Fleece England...
Rubber Africa...
Coffee Filter South America...
Tea bag China...
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Praxis Institute for Social Justice invites you to visit our bilingual liveblog and follow current developments in the ongoing human rights trial of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.As one of the directors of the Praxis Institute pointed out to me, the lack of international attention to Fujimori's trial may embolden the current Peruvian government to risk pardoning him if he is convicted. With luck, this blog will help raise the trial's international profile, making such a move far more politically costly.]]>
Fujimori served from 1990-2000, and is suspected of committing innumerable human rights violations during his decade in office. These allegations have been documented by the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in its Final Report, published in 2003, and the trial against the former president marks the fulfillment of one of the TRC’s most important recommendations for preventing future human rights violations by the state.
This precedent-setting trial began on Human Rights Day (December 10, 2007) soon after Fujimori’s extradition from Chile, making him the first head of state to be extradited to his home country to stand trial for human rights violations. The trial holds great importance for the development of both human rights and international criminal law. The liveblog seeks to expand coverage of these proceedings and see that Fujimori receives a fair trial, while also ensuring that he is held accountable for any crimes he committed.
The Fujimori on Trial blog is one component of our Trial Monitoring Project funded by the Foundation Open Society Institute (FOSI) and in collaboration with the International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP). It includes frequent posts by our expert national and international observers, news summaries, links to relevant documents, and observations and analyses by experts, students and victims of human rights violations in Peru. It is intended to be a resource for journalists, students, academics, human rights victims and the general public.
We invite English and Spanish speakers to join our dialogue and share their ideas and perspectives. Please share the blog with others!
This divided country faces a constitutional crisis Sunday when its richest and second most-populous province votes whether to declare itself autonomous from President Evo Morales's national government, a referendum the president has called illegal.
If the referendum passes, as polls show it overwhelmingly will, leaders of Santa Cruz province say they'll elect a state legislature, organize local police and otherwise set up a government equivalent to that of a U.S. state.
Morales has called the referendum a move to split up this nation of 9.1 million and to thwart his government's efforts to rewrite Bolivia's constitution so that its indigenous majority wins more political power. Bolivia has a centralized government, where police, taxation and other government functions are controlled by federal officials.
"This referendum violates the current constitution, because there's no mechanism to convoke it," said Leonida Zurita , a close Morales ally and a substitute senator with the president's Movement to Socialism party. "They want to found a second Bolivian state, and we won't let the fatherland be divided."
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Plaintiffs are three Cuban nationals who are now residents of Florida. The complaint alleges they suffered an arduous ordeal, as follows: The Defendant and the Cuban government trafficked the Plaintiffs from Cuba to Curaçao under threat of physical and psychological harm including the threat of imprisonment. Upon arrival in Curaçao, the Plaintiffs' passports were taken and they were held on the grounds of the Defendant, along with scores of their compatriots. The workers were only allowed to leave those grounds under the guard of Cuban government agents. They were forced to work in slave-like conditions for 112 hours per week performing drydock services on ships and oil platforms. The pay for their work, the complaint alleges, was paid to the Cuban government. (In discovery, Defendant admitted that it credited Cuba on a debt it was owed by Cuba in exchange for the labors of the Cuban workers). The complaint alleges a situation in which the government of Curaçao was likely complicit due to the circumstances in which the Plaintiffs were transported to Curaçao and held there. Further, the Plaintiffs were denied all protections of the laws of Curaçao for injuries they suffered there, and, when any of the workers were injured or complained, they were promptly deported to Cuba and treated as enemies of the state. If they escaped and were caught, they were likewise deported to Cuba and punished. Plaintiffs, however, successfully escaped the Defendant's drydock facility, and were hunted by Defendant and agents of the Defendant within Curaçao and by the agents of the Cuban government all the way to Colombia, where they were granted political asylum. The United States then granted Plaintiffs parole to enter the United States.
Plaintiffs' principal claims are that the Defendant and its government agents and co-conspirators violated the laws of nations by trafficking them from Cuba to Curaçao and by holding them and forcing them to work there. The main thrust of their action travels under the Alien Tort Statute…. In this case, Defendant has not met its burden to provide evidence that convinces the court that material injustice would result should this court exercise its jurisdiction in this matter. To the contrary, this Court determines that justice will best be served by its hearing this action in the Southern District of Florida….
Here … the only proposed alternative forum is one in which the Plaintiffs allege they only ever went to forcibly, and one in which they allege they never lived as free men. Courts have recognized that a forum where a plaintiff suffered trauma is inadequate. Here there is more than trauma. If the current facts did not make Curaçao inadequate, it certainly would be an undue prejudice or inconvenience to make these Plaintiffs go to the country they allege they were trafficked to, held in captivity, and face ongoing danger. A forum non conveniens dismissal in these circumstances would not pass the “ultimate inquiry” of serving not just the convenience of the parties, but also the “ends of justice”, and so is not warranted.
The private interest factors to be considered are the relative ease of access of proof, ability to obtain witnesses, and all other practical problems that make trial of a case easy, expeditious and inexpensive. In this matter, Defendant is in Curaçao. However, Plaintiffs are all in Florida. The alleged injuries to Plaintiffs for forced labor occurred in Curaçao. On the other hand, the trafficking took place internationally and in Cuba, as well as in Curaçao….
Local interest in the controversy requires more examination. As stated before, the government of Curaçao has a general interest in regulating its corporations and enforcing its labor laws. This interest augurs towards it as a forum. However, Curaçao's more particularized interest in this case, stemming from any allegations that it was complicit in, acquiesced in, or failed to stop the alleged abuses of such a serious and explosive nature, is not seen by this Court as a local interest factor that militates towards Curaçao.
Further, any interest that a forum in Curaçao may have is countered by the public interest factors this jurisdiction has in the matter. This case concerns alleged violations of international human rights norms of concern to all nations and that the Alien Tort Statute empowered this Court to address. It concerns an alleged act of international trafficking. It concerns the human rights of people who have been Cuban citizens, an issue of concern to many members of this community. It concerns the foreign policy interests of the United States as expressed in the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, and the interests of Congress expressed in the RICO statute. All these public interest factors militate in favor of this Court's retention of this matter.
[Ecuadoran President Rafael] Correa told reporters in Quito that [Colombia’s Presdient Alvaro] Uribe told him the raid occurred after a FARC column fled across the border [from Colombia and into Ecuador] and fired at Colombian forces, who "had to defend themselves."In Colombia’s version of the facts, they can claim “hot pursuit” and self-defense. But Ecuador’s version of the facts would make Colombia’s action unjustifiable under classic legal understandings of self-defense and under such facts Colombia would need to rely, as a legal matter, on the controversial post-9/11 attempts by the United States to refashion the law of use of force. As Jose Alvarez had written in his comment Hegemonic International Law Revisited (97 American Journal Int'l Law 873 (2003)):
But Correa said his forces investigated Uribe's claims and discovered that the Colombian planes attacked the guerrillas as they slept in a camp 2 km ( 1.2 mi) inside Ecuador.
"Of course Ecuadoran air space was invaded," he said…
"We will not permit this outrage," he said. "Either President Uribe was misinformed and will have to sanction his commanders who deceived him, breaking every international bilateral proceeding by entering our territory or Uribe simply lied. In either case, the situation is extremely grave and the Ecuadoran government is disposed to go to the ultimate consequences."
the prospective endorsement of individual and collective self-defense by the [UN Security] Council, together with its later acquiescence in Operation Enduring Freedom, may signal, depending on how the Council's license comes to be interpreted by its licensee, the advent of three new general rules with respect to defensive force in the age of terrorism:As this situation plays itself out, I wonder if the declarations and arguments by the political leaders of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, as well as those of other interested states, will provide a further gloss via state practice as to whether these new theories of self-defense have become more generally accepted. Will Colombia argue that, regardless as to which version of the facts you believe, they were within their rights to act?
(1) Terrorist violence, at least when of the scale of the events of September 11, 2001, and even when undertaken by a nonstate actor, may constitute an “armed attack” for purposes of UN Charter Article 51.
(2) A state's assistance to, harboring of, or post hoc ratification of violent acts undertaken by individuals within its territory, or perhaps even mere negligence in controlling such individuals, may make that state responsible for those acts and justify military action against it. In other words, such state action (or inaction) may constitute a breach of the state's own duty not to violate UN Charter Article 2(4).
(3) The right to respond with military force against both terrorist individuals and harboring states does not become impermissible retaliation or illegal anticipatory self-defense, or exceed the rules of proportionality, merely because the threat of continued terrorist attack remains clandestine and unpredictable (as it has been since 9/11).
President Hugo Chávez yesterday placed Venezuela on a war footing, sending thousands of troops and tanks to the border with Colombia after its neighbour killed a top rebel leader inside Ecuadorean territory.
“Mr. Defense Minister, move me 10 battalions to the border with Colombia immediately - tank battalions,” Mr Chávez boomed on his weekly television programme, Aló Presidente. He also placed the Venezuelan Air Force on standby for action.
“We do not want war”, said Mr Chávez, before adding that the slaying of rebel commander Raúl Reyes and Colombia’s incursion into Ecuadorean territory could not go unanswered. “I am putting Venezuela on alert and we will support Ecuador in any situation,” Mr Chávez said.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Cuba signed two U.N. human rights pacts on Thursday that long-time president Fidel Castro, replaced by his brother just four days ago, had refused to endorse for more than three decades.We can only hope that the "reservations or interpretative declarations" don't undermine the importance of Cuba's decision to sign the two treaties.]]>
But the communist-run island's foreign minister said after signing the documents at U.N. headquarters in New York that Havana still shared the reservations expressed by Castro about the pacts and would formally record them in future.
[snip]
When Cuba announced it would sign the pacts, Raul Castro was already governing on behalf of his ailing brother, who was still nominally president.
Two days later, Fidel Castro reprinted objections he had made in 2001. He said the political rights pact could be used as an instrument against Cuba by "imperialism", while two articles in the economic, social and cultural accord were unacceptable.
The first, establishing the right of workers to have independent trade unions, was fit only for capitalist countries, he said, while the second, on education, would open the door to its privatization.
On Thursday, Perez Roque said the Cuban government "shares totally the point of view expressed by ... Fidel Castro", but that this did not contradict the decision to sign.
He said that on signing he had handed the United Nations a statement saying that on "the scope and application of several of the elements contained in these international instruments, Cuba will register those reservations or interpretative declarations it considers relevant."
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If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S.-born descendants, according to new projections developed by the Pew Research Center.
Of the 117 million people added to the population during this period due to the effect of new immigration, 67 million will be the immigrants themselves and 50 million will be their U.S.-born children or grandchildren.
Among the other key population projections:
Nearly one in five Americans (19%) will be an immigrant in 2050, compared with one in eight (12%) in 2005. By 2025, the immigrant, or foreign-born, share of the population will surpass the peak during the last great wave of immigration a century ago.
The major role of immigration in national growth builds on the pattern of recent decades, during which immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren accounted for most population increase. Immigration’s importance increased as the average number of births to U.S.-born women dropped sharply before leveling off.
The Latino population, already the nation’s largest minority group, will triple in size and will account for most of the nation’s population growth from 2005 through 2050. Hispanics will make up 29% of the U.S. population in 2050, compared with 14% in 2005.
Births in the United States will play a growing role in Hispanic and Asian population growth; as a result, a smaller proportion of both groups will be foreign-born in 2050 than is the case now.
The non-Hispanic white population will increase more slowly than other racial and ethnic groups; whites will become a minority (47%) by 2050.
The nation’s elderly population will more than double in size from 2005 through 2050, as the baby boom generation enters the traditional retirement years. The number of working-age Americans and children will grow more slowly than the elderly population, and will shrink as a share of the total population.