On December 11

On this day in ...

... 1946, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 57(I), "Establishment of an International Children's Emergency Fund." The resolution aimed initially at helping "children and adolescents of countries which were victims of aggression" in the recently ended Second World War. Over time, of course, the mandate of the Fund – known today by its acronym, UNICEF – expanded to include all children throughout the world. On this very same day in 1965, when UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the organization was praised for the results it had achieved:

'Differences of view have been welded, almost always, into an accepted concensus in the search for agreement on the best methods of providing assistance to alleviate the agony of children who are victims of cruel circumstance.'

(Prior December 11 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On November 14

On this day in ...
... 1904, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was a granddaughter of the founder of the Pillsbury Flour Mills Co. A couple years after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College, where she majored in French, she married a textile manufacturer named Oswald Bates Lord. Living with her husband and sons (one, Winston Lord, would become a U.S. Ambassador), Mary Pillsbury Lord (left) threw herself into volunteer work. In World War II, she toured Army installations throughout the world in her capacity as chair of the National Civilian Advisory Committee of the Women's Army Corps. In 1947, she organized and chaired the U.S. Committee for UNICEF, and in 1953, by appointment of President Dwight D.  Eisenhower, for whom she'd campaigned, Lord succeeded Eleanor Roosevelt as the U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Later she was appointed a U.S. representative to the U.N. General Assembly. After completing that post, she continued to be active in international affairs until her death in 1978. A year after, she was honored posthumously with the Freedom Award of the International Rescue Committee, which she had served as president. Her papers are available here and here.

(Prior November 14 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On June 22

On this day in ...
... 1931, the effort of 30-year-old Ruth Nichols (right) to become the 1st woman to fly solo across the Atlantic ended when her plane crash-landed in Newfoundland, Canada. (photo credit) Nichols, a New York-born Wellesley alumna who set women's records for altitude, distance, and speed that same year, injured her back in the attempt.  She'd go on flying for years; indeed, she did aviation-related relief work in World War II and in 1948 "piloted a world tour for UNICEF." Yet as we've posted, it would be Amelia Earhart, an IntLawGrrls foremother, who'd make the 1st solo trans-Atlantic flight by a woman, in May 1932.

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

Go On! "Child soldiers" @ NYC Bar

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

The New York City Bar Association's Committee on African Affairs will sponsor a panel on an issue much in the news these days, given the verdicts in Lubanga and Taylor, not to mention the "Kony 2012" video.
Title for the panel, which will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 24, at the House of the Association, 42 West 44th Street, New York, is "The Child Soldier Crisis:Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation." (IntLawGrrls posts on child soldiers available here.)
Organizers write:

'Today approximately 300,000 children are serving as soldiers in more than 30 conflicts worldwide in clear violation of international law. Many have been abducted or recruited by force and others join armed groups out of desperation and impoverished circumstances. This panel of noted experts will explore the use of child soldiers as a violation of international law and will also propose strategies for prevention and rehabilitation.'

Scheduled to speak are: Grace Akallo (left), former child soldier and founder and Executive Director of United Africans for Women and Children Rights (photo credit); Jo Becker, Advocacy Director, Children's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch; Radhika Coomaraswamy (below right), Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (photo credit); and Penille Ironside, Senior Advisor, Child Protection in Emergencies, UNICEF.
Moderating will be Elizabeth Barad, an international law and gender consultant and member of the Association committee that's sponsoring the event.  Cosponsoring are 2 other Association committees, on International Human Rights and on Children and Law, as well as the Association's Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice.
The event is free, but attendees are asked to RSVP to Elizabeth at elizabethbarad@gmail.com.

On October 12

On this day in ...
... 2001 (10 years ago today), the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize would go to the United Nations and to Kofi Annan, the man then serving as its Secretary-General. (credit for photo of Annan, far left, and U.N. General Assembly President Han Seung-soo, near left, at December 2001 awards ceremony) Underscoring that this would be the 100th year of awarding the prize, the Committee's chairman, as reported by The New York Times,

stressed that the body 'wishes in its centenary year to proclaim that the only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations.'

Peace Prizes also awarded to United Nations officials/subunits over the years: 1961, posthumously to Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld; 1954 and 1981, to the U.N.High Commissioner for Refugees; 1965, to UNICEF; and 1988, to U.N. peacekeepers.

(Prior October 12 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

In passing: ¢ for UNICEF founder

Often completing this 'Grrl's Halloween costume was the tote at left.
Many a year we Midwestern children would knock on doors to "Trick or Treat for UNICEF," seeking donations to help the United Nations help children in need. For many of us, it was an early raising of awareness -- an early invitation to consider how we might respond in our own small ways to the plight of others throughout the world.
Of great interest, therefore, was the news that the woman who founded the campaign has died at age 93, just a few days short of the 60th anniversary of her achievement.
As detailed in The New York Times' obituary, the idea came to Mary Emma Allison, a schoolteacher long concerned about social justice, while shopping in 1949 in Philadelphia. (credit for photo of Allison and her costume-clad children) Soon she and her husband had created a global movement, called "Pennies for UNICEF" in those days of less deflated economy. Enlisted in the effort have been cultural icons ranging from Casper, the Friendly Ghost (below), to Superman, the Man of Steel. Since its founding the campaign has raised more than $160 million.
No need for a collection box to contribute in Allison's honor; anyone can click here to donate to UNICEF this Halloween.

Battling Maternal Mortality

In anticipation of this week's UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), several UN entities -- the World Health Organization, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and the World Bank -- released a study of international trends in maternal mortality between 1990 and 2008. This assessment report, which covers 99.8% of births worldwide, is aimed at achieving the fifth MDG: to reduce the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. While reliable data are hard to collect, particularly in the developing world, the news is modestly positive: The estimated 358,000 maternal deaths in 2008 represent a 34% decline from 1990 levels. While this is not quite the rate of change needed to achieve a 75% drop by 2015, it's certainly a step in the right direction.

The good news? A total of 147 countries experienced a decline in their maternal mortality levels, with enormous drops (from 50 to 75%) in several sub-Saharan African nations. These declines are likely due to improved access to health systems and increased female education. The proportion of deliveries attended by skilled health personnel rose in the developing world, as did the percentage of women receiving prenatal care and the proportion of women using contraception. Notably, East Asia, which experienced the greatest decline in maternal mortality levels, has a contraceptive prevalence rate of 86%, while in sub-Saharan Africa, which faced one of the lowest declines, that rate was only 22%.
The bad news? The developing world suffered an estimated 99% (355,000) of these deaths, with sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia accounting for an estimated 87% (313,000) of global maternal deaths. Just eleven countries from these two regions comprised an estimated 65% of all maternal deaths in 2008, with India accounting for the largest number of deaths (63,000). Of greater concern, 23 countries faced an increase in their MMR over the time period studied. The five countries that fared the worst in terms of increasing maternal mortality rates (Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe) are of course part of the region with the highest HIV rates in the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, 9% of all maternal deaths were due to HIV/AIDS.
The global disparities in maternal mortality are shocking; the MMR in the developing world (290 deaths per 100,000 live births) was over twenty times that of the developed world (14). In four countries -- Afghanistan, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, and Somalia, the MMR was over 1000. In other words, a 15-year old female in sub-Saharan Africa faces a 1 in 31 chance of maternal death over her lifetime, while a girl of the same age in the developed world faces a 1 in 4300 risk. That girl in Afghanistan? A 1 in 11 risk.
Given that many of the causes of maternal deaths in the developing world are relatively easily addressed through basic prenatal and childbirth care (e.g. hemorrhage and hypertension are responsible for more than half of these deaths), it seems that the goal of 75% decline, though ambitious, should be within reach. In recognition of the need for basic improvements in health care for pregnant women, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon unveiled on Wednesday his $40 billion Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health. Here's hoping it can make a difference for that young girl in Afghanistan.
(credit for photo above left)

Human Trafficking at a Tipping Point

The issue of human trafficking has reached a tipping point. On the same day that I pass by The Body Shop, and see their request that customers sign a petition to stop “sex trafficking of children and young people,” apparently co-sponsored by UNGIFT and UNICEF, a student admits that until I began introducing him to the existence of the issue, he was utterly unaware that people were being bought, sold and exploited around the world.
While many people remain unaware that men, women and children are subjected to indentured servitude, debt peonage and other forms of human trafficking, celebrities and corporations and even conservative American politicians have embraced the issue, at least aspects of it. Angelina Jolie and Microsoft Corporation, through their co-funded and founded organization KIND (Kids in Need of Defense), fund pro bono legal training for unaccompanied children, including children who are trafficked. In her capacity as YouthAIDS Global Ambassador, Ashley Judd has become an advocate against human trafficking. Gloria Steinem and Catharine MacKinnon lend their cultural and legal feminist star power to aspects of the issue. Conservative and moderate politicians such as Olympia Snowe support bills directed towards international violence against women, including human trafficking.
If corporations situated in the Northern Hemisphere; and conservative, moderate and liberal politicians; and celebrities; and law enforcement and all branches of government are lined up in support of aspects of the issue, then why have we failed so miserably to find and then secure assistance to victims of human trafficking and why have we failed to prosecute traffickers? The answer of course is multi-fold, but part of the problem lies in the bifurcation of the issue. The Body Shop wants us to sign a petition to prevent sex trafficking of children. What about the trafficking of Sri Lankan and Nepalese men into Iraq and Afghanistan to provide support services to US troops and their allies? Angelina Jolie and Microsoft will help unaccompanied children. What about agricultural laborers threatened with blacklisting if they complain about non-payment or exploitation? Gloria Steinem and Catharine MacKinnon are concerned with the lack of consent inherent in sex work. What about women who agree to sex work but then have their earnings withheld until they “pay back” their traffickers?
The issue is complex (as IntLawGrrls Janie Chuang and Dina Francesca Haynes have regularly articulated here and here), and the interest of celebrities, politicians and the corporate world is not only laudable, it is often rich and deep. The people who elect to become involved in the issue often become very knowledgeable about it, and yet each selects one aspect in which to become involved, further bifurcating the issue, polarizing the debates and alienating victims who do not fit within their funding or client profile. It is likely the interest in human trafficking will remain for some time. Let us work on making that interest as rich, as meaningful and as holistic as possible.

Minorities in Viet Nam

(It’s IntLawGrrls’ great pleasure to welcome back alumna Gay McDougall, who contributes this guest post)

This month I conducted a 10-day official visit to Viet Nam. My objectives for this, my 10th such country visit, were to hold consultations on minority issues and to examine the human rights situation of Viet Nam’s numerous minority groups. These goals conform with my mandate as the Independent Expert on Minorities for the United Nations: to promote implementation of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, and to identify challenges, as well as successful practices, in regard to minority issues.

I would first like to thank the Government of Viet Nam for extending an invitation to me and for the high level of importance that it attached to my visit, apparent in the assistance and access provided to me, at both national and provincial levels. My preliminary comments, excerpted in this post, will be followed by a report containing my full findings and recommendations to the U.N. Human Rights Council next March.

I began my visit in Hanoi before travelling to regions of significant minority populations, including the provinces of Dien Bien in the Northern Highlands, Tra Vinh in the Mekong Delta region, and Gia Lai and Kon Tum provinces in the Central Highlands. (map credit) I met with senior Government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, community members, academics, and others working in the field of minority issues, social inclusion and promotion of equality and non-discrimination.

Overview

Viet Nam is a country of great diversity. The majority population consists of those who identify themselves as part of the “Kinh” ethnic group. There are 53 other ethnic groups as well, with unique religious, linguistic and cultural characteristics, and identities. Viet Nam recognizes its minority populations as important constituent parts of its nation, and it understands many of the challenges that it faces to ensure that the rights of minorities are respected, protected and promoted in every sphere of life. The establishment of dedicated Governmental bodies with responsibilities for minorities, including the Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs, is a positive practice that is replicated on provincial and district levels.
Viet Nam has witnessed a remarkable period of economic growth, progress towards the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, and highly positive results in respect to poverty alleviation and economic development in general. The Government readily acknowledges that despite these achievements, most minority groups remain the poorest of Viet Nam’s poor.

The acknowledgment of the economic and social gaps that exist between the minority communities and the majority population is an important step towards putting in place the measures required to close those gaps.

Government programs over the past several years have established important initiatives to close those gaps through infrastructure projects, social protection programs and developments in the fields of health and education. The government should be commended for these programs and for the improvements that the programs have made in the lives of minorities.

I understand the challenges facing the government in achieving the rights of non-Kinh ethnic communities, particularly those in the most geographically remote areas. I welcome the government’s affirmation of its commitment to tackling those challenges as a matter of high priority. It is critical that:

► The Government ensures that its economic growth is achieved without negatively impacting on the lives of minorities or deepening their poverty; and

► Minorities share fully in the benefits of growth and prosperity, while maintaining their distinct cultures and identities.

Education

Access to quality and appropriate education is a gateway to development and poverty eradication for minorities. It is equally essential for the preservation and promotion of minority cultures, languages and identities. Education helps minorities to take control of their lives and to fulfill their potential as equal stakeholders in the development of the State. (photo credit)

Viet Nam has made significant progress in the provision of school structures to most Communes, in the option of boarding schools for students from remote villages, and in access to secondary schools for minority children. Nonetheless, I am concerned that minorities are achieving poor results in education relative to Kinh students.

One of the problems that has been identified is that minorities lack adequate opportunities to be taught in their own minority languages from the earliest years of education. They struggle with being taught only in Vietnamese.

With the ultimate goal of fluency in Vietnamese, bilingual education helps minority children to make better early progress in education and provides a strong and culturally appropriate foundation for their future schooling. I look forward to the results of a pilot programme of Mother-Tongue-based bilingual education currently being implemented by the Ministry of Education and Training and UNICEF, including in Gia Lai and Tra Vinh, 2 provinces I visited. Studies done worldwide endorse this approach. It is not sufficient that the Mother-Tongue language is taught as a subject. In preschool, and the first 3 years, it should be the language of instruction, which then transitions to be Vietnamese.

Enjoyment of rights
As in many countries with such diversity, numerous challenges exist to ensuring that members of minority groups can fully realize all their economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights and live in conditions of equality. The rights of minorities include:

► Freedom to practice their religions without restriction;

► Freedom of association and expression;

► Right of peaceful assembly;

► Equal right to own and use land; and

► Right to participate fully and effectively in decisionmaking regarding issues that affect them, including economic development projects and resettlement issues.

(photo credit) Concerns relating to these rights have been raised with me in the context of my visit; in turn, I have raised these issues directly with the Government of Viet Nam at national and provincial levels. I will study closely the information that I have gathered and the responses of the Government before commenting on these issues in my final report.

Conclusion
I believe that my visit marks an important step by the Government of Viet Nam to engage with the human rights bodies and mechanisms of the U.N. system. I welcome the Government’s undertaking to extend further invitations to other U.N. human rights experts in the months ahead, and I hope that these will include invitations to a wide range of mandate holders, including those with mandates in the area of civil and political rights.

Guest Blogger: Aziza Ahmed

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Aziza Ahmed (right) as today's guest blogger.
Project Manager/Research Associate for the Boston-based Program on International Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, from which she earned an M.S. degree Population and International Health, Aziza works on issues of HIV/AIDS, gender, sexuality, sexual and reproductive health and rights, violence against women, and the intersection of criminal law and public health. In her guest post below, she underscores the disparate impact on women of the trend toward laws permitting criminal punishment for HIV transmission.
Before working at Harvard's health and human rights program, Aziza was a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow with the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS. Amongst other projects, she helped launch a project on the forced and coerced sterilization of HIV positive women in Namibia. Aziza, who aholds a J.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, also has served as a consultant to UNIFEM and UNICEF in the Eastern Caribbean, and has worked with several women’s health and rights organizations in Southern Africa, India, the United States, and the Caribbean.

Heartfelt welcome!

On the Job! Gender violence/Haiti

(On the Job! pays occasional notice to interesting intlaw job notices)

UNICEF and the U.N. Population Fund are seeking a Gender-Based Violence Prevention Coordinator for Haiti, who will effectuate rapid implementation of gender-based violence programming in the aftermath of last month's earthquake, about which IntLawGrrls have posted here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Qualifications required include:

► A postgraduate degree in social work or other social sciences, public health, community health, international relations, international law, or human rights or related field;

► Prior training in gender issues and their application in international humanitarian or development settings; and

► Fluency in French.

Inquiries may be sent to Mendy Marsh, mmarsh@unicef.org, with "GBV Coordinator" in the subject line. Deadline for applications is February 26, 2010. Further details here.

On December 2

On this day in ...
... 1946, The New York Times reported that the United States had "formally offered to turn over the historic Presidio in San Francisco to the United Nations as its permanent world capital." The offer came after U.N. delegates had visited potential sites in Philadelphia, Westchester, and New York City. In the end U.N. headquarters would be established in the last of those cities, a decision decried in chapter 13 of the memoir of then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson:

When later the United Nations was looking for a site, I believed that it should be in Europe and favored Geneva or Copenhagen, but pressure grew for its headquarters to be in the United States. President Truman’s offer of the beautiful Presidio site on the shore of the Pacific at the Golden Gate seemed a perfect one, establishing its home in the city of its birth. The misplaced generosity of the Rockefeller family, however, placed it in a crowded center of conflicting races and nationalities.

Decades later a proposal to move part of UNICEF's operations to the Presidio (above left), a longtime Army base, also would go nowhere.

(Prior December 2 posts are here and here.)

On October 13

On this day in ...
... 1934 (75 years ago today) , a daughter, Ioanna, was born on the Greek island of Crete, to parents who worked in the town's movie theater. The family moved to the Greek capital, where the father became part of the resistance against Nazi occupation. After World War II the girl, known by her nickname, Nana Mouskouri (left), attended the Athens Conservatoire, turned from opera to jazz and contemporary music, and eventually became "one of the world's best-selling female recording artists of all time," having recording in more than 8 languages. (Below, she sings "Adieu Angeline" on a French show.) In 1993 she became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, a position made vacant by the death of Audrey Hepburn. Mouskouri's mission to Bosnia led her to give a series of concerts in Sweden and Belgium to raise funds for Bosnian children; her UNICEF activities have spanned the globe. (credit for photo (c) UNICEF) She served as an elected Member of the European Parliament from 1994-99, and now lives in Switzerland.




(Prior October 13 posts are here and here.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

Nearly a third of Namibians under 5 years of age have no legal existence. ... Fifty-one million children born in 2007 were not registered, of whom 9.7 million were in sub-Saharan Africa. In Somalia, scarcely 3% have a birth certificate.
This absence of legal existence works many harms on families and children.

-- Le Monde article, written in Windhoek, Namibia, and based Progress for Children: A Report Card on Child Protection, a just-released UNICEF report. The problem described by Le Monde stands at odds with Article 16 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states: "Everyone shall have the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." The news article attributes the problem both to governmental deficiencies and to cultural practices. It also offers other sobering statistics to be found in the report; for instance: "More than a billion children now live in a country or territory plagued by armed conflict. 5.8 million of them are refugees, living outside their birth country."

On November 29

On this day in ...
... 1957, Janet Napolitano (left) was born in New York City. She grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and earned degrees from Santa Clara University and the University of Virginia School of Law. She began practicing law in Phoenix, and eventually became U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Arizona's 1st woman Attorney General, and, since 2003, Governor of Arizona. She is said to be President-Elect Barack Obama's top choice to become Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
... 1984, on conclusion of a 3-day tour of the region, James P. Grant, Executive Director of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), told The New York Times that more than 6 million people were "'in serious distress' as a result of the Ethiopian famine," adding that 1 million of them were children under the age of 4. Before its end a year later the famine would claim 1 million lives in the country whose flag is at right.

On August 23

On this day in ...
... 1998 (10 years ago today), Haiti became 1 of the world's 1st countries to commemorate what is now known, by UNESCO resolution, the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. According to that U.N. body, commemoration "is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the transatlantic slave trade in the memory of all peoples." This date was chosen in recognition of a 1791 slave insurrection on the island of Saint-Domingue -- today, Haiti.
... 1944, Antonia Coello was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Her own illness and her father's early death made hers a difficult childhood. Nonetheless, she earned a medical degree in 1970, married, and, as Dr. Antonia C. Novello (left), made a career in public health that culminated with her appointment in 1990 as U.S. Surgeon-General. She was the 1st woman and 1st Hispanic in that post; after she left it in 1993, Novello worked several years at UNICEF.

On June 29

On this day in ...

... 2007, Marie-Noëlle Thémereau resigned as President of Nouvelle-Calédonie, 3 years after Thémereau (top left) and her Vice President, Dewe Gorodey (bottom left), had made history by becoming the 1st women to serve in those positions in the South Pacific territory of France, known in English as New Caledonia. Dewe Gorodey still holds the Vice Presidency, and also serves as Minister for Culture, Women’s Affairs and Citizenship.

... 1949, Anne Veneman (top right) was born in Modesto, California. She is the Executive Director of UNICEF, having assumed that position in 2005 upon the resignation of Carol Bellamy (bottom right). Veneman practiced law and worked in California state government before serving from 2001 to 2005 as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, the 1st woman to hold the post.

On June 4

On this day in ...
... 2008 (today), is marked by UNICEF (logo at right) and others as the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression. It is intended to bring attention to the myriad ways that the world's children suffer -- not only

through domestic child abuse, but also through being exploited as child labourers or prostitutes, drafted as young teenagers into armed forces, forced as young girls into a lonely life as domestic workers, deprived of an education to work on the family farm, or denied adequate nutrition and health care ....

... 1999, Judge Navanethem Pillay (below left) was elected President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, on the final day of the ICTR's 6th plenary session. As detailed in a profile published in the International Judicial Monitor of the American Society of International Law and the International Judicial Academy, Pillay "is a product of apartheid South Africa," having been born in Natal in 1941, 1 of 4 daughters in a family headed by a bus driver. She was the 1st woman of color to start a law firm in her hometown. Judge Pillay now serves on the International Criminal Court.

On November 20, ...

... 2007 (today), is celebrated Universal Children's Day. The U.N. General Assembly resolved to create the day back in 1954 to honor the work of UNICEF and to promote the welfare of children throughout the world. It's held on November 20 to commemorate both the proclamation on that day in 1959 of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the adoption on the same day in 1989 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
... 1949, U.S. Rep. Thelma D. Drake (R-Va.), was born in Elyria, Ohio.
... 1945, at 10 a.m., what would come to be called the Trial of the Major War Criminals opened before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Defendants were 20 leaders of Nazi Germany. As described by the New York Times:

The entire day was devoted to the reading of the lengthy charges and bills of particulars to which the defendants will plead tomorrow. Dramatic despite their familiarity and inevitable repetition, these documents reviewed the whole bloody annals of World War II, reviving for many auditors the stunned horror with which the peaceful nations reacted to the news of German atrocities. Statistics attested to the facts and staggering totals were piled up to challenge the defendants' future declarations of innocence.

Abduction, adoption, and international law

Still in custody: 9 French citizens "wearing T-shirts with the slogan 'Children Rescue'" and 7 Spanish plane crewmembers in flight suits. The 16 were seized Thursday as they were readying to fly from Abéché, near Chad's border with the Darfur region of Sudan, to an airport near Rheims, France. With them at the time of arrest were 103 children, all under 9 years old.
The French detainees are affiliated with l'Arche de Zoé (Zoe's Ark). That NGO, whose website's a call to alarm over Darfur, maintained that the children were the 1st of 1,000 young refugees whom it planned to take away from the conflict in Darfur so that they might live with families in Europe that'd "each paid about €1,400 for the right to care for the children," according to London's Times; the International Herald Tribune put the amount at "€2,400, or nearly $3,500, per child."
The Times called it a "fiasco"; that seems a mild way to describe the operation, attempted just days before peace talks on Darfur were about to begin. (The talks began yesterday with Sudan's declaration of a unilateral ceasefire.) Chad's President, Idriss Deby, called it "a kidnapping, pure and simple," and promised severe punishment. French Minister for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Rama Yade (left) called the operation "illegal and irresponsible," stating that back in July all NGOs working in Darfur with whom she met agreed unanimously to condemn the operation. Laws on children and immigration were not followed; indeed, adoption's not even legal in Sudan and Chad. Not all the children may be from Darfur; some may be Chadians. And based on initial interviews with the children themselves, said Jacques Hintzy, President of UNICEF-France, not all in fact are orphans.
As international organizations and national governments registered denunciations, the children remained in limbo in Chad, receiving temporary care from UNICEF, the International Red Cross, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Rather than a peculiar event without ramification much beyond its facts, this was, according to a U.N. release, "not an isolated incident but one that was highly visible because of the size of the group of children." Problems have arisen across the globe, not only in African countries, but also in, for example, Cambodia and Guatemala. As might be expected, there's a treaty designed to avoid some of those problems. The Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption -- commonly called the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (logo at right) -- was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1995. Yet today less than 1/3 of the world's countries are states parties, and many of the states that have experienced problems are nonparties. The United States signed but hasn't ratified, though it passed legislation in 2000 aimed at implementing some of the treaty's provisions.
It'll require many more ratifications, and much more enforcement, before this international law has the desired effect.