International Organizations

Despite UN inaction Haiti’s cholera victims fight for justice

/ Sandra C. Wisner / Leave a comment

Two years after the UN promised to do better, the victims of the UN cholera epidemic in Haiti are still fighting to make the organization keep its promises. On December 1 2016, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon publicly apologized to the Haitian people for the UN’s role in causing a devastating cholera epidemic that has claimed more than 10,000 lives and infected more than 800,000 people since 2010. Promising to right the UN’s wrongs in Haiti, Ban Ki-moon rolled out a $400 million plan to control cholera and provide assistance to victims.

Yet eight years into the epidemic and two years since this grand promise the UN is still refusing to keep its promises or honour its legal obligations. The UN’s response to cholera has always been one of charity, never a program of the justice that it is tasked with promoting globally. Ban Ki-moon, choosing his lawyers’ advice over the UN Charter’s directives, carefully avoided any admission of legal responsibility. None of the plan’s promises were enforceable by the victims. Two years later, in a textbook demonstration of the importance of accountability and the rule of law, none of the promises have been kept.

The UN had promised to place “victims at the centre of the work” of its $200 million victim assistance plan, and to consult with them in developing the package. It promised to consider not only community-based assistance but also “payment of money to the families of those individuals who died of cholera.”

Victims took the UN at its word, and prepared for the consultations. They met in groups to study and discuss the pros and cons of different approaches. They participated in victim committees and consultation training sessions, and brought the nuanced discussions home to their villages for more discussion.

In the meantime, the UN’s limited fundraising efforts yielded limited results, so the promised material assistance project was replaced with a “pilot consultation” in a single municipality, Mirebalais. The UN’s public comments on victim assistance discussed only community projects, with individual compensation apparently off the table.

The UN declined to include the victims who had prepared for the process in the Mirebalais pilot. Instead, a few selected cholera victims were included in larger focus groups of local political, religious and community leaders. The consultation process went ahead without transparency as to how it was being conducted and without clarity as to how these victims were selected. Reports from those meetings indicate that individual compensation was not presented as an option, and that the voices of the cholera victims – who contracted the disease in the first place because they were too poor to afford clean water – were predictably marginalized among the discussions of the leaders, who arrived with their own agendas for community development.

This obviously flawed process produced the conclusion it was designed to produce: that Haitians wanted community projects, not individual compensation. The UN now intends to expand on this “success” in other heavily affected communities. So the victims need to keep fighting for justice. As many of these victims often state, “it is not for the wrongdoer to decide what is justice for the victim.”

On the anniversary of the introduction of cholera, cholera victims in the town of Mirebalais—where the epidemic started–commemorated the day by organizing a requiem Mass to memorialize those who died from the disease. Victims then marched to the former UN base that recklessly discharged cholera-laden waste into Haiti’s largest river system, to lay flowers near the river.

To this day, the UN cholera continues to kill and sicken Haitians. Beyond the ongoing threat, the long-term consequences persist for those who have already been sick or lost loved ones. Crushing burial costs, loss of livelihoods, death of breadwinners, and ensuing accrual of debts has devastated those who already struggled to meet their basic needs.

This latest commemoration of cholera victims, so many years since the outbreak, is the utmost demonstration of victim perseverance. Despite the devastating economic impacts and struggles that victims face, they have continued to mobilize for justice. Together with organizations like the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and MOLEGHAF, they come out to protest month after month to remind the UN of its obligations to provide justice and reparations to those who have suffered so much from cholera. Victims have also filed claims through the UN’s legal process as well as a class action lawsuit in New York through their legal representatives the BAI and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). On Human Rights Day in 2015, they delivered over 2,000 handwritten letters to the UN’s peacekeeping headquarters in Port-Au-Prince. In 2017, victims told their individual stories in a powerful video message to the UN.

Victims are not alone in rejecting this effort at replacing justice with charity. In June, over 100 US Congressional leaders called on the Secretary-General to ensure a just response to Haiti cholera victims. The following month an open letter signed by 60 human rights organizations worldwide to the UN Secretary-General, including Amnesty International and the International Service for Human Rights, opposed what they saw as problematic consultations of victims. It criticized the UN’s adoption of a charity-based as opposed to rights-based model that appeared to abandon the individual payment approach.

Charitable community projects are not a substitute for the remedies that cholera victims are entitled to by law, and victims are not giving up the fight. The UN’s grand promises to cholera victims two years ago will only be effective if it actually listens to victims, respects their perspectives and allows them to influence the development of policy. As the UN undertakes to review its efforts in Mirebalais, it is not too late to recognize that justice will only be served when victims are truly placed at the centre.

On borrowed time: Five years after the Rana Plaza disaster, the Bangladesh Accord faces court-ordered closure

/ Marie Davoise / Leave a comment

 

Five years ago, sometime before 9am on 24 April 2013, cracks started to appear in the Rana Plaza building in the Dhaka District of Bangladesh, revealing a structural failure that caused the eight-story commercial building to collapse. The building contained five garment factories supplying major global brands and retailers.

It only took 90 seconds for Rana Plaza to collapse, but it took two weeks to search for the dead. When the search ended on 13 May 2013, the total of lives lost was over 1,100.

The tragedy spurred textile and clothing companies into action. In May 2013, global fashion brands and retailers and trade unions signed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (the “Bangladesh Accord“), a ground-breaking worker safety agreement. Adidas, H&M and Esprit are amongst the signatories.

The most famous pillar of the Bangladesh Accord is its five-year legally binding agreement between brands and trade unions to ensure a safe working environment in the Bangladeshi ready-made garment industry. This feature gained notoriety when a case was filed at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in October 2016 by two global unions, IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union, to hold two unnamed multinational companies to account. The case eventually settled for $2.3 million in January 2018.

There are, however, additional components to the Accord, including, importantly, the creation of an independent inspection programme.

The Accord, which gathered the support of more than 250 brands and retailers from over 20 countries, was originally established for a limited time of five years – until May 2018.

In May 2017, the Remediation Coordination Cell (“RCC“) was established under the government of Bangladesh’s National Initiative, with a view to take over from the Accord to implement the remediation process for garment factories.

In June 2017, leading fashion brands and global trade unions announced at the OECD Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct that they would enter into a new agreement, which would come into effect in 2018. Later that year, a transition agreement (the “2018 Transition Accord“) was signed, extending the Accord’s mandate for another three years, and allowing it to continue its operations until the RCC was ready to take over the platform’s responsibilities.

Everything seemed on track to guarantee a smooth continuation of the Accord’s activities… until judicial proceedings were started by a Bangladeshi factory owner who had failed to remedy safety breaches, and was therefore removed from the list of factories that Accord signatories are allowed to source from.

The factory owner sued the Accord. In April 2018, in an extraordinary unilateral action, the Bangladesh High Court issued a “suo moto” restraining order against Accord office operations. The restraining order is due to come into force on 30 November. This means that, in two days, the Bangladesh Accord will have to close its Dhaka office, severely limiting its scope of work and its ability to inspect thousands of factories supplying clothes for brands such as H&M, Esprit and Primark.

Continue reading →

ILAC launches report of Guatemalan justice sector and calls to extend CICIG’s mandate

/ Lauren McIntosh / 1 Comment

We at the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC) launched our assessment report of the justice sector in Guatemala on October 10, in Washington D.C., and on November 6, in London (the report is available both in English and Spanish). ILAC, established in 2002, is an NGO based in Stockholm, Sweden, which conducts rule of law and justice sector assessments, coordinates programs, and engages in policy dialogue. As a consortium of over 50 professional legal organizations along with individual experts, we gather legal expertise and competencies from various contexts and legal traditions to help rebuild justice institutions and promote the rule of law in conflict-affected and fragile states.

ILAC’s report of Guatemalan justice sector

ILAC’s assessment team traveled to Guatemala in October 2017, and met with over 150 Guatemalan judges, prosecutors, lawyers, human rights defenders, and business leaders to assess the role and capacity of courts and prosecutorial services. The team also examined several thematic issues facing the justice sector in Guatemala today, including the legacy of Guatemala’s conflict and impunity, disputes involving development projects on land claimed by indigenous peoples and local communities, criminalization of protests, and violence and discrimination. 

“A fragile peace”

Although Guatemala has been at peace for over 20 years, its history of inequality and a civil war that lasted over 30 years have left a legacy of impunity, corruption, racism, and violence which fundamentally threaten stability and equitable development. Since 2006, however, justice sector actors have been supported by the United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (known as CICIG) which aims to investigate criminal groups undermining democracy. CICIG may conduct independent investigations, act as a complementary prosecutor, and recommend public policies to help fight the criminal groups that are the subject of its investigations. This is an innovative institution for the United Nations and is unique in the sense that it combines international support, independence to investigate cases, and partnerships with the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office.

While the assessment report identifies ongoing rule of law challenges in Guatemala, it highlights the vital role CICIG and its current Commissioner, Mr. Iván Velásquez of Colombia, play in supporting the Attorney General’s Office to address the identified challenges. In fact, the majority of our recommendations are reliant upon CICIG’s continued presence in Guatemala as the country’s judiciary is not yet equipped to address and resolve corruption and impunity on its own. The American Bar Association, an ILAC member, has stated that:

it would be impossible to instill the rule of law within Guatemala at this time without the support of an international body. While many prosecutors and judges have – at great personal risk – performed their responsibilities with integrity, the pressures on the criminal justice sector writ large are so great that it is not currently able to operate independently without international support.

An abrupt end to CICIG’s mandate may also potentially result in backsliding of judicial and prosecutorial independence and integrity. Our report therefore includes a specific recommendation for a four-year extension of CICIG’s mandate.

In light of this recommendation, it is also worth noting that CICIG currently enjoys widespread public support in Guatemala and, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, “is a rare example of a successful international effort to strengthen a country’s judicial system and policing.”

ILAC joins call to extend CICIG’s mandate

Our assessment report comes at a crucial time as the future of CICIG is in jeopardy. In August, Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales announced that he would not extend CICIG’s mandate beyond its current expiration date in September 2019 (note that CICIG is currently investigating President Morales for illegal campaign financing). President Morales simultaneously barred Mr. Velásquez, who at the time was in the United States, from re-entering Guatemala. Subsequently, President Morales ignored an order by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court allowing Mr. Velásquez to return (the Constitutional Court has reaffirmed that order just this past Thursday). President Morales has also developed a rhetoric accusing CICIG of presenting “a threat to peace” in Guatemala and constructing “a system of terror.” 

Our report is an acknowledgement of CICIG’s role in laying the foundation for a stronger and more resilient judicial system in Guatemala. And, in order to continue to build upon this foundation, we join the call for Guatemala to recommit to the work of CICIG under Mr. Velásquez and for an extension of CICIG’s mandate.

While we are neither the first nor the only observer to point out these challenges to the rule of law, we hope that the report will provide clear notice to state authorities that failure to address the documented and well-understood obstacles to the independence and effectiveness of the justice sector can only be taken as unwillingness to strengthen the rule of law in Guatemala. Without an effective and independent system of justice, the rule of law and human rights cannot be secured.

In a future post we will elaborate upon how the current situation in Guatemala reflects the challenges and opportunities for promoting justice globally in the context of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and particularly SDG 16.

To learn more, you can read the report press release here.

You can follow ILAC on Twitter here. 

Human Rights and the U.S. Gun Violence Crisis: A New Approach

/ Leila Nadya Sadat / Leave a comment

With the most recent mass shootings at Thousand Oaks Bar in California and the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Americans are once more reeling from the shock and horror of seeing their compatriots mowed down while undertaking normal daily activities. Innocent men, women, and children have been killed or injured whilst worshiping; enjoying a concert; spending an evening out with friends; attending school; or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Each time shots ring out, the media is full of conversations about “gun rights” and the Second Amendment. But what about human rights? What about the right to life; the right of association; the right to health; the right to safety and security; the right to attend school and receive an education?

11.02.2018- Gun Panel Photo by Mary ButkusOn November 2 and 3, more than 150 people attended a conference at the School of Law entitled, The U.S. Gun Violence Crisis: An Interdisciplinary and Human Rights Approach. Co-sponsored by the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, the Washington University Institute of Public Health, The Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series, and the American Branch of the International Law Association (International Human Rights Committee), the event brought together leading scholars and experts in the fields of law, psychiatry, sociology, medicine, and public health policy to focus on new approaches to the U.S. gun violence epidemic.

11.02.2018- Gun Panel Photo by Mary ButkusMike McLively, director of the Urban Gun Violence Initiative at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, opened the conference by highlighting the scope and scale of the U.S. gun violence epidemic. He noted that more than 30,000 people die each from gun violence – violence that is, for the most part, easily prevented by simple and common sense regulation or even executive action. He noted that more than 60 percent of those killed by gun violence have committed suicide with a gun; deaths that were largely preventable through simple measures like waiting periods to purchase firearms. Others noted the disproportionate impact of gun violence on communities of color and young people, as well as the exportation of the U.S. gun violence crisis to third countries through the trafficking of weapons from the United States. The usefulness of international human rights regimes in reframing thinking about this issue, and the important work already being done on this issue by U.N. bodies was noted by several participants. Barbara Frey, in particular, has worked on this issue for many years at the U.N. in her capacity as the alternate U.S. member of the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and as Special Rapporteur to the Sub-Commission on the issue of preventing human rights abuses committed with small arms and light weapons.

Epstien_WLM_0156Lee Epstein, Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor, spoke insightfully about the history of the relationship between the Second Amendment in the U.S. Supreme Court and the evolution of conversations around gun rights. Professor Epstein noted that the relatively recent emergence of an individual right to bear arms can be traced to a flurry of recent law review articles advocating for this position. She suggested that further social science research and legal research could therefore contribute to the solution of the current crisis.

alpers_wlm_0227.jpgFinally, Philip Alpers, founder of GunPolicy.org, concluded by offering a comparative analysis of the crisis and its resolution in Australia as a result of legislative action, gun buybacks, and a change in legal and popular culture with respect to guns and gun ownership.

During the second day of the conference, speakers met to discuss the conference, as well as a Report on the topic prepared by Harris Institute Fellow Madaline George and myself. The Harris Institute’s Report, which concludes that the U.S. government has failed in significant respects to adequately protect the human rights of individuals living in the United States from gun violence, will be published in the coming months. The papers from the conference will appear in a special symposium issue of the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy in 2019. The Institute has already presented testimony on the U.S. Gun Violence Crisis to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and is working on testimony before other human rights bodies as well.

To learn more about the Harris Institute’s Gun Violence Initiative, visit our website.

Experts' Meeting at Washington University School of Law

Safeguarding ‘distinction’ inside the wire: Humanitarian-peacekeeper interactions in South Sudan’s Protection of Civilians sites

/ Rebecca Sutton / Leave a comment

Following the outbreak of violence in December 2013, tens of thousands—and eventually hundreds of thousands—of internally displaced persons (IDPs) sought refuge at UN bases in South Sudan. These sites came to be referred to as Protection of Civilians (PoC) sites, guarded by forces from the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) under a robust PoC mandate. In response, many international humanitarian actors, ranging from UN agencies to NGOs, sought to live and work ‘inside the wire’ of the PoC sites as well. They wanted to be close to the war-affected populations they serve, and were also seeking to protect their own staff from violent attacks. As a general rule, global civil-military guidance dissuades humanitarian actors from co-locating with military actors in conflict settings. In recognition of the exceptional circumstances, however, the UN Humanitarian Country Team in South Sudan approved the temporary use of military force protection by humanitarian actors; this has enabled them to reside in the sites.

South Sudan’s PoC sites have generated considerable interest from policymakers and scholars alike, some of whom have drawn attention (pp. 39-40) to the complex relationships of diverse international actors operating in the sites. What is missing at this juncture, from a legal perspective, is a robust account of the challenges that co-location in the sites poses for the civilian-combatant distinction in international humanitarian law (IHL). Drawing on field research[1] conducted in South Sudan in 2015, this article highlights one slice of the international community where interactions are shaped by struggles over ‘distinction’: the humanitarian-peacekeeper relationship.

As one UN civilian actor notes, the PoC sites in South Sudan are spaces where the UN mission ‘comes closest’ to humanitarian actors. Another civilian member of UNMISS surmises, ‘I’ve never seen another example where humanitarians and UNMISS work so closely’. This issue of physical proximity is also flagged by a humanitarian NGO actor living in one of the PoC sites. He is concerned that the mere fact of his presence in the site undermines any efforts his organization might make with regard to distinction from UNMISS. An individual working for a different humanitarian NGO picks up this thread. He explains that co-locating with UN military forces leads ‘fiercely independent’ humanitarian NGOs to fear that they are compromising the humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence, and impartiality. It is adhering to these principles, he explains, that helps humanitarian actors to demonstrate they are distinct.

It is apparent that the attempt to safeguard distinction from UN military actors is not always, or only, about compliance with international law. Much of the time, humanitarian NGOs are also hoping to influence local perceptions. One component of this perceptions work involves the attempt to secure the trust and acceptance of the war-affected populations they seek to serve. As one humanitarian actor explains, it is local beneficiaries who matter most; the ‘element of distinction is purely from their perspective’. Continue reading →

Should the system of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) be reformed?

/ Andrea M. Ewart, Esq. / Leave a comment

Should the system of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) be reformed? That is the question being considered by the United Nations Commission on Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

ISDS provisions are contained in about 3,000 investment treaties and investment chapters of free trade agreements. The provisions permit a foreign investor in the form of a company or individual to bring a claim directly against a State where the investor believes that its investment is being threatened by an action of the State.Foreign-Direct-Investment

FDI and ISDS

FDI can be a valuable tool to exploit resources and build production facilities while creating jobs and infrastructure, particularly in developing countries. Investment agreements aim to create an enabling environment for foreign investors. Among other things, the provisions protect them against expropriation without adequate compensation and guarantee their ability to freely move assets in and out of the country. Sovereign States, on the other hand, need to govern with a multiplicity of interests in mind and their actions can, inadvertently or deliberately, deprive the foreign investor of an intended benefit. ISDS procedures provide the mechanism by which such disputes are resolved.

The most common procedures are drawn from the world of commercial arbitration, used to determine disputes between two commercial parties. They involve the use of an arbitral tribunal which gives equal standing to the investor and the State and whose decisions are binding.

The majority of developing countries rely on foreign direct investment to foster economic growth and development. The overwhelming majority of defendants in arbitral proceedings are the governments of developing and emerging economies. The outcome of ISDS arbitral tribunals can and do impact the ability of governments to develop and implement policy.

Concerns Regarding ISDS

A note by the UNCITRAL Secretariat – “Possible reform of investor-State dispute settlement” and the Report of its Working Group on ISDS summarize expressed concerns regarding ISDS. They include:

  • Inconsistency of arbitral decisions – instances where the host State is sued by different investors on the same issue but with different outcomes from different tribunals;
  • Lengthy duration and extensive cost of ISDS – States that have been sued may not have the resources to adequately defend its policies and actions or to pay arbitral awards;
  • Lack of transparency – States are using public funds and tribunal decisions may be sealed;
  • Lack of an early dismissal mechanism to address unfounded claims;
  • Lack of a mechanism to address counterclaims by respondent States;
  • Heavy reliance on arbitrators from the investor States and who may not understand policy.

Questions at the heart of these concerns address the overall legitimacy of the process. Should a system created to address disputes between two commercial parties be used to resolve policy issues that may impact millions of people? Is it acceptable to exclude domestic investors from the same recourse available to foreign investors?

Proponents of ISDS acknowledge the validity of some of these concerns and say they can be addressed by reforming the current system of ISDS. They also point to the underlying concerns that led to the use of ISDS in the first place – politicization from the use of diplomacy to address dispute and the slow judicial processes in some countries’ domestic legal system.

Concerns are not limited to those expressed by emerging economies. The EU’s submission to the UNCITRAL Working Group highlights systemic issues it believes warrants establishment of a multilateral investment court that would replace the use of arbitral tribunals. A March 2018 ruling of the European Court of Justice concluded that the ISDS clauses in an intra-EU investment treaty were incompatible with EU law.

The Trump Administration has also inserted its perspective on ISDS in the context of the NAFTA re-negotiations. The U.S. Government has consistently expressed its displeasure at being required to abide by the decisions of international panel decisions it finds not to its liking. In August 2017, the Trump Administration floated the idea of opting out of NAFTA ISDS provisions (Chapter 11). Should the US remove itself from the NAFTA ISDS provisions this would be a major departure in US policy and a disappointment for US corporations but a shot in the arm for opponents of ISDS.

Investment Facilitation

UNCITRAL will continue its deliberations. A growing consensus appears to be that while ISDS serves a role the system needs to be reformed. Meanwhile, in December 2017, 70 WTO members agreed to begin discussions to develop the framework for a Multilateral Investment Facilitation Agreement. Discussions will not address ISDS reform, but the purpose will be to minimize the likelihood of disputes by creating a more transparent, efficient, and predictable environment for facilitating cross-border investment.

To the extent that disputes arise because of tension between development-oriented policies of host States and investor goals, conflicts can best be minimized by incorporating a true development dimension into whatever frameworks are used to manage the FDI inflows into developing countries.

(Cross-posted from DevelopTradeLaw blog.)

“Mind the Gap”- ICC ASP Side Event on Progress in Drafting a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity

/ Leila Nadya Sadat & Fizza Batool / 1 Comment

1

Participants attending the Side Event.

On December 11, 2017, the Harris Institute hosted a well-attended Side Event entitled “Progress in Drafting a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity” at the Sixteenth Session of the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court. The side event was co-sponsored by the Republic of Chile, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Republic of Korea, and the Republic of Sierra Leone at UN Headquarters in New York.

Picture1

Side Event Panelists (left to right): Judge O-Gon Kwon, Professor Sean Murphy, Professor Leila Sadat, Professor Charles Jalloh, Professor Claus Kress, and Mr. Solomon Sacco.

The panel featured Special Rapporteur Sean Murphy, Professor Charles Jalloh, Professor Claus Kress, President-Elect of the ASP Judge O-Gon Kwon, Solomon Sacco from Amnesty  International, and Professor Leila Nadya Sadat. The side event provided a briefing by the Special Rapporteur on the preamble, draft articles and annex adopted by the UN International Law Commission (ILC) in 2017 on the proposed crimes against humanity (CAH) convention. Then expert panelists commented briefly on the Commission’s work from their perspectives, followed by interventions from the audience.

Professor Sean Murphy began by providing a summary of the Commission’s work since the project was launched in 2014. The draft articles adopted by the Commission on its first reading fall into five general areas: prevention of CAH (articles 2, 4, and 5); investigation and prevention of CAH (articles 3 and 6); rights of the alleged offender and rights of victims, witnesses, and others (articles 11 and 12); inter-state cooperation (articles 13, 14, and the annex on mutual legal assistance); and inter-state dispute settlement (article 15).

s

Professor Charles Jalloh

Professor Charles Jalloh, also a member of the ILC, noted the tremendous progress of the Commission on this significant project. He noted that the legal text has the potential to become a treaty which is significant for the international community. He discussed the pressing need to have a CAH convention to “mind the gap” in international criminal law. Genocide, CAH, and war crimes are all considered international core crimes; however, while we have a Genocide Convention and the 1949 Geneva Conventions covering war crimes, the world still lacks a convention on preventing and punishing CAH.

d

Professor Claus Kress

Professor Claus Kress suggested that the provisions in the draft convention could enhance the coherency of international criminal law. With this draft convention, Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro could have been decided differently because the Court would have been able to analyze the situation in a more legally comprehensive manner. He also noted the possibility of the draft convention having a positive spill-over, an inspirational effect.

f

Left to right: Professor Sean Murphy, Judge O-Gon Kwon, and Professor Leila Sadat.

 

ASP President-Elect Judge O-Gon Kwon gave his full support to the ILC’s work, noting the need to enhance the complementarity regime of the International Criminal Court.

g

Mr. Solomon Sacco

 

Solomon Sacco of Amnesty International observed that the draft was a good start but found room for improvement, in particular as regards to the non-refoulement, mutual legal assistance, and rights of victims provisions. He specifically advocated for a clause prohibiting amnesties, the use of military tribunals, and reservations.

Continue reading →

CORRUPTION CRISIS OVERTAKES GUATEMALA

/ Naomi Roht-Arriaza / Leave a comment

A new president takes office with no government experience and a background as a TV personality. He comes to the job after squaring off against a woman candidate, who he accuses of corruption. He promises that things will be different, but he can’t get much done. He’s forced to rely on a small group of retired military officers, some of them with shady pasts. Worse, information starts emerging about his party’s illegal campaign finance schemes, and an independent investigation turns up evidence of wrongdoing. To avoid further scrutiny, the president tries to get rid of the investigator, but runs into political resistance. A constitutional crisis ensues.

 

Sound familiar? Welcome to Guatemala.

 

The president is Jimmy Morales, former comedian, who on August 27 declared persona non grata the head of the U.N. Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, Colombian jurist Ivan Velásquez. The Commission, known by its Spanish initials as CICIG, was created in 2006 through an innovative agreement between the United Nations and the Guatemalan government in order to deal with clandestine groups that had infiltrated the state and were attacking human rights defenders and others. In 2014, the U.N. appointed Velásquez to the post, and he helped shift CICIG’s priorities to the endemic, large-scale corruption that has sapped the country’s resources and allowed for strategic alliances among government and military officials, economic elites and organized crime. CICIG cannot prosecute, but acts as a civil party in cases brought by the local Prosecutors’ office.

Continue reading →

Update on Gender Parity at the Human Rights Council

/ Claudia Martin / Leave a comment

On November 8, I published Taking-stock: The Human Rights Council and Gender Parity in Special Procedures after 10 years in this blog. The Article was also cross-posted at the Human Rights Brief. To complement my article, the Human Rights Brief recently interviewed Ambassador Marta Maurás Pérez from Chile. Ambassador Maurás is a pioneer for gender parity in the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). As the only woman in the 2015 HRC Consultative Group, she was a leader in the Consultative Group’s creation of the 2015 Gender Parity Guidelines. She continues to work to increase the number of women holding special procedures positions. The interview with Ambassador Maurás discusses her dedicated work on closing the gender gap within the UN and around the world. In addition, she discusses the challenges ahead to ensure that gender parity becomes mandatory in the work of the HRC. The full interview is posted at the Human Rights Brief. I hope her words encourage us to continue our advocacy to promote gender parity at the HRC and other international tribunals and organs.

Nuevo libro para abogados hispano- y angloparlantes/New Book for Lawyers Who Speak Both Spanish and English

/ S.I. Strong, Katia Fach Gómez and Laura Carballo Piñeiro / Leave a comment

(English version follows)

Tres mujeres y profesoras de derecho: S.I. Strong de la Universidad de Missouri (Estados Unidos), Katia Fach Gómez de la Universidad de Zaragoza (España) y Laura Carballo Piñeiro de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (España) tenemos el honor de presentar el libro Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes: Culturas jurídicas, términos jurídicos y prácticas jurídicas/ Comparative Law for Spanish-English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices  (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2016). Este trabajo supone una plasmación por escrito de algunas de las características más relevantes de nuestras carreras profesionales: trayectorias académicas y de práctica de la abogacía internacional desarrolladas en español e inglés, y en estrecho contacto con las comunidades jurídicas latinoamericana, europea y estadounidense. En consonancia con ello, la obra que hemos elaborado permite que abogados y estudiantes de derecho que hablan inglés y español adquieran fluidez jurídica en un segundo idioma. Realizar dicho esfuerzo es extremadamente importante no sólo para abogados especializados en derecho internacional, sino también para abogados dedicados al derecho nacional pero que tratan con clientes cuya lengua materna es un idioma extranjero.

La forma en que “Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes” involucra a abogados y estudiantes de derecho en la práctica jurídica bilingüe es única por diversos motivos. En primer lugar, y dado que la mayoría de los abogados bilingües trabajan con otros abogados y con clientes que cuentan con unos orígenes legales y culturales muy variados, el libro no se limita a analizar unas jurisdicciones concretas. Por el contrario, el libro ofrece información sobre diversos países hispanoparlantes (fundamentalmente, España y México) y angloparlantes (fundamentalmente, Estados Unidos y Reino Unido). En segundo lugar, la monografía contextualiza la información, no sólo ubicando el nuevo vocabulario y los principios legales en el contexto lingüístico apropiado –el libro es completamente bilingüe-, sino también ofreciendo abundantes comparaciones con la legislación y la práctica de otras jurisdicciones. En tercer lugar, este tipo de análisis permite que los abogados y estudiantes de derecho aprecien las diferencias existentes en las culturas jurídicas, empresariales y sociales relevantes. Ello ayuda a los lectores a no incurrir en ofensas que puedan derivarse de problemas de comunicación involuntarios. El libro también explica por qué existen dichas diferencias y cuál es su fundamento en un contexto jurídico determinado.

Profundizar en la comprensión a través de barreras nacionales, sociales y culturales es un objetivo esencial de un mundo cada vez más pluralizado. Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes es una herramienta muy útil para aquellos que trabajan cruzando fronteras lingüísticas. Como este libro de 700 páginas demuestra, no hay que temer a las diferencias, sino que hemos de alegrarnos de que la diversidad jurídica y lingüística exista.

***

unnamedThree law professors – S.I. Strong of the University of Missouri, Katia Fach Gómez of the University of Zaragoza and Laura Carballo Piñeiro of the University of Santiago de Compostela – have the honor of presenting their new book, Comparative Law for Spanish-English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices / Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes: Culturas jurídicas, términos jurídicos y prácticas jurídicas (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2016).  This work reflects some of the characteristics that are most relevant to our professional careers as academics and practitioners working in both English and Spanish, and involving jurisdictions in Latin America, Europe and the United States.  Consistent with that, the book that we have written helps lawyers and law students who speak Spanish and English become legally fluent in their second language.  This effort is extremely important not only for specialists in international law, but also for domestic lawyers whose clients speak different languages.

 

Comparative Law for Spanish-English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices / Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes” introduces lawyers and law students to bilingual legal practice in several ways.  First, the book does not focus solely on single jurisdictions, since most bilingual lawyers work with clients and co-counsel from a variety of legal and cultural backgrounds.  Instead, the book offers information on several English-speaking nations (primarily the U.S. and the U.K.) and Spanish-speaking countries (primarily Spain, Mexico and Argentina).  Second, the text seeks to contextualize the information, not only by placing the new vocabulary and legal principles in the appropriate linguistic setting (the book is entirely bilingual) but by providing extensive comparisons to the law and practice of other jurisdictions.  Third, the discussion helps lawyers and law students appreciate differences in the relevant legal, business and social cultures, thereby helping them avoid giving offense through any inadvertent miscommunications, and explains why those differences arose and why they make sense in that particular legal environment.

 

Increasing understanding across national, social and cultural lines is an important goal in our increasingly pluralistic world, and Comparative Law for Spanish-English Speaking Lawyers provides a useful tool for those who work across linguistic lines.  As this 700+ page text shows, legal and linguistic differences need not be feared but can instead be celebrated.