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LONDON – Just when the cause of human rights seemed becalmed a new wind has blown up. The Guantanamo case before the U.S. Supreme Court was but one sign. All manner of influences are driving U.S. law to practice what political leaders have preached against – the globalization of U.S. human rights law. The Guantanamo case was the easy one. The Administration did not have that much of a leg to stand on. But in another more difficult decision decided the next day the Supreme Court protected the right of foreigners under the Alien Tort Claims Act to sue in U.S. courts over serious human rights offences committed outside the U.S.. Also in the same week the U.S. was forced into an important compromise over the reach of the International Criminal Court, established by statute in 1998 to try those accused of grave war crimes or crimes against humanity when...

LONDON – If parliamentary politics were a simple yes and no business, as in a referendum, British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be out of office by the end of the week. It’s a subtle process, as it should be, and his party, bruised though it is by being seriously misled on the reasons for going to war in Iraq, is apparently not yet ready for it. Still, after the publication of the latest report – authored by Lord Butler, a former head of the UK civil service – that has plumbed the murky world of intelligence and the office of the prime minister in the decision making that led up to the Iraqi war – historians if not yet parliament are already fashioning their judgments. Anthony Seldon, author of a recent biography of Blair, has observed, “No prime minister in the last 100 years has added to their achievements after...

LONDON – There is a tendency these days – and I share it – that urges one on to hit George Bush whilst he is down. But before he goes permit me a word in his favor – or, more accurately, his regime. Briefly put, the world is more at peace than when he came to power. The big powers have never been so relaxed with each other since the late part of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth and the number of small wars – ethnic disputes, tribal punch ups and territorial disputes – has been going down every year. Through all the vicissitudes of Iraq the Bush Administration has managed to keep relations with Russia at their calmest and most fruitful since before the Revolution. Despite the earlier tensions over abrogating the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty, Bush appears to have won the trust of President Vladimir...

Politiken-journalisten Anders Jerichow har begået en let ironiserende og selektiv omtale af min bog “Forudsigelig Fiasko. Om konflikten med Irak og Danmark som besættelsesmagt.” (Tiderne Skifter). En anmeldelse er der ikke tale om, snarere adspredt fægtning, der nok skal vise at jeg ikke kritiserer Saddam nok og er for hård i kritikken af Vesten. Han nævner hvor mange kurdere Saddam dræbte, ikke hvor mange irakere vore sanktioner har dræbt. Den teori han ubevidst bygger på er at der kun er to parter, den ene god (os selv) og den anden ond (Saddam/Irak). Er man kritisk til vestens håndtering, så er man automatisk pro-Saddam. Jeg tror der er brug for en firefelts-tabel, der kan rumme det gode og det dårlige i hver part. Og en forståelse af at der forresten ikke kun er to men mange flere parter. Samt en klar distinktion mellem konflikten og volden. Efter min egen opfattelse er...

LONDON – The main thing we’ve learnt so far about the Bush Administration’s self proclaimed ambitions to curb nuclear proliferation is its all too obvious ability to influence how the press treats the issue. If it wanted to whip up hysteria on Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” the press was a willing, if now rueful, victim. If it wants to blow hot about North Korea’s ambitions to have a nuclear-armed rocket that can strike Alaska it can do that too. It can also do cold. Watch it right now as it moves, after three years of outright hostility to North Korea, to start using the soft touch in time to meet the imperatives of the electoral calendar when it wants to be crisis free. Too much of the media (European too) follows its given cues as meekly as a well trained circus dog. The latest round of talks last weekend...

The Dalai Lama, the chief architect of Tibetan nonviolent politics, is a staunch follower of Mahatma Gandhi. His endorsement of the Universal Declaration of Nonviolence which states that “all forms of violence, especially war, are totally unacceptable as a means to settle disputes between and among nations, groups and persons” made him radical among other religious and political leaders (McCarthy 1991). He strongly believed that nonviolent resistance is for the strong willed and the principled who refuse to rely on the illogic of stopping the enemy’s bad violence with one’s good violence (McCarthy 1991). He said that it is shortsighted to believe that a lasting solution can be found through the use of force. He always expressed his firm conviction in following a nonviolent path. According to him, force and confrontation can only bring temporary gains (DIIR 1995). Therefore the Dalai Lama encouraged nonviolent resistance inside Tibet. Though he acknowledged...

eller Från de små stegens tyranni till en verklig vision om fred Den 28 maj publicerades den första opinionsundersökningen om Europavalet i samtliga tjugofem medlemsländer. Lite drygt 12.000 personer hade fått gradera sannolikheten för att man skulle gå och rösta. 10 betydde att man säkert skulle rösta och 1 att man säkert inte skulle rösta. I Sverige var det bara 31% som angav 10. Det var den lägsta siffran bland de femton gamla medlemsländerna. Genomsnittet för alla 25 stater var 45%. Bara 22% bland svenskarna visste att valdagen är den 13 juni. Genomsnittet för samtliga var 37%. Det finns naturligtvis ingen enkel förklaring till det låga intresset men en av orsakerna är säkert att många uppfattar det som att vi aldrig får rösta om det som är den centrala frågan. När vi folkomröstade om själva medlemskapet skulle vi inte rösta om EMU. I riksdagsvalet år 2002 skulle varken tala om...

Ska EU:s fortsatta utveckling bygga på demokrati eller demagogi? Frågan kanske förvånar men är nog nödvändig att ställa eftersom EU:s stora svaghetjust är det demokratiska “underskottet”. Allt fler känner sig allt mindre engagerade och representerade. Projektets politiska legitimitet försvagas. Konsekvensen blir nya konflikter. En växande klyfta mellan folk och folkvalda ökar utrymmet för extrema och antidemokratiska krafter. Den 28 maj (04) publicerades den första opinionsundersökningen inför valet till europaparlamentet, kallad EU25. 12.184 personer telefonintervjuades under perioden 5 – 16 maj. I Sverige var det bara 31% som angav att man säkert skulle gå rösta. Det var den lägsta siffran bland de femton gamla medlemsländerna. Genomsnittet i EU25 var 45%. Bara 22% av svenskarna kunde enligt undersökningen ange valdagen den 13 juni. Genomsnittet i EU25 var 37%. Hur kommer då sig detta? Många tycker sig ha små möjligheter att verkligen påverka. Det verkar nästan som om den mest centrala frågan hela...

I dag för nittio år sedan föll skotten i Sarajevo. Skotten var gnistan som tände första världskriget, brukar det heta. Sanningen var nog inte så enkel. Den ännu inte 18 fyllda mördaren bosnienserben Gavrilo Princip ville befria sitt folk från Österrike-Ungerns vanstyre och kolonialvälde. Men de verkliga skurkarna var krigsivriga grupper i främst Wien och Berlin som använde mordet på ärkehertig Franz Ferdinand som en förevändning. I sin klassiska tusensidiga jugoslavienskildring “Black Lamb and grey Falcon” skriver Rebecca West: “Princip hade kommit över sin revolver i Belgrad, och trots att han inte hade fått den av regeringen utan av en privatperson använde Österrike-Ungern detta faktum som en förevändning för att förklara krig mot Serbien”. I Titos Jugoslavien var Princip en hjälte. Bron där mordet utfördes döptes till Princip Most. Platsen där Princip stod när han sköt markerades med hans fotsteg i en platta. “Att komma till Sarajevo utan att kunna...

LONDON – It’s long been said that one needs a long spoon to sup with the devil, a saying that in the twentieth century was used often in the context of an alliance between democratic political parties and communists. For decades the Italians debated what they called a ” historic compromise” and came very close to it at times, but it was always undone by the pressures from Washington and the Vatican. When Francois Mitterand first came to power in France it was in alliance with the communists but he convinced Washington that giving them cabinet positions was the best way of defanging them and indeed the communists rapidly lost electoral strength from that moment on. Perhaps this is why after much internal debate the Indian communists, having scored unexpectedly well in India’s recent elections, decided to support the government but not be part of it. They were nervous about losing...

This is the text of lecture Falk held on April 9-10 at the City College of Santa Barbara, “Tribes, Sects, Cultures, & Sovereign States: Group/Minority Rights or Individual Rights, of Both?”) I welcome this opportunity to participate in a conference devoted to what has become one of the two most tormented arenas of political violence in the world today. The two arenas are significantly interrelated. Our focus during these two days on the dynamics of various forms of fragmentation internal to the sovereign state, can be understood as a fundamental challenge to the normative program of establishing an effective human rights regime applicable to all persons. The resulting tension is generating multiple crises of identity, authority, and loyalty that can often not be resolved peacefully. Of course, the second arena of challenge is associated with issues posed by 9/11 and the American recourse to a “Great Terror War” as an...

Originally written in April 2004 After the bloodiest week in the American occupation of Iraq, the same tired slogans about “seeing it through” and “staying the course” are about all that our leaders seem able to say. Such a paucity of moral and political imagination does not serve well the citizens of this country or of the world, and seems a recipe for a surefire descent further into the political inferno that Iraq is daily becoming. It is fine to wonder aloud whether 9/11 could have prevented by due diligence at the White House, but it is no excuse for not focusing on the least disastrous endgame for Iraq. Let us recall, as the Pentagon Papers demonstrated, that it took American leaders a decade of bloodshed to acknowledge in public the failure that they privately had come to recognize the Vietnam War to have been. It may be up to...