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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. Editor's Note

Author:
Ahmed Samatar
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
All phenomena, especially those that are the products of the human imagination and action, have a genetic code, even if the precise delineations and movements are not always easily accessible. Our contemporary concerns over human rights are no exception. In an important sense, the historical roots of our preoccupation with the welfare of the “other” could be linked to the coming of all major religious faiths. Reasserting the potential human capacity for empathy, many religions, in one version or another, attempt to convey to their adherents that sympathetic obligation is a virtue, if not a responsibility to fellow human beings.
Topic:
Human Rights and Human Welfare

3. 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

4. Response

Author:
Caitlin Hannahan
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Professor Rebecca Cook's essay on the structures of discrimination tackles two common problems within Western human rights discourse. The first concerns the overwhelming scope of the concept of human rights whereas the second involves its perceived exoticism. In other words, the term human rights violations has degenerated into an umbrella phrase used to describe various crimes in other, far-reaching parts of the world. They are seen as disconnected and certainly unrelated to Western culture. Yet by making gender inequality a human rights issue, Cook identifies a problem that occurs in both the “West” and in the “Third World.” Secondly, by highlighting the cause of the perpetuation of gender inequality—namely stereotypes—she emphasizes a mode of thinking that is inherent in the individual. The result is a human rights violation that is both local and universal, and subsequently the responsibility of every individual on the planet. Gender inequality consequently becomes both a global and a local issue.
Topic:
Human Rights

5. 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

6. 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

7. Law, Anthropology, and the Global Village

Author:
Dianna Shandy
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Globalization is characterized by crosscutting flows and networks of people, goods, ideas, and capital across the globe. These processes are both facilitated and constrained by yet emerging infrastructures and institutions. Within this shifting context, it has been observed that while we live in a global village, there is no rule of law. Here, I reflect upon this observation in relation to the unfolding development of the International Criminal Court (ICC), with particular consideration of African contexts.
Topic:
Human Rights and Law
Political Geography:
Africa

8. Revival of the Civic Spirit: Contradictions in Somali-American Citizenship

Author:
Louise Dickson
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Throughout history, the notion of citizenship has been full of contradictions. Both as a method of inclusion and exclusion, of privilege and second-class status, citizenship is a cornerstone of one's individual, national, and global identity. Some optimistic scholars have noted an entrance into a “post-national” phase of global citizenship; however, this vision cannot be realized while human rights are being violated. To be sure, citizenship has become a much more universal concept since its inception and has been facilitated by ideas of cosmopolitanism. Yet it has not transcended national boundaries into the global sphere. This claim can be supported by almost any national immigration case study. Whether in South Africa, Norway, or France, immigrant refugees fleeing persecution are rarely granted full human rights in terms of citizenship. The United States is in the midst of a third major wave of immigration: from 1990 to 2008 almost one million new arrivals landed here each year. Since the eruption of civil war in Somalia in 1991, many Somalis have sought refuge in the United States—a symbol of political, religious, and social freedom—and have followed chain migration patterns scattered across the country, with one of the largest populations settling in the Twin Cities area. However, the “Somali Capital of the United States” does not provide asylum or immunity from the international contradictions in citizenship and human rights, which will be an underlying theme throughout the essay.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States, Norway, France, South Africa, and Somalia

9. At the Intersection of Domestic Acts and Globalization: The Case of Irregular Migrants15

Author:
Federico Daniel Burlon
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Sixty-five percent of the Netherlands is below sea level: ten thousand miles of dykes, gates, and dams hold back the sea. As the water besieges the land, some politicians and scholars claim that immigrants are doing the same to the country. On the other side of the Atlantic, immigration to the United States also has been compared to a tide that must be contained. The fears surrounding immigration have been one of the focal points raised by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and by his successor, Ban Ki-moon. As a result of the dramatic increase of migration flows and the large number of irregular migrants worldwide, immigration has moved from low to high politics. Fuelled by a mentality that sees domestic security as threatened, the salience of irregular immigration is grounded in parallels drawn between the control of illegal immigration and the control of crime. According to Adam Crawford, the conflation of illegal immigration with crime has led Western governments to rule through the politics of fear of crime and insecurity. The impact of these policies on irregular immigrants illustrates what John Tomlinson calls the reflexive nature of globalization. An insightful avenue to take in order to explore globalization is the study of human mobility. Globalization has placed immigrants at the nexus of the increase in migration due to lower transportation costs, the development of the international human rights regime, and the enactment of increasingly restrictive immigration policies by developed countries. The interplay between these processes crystallizes in detention centers, and renders immigrants vulnerable to human rights violations. Studying globalization from a comparative perspective, this essay analyzes the impact of the International Human Rights Regime (IHRR) on American and Dutch immigration detention policies. In the last decades, detention has become the established way of dealing with irregular migrants. It lamentably obscures various essential examples of alternative legislation.
Topic:
Globalization, Human Rights, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Netherlands