From a legal stand-point, UN sponsored "ad-hoc" war crimes tribunals in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and the former Yugoslavia have been valuable tools for testing and codifying the limits of laws that govern armed conflict. Through sheer necessity and much effort, these courts, for the past decade or so, have defined what constitutes a "war crime" punishable under international law.
Yesterday, a new category of war crime was given sound legal footing when the Special Court for Sierra Leone handed down the world's first conviction of military commanders accused of recruiting child soldiers. The court (which tries cases stemming from Sierra Leone's brutal 11-year civil war) convicted three men of recruiting and using child soldiers under the age of 16.
It's worth noting that the ruling comes near the 11-year anniversary of a similarly landmark moment: on June 28, 1996 prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia issued ground-breaking indictments in which rape was treated as a crime of war. Prosecutors won that case in early 2001, with a ruling establishing rape as a crime against humanity.
With yesterday's ruling on child soldiers, the progression of international humanitarian law steadily marches on.
The United Nations food relief agency has appealed to Kenyan authorities to allow assistance for more than 100,000 people to be trucked into Somalia, where deliveries are being hampered.
One hundred and forty WFP-contracted trucks carrying the food left the Kenyan port of Mombasa and were unexpectedly stopped at the Northeast Kenyan border crossing of El-Wak since they first started arriving there on 25 May.WFP Somalia Country Director Peter Goossens said "The Kenyan overland route was chosen because of major problems with sea routes to Somalia plagued by pirate attacks." More
The Free Republic, in its traditionally understated way, highlights an Investors Business Daily editorial excoriating Ban Ki-moon for making the connection between climate change and the Darfur conflict. "The new U.N. secretary general invokes a Twinkie defense," says the editorial. "Excusing Islamofascist genocide in Darfur by blaming it on global warming. Forget the Chinese weapons. According to Ban Ki-moon, your SUV is responsible."
The Atlantic Monthly ran an excellent feature on this topic two months ago. Darfur, which is composed of the three provinces in Sudan's west, enjoys little natural wealth. It is a vast, unforgiving, and arid place. But it was not always as arid as it is today. As the Atlantic Monthly piece by Stephan Faris explains, southward expansion of the Sahara desert toward Darfur is a relatively recent phenomenon.
The desertification of Darfur has pit traditionally agrarian "black African" tribes in competition for arable land with nomadic tribes of ethnic-Arab herders. Of course, that alone is not sufficient to explain the accusations of genocide. Rather, when ethnic Darfuri tribes launched a rebellion against the central government in Khartoum in 2003, the government recruited and armed militias drawn from ethnic-Arab tribes, with promises that the land would be theirs. The fact that the two groups competed for natural resources in ways they had not in previous generations made the government's strategy to recruit militias that much easier.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Washington, DC yesterday in an effort to seek support for reducing the U.S. deficit in peacekeeping dues.
"He's meeting with congressional leaders, mostly talking about peacekeeping funding," said Deborah DeYoung, information officer for the United Nations Information Centre in Washington. "He's been here twice before this year, and probably be coming back and forth a good bit. It's a new era, and he's keen to get to know people and keen to let them know his priorities."The timing of Ban's trip coincided with the Better World Campaign--which gave the House of Representatives a petition on Tuesday signed by 32,000 people from all 50 states urging Congress to pay off $569 million in arrears. More
Today, June 20, is United Nations World Refugee Day. And for the first time since 2002, the number of refugees and displaced persons around the world is actually increasing. According to a new report (pdf) by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, the number now approaches 10 million people, a 14 percent rise in the over last year's figures. Sadly, the dramatic increase is largely due to the war in Iraq, where an estimated 1.5 million people have been forced to find refuge in neighboring Jordan and Syria.
Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), has has condemned the murder of Iraqi journalist Sahar Hussein Ali al-Haydari. This death follows the murder of two female Afghan journalists in recent weeks.
"In only a few days, three women journalists have been brutally murdered...These pioneering women were targeted because they devoted their energy and courage to help bring about democratic change in their societies...I trust these particularly heinous crimes will not go unpunished."
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports taht at least 106 journalists and 39 media workers have been killed in Iraq since 2003.
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UN Dispatch: As the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, why have you chosen to focus on malaria?