TFF Associates & Themes Blog

Archive for the ‘Human rights and justice’ Category

By Richard Falk

General Observations

During my period as the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Palestine on behalf of the Human Rights Council I have been struck by the persistent efforts of Israel and its strong civil society adjuncts to divert attention from the substance of Palestinian grievances or the consideration of the respective rights of Israel and Palestine under international law. I have also observed that many, but by not means all, of those who represent the Palestinians seem strangely reluctant to focus on substance or to take full advantage of opportunities to use UN mechanisms to challenge Israel on the terrain of international law and morality.

This Palestinian reluctance is more baffling than are the Israeli diversionary tactics. It seems clear that international law supports Palestinian claims on the major issues in contention: borders, refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, resources (water, land), statehood, and human rights. Then why not insist on resolving the conflict by reference to international law with such modifications as seem mutually beneficial?

Of course, those representing the Palestinians in international venues are aware of these opportunities, and are acting on the basis of considerations that in their view deserve priority. It is disturbing that this passivity on the Palestinian side persists year after year, decade after decade. Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

The carefully planned attack by al-Shabaab on civilians in Nairobi’s Westgate Mall carried the pathology of rage and the logic of fanaticism to unspeakable extremes. Imagine deciding on the life or death of any person, but particularly a child, by whether or not they could name the mother of Mohammed or recite a verse from the Koran.

Islamic fanaticism should be condemned with the moral fervor appropriate to such a violation of the most fundamental norms of respect for innocence and human dignity. To gun down at random whoever happened to be shopping at Westgate Mall on the fateful day of September 21st is to carry political violence beyond a point of no return.

Of course, even fanatics have a certain logic of justification that makes their acts congruent with a warped morality. In this instance, the al-Shabab case rests on a vengeful response to the participation of the Kenyan army units in a multinational military operation of the African Union in neighboring Somalia. This AU operation, reinforced by U.S. drone attacks and special forces, has led to the severe weakening of al-Shabab’s political influence in Somalia, provoking an evident sense of desperation and acute resentment, as well as a tactic of making those that interfere in Somalia’s internal politics bear some adverse spillover effects.

But if such an explanation is expected to excuse the demonic actions at Westgate, in any but equally depraved pockets of alienated consciousness, it is deeply mistaken. Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

There is some difficulty in reconciling humanistic ethics with biblical scripture that has disturbed me recently. If a religious text nurtures morally unacceptable impulses that are acted upon either consciously or sub-consciously in political domains, how can these adverse influences be repudiated without purporting to claim a hegemonic status for a secular reader?

Even a religiously oriented person such as myself, who rejects deference to whatever is contained in the most holy of books if it conflicts with conscience, is troubled by this tension between what we believe to be right and what can be found in the holiest of books. In the West, where the specific religious roots of political authority are rarely acknowledged directly, the problem persists, especially in claims by the state to deal with its enemies at home and abroad. Read the rest of this entry »

By Mira Fey

When discussing conflicts and military interventions, the aftermath is neglected by state leaders and the mainstream media. The traumatizing effects of the conflict itself and the following intervention on the civilian population that is supposed to be protected are ignored.

Aside from being in the line of fire and being forced to fight for one of the belligerents, these effects include a mass exodus of refugees, a division of the population into opponents of the intervening force and “collaborators” resulting in persecution and often torture of the latter, and more human rights violations, now by the occupying force.

While men often are the visible victims of forced recruitment, persecution and torture, women, young girls, and children are the silent sufferers. They are subjected to beatings, rapes, and domestic violence from returning tortured husbands trying to regain at least some respect through oppressing the most vulnerable ones.

Ann Jones wants to give these women a voice. (Continue here)

By Johan Galtung

The Catholic–meaning universal–Church matters to all of us as a major part of Western civilization. And the Pope lives up to both his Jesuit heritage and that of his great namesake St Francis–see this column six months ago, 18 Mar 2013, when he was elected.

We shall permit ourselves to extrapolate a little from what he told in an interview to the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica (IHT, 20 Sep 13). The Roman Catholic Church had become “obsessed” with abortion, gay marriage and contraception. The church should become a home for all and not a small chapel. “We have to find a new balance”, the Pope says, “otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the gospel”.

Turn the page of that issue of the International Herald Tribune and on p. 2 Muslim Salma Yacoob, a former Birmingham Council woman, raises the same type of question: “Is this (the veil) the biggest issue we face in the U.K. right now?” Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

I am not sure this attempt at clarifying the present stage of the Syria debate adds much to my prior posts, yet I hope that it provides a kind of summary that is helpful in following the unfolding debate; all along I have felt that the Syrian impasse presented the UN and the world with a tragic predicament: trapped between doing something to stop the Assad regime from committing atrocities against its own people so as to retain power and the non-viability and illegality of military intervention, a predicament further complicated by the proxy war within the region along sectarian lines, by the strategic involvement of the U.S. and Russia on opposite sides, and the maneuverings behind the scenes by Israel; also, the overall regional turmoil, and past bad feeling in relation to the UN role in the overthrow of Qadaffi posed additional obstacles.

Efforts to shape the political outcome by military means, because of the proxy war dimensions (including an increasingly evident, although still surprising, tacit alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia) only escalated the violence on the ground in Syria; Turkey, Russia, and the United States have all along oscillated between principled and pragmatic responses favoring one side or the other, and exhibiting an ambivalent commitment to equi-distant diplomacy.

There are three positions that have considerable support in Washington circles, although rarely acknowledged and not popular with the public, partly because of recent foreign policy failures, and partly too removed from perceptions of genuine security interests:

– undertake an attack to uphold ‘red line’ credibility of the president and the United States Government;

– undertake an attack to avoid an insurgent defeat, but on a scale that will not produce an insurgent victory; goal: keep the civil war going;

– undertake an attack to convince Iran that Obama is ready to use force if diplomatic coercion doesn’t work. Read the rest of this entry »

TFF PressInfo
September 2, 2013

For the discerning journalists, editors and citizens

Summary
• Any U.S. attack on Syria will be a gross violation of international law, including the UN Charter.
• al-Assad’s admission of UN inspectors obviously was seen by Washington as an obstacle for its war plans.
• An attack will come only as a consequence of deliberately ignored opportunities for professional, impartial mediation and peace-making, the lack of backing of Kofi Annan’s plan of April 2012 in particular.
• An attack can under no circumstances be seen in the light of a responsibility to protect since it will cause even more violence and human suffering throughout Syria.
• Again, we see how the vast majority of people in conflict zones who do not resort to violence are being abandoned.
• Any attack is likely to have grave consequences for the region as a whole.
• For these reasons any attack must be condemned as illegal and counterproductive.
• Governments and citizens everywhere must now use whatever time there is to persuade the U.S. to back down.

1. Immediately after President al-Assad accepted UN inspectors, Washington declared it was ”too little too late”. Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

I am posting on this blog below two important texts that deserve the widest
public attention and deep reflection in the United States and elsewhere.
I would stress the following:

• the extraordinary disconnect between the impunity of Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Yoo, and others who authorized and vindicated the practice
of torture, were complicit in crimes against humanity, and supported
aggressive wars against foreign countries and the vindictive rendering
of ‘justice’ via criminal prosecution, harsh treatment, and overseas
hunts for Snowden and Assange, all individuals who acted selflessly out of concern
for justice and the rights of citizens in democratic society to be informed
about governmental behavior depicting incriminating information kept secret to hide
responsibility for the commission of crimes of state and awkward diplomacy.

A perverse justice dimension of the Manning case is well expressed in
the statement below of the Center of Constitutional Rights “It is a travesty
of justice that Manning who helped bring to light the criminality of U.S.
forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, is being punished while the alleged perpetrators
are not even investigated.” And “We fear for the future of our country in
the wake of this case.”

• the vindictive punishment of Bradley Manning, Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

The drift toward autocracy: It is not just one thing that should worry us about the authoritarian tendencies of the Obama presidency, but one thing after another. The cumulative effect of it all.

The latest sign of the times was the August 19th detention of David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald’s partner, at Heathrow Airport under the British anti-terrorist law for nine hours. His laptop, cell phone, and other electronic devices were also confiscated, and presumably examined. We need to wonder what is so frightening about ‘the Snowden documents’ that it induces these flagrant intrusions on the privacy and confidentiality of journalists, and now even their associates who are not known to be accomplices.

President Obama keeps reassuring Americans, and indeed the world, that he shares a concern for protecting elemental rights, and yet he seems to spare no means to move against disclosures of information that seems awkward for the United States and some allies even when not of particular interest to Al Qaeda and the like. Read the rest of this entry »

By Richard Falk

Now that Snowden has been given temporary asylum in Russia for a year, attention in the drama has shifted in two directions, although overshadowed at the present by the horrific happenings in Egypt and Syria. The Snowden issues remain important, and it is too soon to turn aside as if the only question was whether the U.S. Government would in the end, through guile and muscle, gain control of Snowden. The issues that should continue to occupy us are as follows:

• interpreting the negative impact on U.S.-Russia relations;

• the claim that if Edward Snowden is a sincere whistle-blower he will now, despite asylum, voluntarily return to the United States to tell his story in open court so as to answer charges that he is guilty of criminal espionage and conversion of government property.

As before, to grasp this post-asylum phase of the Snowden drama a few aspects of the background need to be appreciated:

• right thing, but the structure of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.”

• Russia (and China) never had an obligation: legal, moral, and political, to transfer Snowden in response to the extradition request of the United States Government. Even if there had been an extradition treaty, ‘political crimes’ are not subject to extradition for good reasons. In a plural international order, it is highly desirable to provide foreign sanctuary to those who act peacefully in opposition to an established national political order. The United States itself has engaged repeatedly in such practice, shielding even political fugitives who have engaged in terrorist acts, provided only that the target government was viewed as hostile by Washington at the time of the alleged crimes, e.g. Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela;

• the rationale for refusing to extradite Snowden is particularly strong given Read the rest of this entry »