Tag: international law

More than graduations and weddings

Posted on by kathiemm

June is Torture Awareness Month.

It is a good month to put yourself in the shoes of another, particularly someone who is being tortured. Right now, as you read, in all likelihood someone is being tortured at the behest of the U.S. government.

Have you ever struggled to catch your breath, choked on food or drink “going down the wrong way,” panicked, feared you would die?

How much worse would it be if someone were deliberately drowning you, pouring streams of water over your face as you lay strapped to a board with your hands and feet bound, punching you in the stomach to make you open your mouth and gasp for air?

What would you do in this situation if you were told to name names, any names, or prepare to undergo the procedure again and again and again, each time nearly drowning?

Since 9/11, hundreds if not thousands of people have been arrested and tortured but then released because there was no evidence of any guilt, not even by association.

Remember the McCarthy era and its Cold War paranoia about Communist infiltration? Americans “gave up” names of friends and family members who were no threat to anyone, just to keep their own jobs and to feed Senator Joe McCarthy’s thirst for power.

That was a shameful era in this country, when ordinary people tolerated years of threats to democracy and human rights, personally betraying perfectly innocent others.

Consider how much worse it is today to ignore government-sanctioned torture of other human beings — and to justify that so-called enhanced interrogation in the name of democracy. Is behavior that defies international law and all human rights principles truly a pathway to democracy?

Please check out these resources:

Consciences need exercising. June is a good month to exercise yours.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

A just war against Assad?

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Mike Corgan

Almost daily, we learn of massacres, indiscriminate shelling, and rocket attacks against civilian areas in and around Homs.  The situation in Syria seems to offer the occasion for a just war against Bashir Assad and his army if ever there were one.

Government crackdown in Syria
Government crackdown in Syria. Photo by Elizabeth Arrott, in public domain.

Most members of the United Nations and the Arab League, as well as many others, support some kind of action. But does this near-universal consensus add up to a just war occasion?

In international law it well might. But just war theory usually requires a a just peace–a condition only implicit, at most, in international law.

And what sort of peace might follow in Syria if Assad were removed by force? Assad’s ruling Alawite faction is also supported by various other minority groups who have been tolerated under the current regime as they well might not be under, say, a strict Sunni regime.

Opposition to Assad is also disparate. There is a high likelihood that scores would be settled in the aftermath of regime change. Just look at Libya, Iraq, and now Afghanistan in the face of the impending U.S. pullout.

A just war in Syria requires a just peace at its conclusion and that means providing order. Has anyone volunteered for that task?

Michael T. Corgan, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of International Relations, Boston University

A day that should live in infamy

Posted on by kathiemm

January 12, 2012, is the 10th anniversary of the day when terrorism suspects were subjected to indefinite incarceration in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, generally in the absence of any charges or trial.

U.S. authorities admit to the detention of 779 detainees, at least 12 of whom were younger than 18 when detained. Eight died while in detention, six purportedly by suicide.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the detainees “had the right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention,” but by then over 500 of them had been transferred out of Guantanamo, according to an Amnesty International media briefing, 16 December 2011. Wonder why?

Most Americans have probably heard that detainees at Guantanamo were subjected to many forms of assault identified as torture in international law, plus what the military calls “soft torture”—for example, incessantly blasting the prisoners with loud rock songs such as (please pardon the shocking verbatim quote) “Fuck Your God.”

Think of waterboarding, hanging victims by their wrists for hours, terrifying them with vicious dogs. What would you want to do if someone did that to your friends, or family, or members of your community?

A boston.com article about President Obama on January 22, 2009, said that “He signed executive orders to shut down the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center within a year and to ban harsh interrogations…” The article also reported that Obama’s incoming director of national intelligence, Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, told Congress that the detention center is “a damaging symbol to the world [and] a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment and harmful to our national security.”

Good ideas, but the detention center still has more than 100 prisoners. Time for a change? This coming Wednesday, January 11, will be a National Day of Action to Close Guantanamo; there will be nonviolent actions across the country, with a major demonstration planned in Washington, DC. Please support these efforts in mind and heart if not in action.

For additional resources, see:

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Ban the bomb again!

Posted on by kathiemm

“…the end of nuclear tests is one of the key means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”

Those words are from the Preamble of the United Nations Resolution designating August 29 as International Day against Nuclear Tests.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5PRZh_C0e4

Please take the time to watch this brief dramatic video about the events leading up to the U.N. General Assembly’s unanimous decision on December 2, 2009.

It includes information and powerful images about the 2000+ nuclear tests conducted before the first test ban treaty.

Despite the significance of the August 29 commemoration, global stockpiles of nuclear weapons, as well as nuclear power production, still have the potential for ending most life on earth.

However, there are also signs of hope:

  • Regional treaties have led the southern hemisphere of the world to become almost entirely free of nuclear weapons.
  • On February 2, 2011, President Obama ratified the New START, a landmark nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
  • Progress has been made towards incorporating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into international law; however, to achieve this status, it must be ratified by the 44 “Annex 2” states that possessed nuclear research or power reactors at the time of the original treaty negotiations.

BUT, as of August 16, 2011, there were nine nations from that group that still have not ratified the CTBT: China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United States.

Some strange bedfellows here? What do you make of this group?

Do you know where your representatives in Congress stands on the START treaty? On the CTBT? On nuclear power? If you don’t, shouldn’t you find out?

And don’t forget the power of one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QzjqOl2N9c&feature=related

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology