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Happy 60th, Geneva Conventions

July 15, 2009 by John Boonstra

On the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, it seems appropriate to celebrate the possibility that the United States could firm up its compliance with another UN human rights mechanism, the 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment.  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly considering launching an investigation of the use of torture during the Bush Administration, a step that President Obama had been loathe to take.

IntLawGrrls’ Beth Van Schaack has much more on why the U.S. should be fully implementing the Torture Convention, so I’ll just add my agreement that this is a good step both for international justice and for the United States itself.  The politics of an investigation will hopefully fade eventually, as this should be far more an issue of policy — of making sure the United States is abiding by conventions it has agreed to — than a partisan tactic.

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Obama answers Africans’ questions

by Mark Leon Goldberg

This is pretty cool.  Via Passport, the White House just posted a video response to three questions submitted to President Obama from African cell phone users.     

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Post-previewing Clinton’s speech

by John Boonstra

Previewed yesterday, here’s a bit of a post-preview, if you will, of Hillary Clinton’s speech at the Council on Foreign Relations today (just about over now), mostly courtesy of our friends on the FP blogging team.  Laura Rozen had some excerpts of the speech before Clinton even gave it; WaPo‘s Glenn Kessler looks at the Iran bits; Josh Keating couldn’t find it on the teevee; and Dan Drezner has a great play-by-play for those who (like me) missed it.

The key graf for fans of international cooperation:

Today, we must acknowledge two strategic facts: First, that no nation can meet the world’s challenges alone…. Second, that most nations worry about the same global threats, from non-proliferation to fighting disease to counter-terrorism….Just as no nation can meet these challenges alone, no challenge can be met without America.

I suppose the variant of the United States as “indispensable nation” was pretty much inevitable, but I’d just add (in case Secretary Clinton did not) that if no nation can meet these challenges alone, but America needs to be part of the battle, then U.S. engagement in the global body featuring every nation on the planet seems like a good idea.

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Al-Qaeda targets Chinese workers–not an idle threat

by Alanna Shaikh

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened Chinese workers in North Africa in retaliation for the deaths of Muslim Chinese Uyghurs last week in Xinjiang. This is not a minor threat. Chinese companies don’t use a lot of security in Africa, and Chinese workers generally are not well-liked by local populations in Africa; they lack the kind of population acceptance that would keep them safe. The Chinese embassy in Algeria has issued a warning and called for increased security measures for Chinese citizens in Algeria.

To make things worse, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – formerly known as “Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat” – is an especially violent branch of the group. They’re known for violent bombings, with casualty numbers that are consistently in the double-digits. They also take hostages; they executed a European hostage last month. They have the skills and the willingness to do major damage to Chinese interests. Chinese workers have been easy targets for previous terrorist attacks. Nine Chinese workers were kidnapped in Darfur in 2008, and the Ogaden National Liberation Front repeatedly attacked Chinese workers in Ethiopia.

For the record, there doesn’t seem to be any known link between Uyghurs and Al-Qaeda. The Uyghur American Association and the Uyghur World Congress have condemned Al-Qaeda’s threat, saying that “Terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda do not represent the peaceful aspirations of the Uyghur people.”

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This is what international justice looks like

by Mark Leon Goldberg

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, in the doc. 

A few things to keep in mind:

1) Though the trial is taking place in the Hague, it is being conducted through the auspices of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, which is a “Hybrid Court” that includes jurists from Sierra Leone and the international community. The court is seated in Freetown Sierra Leone, but Taylor’s trial was moved to the Hague for security reasons. They are using rented facilities from the ICC.

2) Taylor is not being charged with any crimes that he is alleged to have committed in Liberia. This trial is about his support for militias in neighboring Sierra Leone.

3) Taylor is the second head of state to be tried for war crimes. Milosevic was the first…and Sudan’s Omar al Bashir may very well be next.

4) Will details of Taylor’s 1985 prison-break in Plymouth, Massachusetts emerge? 

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Swine flu vaccine hysteria

July 14, 2009 by John Boonstra

I have no doubt that the H1N1 virus is still very dangerous. I am also confident that the World Health Organization is continuing to take extreme precautions to ensure that the pandemic does not reach catastrophic levels. But this Reuters article seems designed expressly to conjure up baselessly apocalyptic fears:

Saying the new H1N1 virus is “unstoppable”, the World Health Organization gave drug makers a full go-ahead to manufacture vaccines against the pandemic influenza strain on Monday and said healthcare workers should be the first to get one.

Every country will need to vaccinate citizens against the swine flu virus and must choose who else would get priority after nurses, doctors and technicians, said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research.

The “unstoppable” comment was made in reference to the spread of the virus, not, oddly enough, its inevitable decimation of humankind. That H1N1 already isn’t contained in one place should be obvious to just about anyone who’s read the (equally frantic) reports of swine flu popping up in dozens of countries, or who can conceive of how keeping tiny little viruses from spreading all over an interconnected globe might be a trifle difficult.

As for vaccines, Reuters’ depiction suggests a terrifying movie scene: government bureaucrats choosing who lives and dies while millions die for lack of the precious vaccine. These vaccines are necessary, yes, particularly for certain vulnerable populations, but they are not the only method of preventing contagion. The WHO describes the current severity of the pandemic as “moderate,” with “most patients experiencing uncomplicated, self-limited illness.” Instructing countries to implement vaccination strategies depending on local conditions is not leaving patients at the whims of capricious bureaucrats; rather, it reflects a smart realization on WHO’s part that every country’s epidemiological situation is different, and that each will have to incorporate vaccine and non-vaccine related strategies differently.

But an “unstoppable” virus with not enough vaccines makes for a better movie headline, I suppose.

(image from Center for Disease Control and Prevention, via Wikimedia Commons)

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