On October 31

On this day in ...
... 1863, 600 British troops embarked in an "armoured river fleet" to continue an invasion of the Waikato River in New Zealand, which had begun in July of the same year. The invasion was part of the Māori Wars, a conflict between British settlers and indigenous peoples that was waged from 1845 to 1872. More than a century later, in 1995, Queen Elizabeth II "agreed, in effect, to apologise for colonial injustices suffered by the Maori people in New Zealand," the Independent of London reported. Rather than leave the task of assent to her Governor-General, the queen gave her personal,

'royal assent to a New Zealand Act of Parliament explicitly acknowledging the injustices suffered by a Maori tribe whose lands were confiscated following a treaty signed by her predecessors.'

The statute also granted about $171 million in compensation. (credit for 1995 photo of British Queen Elizabeth II and Māori Queen Te Ātairangikaahu)

(Prior October 31 posts here, here, here, and here, and here.)

'Nuff said

'La vérité, c'est que pas un soldat allemand, pas un seul, ne fut mobilisé pour l'ensemble de l'opération.
'La vérité, c'est que ce crime fut commis en France, par la France.'

that is,

'The truth is that no German soldier, not one, was mobilized in this operation.
'The truth is that this crime was committed in France, by France.'

– French President François Hollande, in a speech Sunday in which he reaffirmed the responsibility of French officials for the 1942 le rafle du Vel d'Hiv. In this incident, as we posted a while back,

'on orders of the Vichy government that ruled after France fell to the Nazis in World War II, French police rounded up at least 13,000 citizens of Jewish heritage -- including more than 4,000 children -- and detained them in Paris' Vélodrome d'hiver, the Winter Velodrome not far from the Eiffel Tower. Of them, "not 1 child or woman escaped death at Auschwitz,"although 40 men did survive.'

Hollande's discours, which is available in full here and discussed in news articles here and here, came 17 years after a similar admission by then-President Jacques Chirac. (credit for photo of Hollande at Sunday's commemoration © Présidence de la République-Pascal Segrette/Laurent Blevennec)

Brazil’s Amnesty Commission: A combination truth and reparations body

I had the honor of attending a public session of Brazil’s Amnesty Commission recently. The Commission was sitting that week in Porto Alegre, where I participated in a conference entitled Limites e Possibilidades da Justiça de Transição: Impunidade, Direitos e Democracia (Limits and Possibilities of Transitional Justice: Impunity, Rights, and Democracy), held April 13 at the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul.
A little-known transitional justice mechanism, Brazil's Amnesty Commission has some interesting characteristics:
►It was formed to deal with a wide range of violations: Brazil suffered relatively few deaths (some 400) during the years of military dictatorship – defined as 1961-79 – but extensive political repression including torture and detention, exile, loss of jobs and blacklisting. It combines some truth-telling with a grant of reparations.
► Amnesty was a fundamental demand of civil society during the transition from the military to a civilian government. Amnesty here is used in the same sense as in Amnesty International – removing the civil and criminal disabilities of regime opponents. There’s a whole other fight in Brazil about the other meaning of amnesty – that which protects the military from prosecution for crimes committed during the dictatorship. More on that below.
In 2002, the government created the Commission, which is officially part of the Ministry of Justice. It’s been holding hearings around the country and providing reparations for the harms committed by the dictatorship.
The hearing I saw involved 6 cases. The 15 Commissioners, about half academics and half social activists, sat on the stage. The national anthem was sung. The first case involved a woman who had been forced into exile with her husband for their political activities. One of the Commissioners, acting as rapporteur, summarized her file, waxing eloquent on the harms she suffered and detailing the proof she had provided to the Commission. Apparently, the case had been denied once before for lack of adequate documentation. This time, the Commissioner recommended amnesty. The amnesty seeker then was given up to ten minutes to address the session, which she did, thanking everyone and recounting some of the political activism that preceded her family’s flight from Brazil. Finally, each of the Commissioners voted on whether to accept the rapporteur’s recommendation, and then everyone stood while the president of the Commission officially pronounced her an amnestiado politico, asked for pardon in name of the Brazilian state for forcing her into exile and changing her life’s plan, and awarded her a lump sum payment. She got a hug and a flower from a member of the Commission’s staff, and everyone applauded.
A similar procedure followed for the rest of the cases.
In one, a former student leader who had been stripped of his Brazilian citizenship because of his activism had it reinstated, along with a sum of money and an apology (The Commission can obtain benefits for victims from other state agencies, and has read its mandate to do so); he had flown in from the US especially for the ceremony.
The most famous case was that of former Brazilian President João Goulart’s grandson, who offered a political speech and received reparations for having been forced as a child to move from one country to another, in fear, after his grandfather was overthrown. While the Commissioner’s recognized the existence of inter-generational trauma, they were quick to note that just being the grandchild of a political exile or prisoner was not enough to qualify for amnesty.
The most interesting case, for me, was of a former state bank workers’ union leader who had been forced out of his job in the wake of a strike and then blacklisted.

On February 2

On this day in ...
... 1972 (40 years ago today), a "furious crowd" of as many as 30,000 persons destroyed the British embassy in Dublin, Ireland. According to the BBC, the crowd "had been besieging the embassy building, in Merrion Square near the parliament building, for almost three days"; that is, since January 30, 1972, when British paratroopers opened fire on unarmed civil rights protesters in Derry, N. Ireland. Thirteen boys and men died instantly; a 14th would later die from his wounds. (credit for photo of base of Derry monument to those killed) As IntLawGrrls have posted here, here and here, it would take until 2010 before a British Prime Minister made a full apology for the incident, known as Bloody Sunday.

(Prior February 2 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

Bloody Sunday: Testament to spirit & costs of truth

The events of January 30th 1972 uniquely shaped the Northern Ireland conflict. The loss of life and injury, the failure of the state to investigate adequately, with the continued denial of state accountability created a deep reservoir of hurt within bereaved families and the community. (credit for 2005 photo of mural in Derry)
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the events on the streets of Derry, and the images that riveted the world and in part defined the course of the conflict for decades thereafter.
Bloody Sunday was a mirror held up to the state’s own rhetoric of rule of law and democratic participation. The state was found wanting.
Following years of legal and political struggle to vindicate the innocence of 13 persons killed during the civil rights protest that day (and another who died later from injuries), the report by the Hon Lord Saville of Newdigate was released on June 15th 2010 to their families and to a watchful local and global community. The Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry spanned 10 volumes. As I posted at the time of its release last year, the report was unequivocal that the deaths were “unjustified and unjustifiable” and that all those shot were innocent civilians who had given no cause for the use of force again them by members of the British paratroop regiment.
Forty years on provides a space for reflection and for pause. What have we learned and what can the experience of Bloody Sunday teach?
Bloody Sunday was a traumatic and politicizing experience for many in the jurisdiction. Yet, it did not produce paralysis. Rather, family members, relatives, and community became deeply involved in the process of naming the state’s failure and sought to hold the state accountable for the murder of its own citizens.
It is easy with the Saville Report in hand to forget the costs of mobilization. The yearly march in Derry on January 30th was a symbolic reenactment of the state’s failure, its silence, and its complicity. (credit for photo from 35th anniversary march) Families and activists involved in remembering and in challenging were themselves marginalized and stigmatized – the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘fellow-traveler’ easily thrown about over decades. The events of Bloody Sunday produced and sustained compounded harms which are not undone overnight.
One lesson then is that patience, community solidarity, and some rule of law within which to frame the claims made are essential to success when the state operates in consistent denial.
Another is that we should not over-estimate the healing and reconciliation that legal documents produce. We should remain attuned to the long-term and difficult work on the personal and communal level that remains to be done – the chilly reality of living in a transitional society once the media has moved on.
Bloody Sunday also demonstrates the particular challenges for democratic states in acknowledging their responsibility for systematic human rights violations.

'Nuff said

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

'What would an apology do for me? You don’t know what my kids were going to be. You don’t know what kids God was going to give me. Twenty thousand dollars ain’t gonna do it, honey.'

-- Nial Ramirez, 65, in a New York Times story about proposals for redress for her and an estimated 7,600 other persons whom the state of North Carolina sterilized in the 1960s, when its eugenics board was active. For Ramirez, reporter Kim Severson wrote, "no amount of money will make it right."

On December 27

On this day in ...
... 1949, at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, the former Dutch colony of Indonesia finally was granted independence when Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Vice-President of Indonesia signed the declaration of Indonesian independence (right), thus marking the official transfer of sovereignty. (photo credit) Indonesia had made the declaration 4 years earlier; a national revolution had occurred between then and the signing that took place on this day. Events in that interim period were in the news earlier this month, when the Netherlands formally apologized to Indonesia for a massacre on December 9, 1947, when "up to 430 boys and young men" in an Indonesian village were killed "by Dutch troops."

(Prior December 27 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

International law as a tool to promote human rights

(On Human Rights Day 2011, we present Part 2 of a 2-part series on human rights advocacy by guest blogger Lisa Reinsberg; Part 1 is here)

Despite the significance of international law for human rights – discussed in my post yesterday – international law remains at a distance from many who work in and struggle for human rights. (credit for Human Rights Day 2011 logo)
Few victims, social justice advocates, and attorneys around the world are aware of the relevance of international law to the issues they confront. Even fewer are equipped with the knowledge and support necessary to use international law and mechanisms to protect human rights effectively, on either an individual or a societal level.
Determined persons can access a variety of academic resources. Yet such resources generally are known only by, and useful only to, the small group of attorneys routinely engaged in international advocacy. For most other persons, international law remains opaque and difficult to utilize.
Further, the ability of existing nongovernmental organizations to meet the needs of inexperienced international human rights advocates is limited in one or more important aspects -- for example, by geography or theme, or by scarce resources. The lack of transparency generally surrounding the work of human rights mechanisms’ is also a consequence of the limited resources of those bodies for press, public education, and outreach.
The outcomes of utilizing international human rights mechanisms vary, not only as a function of the differing mandates of the individual bodies, but also as a product both of the broader political and social context and of the expertise and strategies employed by victims and victims' representatives.
Indeed, in supranational human rights tribunals like those mentioned in yesterday's post, rejection rates remain high.
Lacking the resources to investigate each claim, human rights tribunals must rely on the facts and arguments provided by the parties. Often that is not ideal. A petitioner may complain of the thing that most affronted his sense of dignity or hurt his pocketbook, while neglecting to mention the injustices that seem to him routine or unlikely to interest an international body.
For example, while serving as legal fellow at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, I once came across a petition in which a group of individuals complained of the temporary confiscation of their personal items by police. It was only through additional research and correspondence that I learned the confiscation occurred in the context of a large-scale eviction, displacement, and harassment of the indigenous community to which the individuals belonged.
In the absence of broader awareness or interest, immediate and full compliance with human rights mechanisms’ recommendations or judgments still proves largely illusory. States are thought to be more likely to comply with monetary reparations than with more fundamentally protective or transformative reparations, such as legislative change. Similarly, international bodies are chronically underfunded, in spite of being responsible for ever-growing caseloads. This problem has led to repeated calls for funding reform, including this call for funding, posted a few weeks ago by James A. Goldston, Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative.
Notwithstanding these challenges, international human rights bodies can have enormous impact at both the individual and societal levels. Examples include:
► An instance in which human rights intervention allowed an immigrant to stay with his family;
► An issue on which IntLawGrrls frequently have posted, the enabling of the prosecution of high-level officials through the repeal of amnesty laws that had immunized past international crimes (as in Peru and Uruguay); and
► Supranational bodies’ significant, broadly-accepted and progressive expansion of what we now consider human rights protected by law.
Even partial successes must be judged against the alternative; after all, it is only once domestic remedies prove unfruitful that victims may turn to supranational venues for individual redress. For a victim of a human rights violation, the opportunity to have her story recorded, a past injustice acknowledged, and the state’s accountability finally determined is meaningful, and more than she would otherwise have. That is even more the case with respect to a public apology from the state, such as those extended just in the last month: two by Mexico (here and here), one by Britain, and one by Guatemala.
A woman I once interviewed, who has not seen her husband since he was abducted by government agents over a decade ago, explained the difference between her hearing before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and her previous dealings with the state. Referring to government officials as "they," she said of the judicial forum:
'There they listen.…now it is they who have to give answers.'
Helping victims obtain not only answers, but also justice, by democratizing access to international norms and mechanisms, is the aim of the International Justice Resource Center, founded earlier this year.

Apology / disculpa

The apology given for U.S. tests done six decades ago on unknowing Guatemalans was profuse.
Among the words in the bilingual, joint statement of apology, reprinted in full below, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (below left) (credit) and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (bottom left) (credit) issued on Friday:
► unethical / antiético
► outraged / indignados
► reprehensible / reprochable
► regret /disculpas
► abhorrent / abominables
► sad / triste
► appalling / atroz
None overstates the significance of a recent finding by Susan M. Reverby (right), the the Marion Butler McLean Professor in the History of Ideas and Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. Reverby unearthed what a research team, funded by a grant from the United States' National Institutes of Health, did from 1946 to 1948. As stated by Dr. Francis S. Collins, current director of NIH, a D.C. briefing Friday, the team

intentionally infected vulnerable populations, including prisoners and mentally ill patients, with sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid. The purpose of the study was to test the effectiveness of penicillin, which was relatively new at the time.

Notwithstanding that "the intention was to provide treatment, and the evidence supports that the vast majority were adequately treated," Collins identified 4 "primary ethical violations":

► Experimentation on vulnerable populations;

► Apparent absence of informed consent;

► Deception respecting what what the team was doing to the subjects; and

► Intentional infection of potentially harmful pathogens.

A federal investigation is under way.

One hopes that investigators ask a question reporters at the briefing did not:

What does it mean that these tests took place at the same time that Americans were prosecuting Germans for medical experimentation -- in the same year, 1947, that a physician advising American war crimes prosecutors drafted what would come to be known as the Nuremberg Code, the keystone of current safeguards for human subjects?

While awaiting answer, ponder the Clinton-Sebelius apology:

The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical. Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health. We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices. The conduct exhibited during the study does not represent the values of the United States, or our commitment to human dignity and great respect for the people of Guatemala. The study is a sad reminder that adequate human subject safeguards did not exist a half-century ago.
Today, the regulations that govern U.S.-funded human medical research prohibit these kinds of appalling violations. The United States is unwavering in our commitment to ensure that all human medical studies conducted today meet exacting U.S. and international legal and ethical standards. In the spirit of this commitment to ethical research, we are launching a thorough investigation into the specifics of this case from 1946. In addition, through the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues we are also convening a body of international experts to review and report on the most effective methods to ensure that all human medical research conducted around the globe today meets rigorous ethical standards.
The people of Guatemala are our close friends and neighbors in the Americas. Our countries partner together on a range of issues, and our people are bound together by shared values, commerce, and by the many Guatemalan Americans who enrich our country. As we move forward to better understand this appalling event, we reaffirm the importance of our relationship with Guatemala, and our respect for the Guatemalan people, as well as our commitment to the highest standards of ethics in medical research.

Declaraciones de la secretaria de Estado Hillary Rodham Clinton y la secretaria de Salud y Servicios Sociales Kathleen Sebelius sobre el Estudio de inoculación de enfermedades de transmisión sexual del Servicio de Salud Pública de Estados Unidos de 1946 a 1948:
El estudio de inoculación de enfermedades de transmisión sexual que se llevó a cabo de 1946 a 1948 en Guatemala claramente fue antiético. Aunque estos sucesos ocurrieron hace más de 64 años, estamos indignados de que tal investigación reprochable haya ocurrido bajo el pretexto de la salud pública. Lamentamos profundamente que esto haya sucedido y ofrecemos nuestras disculpas a todas las personas que resultaron afectadas por esas abominables prácticas de investigación. La conducta demostrada durante el estudio no representa los valores de Estados Unidos ni nuestro compromiso con la dignidad humana y el gran respeto hacia el pueblo de Guatemala. El estudio es un triste recordatorio de que las garantías adecuadas para la investigación en seres humanos no existían hace medio siglo.
En la actualidad, los reglamentos que gobiernan la investigación médica en seres humanos financiada por Estados Unidos prohíben este tipo de violaciones atroces. Estados Unidos es inquebrantable en su compromiso de garantizar que todos los estudios médicos en seres humanos que se realizan en la actualidad, cumplan con las rigurosas normas legales y éticas de Estados Unidos e internacionales. Bajo el espíritu de este compromiso con la ética investigativa, estamos iniciando una minuciosa investigación con respecto a los detalles de este caso de 1946. Además, mediante la Comisión Presidencial para el Estudio de Asuntos de Bioética, convocaremos también a un cuerpo de especialistas internacionales para que revise e informe sobre los métodos más eficaces para asegurar que toda investigación médica en seres humanos que se realice en el mundo en la actualidad cumpla con rigurosas normas éticas.
El pueblo de Guatemala es uno de nuestros amigos cercanos y vecinos en las Américas. Nuestros países son socios en una variedad de asuntos y nuestros pueblos están vinculados por valores compartidos, comercio y por los muchos stadounidenses de origen guatemalteco que enriquecen nuestro país. A medida que avanzamos para comprender mejor este atroz suceso, reiteramos la importancia de nuestra relación con Guatemala y nuestro respeto por el pueblo guatemalteco, así como nuestro compromiso con las normas éticas más exigentes en la investigación médica.

Brooking no apology

Show me a land known by multiple names, and I'll show you a dispute over territory.
And so it is with the East China Sea islands called Diaoyutai in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. (map credit)

'The Senkaku islands are Japan's own territory,'

reports yesterday quoted Japan's Naoto Kan (right), Prime Minister of the country since June.
At about the same time, this statement from Jiang Yu (below left) (credit), spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry:

She reiterated that the Diaoyu Islands have been integral part of China's territory since ancient times.

The current dispute over this ancient standoff stems from a collision earlier this month in the waters near the islands. After a Japanese Coast Guard vessel and a Chinese trawler collided, the former seized the latter and detained the 14 fishing folk aboard. Sanctions that China was considering were reported to range from export and tourist curtailment to military exercises. Yesterday Japan released the trawler's captain, a decision that a prosecutor told the Tokyo newspaper Asahi Shimbun was related to "'the effects on the people of Japan and the future of Japan-China relations.'"
China still wants an apology.
Japan still says no.
What's at stake here?
Internal politics seem at play; for example, factions in Japan complain that it's backing down too much to China.
Power politics between the once-dominant Japan and the now-resurgent China surely matter.
No surprise that energy resources also figure in the mix. It's reported that the islands are located "near natural gas fields, and that "China and Japan have yet to implement an agreement signed in 2008 to jointly develop the fields."

Bloody Sunday – Setting the Truth Free

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post)

After decades of legal and political struggle to vindicate the innocence of thirteen persons killed during a civil rights protest in Derry on January 30 1972, known as Bloody Sunday, the report by the Hon Lord Saville of Newdigate was released last week to their families and a watchful local and global community.
The Report of the The Bloody Sunday Inquiry spans 10 volumes. As previously posted on IntLawGrrls, it is unequivocal that the deaths were “unjustified and unjustifiable” and that all those shot were innocent civilians who had given no cause for the use of force again them by members of the British paratroop regiment.
The symbolism of the Report’s delivery last Tuesday was deeply significant.
A packed house in the British House of Parliament in London and the crowd of which I was a part, at Guildhall Square in Derry (above left) -- both at centre stage -- waited and watched. (photo credit)
A newly elected and conservative British Prime Minister, David Cameron (below right), in a speech before the House of Commons, gave no political space for dissension. (photo credit) He confirmed that the army had fired the first shots; that no warnings were given before the soldiers opened fire; that none of the casualties were posing a threat; that soldiers lied about their actions; and that on behalf of the government and the country he was “deeply sorry”.
The Saville Inquiry was first commissioned by Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998 as part of the then-embryonic Northern Ireland peace process – a confidence-building measure aimed largely at the nationalist community, whose faith in the rule of law and the neutrality of the state had been seriously undermined by the events of that day, and the subsequent and much derided inquiry by Lord Widgery which had exonerated the soldiers and the state of responsibility.
The 12-year length of the Saville Inquiry proceedings was testimony to the complexity of the terrain it traversed, as well as to the continual obstacles placed in the way of proceeding by Britain's Ministry of Defence.
The Inquiry's outcome was unexpected for its clarity, for its directness, and for the starkness of its findings. It also tenaciously confirms the importance of redeeming and affirming the truth of contentious actions by the state.
The Report is received in the context of an ongoing political transition in a post-conflict society. It immediately raises the question of what comes next?
An obvious question is whether the prosecution of soldiers for offences of murder or manslaughter for their actions on the day by Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service will be sought. Despite the clarity of Saville’s report, success is less certain in an adversarial setting. Fair trial concerns for soldiers, the admissibility of hearsay evidence, the passage of time, as well as undertakings given by the Attorney-General in 1999 that witnesses who provided evidence to the inquiry would be protected, all pose prosecutorial challenges. It seems more likely that prosecution of witnesses (specifically soldiers) for perjury would be successful given the depth and scope of evidence in the report itself. The families of the dead and the wounded have stated that they will take some time to read and consider the report before making calls for further specific legal steps.
But, in a wider context, the report has significant precedential importance for transitional societies.
It demonstrates the capacity of determined victims to successfully challenge and force the state to account for its actions in violating human rights norms. In this, it has given great impetus to other families and communities who experienced human rights violations during the same conflict (including further incidents involving the same paratroop regiment). While the Prime Minister may have fervently hoped that Saville closes the circle of inquiry – it may well be that it has exploded the calls to deal fully with the “past” of the Northern Ireland conflict.
Nonetheless, it is an important vindication of the state – particularly for the democratic state that has engaged in serious human rights violations – as the Report breathes life into the capacity of the rule of law to respond adequately and meaningfully to harms experienced by its citizens.
This was deeply evident last Tuesday on the streets of Derry – as a community that has been largely alienated from the state clapped and cheered a British Prime Minister acknowledging the faults of the state and seeking forgiveness.
In this, the Report also underpins the symbolic and communicative function of law – in its capacity to mend and offer individuals the means to heal deep harms and to bring communities “in” rather than to leave them out. Lord Saville's Report is both symbolically and practically important – for Northern Ireland and other conflicted societies addressing the past.
The debate on “dealing with the past” in Northern Ireland has not likely been closed by this important report. Rather, it opens up the possibility of deeper and more sustained engagement as the transition goes forward.

Britain apologizes

Prime Minister David Cameron today stood in Parliament and apologized for military actions on January 30, 1972, in Derry, the 2d largest city in Northern Ireland. As we've posted, 14 civil rights marchers died from shootings on that Bloody Sunday, and an initial inquiry exonerated British troops. Cameron's statement marks today's release of the report of an inquiry commission headed by Lord Mark Saville, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Saville Commission found the killings were, "both unjustified and unjustifiable," to use Prime Minister Cameron's words today in the House of Commons. Here, courtesy of the BBC, is the full transcript of Cameron's remarks:

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is publishing the report of the Saville inquiry -- the tribunal set up by the previous government to investigate the tragic events of 30 January 1972, a day more commonly known as Bloody Sunday.
We have acted in good faith by publishing the tribunal's findings as soon as possible after the general election.
Mr Speaker, I am deeply patriotic. I never want to believe anything bad about our country. I never want to call into question the behaviour of our soldiers and our army, who I believe to be the finest in the world.
And I have seen for myself the very difficult and dangerous circumstances in which we ask our soldiers to serve.
But the conclusions of this report are absolutely clear. There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.
Lord Saville concludes that the soldiers of the support company who went into the Bogside did so as a result of an order which should not have been given by their commander.
He finds that, on balance, the first shot in the vicinity of the march was fired by the British Army.
He finds that none of the casualties shot by the soldiers of support company was armed with a firearm.
He finds that there was some firing by Republican paramilitaries but none of this firing provided any justification for the shooting of civilian casualties.
And he finds that, in no case, was any warning given by soldiers before opening fire.
He also finds that the support company reacted by losing their self-control, forgetting or ignoring their instructions and training and with a serious and widespread loss of fire discipline.
He finds that despite the contrary evidence given by the soldiers, none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers.
And he finds that many of the soldiers -- and I quote knowingly -- put forward false accounts to seek to justify their firing.
Lord Saville says that some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to the assistance of others who were dying.
The report refers to one person who was shot while crawling away from the soldiers. Another was shot in all probability when he was lying mortally wounded on the ground.
The report refers to the father who was hit and injured by army gunfire after going to attend to his son.
For those looking for statements of innocence, Saville says that the immediate responsibility for the deaths and injuries on Bloody Sunday lies with those members of support company whose unjustifiable firing was the cause of those deaths and injuries. Crucially, that, and I quote, none of the casualties was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury or indeed was doing anything else that could, on any view, justified in shooting.
For those people who are looking for the report to use terms like murder and unlawful killing, I remind the House that these judgments are not matters for a tribunal or politicians to determine.
Mr Speaker, these are shocking conclusions to read and shocking words to have to say. But Mr Speaker, you do not defend the British Army by defending the indefensible.
We do not honour all those who have served with such distinction in keeping the peace and upholding the rule of law in Northern Ireland by hiding from the truth.
There is no point in trying to soften or equivocate what is in this report. It is clear from the tribunal's authoritative conclusions that the events of Bloody Sunday were in no way justified.
I know that some people wonder whether, nearly 40 years on from an event, a prime minister needs to issue an apology.
For someone of my generation, Bloody Sunday and the early 1970s are something we feel we have learnt about rather than lived through.
But what happened should never, ever have happened. The families of those who died should not have had to live with the pain and the hurt of that day and with a lifetime of loss. Some members of our armed forces acted wrongly. The government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces and for that, on behalf of the government, indeed, on behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry.
Mr Speaker, just as this report is clear that the actions of that day were unjustifiable, so too is it clear in some of its other findings.
Those looking for premeditation, a plan, those even looking for a conspiracy involving senior politicians or senior members of the armed forces, they will not find it in this report.
Indeed, Lord Saville finds no evidence that the events of Bloody Sunday were premeditated, he concludes that the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland governments and the army neither tolerated nor encouraged the use of unjustified lethal force.
He makes no suggestion of a government cover up.
Mr Speaker, the report also specifically deals with the actions of key individuals in the army, in politics and beyond, including Major-General Ford, Brigadier McLellan, and Lieutenant Colonel Wilford.
In each case, the findings are clear. It does the same for Martin McGuinness. It specifically finds he was present and probably armed with a sub-machine gun but it concludes, and I quote, "we're sure that he did not engage in any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire".
Mr Speaker, while in no way justifying the events of January 30th, 1972, we should acknowledge the background to the events of Bloody Sunday.
Since 1969, the security situation in Northern Ireland had been declining significantly.
Three days before Bloody Sunday, two RUC officers, one a Catholic, were shot by the IRA in Londonderry, the first police officers killed in the city during the Troubles.
A third of the City of Derry had become a no-go area for the RUC and the Army. And in the end, 1972 was to prove Northern Ireland's bloodiest year by far, with nearly 500 people killed.
And let us also remember, Bloody Sunday is not the defining story of the service the British Army gave in Northern Ireland from 1969-2007.
This was known as Operation Banner, the longest continuous operation in British military history, spanning 38 years and in which over 250,000 people served.
Our armed forces displayed enormous courage and professionalism in upholding democracy and the rule of law in Northern Ireland.
Acting in support of the police, they played a major part in setting the conditions that have made peaceful politics possible.
And over 1,000 members -- 1,000 members -- of the security forces lost their lives to that cause.
Without their work, the peace process would not have happened.
Of course, some mistakes were undoubtedly made, but lessons were also learned.
And once again, I put on record the immense debt of gratitude we all owe to those who served in Northern Ireland.
Mr Speaker, may I also thank the tribunal for its work and all those who displayed great courage in giving evidence.
I would also like to acknowledge the grief of the families of those killed.
They have pursued their long campaign over 38 years with great patience. Nothing can bring back those who were killed, but I hope, as one relative has put it, the truth coming out can help set people free.
John Major said he was open to a new inquiry, Tony Blair then set it up. This was accepted by the leader of the opposition. Of course, none of us anticipated that the Saville inquiry would take 12 years or cost almost £200m. Our views on that are well-documented.
It is right to pursue the truth with vigour and thoroughness, but let me reassure the House there will be no more open-ended and costly inquiries into the past.
Today is not about the controversies surrounding the process, it is about the substance, about what this report tells us.
Everyone should have the chance to examine its complete findings and that is why it is being published in full. Running to more than 5,000 pages, it is being published in 10 volumes.
Naturally, it will take all of us some time to digest the report's full findings and understand its implications. The House will have an opportunity for a full day's debate this autumn, and in the meantime the Secretaries of State in Northern Ireland for Defence will report back to me on all the issues which arise from it.
Mr Speaker, this report and the inquiry itself demonstrate how a state should hold itself to account and how we should be determined at all times, no matter how difficult, to judge ourselves against the highest standards.
Openness and frankness about the past, however painful, they do not make us weaker, they make us stronger.
That is one of the things that differentiates us from the terrorists. We should never forget that over 3,500 people from every community lost their lives in Northern Ireland, the overwhelming majority killed by terrorists.
There were many terrible atrocities. Politically-motivated violence was never justified, whichever side it came from. And it can never be justified by those criminal gangs that today want to draw Northern Ireland back to its bitter and bloody past.
No government I lead will ever put those who fight to defend democracy on an equal footing with those who contine to seek to destroy it.
But neither will we hide from the truth that confronts us today.
In the words of Lord Saville, what happened on Bloody Sunday strengthened the Provisional IRA, increased hostility towards the Army and exacerbated the violent conflict of the years that followed.
Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland.
Those are words we cannot and must not ignore. But I hope what this report can also do it is mark the moment where we come together in this House and in the communities we represent to acknowledge our shared history, even where it divides us.
And come together to close this painful chapter on Northern Ireland's troubled past.
That is not to say we should ever forget or dismiss the past, but we must also move on. Northern Ireland has been transformed over the last 20 years and all of us in Westminster and Stormont must continue that work of change, coming together with all the people of Northern Ireland to build a stable, peaceful, prosperous and shared future.
And it is with that determination that I commend this statement to the house.

For today, 'nuff said.

On February 19

On this day in ...

... 1968, a settlement was reached in Britain's High Court, by which 62 children born with defects, after their mothers took the drug thalidomide during pregnancy, were to receive compensatory damages of between £5,000 and £45,000, for a total of £500,000 and £1.5 million, from Distillers Company (Biochemicals) Ltd. The amounts represented 40% of what each claimant had sought in the lawsuit; in exchange, all of plaintiffs' allegations of negligence were to be withdrawn. "Worldwide," according to the BBC, "some 8,000 women who took thalidomide as a sedative and to alleviate morning sickness, gave birth to babies with deformities" at midtwentieth century, before the drug was removed from the market in 1961. (credit for image of 1961 letter expressing concern about the drug, published in the British medical journal The Lancet) Just this past month, the British government extended "its 'sincere regret and deep sympathy' to survivors, and further "confirmed £20 million of Government funding for the Thalidomide Trust to help meet the needs of survivors."

(Prior February 19 posts here, here, and here.)

Guest Blogger: Jennifer Lind

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Dr. Jennifer Lind (left) as today's guest blogger.
Jennifer's an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she teaches International Politics, East Asian Security: Theory and Practice, and The Politics of Memory. The courses correspond to her research interests, which include East Asian international security, Japanese security policy, U.S. foreign and military policy, and historical memory in international relations.
Among her publications is Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (2008), which she discusses in her guest post below.
Jennifer's worked as a consultant for RAND and for the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense, and also has lived and worked in Japan. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master’s in Pacific International Affairs from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Heartfelt welcome!

Sorry States

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for this opportunity to contribute this guest post)

As a graduate student studying international relations, I watched Japan’s wartime atrocities haunt its foreign affairs. Koreans and Chinese fumed when a Japanese leader visited a controversial war shrine (below right), when a new history textbook glossed over past events, or when a Japanese official blurted out a denial of a past atrocity. In contrast, I noticed that Germany had offered remarkable contrition for its past atrocities and aggression, and also had successfully reconciled with its wartime adversaries. I decided to write a book showing that countries needed to apologize and otherwise remember past violence before international reconciliation was possible.

Well, as I doubt I have to tell the savvy 'Grrls of this blog, things don’t always work out as planned. I didn’t write that book.

Examining the cases of South Korean relations with Japan and French relations with Germany, my book, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (2008), shows that denials of past atrocities fuel distrust and inhibit international reconciliation. Japan’s denials damage its relations with South Korea, China, and Australia, more than sixty years after the war. In contrast, Bonn’s willingness in the 1950s to acknowledge Nazi-era crimes, coupled with the absence of denials among mainstream West Germans, reassured Germany’s World War II adversaries. Sorry States thus argues that a country's acknowledgment of past misdeeds is essential for promoting trust and reconciliation after war.

My book, shows, however, that many countries have been able to reconcile without much contrition at all. In the early years after the war, Bonn offered very little: although it offered a lukewarm apology and paid reparations to Israel, West German commemoration, education, and public discourse ignored the atrocities Germany had committed, and instead mourned German suffering during and after the war. Nevertheless, at this time West Germany and France concluded a stunning reconciliation. Bonn’s most famous gestures of contrition — wrenching apologies, candid history textbooks, and memorials to Germany’s victims (below left) — had not yet occurred. Many other World War II enemies (Japan and the United States; Britain and West Germany; the United States and West Germany; Italy, Austria, and their neighbors) reconciled despite little or no contrition.

Finally, Sorry States points out that contrition is highly controversial domestically, so can actually be counterproductive. As evident in Japan and elsewhere, expressions of contrition often prompt a backlash. Conservatives in particular are likely to offer a competing narrative that celebrates — rather than condemns — the country’s past and justifies or even denies its atrocities. Thus contrition can be counterproductive: foreign observers will be angered and alarmed by what the backlash suggests about the country’s intentions. The great irony is that well-meaning efforts to soothe relations between former enemies can actually inflame them. Remembrance that is less accusatory, conducted bilaterally or in multilateral settings, holds the most promise for international reconciliation.

I describe my argument further in "The Perils of Apology," published in the May/June 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs. For additional engaging and fascinating reading, I recommend Troubled Apologies Among Japan, South Korea, and the United States (2008), by one of my favorite 'Grrl scholars, Dr. Alexis Dudden, Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut.

(credit for top right photo of Yakusuni shrine; credit for bottom left photo of Berlin Holocaust Memorial)

The write women

Monday morning tip:
The weekly go-to site for a roundup of interesting books reviewed in Sunday's papers is Mary Dudziak's Legal History Blog. Featured there this past week, 2 new books by women scholars now on our gotta-read list:
► Melissa Nobles (right), The Politics of Official Apologies, a comparative study of the utility, or not, of apologies for state misconduct, in United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Links to review here.
► Samantha Power (left), Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, a biography of the U.N. diplomat and former High Commissioner for Human Right skilled in the suicide bombing of U.N. headquarters in Iraq. Links to reviews here.
Also of note:
Last week's Washington Post profile of historian and newly installed Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust (right), an interview prompted by the recent release of her latest book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.