I have to highlight this bit of wisdom in Making Sense of Darfur from University of Minnesota political science professor Kathryn Sikkink. Writing on what she calls "trial skepticism" -- manifesting itself in Sudan as the frequently over-the-top convictionthat ICC prosecution of top government officials will irrevocably endanger peace and security -- Sikkink correctly identifies a profound blurring in popular commentary of the real problem underlying the dynamics in Sudan.

What the trial skepticism leads us to forget at times is that the problem is not the ICC, or the indictments per se. The problem is a president capable of blackmailing the international community by threatening to kill international peacekeepers or aid workers if faced with the possibility of prosecution. The rise of legal accountability for past human rights violations is one part of a solution to this problem. The transition to this system of legal accountability for past human rights violations will not be easy, and the Sudanese case falls directly in the middle of this transition. We do not know how the case will turn out. But past cases at least suggest that the threat of legal accountability has not worsened already complex human rights situations and may in the long run contribute the improving them.

Like I've said before, such transitions are not linear. Each new case presents new complexities, new difficulties, and new reasons to be pessimistic. But it helps to look at the decision to attempt to indict Omar al-Bashir not as an end, but as a potential beginning -- or at least somewhere muddled in the middle.

This bad news out of Darfur puts an exclamation point on the danger of attempting to keep a non-existent peace in increasingly hostile territory.

A peacekeeper serving with the joint African Union-United Nations force in Darfur (UNAMID) was killed today while on patrol in the strife-torn region, just one week after seven blue helmets with the mission were slain. The peacekeeper was killed in Forobaranga in West Darfur state, according to preliminary information received by UNAMID, the mission said in a press statement.

The UN has insinuated that the attack last week was the responsibility of the Sudanese government, and at least one Security Council member is pushing a resolution officially condemning the attack (albeit not explicitly identifying Khartoum as the culprit). While no official word has come out of Forobaranga, I can't help but fear that this attack may be tied to the government's anger that its president has been recommended for indictment by the ICC. At any rate, the mission courageously keeps plugging on (though non-essential staff are being evacuated as a precaution):

UNAMID said its troops have been continuing to conduct patrols in the region on Sudan's western flank, despite the violence and instability, with 16 patrols conducted today. Humanitarian activities are also ongoing and a Chinese engineering company is due to join the mission tomorrow.

Whether the Sudanese government, militias, rebels, or armed bandits were responsible for this latest killing is immaterial. Whatever the reason, attacking those whose job is to protect displaced innocents is reprehensible, and UNAMID peacekeepers should not be treated as sitting ducks in a reactionary game of global politics.

I've been remiss in plugging Creative Capitalism -- a new project by Conor Clark and Michael Kinsley. Creative Capitalism is the public blog of a private website in which economists discuss and debate the premise of a speech Bill Gates delivered in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In the speech, Gates ruminates on the limits of private philanthropy and the need for free-market solutions to global health and development challenges. The contributions on the blog will turn into a book sometime this fall. But here's the interesting part: Clark and Kinsley (and Simon and Schuster) are not interested in publishing elusively the opinions of economists on their website. Rather, they are opening up the project to the blogosphere as a whole in the hope of soliciting contributions to their book from blog authors and blog commentators.

In a recent post, Lawrence Summers suggests a creative capitalist solution to the mortgage crisis:

Here is a really good creative capitalism idea. All Americans benefit from increases in home ownership because of the values like hard work, community, and respect for property that ownership instills. Families want desperately to own their own homes and accumulate equity. Yet it is very hard for conventional banks that borrow money over the short term to lend over the kind of 30-year horizons that best help families buy houses.

How can the objective of ownership be best supported and how can the most adequate financing be assured? Voila, creative capitalism! How about chartering private companies as government sponsored enterprises with the mission of promoting home ownership affordability? Give them boards with some private representatives and some public representatives. Make clear that government stands behind their capital market innovations so they can borrow more cheaply and pass the savings on. Exempt them from the state local taxes that others pay. Give them specific objectives on affordability that they must meet. Rely on a special government regulator to assure that they balance their social responsibility with their drive to profit. Harness the profit motive to meet a social objective.

In 2005 Omidyar gave $100 million to Tufts University to invest in microlending institutions, which provide small loans to people in the developing world to start businesses or other enterprises. These loans generally are under $200 and have a rate of return higher than normal bank loans. The University gets to keep interest earned on these investments, which is used to advance university goals. This past year, Tufts announced that it would spend a portion of this money on helping pay off the student debts of graduates who decide to take low paying public service jobs (like becoming a teacher, joining the peace corps, or working at a non-profit). The initial seed money for this grant has essentially turned into a win-win-win situation.

If readers have any of your own creative capitalist ideas, send them to Conor Clark.

First, contrary to what has frequently been reported, Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo did not "indict" Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir. What Ocampo did was, based on his assessment of the evidence painstakingly collected by his team, issue a recommendation that President Bashir be indicted. Much as a prosecutor presents evidence to a grand jury, which subsequently decides whether or not to issue an arrest warrant, Ocampo submitted his recomendation to a Pre-Trial Committee. It will be this committee that, after a likely two to three month period of assessing the evidence presented by Ocampo, will determine whether or not to indict Bashir.

What is the relevance of this distinction? Well, it emphasizes the legal process according to which the ICC operates, an important aspect of this story that has been neglected by the media and many critics. Without a contextual understanding of this process, Ocampo's actions are often portrayed as the reckless gambles of a bold and/or politically insensitive (depending on one's take on the issue) crusader for justice.

This description may indeed be apt, but it misrepresents the degree of freedom with which Ocampo operates. He certainly has developed his own strategy, and he is undoubtedly aware of the political repercussions of his actions. (In fact, as someone who's been in Ocampo shoes before attests, much of a prosecutor's work often does fall on the political side of things.) However, Ocampo is acting within the confines of the ICC's mandate, and according to a set process. This mandate is set by the Rome Statute establishing the ICC and by the convention setting out the Court's relationship with the UN.

Second: the ICC is separate from the United Nations. The UN, or the Secretary-General, do not have any influence over how the ICC operates in Sudan, or anywhere else for that matter. Yes, the Security Council was responsible for initiating ICC action in Sudan, and can, through a vote, suspend ICC proceedings, but it cannot interfere with the Court's actual work and decisions on the ground. Kevin Jon Heller, at Opinio Juris' newly remodeled site, explains the dynamics behind this option of suspension and emphasizes that the ICC is not simply a tool to be manipulated by the Security Council.

A related misconception is that it is the UN's responsibility to secure the arrest of those indicted -- or recommended for indictment -- by the ICC. Again according to the ICC's founding document, handing over indicted war criminals is primarily the obligation of these individuals' government. Failing this, the responsibility lies with ICC signatory countries, which, though there are many exceptions (notably the United States), include 106 UN Member States.

Experts on the small arms trade gather at UN headquarters in New York to discuss the nexus between the phenomenon of child soldiers and the trade in small arms, like the AK-47.

"It is argued by many that it is the proliferation of small arms that has actually contributed to this rise -- the ready availability of small arms in the period 1970 -- 2000 led to the rise and the phenomenon of child soldiers as we know it today," Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN envoy on children and armed conflict, said.

"For $5 one can find a serviceable weapon in most countries in the developing world," she added, noting that it takes a child on average only 40 minutes to master an AK-47, one of the most common weapons used around the world today. The UN envoy also stressed that there were 600 companies in 95 countries around the world producing small arms, in addition to the growing reach of private arms dealers "who sell arms to anyone and who are accountable to no one."

Emmanuel Jal, an emerging world music and hip-hop star and former child soldier in Sudan attended the meetings. He's now an advocate for child soldiers around the world--and is the subject of the new documentary War Child. Below is his first official music video release, which is for his song War Child.