she had been honored as a Human Rights Laureate by the D.C.-based Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, which has established a Memorial Fund for her family.
Today Pierre joins other honorees on IntLawGrrls' transnational foremothers page.

Heartfelt welcome!

On May 22

On this day in ...
... 1992, a 3-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously ruled that the ban against torture constituted not only customary international law, but also a jus cogens norm from which no state was permitted to derogate. The Republic of Argentina was held implicitly to have waived the sovereign immunity protections in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Thus the decision in Siderman de Blake v. Republic of Argentina, written by Judge Betty Fletcher, required the state to answer the civil lawsuit at bar. It alleged that while the country was ruled by a military junta, agents of Argentina had committed torture against an Argentinian family who'd fled to the United States. The decision has been cited widely both in the United States and abroad; it's featured in, for example, the "National Case Law" digest of the International Committee of the Red Cross. IntLawGrrl Michelle Leighton's American Journal of Law casenote on the decision is available here. The Siderman case settled 4 years later.

(Prior May 22 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

Supremes cite 'Grrls

Kudos to IntLawGrrls Connie de la Vega (right) and Michelle Leighton (left), whom the U.S. Supreme Court cited today in holding that the Constitution forbids sentencing a juvenile to life without parole for a nonhomicide offense.
The opinion for the majority in Graham v. Florida, by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, discussed the significant -- though not dispositive -- nature of international context. In so doing, Kennedy cited not 1 but 3 works by Connie and Michelle: a book, a law review article, and the amicus brief they co-authored in the case at bar.
And the dissent added cite No. 4, as explained at bottom.
The key passage in the opinion for the Court began at p. 29 of the slip op., after the majority also comprising Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor grounded the holding exclusively on domestic law. Here it is (with virtually all cites except those to the works by Connie and Michelle omitted):

There is support for our conclusion in the fact that, incontinuing to impose life without parole sentences on juveniles who did not commit homicide, the United States adheres to a sentencing practice rejected the world over. This observation does not control our decision. The judgments of other nations and the international community are not dispositive as to the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. But "‘[t]he climate of international opinion concerning the acceptability of a particular punishment’" is also "‘not irrelevant.’" The Court has looked beyond our Nation’s borders for support for its independent conclusion that a particular punishment is cruel and unusual.
Today we continue that longstanding practice in notingthe global consensus against the sentencing practice inquestion. A recent study concluded that only 11 nations authorize life without parole for juvenile offenders under any circumstances; and only 2 of them, the United States and Israel, ever impose the punishment in practice. See M. Leighton & C. de la Vega, Sentencing Our Children to Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice 4 (2007). An updated version of the study concluded that Israel’s "laws allow for parole review of juvenile offenders serving life terms," but expressed reservations about how that parole review is implemented. De la Vega & Leighton, Sentencing Our Children to Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice, 42 U. S. F. L. Rev. 983, 1002–1003 (2008). But even if Israel is counted as allowing life without parole for juvenile offenders, that nation does not appear to impose that sentence for nonhomicide crimes; all of the seven Israeli prisoners whom commentators have identified as serving life sentences for juvenile crimes were convicted of homicide or attempted homicide.
Thus, as petitioner contends and respondent does not contest, the United States is the only Nation that imposes life without parole sentences on juvenile nonhomicide offenders. We also note, as petitioner and his amici emphasize, that Article 37(a) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every nation except the United States and Somalia, prohibits the imposition of "life imprisonment without possibility of release . . . for offences committed by personsbelow eighteen years of age." Brief for Amnesty International et al. as Amici Curiae 15–17. As we concluded in Roper with respect to the juvenile death penalty, "the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against" life without parole for juvenile nonhomicide offenders.
The State’s amici stress that no international legal agreement that is binding on the United States prohibits life without parole for juvenile offenders and thus urge us to ignore the international consensus. These arguments miss the mark. The question before us is not whether international law prohibits the United States from imposing the sentence at issue in this case. The question is whether that punishment is cruel and unusual. In that inquiry, "the overwhelming weight of international opinion against" life without parole for nonhomicide offenses committed by juveniles "provide[s] respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions."
The debate between petitioner’s and respondent’s amici over whether there is a binding jus cogens norm against this sentencing practice is likewise of no import. The Court has treated the laws and practices of other nations and international agreements as relevant to the Eighth Amendment not because those norms are binding or controlling but because the judgment of the world’s nations that a particular sentencing practice is inconsistent with basic principles of decency demonstrates that the Court’s rationale has respected reasoning to support it.

(Prior IntLawGrrls posts on the juvenile sentencing issue are available here.)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. concurred in the judgment. He did not join the passage above, nor, indeed, any passage in the opinion for the Court.

For the dissent's response to the international law point, see fn. 11, slip op. p. 19. There you'll find this citation by Justice Clarence Thomas to another work that Connie coauthored:

[D]espite the Court’s attempt to count the actual number of juvenile nonhomicide offenders serving life-without-parole sentences in other nations (a task even more challenging than counting them within our borders), the laws of other countries permit juvenile life-without-parole sentences, see ... C. de la Vega, M. Montesano, & A. Solter, Human Rights Advocates, Statement on Juvenile Sentencing to Human Rights Council, 10th Sess. (Nov. 3, 2009) ("Eleven countries have laws with the potential to permit the sentencing of child offenders to life without the possibility of release") ....

Reflecting on the Supreme Court's consideration of juvenile life without parole ...

Since the U.S, Supreme Court heard oral argument last week in Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida, commentators have speculated on how the Justices will rule in the two controversial cases (here and here and here).
As posted last week, both cases involve juveniles who received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole in Florida for nonhomicide crimes. At issue is whether the Constitution permits this sentence for a crime committed by someone who was under the age of 18 years. (Consideration comes amid a development discussed in the post below: doubts respecting the death penalty.)
Following an amicus brief that IntLawGrrl Connie de la Vega and I submitted in the cases on behalf of Amnesty International and other groups, including the Bar of England and Wales, I was fortunate to be able to watch the oral argument last Monday.
After two hours of what was vigorous, if not sometimes caustic, questioning by the Justices of the attorneys in both cases, it was surprising that no questions were raised about global law and practice, a prominent feature of the opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in Roper v. Simmons (2005). Yet, as was the case in Roper, the United States is isolated among other nations of the world as the only country that imposes this sentence on a juvenile, for any crime.
Below are a few excerpts of remarks not widely reported that may be telling about the issues of interest to the Justices.. The articles reported above captured the gist of the joint reasoning that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. pursued, in what appeared to be an attempt to win over Justice Kennedy and others to adopt a proportionality approach in the sentencing of juveniles. Roberts and Alito agreed both that kids are different from adults and that age would be relevant, but they sought to attain agreement that some juveniles deserve to receive the life without parole sentence and thus sentencing could be determined "proportionate" on a case by case basis. In relation to the questioning of Graham’s attorney and later the attorney for the state of Florida, the following interchanges were interesting:

JUSTICE ALITO [right]: And you are making a per se argument, no? You can imagine someone who is a month short of his 18th birthday, and you are saying that, no matter what this person does, commits the most horrible series of non-homicide offenses that you can imagine, a whole series of brutal rapes, assaults that renders the victim paraplegic but not dead, no matter what, the person is sentenced shows no remorse whatsoever, the worst case you can possibly imagine, cannot -- that person must at some point be made eligible for parole. That's your argument?
MR. GOWDY [Graham's attorney]: Your Honor, that's -- that's correct. A life -- yes. A life with parole sentence would be constitutional, and that may mean that person you describe still spends his entire life in prison, but life with parole gives some hope to the adolescent who has an inherent capacity to change. It gives him some hope that later in time he may be released.
JUSTICE KENNEDY [right]: What -- what would you do if there were a crime spree and there were different jurisdictions?
One jurisdiction imposes for 35 years, the next jurisdiction for another 35 years, to be served consecutively.
MR. GOWDY: Well, Your -- Your Honor, I -- I think the -- that you would get into the question about whether that sentence is the equivalent of life without parole, and there could be an argument made that if you -- obviously, if you sentence someone to 150, 200 years, there is no conceivable hope of ever
release, 150 years without parole.

Here's more, during questioning of the attorney for the State of Florida:

JUSTICE KENNEDY: If we look just at deterrence, my initial instinct is that the difference in life and life without -- life with parole and life without parole is just not a factor in deterrence. I -- I don't know how I'd confirm that one way or the other, but let's -- let's assume that there is some basis for that intuition. Then, insofar as the deterrence prong is concerned, since it's not a deterrent, and if you assume that there is rehabilitation, what is the State's interest in keeping the accused that -- the -- the defendant in custody for the rest of his life if he has been rehabilitated and is no longer a real danger? What's the State's interest?

And then, during rebuttal by Graham's attorney:

JUSTICE KENNEDY: Why does a juvenile have a constitutional right to hope, but an adult does not?
MR. GOWDY: Because the juvenile is different than an adult. A juvenile is less culpable. He's -- we know over time he will change and -- and potentially reform, as opposed to an adult.

Oral argument transcripts in these juvenile LWOP cases can be found here.

High Court takes up child LWOP

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court's set to hear argument on the constitutionality of sentencing children to life without parole for crimes not resulting in the death of a human being.
Under review are 2 cases:
► Graham v. Florida, No. 08-7412, involving a 17 year old sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole after his conviction for violating a probationary sentence, imposed a year earlier, for felony robbery.
► Sullivan v. Florida, No. 08-7621, involving a 13 year old who received the sentence following conviction for sexual battery.
Lyle Denniston's superb preview at SCOTUSblog notes the differences between the ages and prior criminal behavior of the 2 petitioners, andwonders "which of those differences may have persuaded the Court to grant both cases," rather than grant 1 and hold the other, as is its typical practice.
Critical will be how this Court views the 2005 precedent in Roper v. Simmons, in which a 5-Justice majority held that execution of juveniles violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishments in the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Subsequent changes in the composition of the high bench likely will not have disturbed the 5-4 split on that precise precedent; the question, rather, is whether Justices will consider Simmons to have augured a similar result in these cases.
Will the findings in Simmons respecting the unformed personality of children militate in favor of a less-harsh sentence in these cases, as it did there? Will it matter that the offenses at issue here were not homicides? Conversely, will Justices focus less on the nature of the child and more on the nature of the sentences, concluding that Simmons does not control for the reason that "death is different"?
And what of the rest of the world? Will Justices go "looking beyond their borders," to quote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for guidance in interpreting the Constitution?
They sure did in Simmons, and so drew much criticism, as I've written here. Not much overt consultation of foreign and international law since then. Among those favoring a return to that methodology in these cases are Amnesty International, the Amsterdam Bar Association, the Bar Council of Hong Kong, the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales, the Bar of Montreal, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic, Human Rights Advocates, the Law Council of Australia, the Law Society of England and Wales, the Law Society of Ireland, the Netherlands Bar Association, the New Zealand Law Society, The Advocates for Human Rights, and Union Internationale Des Avocats. Here's what their Brief for Amnesty International, et al., As Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners, which cites many treaties and national laws, has to say:

Amici urge the Court to consider international law and opinion when applying the Eighth Amendment's clause prohibiting cruel and unusual punishments. International standards for sentencing juvenile offenders to life in prison without the possibility of parole bears directly on domestic compliance with international legal and societal norms. Those standards also provide an important indicator of evolving standards of decency, which in turn illuminate the contours of acceptable conduct under the Eighth Amendment. The United States is the only country in the world that does not comply with the norm against imposing life without parole sentences on juveniles under the age of 18. Prohibiting the sentence challenged in these cases would bring the United States into compliance with one of the most widely accepted human rights norms and with its international treaty obligations, and it would honor the Eighth Amendment principles that led this Court to strike down the juvenile death penalty in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005).

Principal authors of the brief in addition to San Francisco lawyer Neil A.F. Popovic are the authors of authors of the 2008 report depicted above left: IntLawGrrls Connie de la Vega and Michelle Leighton.

Gitmo 'Grrls

(One in a series on Experts at Law)

As mentioned in our recent Read On! Review, a recurrent theme in IntLawGrrl Kristine A. Huskey's new book is, to quote her,

the fact that women are woefully scarce in national security law, my chosen field. I do not mean to convey that I am the only woman in this field, as there are many women writing, speaking about, and practicing nationalsecurity legal issues, specifically relating to Guantánamo ...

She continued:

[E]very one of these women will tell you that they, too, are often the only female speaker on these issues in a conference room or on a panel filled with men. The world can stand to have more women in fields that are traditionally filled by men.

(pp. iv-v) Kristine then proceeded "to name a few" of the Gitmo 'Grrls who jumped to mind. Her list is reproduced here, along with links to these women and some of their works:

► IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack, Santa Clara Law. Her IntLawGrrls posts are here; list of other publications is here.

► IntLawGrrl yours truly (thanks, Kristine!), University of California, Davis. My IntLawGrrls posts are here; list of other publications is here.

► Leila Nadya Sadat, Washington University. IntLawGrrls posts about her are here; publications list is here.

► Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, Center for Constitutional Rights, attorney for detainees. IntLawGrrls posts about her are here; her op-ed is here.

► Agnieszka M. Fryszman, partner at Cohen Milstein, attorney for detainees.

► Beth Gilson, attorney for detainees.

► H. Candace Gorman, attorney for detainees, whom the Chicago Tribune recently profiled. She runs 2 Gitmo blogs, here and here.

► Sylvia Royce, attorney for detainees.

► Sarah Havens, Allen & Avery, attorney for detainees.

► Becky Dick, attorney for detainees.

► Hina Shamsi, staff attorney at the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. Her ACLU blog posts are here.

► Maria LaHood, Center for Constitutional Rights.

► Opinio Juris' Deborah Pearlstein, Princeton University. IntLawGrrls posts about her are here; her OJ posts are here; her publications list is here.

► Karen J. Greenberg, New York University. IntLawGrrls posts about are her here; some publications are listed here; her newest Gitmo book is here.

► Suzanne Spaulding, Bingham Consulting Group and former Executive Director of the National Commission on Terrorism, among many other natsec posts. An op-ed by her is here.

► Kate Martin, Center for National Security Studies. Some of her publications are here.

► Sahar Aziz, formerly an associate at Cohen Milstein, now Senior Policy Advisor at Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

► Barbara Olshansky, attorney for detainees. Her books are here.

► Jennifer Daskal, formerly senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, now a Department of Justice attorney.

Recognition is due to many other women as well, of course. (Readers' nominations welcome!)

There are, for example, all the IntLawGrrls and guests/alumnae who have contributed posts in IntLawGrrls' "Guantánamo" series. In addition to Beth, Kristine, and I, they are Elena Baylis, Ursula Bentele, Fiona de Londras, Monica Hakimi, Lynne Henderson, Elizabeth L. Hillman, Dawn Johnsen, Michelle Leighton, Pamela Merchant, Naomi Norberg, Hari M. Osofsky, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, and Lucy Reed. Not to mention guests/alumnae Mary L. Dudziak, editor of this book, and Mary Ellen O'Connell, interviewed here, both with respect to post-9/11 issues. Or my University of California colleague Laurel E. Fletcher, co-author of this book, an empirical study of the fate of ex-detainees.

And there are also the women who shared a Quonset-like tent with Jen Daskal and me during the December '08 week that, as posted earlier, I spent observing Gitmo military commissions on behalf of the National Institute of Military Justice. (A fuller account of my visit begins at page 9 of this report, which also includes dispatches from Executive Director Michelle Lindo McCluer and other NIMJ'ers) These tentmates were: Jill Heine, Amnesty International; Stacy Sullivan, Human Rights Watch; and Devon Chaffee, Human Rights First. And don't get me started on the many women journalists I met at Gitmo, or on the women JAG lawyers whom I watched provide excellent representation of various detainees as detailed defense counsel.

Bottom line -- memo to media reps, conference organizers, anthology editors, etc.:

There are many, many women now working in the field of national security. We've given you the list; it's your job to get in touch. As we posted when a similar issue arose years ago, the key is not only having women "in" the supposedly nontraditional fields of law. It's also having them recognized as being there.

A poem for Rita Maran on her 80th birthday

(It's the 80th birthday of Dr. Rita Maran (center at right), the University of California, Berkeley, lecturer who aptly described herself in a June 2008 manual, Human Rights for the University Classroom, as "lecturer, author, activist in International Human Rights." Active in the United Nations Association-USA, author of Torture: The Role of Ideology in the French-Algerian War (1989), and a founding member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Advocates, she's a friend and mentor to many. So here's a birthday party poem for Rita, by Naomi Roht-Arriaza, and also from Connie, Michelle, Diane, and all Rita's IntLawGrrls friends).

We've gathered here to celebrate
Your years of living well
To toast and dance, twist and gyrate
To say we think you're swell

You've worked out how to have it all
You're quite a fine role model
Your engines never seem to stall
We toast you by the bottle

The secret to long life, you've said
Is never to be bored
Keep new thoughts running through your head
And a goal you're working toward

A published author, Ph.D.
On torture in Algeria
On human rights we all agree
Your writings are superia

You don't stop there as monthly
You assemble us for dinner
To strike a blow 'gainst rights abuse
But we don't get any thinner

Your UNA work's quite a task
Fighting the latest menace
Yet with all you do there, we all ask
How'd she find time for tennis?

You've seen a lot, been everywhere
From Bosnia to Jakarta
Done missions that could raise the hair
But they've only made you smarta

At Int'l Law Grrls we agree
In the field you're a pioneer
A lifetime commitment is the key
A toast from the blogosphere!

Bhutto and Suu Kyi briefly swap places

With the road leading to her home blocked by barbed wire, metal barricades and dozens of police officers, Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister and major opponent of Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf, was kept yesterday from attending a rally. Bhutto had intended to lead demonstrators in protest against the week-old state of emergency (see our discussion of states of emergency in posts below by Diane, Michelle, Fiona, myself and again Fiona), but found herself confined for the day. She was, however, able to meet with her party’s leaders Saturday midday. Bhutto has only recently returned to Pakistan, following a deal with Musharraf. Her brief confinement has probably increased her credibility without damaging her chances of making a deal with Musharraf; indeed, it is reported that talks between the two are continuing. (Bhutto's by no means the only woman to have endured house arrest this last week; see Diane's post below.)

Meanwhile in Burma/Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi (see here and here) has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years, and hasn’t met with members of her party, the National League for Democracy, since 2004. Yesterday, she was allowed to do so to discuss the preconditions the military junta has set for meeting with her. Though Suu Kyi is not seeking confrontation or regime change, the proposed talks follow on massive demonstrations led by monks ending in a crackdown by the junta in the last days of September. Ibrahim Gambari, the UN representative who has visited Burma/Myanmar twice since then, was apparently “instrumental” in arranging the proposed talks between the junta and Suu Kyi. Talks may lead to a constitutional referendum and election: after 14 years of on-again off-again sessions, in early September a constitutional convention produced guidelines for a constitution. Unfortunately, the guidelines ensure a strong role for the military.

Indigenous Rights Declaration: backstory

Kristine's introduction of Sacagawea -- who joins Michelle's choice, Nancy Ward, as an IntLawGrrls transnational foremother of Native American heritage -- prompts another look at contemporary norms on native peoples.
As posted here, the U.N. General Assembly voted last month to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. (At right, a New York rally before the September 2007 vote; the speaker is Beverly Jacobs, President of the Native Women's Association of Canada.)
For the backstory on the "more than 20 years of work" that preceded the vote -- and on why Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States voted nay, compared with 143 aye votes and 11 abstentions -- check out this ASIL Insight by Stefania Errico. After detailing this history, which includes insertion of language designed to privilege internal rather than external self-determination, Errico concludes: "The question to be addressed now is how to implement the provisions incorporated in the Declaration." That question, she writes, is already on the agenda of the United Nations' Human Rights Council.
((c) photo courtesy of Amnesty International Canada.)

Merkel leaves her mark on EU Presidency

This weekend ended the auspicious EU Presidency by the German government, and a very strong woman. As Portugal takes the reins it will be shadowed by some very large feminine footprints.
Chancellor Merkel set out to make a difference with her leadership and well, by all accounts she did, if just a bit. There was the well-known tug of war on climate change at the G-8. The Chancellor managed to win this effort, just barely, by pulling her colleagues, pas sans Bush, slightly onto the side of the environment. And then there was the constitutional revival. During the backroom (and frontroom) brawling, Sarkozy emerged from hidden negotiations to update reporters on how happy he was to serve as Merkel's "ambassador"--an unusual statement from France's new male heir not lost on the European press. As a German Minister of State recounted to me, it was actually the Ukraines who stepped in at the eleventh hour to convince the Poles to accept the compromise, another man, but no bother.
Yet, with all this fanfare it was easy to miss another key initiative set in motion by the Chancellor surely to be important marker in the coming EU discourse---partnerships with African governments on improving social, economic and environmental unrest. The Germans lead a number of EU-wide dialogues on security and conflict which moved away from the usual portrayal of endless corruption and war on the continent to focus on strategies that can make actual progress. Last week, the Federal Foreign Office and GTZ hosted one such meeting on African and European security related to desertfication and drought, climate change, conflict and forced migration.
This is no small human rights issue. Some 240,000 Africans are smuggled into the EU annually with 100,000 attempting to enter the EU by crossing the Mediterranean.
They are leaving poorly tended agricultural drylands all over Africa in search of employment. This year some will die in their march across the Sahara hoping to reach a boat. Others will wait out their fate in bulging refugee camps. Still others will die at sea. The German dialogue facilitated some of the most honest debates I've witnessed in years on what Europe needs to do if it really wants to change the environment-poverty-migration dynamic. These findings I am told will be passed on to the Portuguese with importance and then debated by the EU this fall. Merkel's government has also vowed to step-up its work for Africa and to push the EU even further. However small the reforms that actually resulted in her six-month tenure, the woman Chancellor has definately set the pace for her male colleagues. All in all, a very good run.

California Bill to Abolish Life Without Parole for Juveniles

Confessions of my work this week….Just last month California State Senator, Leland Yee, introduced a bill (SB 999) that will finally remedy the unjust practice of sentencing children under the age of 18 to life in prison without the possibility of parole ("LWOP"). After submitting a letter endorsed by 75 law professors, I joined colleagues this week in meeting with Senate offices to urge their support for this bill. I am working on this issue because in California, as in many states, LWOP means that the state can put a young person into prison, lock them up and throw away the key, never allowing that child to request a hearing to demonstrate that after becoming an adult she is rehabilitated. This is a death sentence in all but name.
The bill is important for a number of reasons. It incorporates modern findings on child development. Regardless of the crime, young people are still capable of responding to rehabilitation. The reform also brings us in line with international human rights standards. Not only is LWOP for juveniles prohibited by international treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which the U.S. is a party, but the few countries that have the option in their laws do not use it. We know of only three countries in which at most 12 youth offenders are serving this sentence while there are an estimated 2, 270 in the United States (227 in California). In meeting with government delegates recently at the U.N. Council on Human Rights, the lawyer representing the U.S. was the only one who defended the practice, insisting the U.S. is careful not to violate international law. What he seemed to find troubling, as I, is that California leads the nation in racial disparity with this sentence. Black youth are 22 times more likely than white youth to receive this type of sentence, for the same crimes. Hispanic youth are 4 times more likely.
The bill has now passed out of the Public Safety Committee but it still needs two-thirds of our state legislature’s vote to pass. In 1990, after a wave of crime fears, the public approved the sentence as part of a larger ballot initiative. We now must garner a super majority of legislators to change it---for our children’s sake, I hope this is possible. I know I’ll be working on this in the weeks to come.

About Nancy Ward

Thank you for starting this blog and encouraging me, a virgin blogger, to join you who make-up the "grrls" on the frontier of international law. I am looking forward to reading more of your musings (and learning how to post properly!). To introduce myself, I write to you as Nancy Ward or NANYE-HI GHI-GA-U (one who goes about), a Cherokee Indian, mother, peacemaker, a "Beloved Woman" or final arbitrator of disputes among the Cherokee. She lead in dangerous times, c. 1738-1824, negotiating the first treaty between the Tribe and the U.S. government. Her belief in international law was shaken by the U.S. government's abrogation of its responsibility under the treaties it signed with the Tribe. I fear we way live in similar times. My great, great grandmother was Cherokee so I ponder whether we are not such distant colleagues. It is with great humility I publish under this name.