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1. Seeking Global Reform: The United Nations Security Council, the International Criminal Court, and Emerging Nations

Author:
Ezequiel Jimenez
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles created an international tribunal in order to prosecute Kaiser Wilhelm II for initiating the First World War. However, the Kaiser sought refuge in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Queen Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria refused to cooperate with the new tribunal or surrender her cousin to the Allied Powers. Much has changed in the Netherlands since. As a pioneer country in the advancement of human rights, the Netherlands has participated actively in the development and enforcement of multiple treaties and conferences hosted by the United Nations. Today, the city of The Hague is proud to call itself an “international city of Peace and Justice.” Indeed, The Hague is the host of multiple international courts; evidencing the Netherlands commitment to protect human rights. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is one of the most prominent institutions the Netherlands honorably hosts.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
United Nations and Netherlands

2. Of Witches and Robots: The Diverse Challenges of Responding to Unlawful Killings in the Twenty-First Century

Author:
Philip Alston
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
From its relatively modest beginnings in 1945, the universal human rights regime has come a very long way. Few if any of those who drafted the apparently unthreatening, but nonetheless foundational, provisions of the United Nations Charter dealing with human rights would have imagined that less than seventy years later the Security Council would have taken action in relation to serious human rights violations in a significant range of countries, that governments would have established an International Criminal Court, or that there would be a wide range of mechanisms that regularly and routinely hold states to account for their human rights performance across a very wide range of issues. This is not, however, to suggest that many of the most egregious human rights problems have been radically ameliorated. They clearly have not. The subjugation of women is a continuing phenomenon in a great many societies, and gender equality remains an unachieved goal even in the most developed economies. Racial discrimination is a constant and forms of ethnic and religious discrimination continue to be both inventive and invidious. Hunger, the denial of basic health care, and access to decent housing are problems that persist on a vast scale around the world. In addition, torture, disappearances, and unlawful killings continue to take place in the majority of states.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
United Nations

3. International Criminal Justice: Growing Pains or Incurable Contradictions?

Author:
James von Geldern
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
When the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was drafted in 1998, it represented a signal moment in the history of human rights. Here, finally, was a document that not only enunciated humanitarian protections, it also offered a means to punish individuals guilty of violating them. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the Statute “a gift of hope to future generations, and a giant step forward in the march towards universal human rights and the rule of law.” Drafting Committee Chairman Cherif Bassiouni stressed that the world would never again be the same. This was the last step of a history that had started at the end of the First World War and meant that impunity for the perpetrators of grave crimes of international concern was no longer tolerable. It would not eliminate all conflicts or bring victims back to life, but it would bring justice.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
United Nations

4. Response

Author:
Paul Schadewald
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Dr. James von Geldern is a public scholar, lawyer, teacher, and professor who raises questions with profound moral implications for international policy, activism, and human rights work. Von Geldern's argument that the Institutional Criminal Court (ICC) may be fatally flawed is disturbing for people who work for human rights, but it is also a critical line of inquiry. His argument is troubling because it does not engage us solely in an intellectual conundrum. The topics raised by his essay, such as whether universal global justice is ultimately possible, engages us in multiple ways. We enter the conversation as scholars, human rights workers and activists, and as human beings, who live with the recent images of Darfur and with memories and stories of other genocides.
Political Geography:
United Nations

5. Response

Author:
Proma Sen
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
On a preliminary reading of “International Criminal Justice: Growing Pains or Incurable Contradictions,” by Professor James von Geldern, one understands that the debate about enforcement arises from the assumption of a pre-existing set of human rights concerns in the world today. Beyond the continuing debate surrounding the universal applicability versus the cultural relativism of these rights, the very existence of human rights in today's globalizing context leads to the question of how these rights can be protected and who is responsible for their enforcement? To date, the largest internationally accepted organization with the combined political power of multiple nations is the United Nations and its various sub-organizations. The highest global power seemingly permitted to pass cross-national judgments today is the International Criminal Court (ICC), formed by the Rome Statute, which was drafted in 1998. Yet the ICC has not convicted enough aggressors to truly be deemed a successful mechanism for justice.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
United Nations

6. Response

Author:
Jean-Pierre Karegeye
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
The movie Slumdog Millionaire (2008), adapted from Vikas Swarup's 2005 novel Q A, tells the story of Jamal Malik, a vulnerable orphan and street boy exposed to the misery of the world: extreme poverty, disease, lack of education, violence, murder, prostitution in Cherry Street, police brutality, and other misfortunes. Very painful images, but not without promise and determination, show Jamal at five years old, covered in excrement, succeed in reaching the Indian movie star, Amitabah, and receive an autograph. When Jamal starts playing and winning “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” Sergeant Srinivas and other policemen torture Jamal because they cannot understand how this vulnerable lost child is winning the game. Their conclusion: he must be cheating. The film places us into the dialectic of vulnerability and promise. What we can take from it is that the well-being of a child is not a private affair. It is linked to the order of the economic and the political, with these two words understood in their etymological sense. The fact of being on orphan evokes the oikos and miserable life in the streets, as well as the cops' response referring to the order of the polis. Jamal Malik's exceptional achievement raises the question of how is this possible? What is the correct answer among the four choices in the film: he cheated, he's lucky, he's a genius, it is destiny? There is a risk of celebrating the idea of heroism in Jamal Malik's character and forgetting the call to protect vulnerable children. Any promise is inscribed in a societal project that creates conditions of possibility for the protection and success of children. Tonderai Chikuhwa, senior advisor at the United Nations, discusses the Roundtable theme of “Children of the World: The Dialectic of Promise and Vulnerability” by focusing on particular situations of children involved in armed conflict and he evokes concrete actions/operations by the United Nations to protect such “child soldiers.” The well-being of children has been defined as a “categorical imperative” for the realization of planetary peace and security, which therefore calls for actions from the United Nations Security Council.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United Nations