Will the U.S. Senate Finally Give Its “Advice and Consent” to U.S. Ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty?

The United Nations Convention [Treaty] on the Law of the Sea sets out international rules for maritime navigation, territorial waters and countries’ use of offshore areas as exclusive economic zones. It was the result of an international conference that concluded on December 10, 1982 at Montego Bay, Jamaica when the U.S. and 120 other nations adopted the text of the treaty, and it went into force on November 16, 1994. Now 162 of the 193 U.N. member states are parties to the treaty.

The U.S. signed the treaty on July 29, 1994, but it has not been ratified by the U.S. Such ratification, however, is once again on the table as we will see after reviewing what has happened in the U.S. with respect to the treaty in the nearly 30 years since it was adopted. This is another example of the complicated and difficult process of obtaining U.S. Senate advice and consent to ratification of a treaty by a two-thirds vote (67 Senators) under Article II, Section 2(2) of the U.S. Constitution that was examined in a post with respect to the Convention Against Torture.

Background

Although the treaty was concluded during his Administration, President Regan did not sign the treaty. Nor was it signed during the George H.W. Bush Administration.

President Bill Clinton

But on July 29, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the treaty along with a July 28, 1994, Agreement resolving U.S. and others’ objections to a part of the treaty. On October 7, 1994, Clinton submitted the treaty and the Agreement to the U.S. Senate for its “advice and consent” to ratification by the U.S. In his transmittal message, President Clinton said that since 1982 successive U.S. administrations had not signed the treaty because of flaws in its regime for managing the development of mineral resources of the seabed beyond national jurisdiction, but these provisions had been changed by the just mentioned Agreement.[i] Therefore, according to the President, it was now appropriate for the U.S. to join the treaty. President Clinton also stated:

• “The United States has basic and enduring national interests in the oceans and has consistently taken the view that the full range of these interests is best protected through a widely accepted international framework governing uses of the sea. Since the late 1960s, the basic U.S. strategy has been to conclude a comprehensive treaty on the law of the sea that will be respected by all countries. Each succeeding U.S. Administration has recognized this as the cornerstone of U.S. oceans policy. Following adoption of the Convention in 1982, it has been the policy of the United States to act in a manner consistent with its provisions relating to traditional uses of the oceans and to encourage other countries to do likewise.”

Furthermore, President Clinton continued, this treaty had the following benefits for the U.S.:

• “The Convention advances the interests of the United States as a global maritime power. It preserves the right of the U.S. military to use the world’s oceans to meet national security requirements and of commercial vessels to carry sea-going cargoes. It achieves this, inter alia, by stabilizing the breadth of the territorial sea at 12 nautical miles; by setting forth navigation regimes of innocent passage in the territorial sea, transit passage in straits used for international navigation, and archipelagic sea lanes passage; and by reaffirming the traditional freedoms of navigation and overflight in the exclusive economic zone and the high seas beyond.”

• “The Convention advances the interests of the United States as a coastal State. It achieves this, inter alia, by providing for an exclusive economic zone out to 200 nautical miles from shore and by securing our rights regarding resources and artificial islands, installations and structures for economic purposes over the full extent of the continental shelf. These provisions fully comport with U.S. oil and gas leasing practices, domestic management of coastal fishery resources, and international fisheries agreements.”

• The treaty is “a far-reaching environmental accord addressing vessel source pollution, pollution from seabed activities, ocean dumping, and land-based sources of marine pollution . . . . [It thereby]  promotes continuing improvement in the health of the world’s oceans.”

• The “Convention sets forth criteria and procedures to promote access to marine areas, including coastal waters, for research activities.”

• “The Convention facilitates solutions to the increasingly complex problems of the uses of the ocean–solutions that respect the essential balance between our interests as both a coastal and a maritime nation.”

• “Through its dispute settlement provisions, the Convention provides for mechanisms to enhance compliance by Parties with . . . [its] provisions.”

Nine years later in October 2003, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held the first hearings on the treaty, and on February 25, 2004, the Committee unanimously ordered it to be reported favorably without amendments to the full Senate. The treaty went to the Senate floor on March 11, 2004 with a report by Committee Chair, Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. However, no vote on the resolution of advice and consent had been taken when the congressional session ended in December 2004, and, therefore, the treaty was referred back to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

The George W. Bush Administration had asked for ratification in 2004. In fact, the Law of the Sea was one of only five treaties that the Bush Administration placed in its “urgent” category on its list of treaty priorities. Widespread support for ratification was expressed to the Committee:

• Representatives from the Department of State, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Commerce Department testified in support of the Convention at various Congressional hearings.

• Representatives from six Bush Administration Cabinet departments participated in the interagency group that helped write the resolution of advice and consent accompanying the treaty. And the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, appointed by President Bush, strongly endorsed U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea.
• In the private sector, every major ocean industry, including shipping, fishing, oil and natural gas, drilling contractors, ship builders, and telecommunications companies that use underwater cables, supported U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea and are lobbying in favor of it. The National Foreign Trade Council, representing hundreds of exporting companies, also supported ratification.

• Moreover, a long list of environmental and ocean groups had endorsed the treaty because it would protect and preserve the marine environment and establish a framework for further international action to combat pollution.

• During the Committee’s consideration of the treaty, it received just one inquiry voicing opposition to the measure and that was from an individual representing himself. Staff offered to receive written testimony from this individual, but none was sent.

Senator                Richard Lugar

Despite this strong support for ratification of the treaty, full Senate consideration of the treaty in 2004 had been held up by vague and unfounded concerns about its effects. Chairman Lugar commented that these concerns had been expressed primarily by those who oppose virtually any multi-lateral agreement. “Various conservative lobbyists have indicated strong objections—they believe our sovereignty will be impugned.” Senator Lugar lamented this inaction. He said, “If we cannot get beyond political paralysis in a case where the coalition of American supporters is so comprehensive, there is little reason to think that any multi-lateral solution to any international problem is likely to be accepted within the U.S. policy-making structure.” Moreover, the Bush Administration was not willing to expend political capital to push for ratification, and Senate Majority Leader Frist was not willing to put it on the Senate calendar in light of a threatened filibuster.

Senator Joe Biden

Nearly three years later, in September and October 2007, that Committee held another set of hearings on the treaty, and on October 31, 2007, ordered it to be reported favorably without amendments to the full Senate by a vote of 17 to 4. The treaty went to the Senate floor on December 19, 2007 with a report by Committee Chair, Democratic Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. However, no vote on the resolution of advice and consent had been taken when the congressional session concluded on January 2, 2009, and, therefore, the treaty was referred back to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Senator Lugar again reflected on this failure to obtain the Senate’s advice and consent to ratifying this treaty. He said there needed to be a “reinvigorated Senate commitment to the treaty process.” Senate leaders of both parties, he said, had allowed narrow objections to prevent Senate consideration of this and other treaties and had been unwilling to invoke cloture to terminate debate on treaties. For this blogger, this is another example of the abysmal rules of the U.S. Senate.

Renewal of Interest in U.S. Ratification of the Treaty

As previously mentioned, possible U.S. ratification of the treaty is back on the table.

Secretary Leon Panetta

On May 9, 2012, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta gave a lengthy speech calling for such ratification. He said this treaty is “the bedrock legal instrument underpinning public order across the maritime domain” and yet the U.S. is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and the only industrialized country in the world that is not a party. This puts the U.S. at a distinct disadvantage, particularly when it comes to disputes over maritime rights and responsibilities.

Panetta noted, as detailed above, that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has held hearings and approved the treaty by large bipartisan majorities and that the treaty is supported among major U.S. industries in order to be able to do their business and to accomplish their goals.

The same is true for national security, Panetta said, as demonstrated in comments by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard Commandant. Panetta then listed some of the reasons why this treaty is essential to a strong national security.

First, as “the world’s pre-eminent maritime power,” the U.S. with one of the largest coastlines and extended continental shelf in the world “has more to gain from accession to the Convention than any other country because of the interest we have from our coastlines, from our oceans, and from our continental shelves.  By . . .  sitting at the table of nations that have acceded to this treaty, we can defend our interests, we can lead the discussions, we will be able to influence those treaty bodies that develop and interpret the Law of the Sea.  If we’re not there, then . . . [others will] do it, and we won’t have a voice.” Under these circumstances, the U.S. will not be able “to ensure that our rights are not whittled away by the excessive claims and erroneous interpretations of others.” To be a party, on the other hand, “would give us the credibility to support and promote the peaceful resolution of disputes within a rules-based order.”

Second, by joining the Convention, the U.S. “would protect our navigational freedoms and global access for our military, our commercial ships, our aircraft, and our undersea fiber optic cables.  As it currently stands, we are forced to assert our rights to freedom of navigation, asserting hopefully, through customary international law, which can change to our own detriment.” But by joining the Convention, “we would help lock in rules that are favorable to freedom of navigation and our own global mobility.”

Third, “accession [to the treaty] would help lock-in a truly massive increase in our country’s resource and economic jurisdiction, not only to 200 nautical miles off our coasts, but to a broad continental shelf beyond that zone.”

Fourth, “accession would ensure our ability to reap the benefits of the opening of the Arctic – a region of increasingly important maritime security and economic interest.  We already see countries that are posturing for new shipping routes and natural resources as Arctic ice cover melts and recedes.  The Convention is the only means for international recognition and acceptance of our extended continental shelf claims in the Arctic, and we are the only Arctic nation that is not party to the Convention.”  Accession would also “preserve our navigation and over-flight rights throughout the Arctic, and strengthen our arguments for freedom of navigation through the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route.”

Finally, the new U.S. “defense strategy emphasizes the strategically vital arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia.”  Many countries “sit astride critical trade and supply routes and propose restrictions on access for military vessels in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and the South China Sea.” The U.S. has had a consistent naval presence and engagement in these critical regions.   Becoming a party to the Convention would strengthen the U.S. position in these key areas. By not acceding to the Convention, the U.S, potentially is undercutting “our credibility in a number of Asia-focused multilateral venues – just as we’re pushing for a rules-based order in the region and the peaceful resolution of maritime and territorial disputes.”  Being a party to the treaty is also important for the U.S. efforts to preserve freedom of transit in the Strait of Hormuz in the face of Iranian threats to impose a blockade.

Democratic Senator John Kerry, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said that he is considering holding new hearings on the treaty.

Conclusion

In a presidential election year bipartisan cooperation is even more difficult than normal, especially after Senator Lugar’s loss in the Indiana primary election this past Tuesday. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the Senate this year will give its advice and consent by a two-third’s vote to ratification of this treaty. We will wait and hope that this assessment is proven wrong.

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[i]  Agreement Relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982, with Annex, adopted at New York, July 28, 1994

Rev. Charles Edwin Brown’s Lineage in America

As mentioned in a prior post, Rev. Charles Edwin Brown (my maternal great-great grandfather or 2nd great-grandfather in Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s terminology) was a Baptist missionary to the Iowa Territory in 1842. His and, therefore, my lineage in the U.S. has been traced to at least 1686.[1]

William Brown was born somewhere in England around 1669 and emigrated to the American colonies sometime before 1686. William was one of the early settlers of Hadley (later Hatfield), Massachusetts and the builder of its first house. By 1720 he had relocated to Leicester, Massachusetts approximately 45 miles west of Boston. He died in Leicester, Massachusetts in 1752. (William was my maternal 7th great-grandfather.)

One of William’s sons was John Brown, who was born in Hatfield, Massachusetts on November 3, 1703. Sometime before 1720 he and his family moved to be among the original settlers of Leicester, Massachusetts, where he became an important figure. John was a representative in the Commonwealth’s legislature for many years between 1749 and 1768. He died on December 24, 1791 in Leicester. (John was my maternal 6th great-grandfather.)

One of John’s sons was Perley Brown, who was born on May 27, 1737 in Leicester, Massachusetts and who died on October 28, 1776, in White Plains, New York. (Perley was my maternal 5th great-grandfather.)

John and Perley and four of John’s other sons (John, Jr., Benjamin, William and Daniel) had significant military experience, including the American Revolutionary War, that will examined in subsequent posts.

One of Perley’s sons was Nathaniel Brown, who was born in Leicester, Massachusetts on November 5, 1767 and who died on October 1, 1854 in Hamburg, New York. (Nathaniel Brown was my maternal 4th great-grandfather.)

Phillip Perry Brown was one of Nathaniel’s sons, having been born on September 17, 1790 in Bennington, Vermont. He was an ordained Baptist pastor who served several churches in Madison County, New York. He died in Madison, New York on September 23, 1876. (Phillip Perry Brown was my maternal 3rd great-grandfather.)

Phillip Perry was the father of Charles Edwin Brown, who was born on February 23, 1813 in Augusta, New York and who died in Ottumwa, Iowa on July 23, 1901.

Future posts will explore Charles Edwin’s ministry and service in Iowa and the lives of (a) his son, James DeGrush Brown (my maternal 1st great-grandfather); (b) Charles Edwin’s grandson, George Edwin Brown (my maternal grandfather); (c) and Charles Edwin’s great-grand-daughter, Marian Frances Brown Krohnke (my Mother). Another son of Charles Edwin–William Carlos Brown–had a remarkable railroad career that will be examined in other posts.

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[1] The source for this geneology is Carol Willits Brown, William Brown–English Immigrant of Hatfield and Leicester, Massachusetts, and His Descendants c. 1669-1994 (Gateway Press; Baltimore, MD 1994).

Federal Appellate Court Grants Immunity to Author of Legal Memoranda Regarding U.S. Detention and Interrogation of Suspects in the “War on Terrorism”

U.S. Court of Appeals,        9th Circuit

John Yoo

On May 2, 2012, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco unanimously held that John Yoo was immune from civil liability to Jose Padilla (and his mother) for Yoo’s authoring legal memoranda in 2001-2003 for the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the detention and interrogation of U.S. citizens who had been declared to be “enemy combatants.”

This civil case arises out of Padilla’s arrest and detention by U.S. military officials. In May 2002 Padilla was arrested at O’Hare International Airport near Chicago on suspicion of plotting a radiological bomb attack in the U.S. and was detained under a federal material witness arrest warrant until June 9, 2002, when President George W. Bush declared Padilla to be an “enemy combatant.” For the next 3 and a half years Padilla was detained in a military brig where he repeatedly was subjected to sleep deprivation, shakling, stress positions, solitary confinement and administration of psychotropic drugs. In January 2006 he was transferred to a federal civilian detention facility in Miami, Florida, where a federal jury in August 2007 found him guilty of conspiring to kill people and to support overseas terrorism and a federal judge in January 2008 sentenced him to 17.3 years imprisonment. This conviction was affirmed in September 2011 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which vacated the 17.3 sentence as too lenient. The case was remanded to the district court where the case awaits the new sentencing.

Jose Padilla

This civil case was commenced by Padilla and his mother in January 2008. The complaint alleged that Yoo, as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, had authored various legal memoranda that provided purported legal justification for Padilla’s detention and interrogation, all in violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Article III and the Habeas Suspension and Treason Clauses of the Constitution and a federal statute. The complaint sought nominal damages of one dollar and a declaration that his treatment violated these constitutional and statutory provisions.

After the district court denied Yoo’s motion to dismiss the complaint, he appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which reversed the trial court on the previously mentioned immunity ground.

The Ninth Circuit correctly concluded that this appeal was governed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2011 decision, Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2974, which held that           “[q]ualifed immunity shields federal and state officials from money damages unless a plaintiff pleads facts showing (1) that the official violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the right was ‘clearly established’ at the time of the challenged conduct.” The alleged right must be “sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.”

With this major premise in hand, the Ninth Circuit then concluded that in 2001-2003, when Yoo was at the Department of Justice, it was not clearly established that a U.S. citizen held in military detention as an enemy combatant was entitled to the same constitutional and statutory rights as convicted prisoners and that Padilla’s treatment amounted to torture.

John Yoo himself in an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal naturally applauded the decision. His resistance to this lawsuit, he said, was “not just to defend the tough decisions that had to be made after 9/11. We fought to protect the nation’s ability to fight and win the war against al Qaeda—and other enemies—in the future.”

Yoo also launched bitter attacks on human rights groups that support lawsuits like the one against him and others who hold opposite opinions on the interrogation tactics. Such groups, he said, seek to “advance their agenda by legally harassing officials, agents and soldiers, and so raise the costs of public service to anyone who does not hew to their extreme, unreasonable views.” Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi was cited by Yoo as being misleading on the substance of a briefing by the CIA on its interrogation tactics. President Obama, according to Yoo, lacked “backbone” by declaring “the CIA’s interrogation methods to be ‘torture’  before the courts or his own Justice Department had delivered a considered opinion . . . [by launching] an independent counsel to hound CIA agents, even though career prosecutors had already looked into claims of abuse and found no charges appropriate . . . [by trying] to close Guantanamo Bay without any real alternative . . . [by stalling] special military commissions established by President Bush and ratified by Congress, and [by relying] on drones to kill rather than capture al Qaeda leaders for their intelligence.”

The Wall Street Journal, a long-time supporter of Mr. Yoo and the other authors of the legal memoranda in question, also welcomed the Ninth Circuit’s decision. The Journal declared in an editorial that the decision “vindicates the principle that government officials are immune from private litigation for their national-security decisions. The law has long held that executive branch officials can’t be sued for other than criminal acts so they can carry out their duties in the best interests of the country without threat of personal liability.” More vindictively, the Journal said the decision was a “watershed for repudiating sham tort claims whose goal is to intimidate—and perhaps bankrupt—anyone who dares to treat terrorists differently from shoplifters. In a better world, Padilla’s pals at the ACLU and the . . . [Yale Law School] Human Rights Clinic would be hit with sanctions and a bill for Mr. Yoo’s costs.”

The New York Times, on the other hand, criticized this decision. Its editorial acknowledged that the Ninth Circuit followed, as it had to, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2011 that the so-called qualified immunity existed unless “existing precedent” put the claimed right “beyond debate.” This Supreme Court decision, however, had changed the legal standard for such immunity; previously it had required that a reasonable person would have known about the alleged right he allegedly had violated.

According to the New York Times, the Ninth Circuit’s decision this week showed why the new Supreme Court standard was “unworkable.” The newspaper said “the Bush administration manufactured both ‘debates’ — about torture and enemy combatants. . . .  By using the ‘enemy combatant’ category, the Bush administration stirred debate that had not existed about whether rights of an American citizen in custody depend on how he is classified. By coming up with offensive rationalizations for torturing detainees, it dishonestly stirred debate about torture’s definition when what it engaged in plainly included torture.” The Ninth Circuit decision can be used, the Times said, by future administrations “to pull the same stunt as cover for some other outrage.”

In the meantime, as reported in a prior post, Yoo and five other authors of the legal memoranda regarding detention and interrogation of individuals in the so-called war on terrorism are the suspects in a criminal case in Spain under the principle of universal jurisdiction that the trial court had temporarily dismissed or stayed so that the issues could be pursued in the U.S. On March 23, 2012, an appeals court in Spain affirmed the trial court’s decision. However, three of the 17 members of this appellate court dissented on the grounds that the conduct authorized by these memoranda were crimes under international and Spanish law and that the requirements for a Spanish court to defer to  U.S. authorities under Spain’s concept of “subsidiarity” had not been satisfied.

An 1842 Journey from New York to the Iowa Territory

In May 1842 Rev. Charles Edwin Brown and his wife, Frances Lyon Brown, both 29 years old, and their two young sons (Benjamin Perry Brown, almost three years old, and Charles Perry Brown, one and a half years old) left their home in the small village of Warren in the central part of the State of New York to go on a Baptist missionary trip of roughly 1,500 miles to another small village, Maquoketa, in the eastern part of the Iowa Territory.

At the time Rev. Brown was the Pastor of the Baptist Church in Warren. Previously he had submitted an application for appointment as a missionary “in the distant West” with a preference for the Iowa Territory, and his application had been endorsed by the New York State Missionary Convention. Later the American Baptist Home Missionary Society appointed him to be a missionary to the forks of the Maquoketa River in Iowa at an annual salary of $100 plus $75 for travel expenses.

The Browns could not economically ship all of their household goods to Iowa so they sold everything except clothing, bedding, a table, a stand, a rocking chair and a small cook stove. These remnants weighed approximately 1,600 pounds.

This would not be an easy journey.  Of course, there were no airplanes or automobiles on Interstate highways to take them there. Nor were there any cross-country railroads. An account of the journey that is set forth in the memoirs of Rev. Brown, my maternal great-great grandfather (2nd great-grandfather in Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s parlance), provides a window into what life and transportation were like in the U.S. of 1842 when approximately 17 million people lived in the 26 states of the Union. (Four years later, in 1846, Iowa became the 29th state in the Union.)

The First Stage: Warren to Utica, New York

Utica, NY, 1855

The initial stage of their trip for six or seven days, from Warren to Little Falls and Utica, New York, of approximately 130 miles presumably was by horse-drawn wagon. Utica, then a town with a population of approximately 13,000, was a terminus on the 17-year old Erie Canal that had been built to connect New York City’s harbor with Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes and thereby improve transportation into, and from, the interior of the U.S. This stage cost the family $15.00.

The Second Stage: Utica to Buffalo, New York

Erie Canal

Erie Canal Packet Boat

On Monday, May 2nd, at Utica the Browns boarded the Little Western, a passenger packet or Line boat on the Erie Canal for the second stage of their journey. They had a comfortable cabin in the bow. The kitchen and dining cabin were in the stern with freight and baggage amidships. “With good company, clean wholesome food, a sober and accommodating master and crew, the two hundred mile trip from Utica to Buffalo was comfortable and pleasant.”  As the boat did not run on Sunday, it was tied up for the day in Tonawanda, New York. This gave the family the opportunity to attend a Methodist Church worship service in the morning and for Rev. Brown to preach in the afternoon. On Monday (May 9th), they arrived in Buffalo, then a town of 18,000 people. The family’s total fare at 2 cents per mile for each adult was $8.00.

The Dart Grain Elevator, Buffalo, NY, 1842

With the Erie Canal, Buffalo became a key junction for the shipment of western grain to the east coast and beyond as the Great Lakes ships were too big to go on the Erie Canal. Until 1842 loose grain on the ships had to be manually scooped into baskets and transferred to the wharves by block and tackle while sacks, barrels and casks of grain and flour had be to manually hauled to the wharves and then loaded onto the canal boats, oftentimes with an in-between hauling into and out of warehouses. In late 1842, however, this changed with the invention by Joseph Dart and Robert Dunbar of a grain elevator with a steam-powered conveyor belt and buckets for the direct transfer of grain from the ships to grain elevators on the land.

The Third Stage: Buffalo, New York to Chicago, Illinois

Great Western Steamer

 On May 9th, the family boarded the Great Western, a Great Lakes steamer, for the third stage of their journey. The four-year old, 185-foot Great Western was one of the largest and finest of the day and was the first to have a spacious upper cabin for its nearly 400 passengers. The entire hull was occupied by the boilers with holds for freight and wood.

Great Lakes Map

Prior to completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, shipping on the Great Lakes was primarily on sailing craft as traffic was not sufficient to make the more-expensive steamers profitable to operate. The Erie Canal, however, expanded Lakes traffic so that steamers increasingly became the preferred mode of transportation as they offered fast, efficient and predictable delivery of passengers and freight.

The Great Lakes voyage on the Great Western steamer took six days before arrival on Sunday, May 15th, in the village of Chicago, population of approximately 5,000. Other than a storm the first night out, the trip was pleasant with short stops in Cleveland (population of 6,000) and Detroit (population of 9,000). Mrs. Brown commented that on the way they had seen the “pleasant villages” of Milwaukee, Racine and Southport, Wisconsin. The total fare for the family was $48.00.

The Fourth Stage: Chicago to Savanna, Illinois

After an overnight stay at the New York House, a two-story hotel in Chicago, Rev. Brown hired a man with horses and lumber wagon to take the family and their possessions the additional 200 miles to Savanna, Illinois on the Mississippi River. Their rocking chair and a small chair were put on top of the boxes for Mrs. Brown and the older son to sit on during the ride.

On Monday, May 16th, the fourth stage of the journey began in the lumber wagon. After two over-night stops, they arrived in the town of Rockford, Illinois, the home of the wagon owner. Unfortunately the owner had to testify in a trial, and the family was forced to stay there until the following Monday. The delay, however, gave Rev. Brown the opportunity to preach that Sunday in Rockford’s Baptist Church, his “first sermon in the west.”

On the following Monday after a day’s ride, near Crane’s Grove, Illinois, they asked Mrs. Crane, “middle aged and stout” with a pail of milk, if they could stay there that night. She replied, “Oh, I reckon, though I am mighty tired. The old cow gives a right smart of milk, well on to half a bushel.”

The next morning, the owner of the lumber wagon discovered that he had overfed his horses and one had died. Mr. Crane was then enlisted to take the Browns, again by horse-drawn wagon, the next 18 miles to Cherry Grove, Illinois, where the next day (May 24th) another man, Mr. Gardner, took the family to Savanna, Illinois on the Mississippi River. This was the Brown family’s first view “of the mighty river, its volume then being much greater than in later years.”

The Fifth Stage: Savanna, Illinois to Charleston, Iowa

Mississippi River,    Savanna, Illinois

The fifth stage of the journey on the evening of the 24th was a ferry across the Mississippi River from Savanna to Charleston (later Sabula), Iowa where they stayed the night in the local tavern. Perhaps the ferry looked like the one pictured at the right.

The Sixth Stage: Charleston to Maquoketa, Iowa

The next morning, May 25th, Rev. Brown hired yet another man and team to take them the final 25 to 30 miles to Maquoketa, Iowa. Around midnight they arrived at their destination, Mr. C. W. Doolittle’s cabin. “With cordial frontier hospitality . . . Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle turned out and welcomed us, prepared supper and then gave us their bed, while they found lodging for themselves and family in the cabin loft. Tired and worn by the long and tedious last day’s drive we slept sweetly and soundly, four in the bed, myself, wife and two children.”

Conclusion

This six-stage journey took a month: 6 or 7 days from Warren to Utica plus 24 days from Utica to Maquoketa.

Rev. Brown served as a Baptist missionary in Iowa for most of the following 36 years, a subject that will be examined in a subsequent post.

Miniscule Suggested Reform of the Dysfunctional U.S. Senate Rules

The U.S. Senate Rules, in my opinion, are an embarrassing blot on our democracy.

Just this week two Senators, Democrat Carl Levin and Republican Lamar Alexander, agreed that the Senate was “dysfunctional, gridlocked and broken.” They pointed out that the current Senate Rules require, at most steps of the legislative process, agreement from all 100 senators; absent unanimous agreement, the Rules entail a time-consuming process that requires a supermajority of 60 senators to move forward.

Levin and Alexander then proposed a revised rule that  would allow the majority leader to bring a bill to the floor for a vote without the 60-vote process on condition that the bill would be open to all relevant amendments, but not to non-relevant amendments.

Any change to the Senate Rules to reduce or eliminate the ability of one Senator to block consideration of important matters is better than none. But this proposed change is too miniscule as is true for other suggested reforms on this subject in recent years.

Instead I advocate more significant changes.

• First, the Senate should operate by majority rule except where the Constitution requires a supermajority (two-thirds) vote for (a) overriding a presidential veto or (b) consenting to the ratification of treaties or (c) proposing constitutional amendments or (d) expelling a member.

• Second, the Senate should have weighted voting so that a Senator from a more populous state would have more clout than a Senator from a sparsely populated state. For example, a Senator from Wyoming (the least populous state) would have one vote while a Senator from California (the most populous state) would have 66 votes.

Such significant changes would recognize that in a democracy the wishes of the majority of the people should be the fundamental governing principle (except when the Constitution otherwise provides) and that our primary allegiance is as U.S. citizens, not citizens of 50 states.

 

Reactions to Charles Taylor’s Conviction

Special Court for Sierra Leone Logo

As reported in a prior post, on April 26th the Special Court for Sierra Leone convicted Charles Taylor, the former President of neighboring Liberia of 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The hearing on his sentencing has been scheduled for May 16th with the sentence to be pronounced on May 30th. The deadline for any appeal is 14 days after the sentencing judgment.

Before we look at the reactions to that conviction, we should be aware of the gruesome details of what happened in Sierra Leone according to witnesses at Taylor’s trial. Here are only two examples. One male witness, “Then I put this other hand. Then he [a Sierra Leone rebel] chopped it, but when he chopped it it was not severed initially. He chopped it twice, and it hit here and some bones were broken in it. Then the third time it was severed.” Another male witness, “Well, they [the rebels] used to treat them [civilians] badly. They used to rape them. They used to kill them. Sometimes they even ate them.” A video with photos of some of the Sierra Leone victims should be watched as well as current photos from the country.

Another aspect of the trial needs highlighting. One of the challenges facing the prosecution was how to link Mr. Taylor in Liberia to the crimes committed in Sierra Leone. There was no paper trail showing orders from Taylor. Nor was there any evidence of his ever going to Sierra Leone. He was not at the scene of the crimes in that country, and the Liberian army was not involved. Instead the link was proven by radio and telephone communications from Taylor to the rebels in Sierra Leone, by shipments of arms and ammunition to the rebels from Taylor’s forces and by bank records showing transfers of funds to Taylor’s accounts from Sierra Leone.

The Special Court’s chief prosecutor, Brenda J. Hollis, who is a U.S. lawyer, said the conviction was a triumph for the idea that political leaders should be held accountable  for their deeds in “the new reality of an international justice system.”

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that the conviction “marked a major milestone in the development of international justice. . . .  A former President, who once wielded immense influence in a neighbouring [sic] country where tens of thousands of people were killed, mutilated, raped, robbed and repeatedly displaced for years on end, has been arrested, tried in a fair and thorough international procedure, and has now been convicted of very serious crimes.” Such a result, she said, was ”a stark warning to other Heads of State who are committing similar crimes, or contemplating doing so.”

The U.S. Department of State issued an official statement welcoming the conviction as “an important step toward delivering justice and accountability for victims, restoring peace and stability in the country and the region, and completing the Special Court for Sierra Leone’s mandate to prosecute those persons who bear the greatest responsibility for the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone. The Taylor prosecution at the Special Court delivers a strong message to all perpetrators of atrocities, including those in the highest positions of power, that they will be held accountable.” The U.S. statement also noted that the U.S. “has been a strong supporter and the leading donor of the Special Court  . . . since its inception. The successful completion of the Special Court’s work remains a top U.S. Government priority.”

Amnesty International (AI) asserted that the conviction sends “a clear message to leaders the world over that no-one is immune from justice.”  However, AI lamented that because of the limited jurisdiction and funding of the Special Court, “Thousands of persons suspected of criminal responsibility for incidences of unlawful killings, rape and sexual violence, mutilations and the use of children in Sierra Leone’s armed conflict have never been investigated, much less prosecuted.” In addition, AI emphasized that “only a limited number of Sierra Leone’s thousands of victims who bear the terrible scars of the conflict have received reparations, despite the [provisions for reparations in the Sierra Leone] Peace Accord and the clear recommendations [for reparations] by [Sierra Leone's] Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” AI also reiterated its call for the repeal of the amnesty provision in the Peace Accord and [for Sierra Leone's] enactment of legislation defining crimes against humanity and war crimes as crimes under Sierra Leone law.”

Human Rights Watch had a similar reaction. It said the conviction “sends a message to those in power that they can be held to account for grave crimes.”

A New York Times editorial said the conviction “is a historic victory for justice and accountability: the first time a former head of state has been convicted by an international court since the Nuremberg trials after World War II. Mr. Taylor . . . richly deserves this distinction.” The editorial also reminded us that “other leaders . . .  deserve the same fate” from the International Criminal Court in its prosecutions of the Ivory Coast’s brutal former president, Laurent Gbagbo, and Sudan’s current president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

The Guardian newspaper from London commented that the conviction was “an important step in what can only be described as the faltering path of international justice.” It noted that even though there were dysfunctional justice systems in Russia and China, it is “a safe bet that no Russian [or Chinese] leader will ever appear before an international court of justice for war crimes . . . . The same is true of . . . US or British generals for war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Might, or a seat on the UN security council, still appears to be right. If the arm of international law is long, it is also selective. . . .  If impunity is to end, jurisdiction has to be universal.”

Taylor’s conviction was for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sierra Leone. But the conviction reminded Liberians of the horrible similar crimes committed in their country by Taylor and his forces.

Charles Taylor (Rebel leader)

Charles Taylor, President of Liberia

An expert on Liberia stated that in “Liberia, Mr. Taylor fought a brutal campaign against West African peacekeepers and other armed factions. As many as 250,000 Liberians out of a prewar population of just over [3,000,000] lost their lives, while more than [1,000,000] others became refugees — crimes for which no one has yet been held accountable. An internationally brokered peace deal in 1997 led to the travesty of a frightened population’s electing Mr. Taylor president for fear of what would happen if he did not get his way. He was driven from power only in 2003.” Moreover, “many of his closest former associates remain at large and active in public life . . . . Mr. Taylor’s ex-wife, Jewel Howard Taylor, who filed for divorce after his fall from power in part to protect her assets from international sanctions, is a member of the Liberian Senate. So is Prince Y. Johnson, a onetime Taylor ally who literally butchered President Samuel K. Doe at the start of the civil war and was so certain of his impunity that he had the entire episode videotaped for posterity. Far from becoming a pariah, Mr. Johnson played kingmaker in Liberia’s presidential election last year, delivering the bloc of votes that assured President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf a second term.”

The previously mentioned New York Times editorial said that Taylor now “must also be held accountable for his role in Liberia’s 14-year civil war. Liberia needs to enact the legislation to bring him, and the other murderous warlords from that era, to trial either in Liberian or international courts.”

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also remembered that Taylor and his forces had committed grave crimes in his native Liberia, but had not been subject to any criminal prosecutions for those crimes. Said AI, “during “the 14-year Liberian civil war that raged while Taylor was first the leader of one of the numerous armed opposition groups and later the President, all parties to the conflict committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murders along ethnic lines, as well as torture, rapes and other crimes of sexual violence, abductions, and recruitment and use child soldiers.” After the end of the civil war, AI said the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation commission had recommended “that a criminal tribunal be established to prosecute people identified as responsible for crimes under international law [but that it] is yet to be implemented, as are most TRC recommendations on legal and other institutional reforms, accountability, and reparations.  The lack of justice for the victims of the Liberian conflict is shocking. The government of Liberia must end the reign of impunity by enacting the necessary legislation and acting on its duty to investigate and prosecute alleged perpetrators.”

Finally, two African observers commented that justice having “had to come from international courts does not reflect well on . . .  Liberia in particular. The process exposes the failure by Liberians to provide themselves with a legal and judiciary system capable of effectively administering justice.” More generally “the verdict and the process should be a wakeup call to Africans. The successful conviction for such crimes is a glaring example of the failure of Africans to govern themselves effectively. . . . Africans must focus on building strong institutions to deal with human rights violations ourselves . . . .” On the other hand, the conviction “informs future Liberian, and indeed African, dictators and tyrants that they cannot escape justice by hedging their bets on a dysfunctional domestic legal system. Where national systems are incapable of adequately and effectively prosecuting leaders who engage in wanton violations of human rights, citizens can look to the international criminal court for justice.”

Former Liberian President Convicted of Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes

Special Court for Sierra Leone Logo

Charles Taylor

On April 26, 2012, the Special Court for Sierra Leone convicted Charles Taylor, the former President of neighboring Liberia, of 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined in the Court’s governing Statute.

The Court’s judgment was based upon detailed findings that the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that:

• Sierra Leone rebels had committed crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone by murder (Count 2), rape (Count 4), sexual slavery (Count 5), other inhumane acts (Count 8) and enslavement (Count 10).

• Said rebels had committed violations of Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions and of their Additional Protocol II in Sierra Leone by acts of terrorism (Count 1), violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder (Count 3); outrages upon personal dignity (Count 6); violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular cruel treatment (Count 7); and pillage (Count 11).

• Said rebels had committed violations of international humanitarian law in Sierra Leone by conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, or using them to participate actively in hostilities (Count 9).

• Mr. Taylor had provided practical assistance, encouragement and moral support that had a substantial effect on the commission of said crimes by the rebels, and he knew that such crimes were being committed and that his actions would provide said practical assistance, encouragement or moral support to the commission of such crimes. Therefore, Mr. Taylor was guilty of the crime of aiding and abetting the commission of such crimes.

The Court, however, determined that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Taylor had participated in a common plan, design or purpose to commit the rebels’ crimes.

Mr. Taylor will be sentenced in the coming weeks. There is no death penalty in international criminal law, and any prison term would be served in a British prison pursuant to a special agreement with the Court.

The Court was established in 2002 in a partnership between the United Nations and Sierra Leone to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in a conflict that led almost half the population to flee and left an estimated 50,000 dead. With its main seat in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown, the Court already has sentenced eight other leading members from different forces and rebel groups for crimes in Sierra Leone. Mr. Taylor is its last defendant whose trial was moved to The Hague in the Netherlands for fear of causing unrest in the region where he still has followers.

Not since Karl Doenitz, the German admiral who briefly succeeded Hitler upon his death, was tried and sentenced by the International Military Tribunal has a head of state been convicted by an international court.

 

U.S. Establishes Atrocities Prevention Board

President Obama

On April 23, 2012, President Obama formally established the U.S. Atrocities Prevention Board (APB), a standing, inter-agency body responsible for coordinating policy on preventing mass atrocities and responding to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The President announced that the APB will help the U.S. government identify and address atrocity threats, and it will oversee institutional changes that will make the U.S. more nimble and effective on these issues. The intelligence community will collect and analyze information that allows the U.S. to improve its anticipation, understanding, and counters to atrocity threats. U.S. diplomats will encourage more robust multilateral efforts to prevent and respond to atrocities. The U.S. military and civilian workforce will be better equipped to prevent and respond to atrocities.

The APB also will promote new kinds of targeted sanctions; denial of entry to the U.S. of perpetrators of serious violations of human rights or humanitarian law or other atrocities; “surging” of specialized expertise in civilian protection on a rapid response basis in crisis situations; and blocking the flow of money to abusive regimes. In addition, the APB will monitor agencies’ compilation of after-action “lessons-learned” reports to record key innovations, areas of success, and issues requiring future work in the area of atrocity prevention and response. The USAID will award grants for innovative technologies that strengthen the U.S. government’s capacity for early warning, prevention, and response with respect to mass atrocities.

This presidential statement further announced efforts to hold accountable perpetrators of mass atrocities and genocide by strengthening the U.S. ability to prosecute perpetrators of atrocities found in the U.S. and to use immigration laws and immigration-fraud penalties to hold accountable perpetrators of mass atrocities.

In addition, the U.S. will support national, hybrid, and international mechanisms (including, among other things, commissions of inquiry, fact-finding missions, and tribunals) that seek to hold accountable perpetrators of atrocities when doing so advances U.S. interests and values, consistent with the requirements of U.S. law. This will include witness protection measures and technical assistance in connection with foreign and international prosecutions. The Administration will seek additional statutory authority to make reward payments for information that leads to the arrest of foreign nationals indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide by international, hybrid, or mixed criminal tribunals.

As the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and hybrid courts are nearing the end of their lives and as the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, the APB has let it be known that it will be continuing the Obama Administration’s policy of positive engagement with the ICC by assisting the ICC in accordance with this presidential statement.

Samantha Power

The Chair of the APB is Samantha Power, the U.S. National Security Council Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Problem from Hell, a study of the U.S. foreign-policy response to genocide. Other APB members are senior officials from the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security, and government entities such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Office of the Vice President. U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Stephen Rapp will also work closely with the APB.

The APB met for the first time on April 23rs at the White House. This was followed by panel presentations by experts and government officials, as well as interactions with civil society. Earlier in the day at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, President Obama said that the work of the APB, the first of its kind, is “not an afterthought,” and that preventing atrocity crimes “is not a sideline in our foreign policy.”

The APB owes its genesis to an August 2011 Presidential Study Directive declaring that “[p]reventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility” of the U.S. Therefore, the Directive called for the establishment of the APB “to coordinate a whole of government approach to preventing mass atrocities and genocide.” The objectives of such a board were to “ensure: (1) that our national security apparatus recognizes and is responsive to early indicators of potential atrocities; (2) that departments and agencies develop and implement comprehensive atrocity prevention and response strategies in a manner that allows ‘red flags’ and dissent to be raised to decision makers; (3) that we increase the capacity and develop doctrine for our foreign service, armed services, development professionals, and other actors to engage in the full spectrum of smart prevention activities; and (4) that we are optimally positioned to work with our allies in order to ensure that the burdens of atrocity prevention and response are appropriately shared.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Christians of the Holy Land” on CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes

Roman Catholic Procession in Palestine

 

Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb

As noted in a prior post, on April 22nd CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes aired the report “Christians of the Holy Land.” It reported that Christians have been leaving Palestine in large numbers for years and that its Christian population is now less than two percent. The program explored differing explanations for this decline.

Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, the Pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, said that Palestinian Christians, once a powerful minority, are becoming the invisible people, squeezed between a growing Muslim majority and burgeoning Israeli settlements. “If you see what’s happening in the West Bank, you will find that the West Bank is becoming more and more like a piece of Swiss cheese where Israel gets the cheese that is the land, the water resources, the archaeological sites. And the Palestinians are pushed in the holes behind the walls.”

The Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, however, vigorously disagreed. He asserted that the Christians in Palestine were being persecuted by Islamic extremism and that the Israeli government did not bother to respond to a 2009 Christian document, Kairos, because it allegedly made inflammatory accusations that Israel had crimes historically associated with anti-Semitism.

Rev. Raheb and others rejected the Ambassador’s assertion that Islamic extremism was the basic cause of the Christian exodus. Raheb said he was a member of the Christian group that wrote and published Kairos: A Moment of truth: A word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering. This document, he said, criticized Islamic extremism and advocated non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation which they called a sin against God. This document was endorsed by the leaders of 13 Christian denominations, including Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican.

On May 6th Rev. Raheb will be preaching at the 10:30 a.m. (CDT) worship service at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church. This will be the concluding event in its Palestinian Arts Festival.

The Kairos Document

The 60 Minutes reference to the Kairos document calls for a more complete account of its contents. It is available on the web and opens with descriptions of what it calls “The reality on the ground: ” “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, deprivation of our freedom.” Here are the specifics of that accusation:

• “1.1.1 The separation wall erected on Palestinian territory, a large part of which has been confiscated for this purpose, has turned our towns and villages into prisons, separating them from one another, making them dispersed and divided cantons. Gaza, especially after the cruel war Israel launched against it during December 2008 and January 2009, continues to live in inhuman conditions, under permanent blockade and cut off from the other Palestinian territories.”
• “1.1.2 Israeli settlements ravage our land in the name of God and in the name of force, controlling our natural resources, including water and agricultural land, thus depriving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and constituting an obstacle to any political solution.”
• “1.1.3 Reality is the daily humiliation to which we are subjected at the military checkpoints, as we make our way to jobs, schools or hospitals.”
• “1.1.4 Reality is the separation between members of the same family, making family life impossible for thousands of Palestinians, especially where one of the spouses does not have an Israeli identity card.”
• “1.1.5 Religious liberty is severely restricted; the freedom of access to the holy places is denied under the pretext of security. Jerusalem and its holy places are out of bounds for many Christians and Muslims from the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Even Jerusalemites face restrictions during the religious feasts. Some of our Arab clergy are regularly barred from entering Jerusalem.”
• “1.1.6 Refugees are also part of our reality. Most of them are still living in camps under difficult circumstances. They have been waiting for their right of return, generation after generation. What will be their fate?”
• “1.1.7 And the prisoners? The thousands of prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons are part of our reality. The Israelis move heaven and earth to gain the release of one prisoner, and those thousands of Palestinian prisoners, when will they have their freedom?”
• “1.1.8 Jerusalem is the heart of our reality. It is, at the same time, symbol of peace and sign of conflict. While the separation wall divides Palestinian neighbourhoods, Jerusalem continues to be emptied of its Palestinian citizens, Christians and Muslims. Their identity cards are confiscated, which means the loss of their right to reside in Jerusalem. Their homes are demolished or expropriated. Jerusalem, city of reconciliation, has become a city of discrimination and exclusion, a source of struggle rather than peace.”
• “1.2 Also part of this reality is the Israeli disregard of international law and international resolutions, as well as the paralysis of the Arab world and the international community in the face of this contempt. Human rights are violated and despite the various reports of local and international human rights’ organizations, the injustice continues.”

The Kairos document concludes with these appeals to the peoples of Palestine and beyond:

• “8. Finally, we address an appeal to the religious and spiritual leaders, Jewish and Muslim, with whom we share the same vision that every human being is created by God and has been given equal dignity. Hence the obligation for each of us to defend the oppressed and the dignity God has bestowed on them. Let us together try to rise up above the political positions that have failed so far and continue to lead us on the path of failure and suffering.”

• “9.1 This is a call to see the face of God in each one of God’s creatures and overcome the barriers of fear or race in order to establish a constructive dialogue and not remain within the cycle of never-ending manoeuvres [sic] that aim to keep the situation as it is. Our appeal is to reach a common vision, built on equality and sharing, not on superiority, negation of the other or aggression, using the pretext of fear and security. We say that love is possible and mutual trust is possible. Thus, peace is possible and definitive reconciliation also. Thus, justice and security will be attained for all.”

• “9.3 Trying to make the state a religious state, Jewish or Islamic, suffocates the state, confines it within narrow limits, and transforms it into a state that practices discrimination and exclusion, preferring one citizen over another. We appeal to both religious Jews and Muslims: let the state be a state for all its citizens, with a vision constructed on respect for religion but also equality, justice, liberty and respect for pluralism and not on domination by a religion or a numerical majority.”

• “9.4 To the leaders of Palestine we say that current divisions weaken all of us and cause more sufferings. Nothing can justify these divisions. For the good of the people, which must outweigh that of the political parties, an end must be put to division. We appeal to the international community to lend its support towards this union and to respect the will of the Palestinian people as expressed freely.”

• “10. In the absence of all hope, we cry out our cry of hope. We believe in God, good and just. We believe that God’s goodness will finally triumph over the evil of hate and of death that still persist in our land. We will see here ‘a new land’ and ‘a new human being,’ capable of rising up in the spirit to love each one of his or her brothers and sisters.”

International Criminal Court Launches 10th Anniversary Website

 On April 20, 2012, the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched a separate website to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome Statute.

After 60 States had ratified the Rome Statute, the ICC started its activities on July 1, 2002.

Ten years later the Court is a fully functional institution supported by 121 States Parties. It has undertaken seven investigations, 15 cases and issued 20 arrest warrants. Earlier this year it had its first conviction.

The new website provides free tools, including publications and audio-visual materials, for those hosting events to celebrate this anniversary. The website features a calendar of such events, a photo gallery, press releases, and further background information about the Court.