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.