How Humanitarian Can Humanitarians Be? Part II

So there's this problem in Sudan. Crisis, some might say, genocide is a term I've heard used. So where's the international response? Is it comprised solely of the 14,000 humanitarian aid workers and 70 NGOs in Darfur? What happened to the resounding (and once again unfashionably late) proclamations after the Holocaust and Rwanda of "never again"? Is the world being outsmarted and outplayed by one man sitting in Khartoum? I'm beginning to think we are....

Bashir is a genius. Really. He'll move into history alongside the Maos and the Hitlers for his calculating ability to manipulate and strategically twist every single attempted intervention in his favor. Case in point: where, pray tell, is the UN? They are not peace keeping, they are not intervening. No air strikes, no sanctions. So UNHCR is there, barely, and with the UN's genius plan of integrated missions they are stifled, by their own supervising organization, in their tasks. Bashir has nothing to do with the UNHCR's failures. His moves, however, have played an enormous role in the lack of intervention.

The situation on the ground in Darfur is bad. But it's not quite bad enough. It sounds weird, doesn't it? Bashir's plan, his agenda, is to make the situation on the ground so uncomfortable for the residents of Sudan that they will be propelled to flee--to leave the country, seemingly by their own volition. As long as there is not mass starvation, as long as they can walk that invisibly fine line, the government is sitting pretty. As long as they are allowing some humanitarian aid in there is less of an argument for the UN to intervene. So this leads me wonder (and I assure you, I am not the only one)--are the humanitarian actors the ones actually preventing an escalated response in their stoicism and devotion to stick it out regardless of the number of aid workers who have been shot in the head?

There have been 12. 12 workers in 6 months gunned down purposefully. That is 2x as many as in the previous two years combined. So what would it take for the UN or anyone else to get in there? Currently there are 7,000 AU peace keeping forces on the ground. Bashir has refused to allow for more. The UN Charter allows for intervention when there is serious instability of forced migrants (Am I alone here in seeing Chad flashing in large red letters?) or if there is a significant breach in peace and security. Umm. No comment. Under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter the Security Council can authorize action. However, the UN Charter also provides for the ability of any permanent member of the Council to veto and thus kill these authorizations. Who likes Sudan's oil?? CHINA! Who's a permanent member of the UN Security Council?? CHINA! I think you can see where I'm going with this.

Member states can invoke their own right to intervene unilaterally or as a coalition, but we have all seen how well that worked out for the U.S. in a small country named Iraq. Without the backing of the Security Council the problem won't be touched with a 100 foot pole by anyone else. I shake my head in disappointment and frustration at the continued reverberations of Iraq. Sudan disintegrates into two civil wars covering the entire country, government sponsored torture and murder, mass exodus that is poised to drag Chad and the Central African Republic into the turmoil and the rest of the world sits idle.

I amend my question--how humanitarian SHOULD humans be? CAN humans be? I'm sick of reading and writing about this. I am tempted to take a semester off and go there with one of the NGOs--I'm 100% confident I could find a 6 month internship. I hesitate, knowing it would make my mother cry and affect any offer (most likely) I might be lucky enough to get after this summer. But it makes me sad to sit here and just wax poetic to an audience possibly of none, and whoever is left reading is most likely kind of tired of such similar topics over and over. Patience, zen and hope is all I got now.

Food For Thought

I have spent the better part of this first lovely weekend of spring in my windowless bedroom trying to parse out exactly what the focus of this paper is going to end up being. There's a lot of information out there--much it saying the exact same thing, making the same points, arguing the same deficiencies in the system of international law as it pertains to refugees. There are contradictory treaties. Maybe contradictory is not the right word...conflicting might be more sound. Looking at the Refugee Convention and its subsequent 1967 Protocol as compared to the Convention Against Torture, both U.N. documents, both legally binding on those states who have ratified (the U.S., for one) and both with a very similar and bold purpose: to give protection to those who are facing the most grave dangers in their home state. But the problem, as I see it, is this: two conventions, both noble, both working off of each other blurring the lines and making it less clear who falls under what category for each treaty thus making the black and white of a situation so much more gray, allowing countries to write off a person or a group under a clause in one treaty while refusing to see that they actually fit criteria x, y, and z of the other.

Everything is further complicated when you apply the larger umbrella aspects of "international law" to the scenarios--state responsibility, individual actors v. state actors, the ability to ratify a treaty "with reservations", the good ol' U.S.A.'s ability to legislate around their international law obligations through the use of administrative laws, last in time theories, and the rule of non-self executing treaties that they so incorrectly apply(ed) to the different refugee conventions.

Here is my current brain teaser: Can a country like Somalia, with no real functioning centralized government, a failed state for all intents and purposes, that does not have the ability to PROTECT their citizens still have the ability to persecute them under international law? If these treaties, such as the Torture Convention, apply to acts that are carried out "by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in official capacity" (Article 1, CAT), can they still apply to a failed state that does not have a recognized or single functioning government. I mean--the short answer is YES! Of course it does. But from a purely textual reading of some of these treaties (As I channel Scalia) we can see where people fall through the cracks. The U.S. is split on this issue. How "official" does the individual need to be? Does it need to be a situation where the "official" is one who is working among the ruling authority at the time, even if it is just a rebel or guerilla group who has seized temporary control over an area? How can a state be expected to take responsibility when it remains a state in name only? So far no one, none of the 12 books and 35 law review articles I have read seem to have an answer for this or anything else.

Everyone can see the problem, identify the cause. But no one can change it. Where does change begin? I was clearly not cut out to be an academic.

In other sad news this week--the Bronx fire (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/11/AR2007031100228.html)
has given a lot of us Mali folks a sad pause as we read and listen to the devastatingly sad events . Unfortunately this is so common--I remember hearing about the different family members from villages who were pursuing the dream in the U.S., living 12 men to a 2 room apartment in NYC and elsewhere across the country in sub-human conditions, trying to make ends meet and send the extra money back to the family who they left behind. It's amazing what people will do, what sacrifices they will make to try and build something better for their families. And it strikes me a little more melancholy when it's a situation such as this for some reason. Maybe it's the kids. Maybe it's Mali. I think more it is the vain wish and naive and idealistic hope that someday the continent of Africa will not have the pulsing need to send their people to live in worse conditions than from where they came in hopes for something better. But I don't hold my breath.

Hope Wanes

The Washington Post has done an impressive job recently in their coverage of different aspects of what is happening in Sudan, from coverage of the political issues to some serious "human interest" stories. Here are some links to the most recent and terribly bleak stories and videos. I encourage people to watch the actual video. I watched it at work--I felt almost transported back to Dadaab--the stories from the refugees are surprisingly identical, but unfortunately in Chad the level of aid is not anywhere near where it needs to be, or where it was in Kenya. What is happening in this region of the world is so deeply upsetting to me and I feel stifled in my inability to contribute to the search for an end to the extreme suffering.

So here are the links. Without the ability to participate in this crisis, the best we can do is remain educated and aware.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/07/AR2007030702253.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/interactives/chad/

I heart JT

So. As the summer draws near all any of us law students can think about is how much free stuff we're going to get as summer associates (just kidding, we're actually thinking about the remarkably beneficial and rich learning environment we'll be exposed to for 12 weeks...).

I had a dream last night that I REALLY hope does not foreshadow my own experience...

Time: Summer 2007
Place: Law offices of --, Washington, D.C. (-- is my anonymous law firm, since none of you know where I'm headed. ha)

MTV has decided to do a new reality TV show about all of --'s summer associates, starring yours truly! they will follow us for 12 weeks and capture all of the gory details of this new class, as we struggle with learning how to effectively research on Lexis and Westlaw while not costing our firm a billion dollars, draft a brief that is not based on characters from American Idol, all while sleeping on airmattresses in the conference room over looking the White House. It's going to be scintillating (as you all can tell) and the added bonus is that Justin Timberlake is joining our 2L summer class where he is the rogue and mediocre associate.

I woke up just as they were about to start the second episode where JT gets into a brawl while on a scavenger hunt. I almost hit snooze just so I could see what would happen....

Revival

I have not posted anything on here since...July. I started this blog as a way to continue communication with so many people back in the U.S. while I was in a far more remote part of the world this past summer. What I am realizing is that law school provides a similar solitude--I am in front of my computer 18 hours a day but never really in a position to catch up with people. Thus, I decided to continue these postings for the few, the dedicated, the people who actually find my life somewhat entertaining.

This semester, however, has brought the interesting project of being able to do a lot of research on something I find remarkably interesting: the international legal policy of not sending refugees back to countries of persecution (the policy known as "non-refoulement"), as embedded in not only the 1951 convention as relating to the status of refugees, but also the Convention Against Torture. There are 132 countries who have signed and ratified the 1951 Convention. And I dare say a similar number that have refouled refugees consistently over the years. Admittedly, it's not like this is gravely different from any other international legal norm dealing with human rights issues--lots of treaties, lots of people standing up on significant days of the year, shaking their fists and crying out against the atrocities that are occurring all over the place, only to get back on the plane and return to drafting laws and memos that will absolve themselves for following the very acts that would put an end to all that they decried just the day before. But I digress. I am interested to continue researching and see how I can weave a compelling argument, and possibly be ballsy enough to suggest a reform or two...we'll see what develops.

I am reading a remarkable book that I implore people to check out: What is the What, by Dave Eggers. It's a poetic, sad, true account of the Lost Boys of Sudan, told by one man, living in Georgia. The narrative is remarkable, and Mr. Eggers has done a superb job of weaving the tale in a very compelling manner. I have not yet finished it, but it is completely enthralling, and the narrator's true recollection of being interviewed for resettlement in the Kakuma camps in Kenya add a different perspective from the throne that I occupied this summer.

So there you have it. First post in a long time. Maybe compelling enough to keep coming back, and maybe not...but cathartic for me once again.