IntLawGrrls |
| Posted: 30 Aug 2010 08:30 AM PDT  As intlawyers well know, a foundation of contemporary rules regarding the use of force is the Caroline affair. As posted, U.S.-Britain negotiations more than 170 years ago articulated a concept of "anticipatory self-defense," subject to conditions of necessity and proportionality. Perhaps less well known is the underlying incident. Spurring the diplomatic exchange of notes was 1837 unrest in Canada, then a British colony. Anti-British rebels encamped at Navy Island in the middle of the Niagara  River, which marks the U.S.-Canada border. Rebel night-raids of Britain's Canadian forts prompted Britain to seize the Caroline, a rebel vessel. They torched it and set it loose; it broke up in the rock-strewn rapids. Eventually, what was left of the Caroline went over the Niagara Falls.Hence this post-card: photos of those rapids and falls made on a lovely summer Sunday, en route to the 4th Annual International Humanitarian Law Dialogs at Chautauqua, New York, about which more to come.  |
| ECOSOC Consultative Status at last Posted: 30 Aug 2010 03:10 AM PDT  After three years of delay and "no action" motions in committee, ECOSOC finally granted consultative status to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) on July 19, 2010. The resolution passed -- by a vote of 23 for, 13 against, 13 abstaining and 5 absent (vote breakdown by country here) -- despite a "no action" decision on the group's application by ECOSOC's Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations in June. A summary of the ECOSOC debate on IGLHRC's consultative status is available here. (Photo: Hossein Alizadeh, IGLHRC's The US government worked hard to achieve this success. After the ECOSOC decision, Ambassador Susan Rice stated that the vote reaffirmed the Economic and Social Council's commitment to include a diverse range of voices from civil society in the work of the UN. More important, the vote was a significant achievement for all those who work to see the United Nations embody its founding principles and advance the tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Consultative status allows NGOs to place items on the agenda of ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies; attend meetings; submit written statements and make oral presentations; and be involved in UN international conferences and their preparatory meetings. The vote to grant consultative status to IGLHRC was welcomed by human rights defenders the world over. As human rights defenders and LGBT people living in countries where homophobic discrimination is a daily reality, we celebrate the accreditation of IGLHRC at the UN.- Frank Mugisha, Chairperson of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), one of 13 NGOs from Uganda to publicly call for IGLHRC to be accredited (see the over 200 NGOs worldwide that signed the petition for accreditation here)  The experience of IGLHRC is a familiar one. The few LGBT NGOs that have consultative status -- just ten in total -- attained it only after ECOSOC disregarded a negative or "no action" recommendation by its Committee on NGOs. Egypt has led the opposition to LGBT NGOs, with a strategy of continually postponing committee decisions on applications. The United Kingdom has been a leader in supporting LGBT NGOs, and has emphasized that disagreement with the policies of an NGO should not mean excluding them. The UK statement during the ECOSOC debate on IGLHRC's application is here; the US statement is here. Just what are the criteria for granting consultative status? Article 71 of the UN Charter provides that ECOSOC "may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence." ECOSOC resolution 1996/31, which governs consultative status, "confirm[s] the need to take into account the full diversity of the non-governmental organizations at the national, regional and international levels."  To be eligible for consultative status, according to the resolution,
It may surprise some to learn that among the NGOs granted consultative status under these guidelines is the National Rifle Association. The lack of guidelines to ensure the objective application of the consultative status requirements has led to criticism of the accrediting process. As this summary of the July ECOSOC session points out, states use the process to withhold or withdraw consultative status from NGOs that criticize them or with whose policies they disagree. This certainly reflects the three-year struggle of IGLHRC to attain consultative status.  |
| Posted: 30 Aug 2010 02:10 AM PDT (Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)
 -- Brian Urquhart (right), who began his U.N. career in 1945 and served as Undersecretary-General from 1972 until his retirement in 1986. (photo credit) The quote appears in "Finding the Hidden UN," his well-worth-reading New York Review of Books essay about recent volumes about the United Nations -- including the ones here and here.  |
| Posted: 30 Aug 2010 01:04 AM PDT  On this day in ...... 1924, the Permanent Court of International Justice, headquartered at the Peace Palace in The Hague (right), issued its judment on jursdiction in Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions Case (Greece v. United Kingdom). One passage read: By taking up the case of one of its subjects and resorting to diplomatic action or international judicial proceedings on his behalf, a State is in reality asserting its own right — its right to ensure, in the person of its subjects, respect for the rules of international law.  |
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