Chocolate and Nobel Laureates

Dr. Franz H. Messerli, in a note published in the New England Journal of Medicine, finds "a surprisingly powerful correlation between chocolate intake per capita and the number of Nobel laureates in various countries." Here is the results section of the note in its entirety (except for the accompanying figure):

There was a close, significant linear correlation (r=0.791, P less than 0.0001) between chocolate consumption per capita and the number of Nobel laureates per 10 million persons in a total of 23 countries. When recalculated with the exclusion of Sweden, the correlation coefficient increased to 0.862. Switzerland was the top performer in terms of both the number of Nobel laureates and chocolate consumption. The slope of the regression line allows us to estimate that it would take about 0.4 kg of chocolate per capita per year to increase the number of Nobel laureates in a given country by 1. For the United States, that would amount to 125 million kg per year. The effective chocolate dose seems to hover around 2 kg per year, and the dose–response curve reveals no apparent ceiling on the number of Nobel laureates at the highest chocolate- dose level of 11 kg per year.

Eat more chocolate, win more Nobel prizes? That works for me.

The European Union's Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced today that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 has been awarded to the European Union. The EU becomes the twenty-first organization to win the award, but the first regional intergovernmental organization. It was selected from among 231 nominees, 43 of which were organizations. In making the award, the Committee said, "The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe."

The announcement was immediately criticized by many of those who have faulted the way the EU has handled its ongoing financial crisis. Martin Callanan, a British politician and member of the European Parliament, called the choice "downright out of touch."

It is true that the EU is in the middle of what may be the greatest crisis in its history. The Nobel Committee seems to have concluded, however, that the crisis makes this a particularly opportune moment to remind Europeans and the world of the organization's considerable accomplishments. Thorbjoern Jagland, the chairman of the Nobel Committee, described those accomplishments in these terms: "The dreadful suffering in World War II demonstrated the need for a new Europe. Over a 70-year period, Germany and France had fought three wars. Today, war between Germany and France is unthinkable. This shows how, through well-aimed efforts and by building up mutual confidence, historical enemies can become close partners."

The little European Coal and Steel Community established in 1951 has come a long way.

Kiobel: Oral Arguments, Part 2

Adam Liptak describes the second round of oral arguments in Kiobel here in today's New York Times. The actual transcript of the reargument is available here.

And Jeffrey Rosen, writing for The New Republic, makes an important point about the way Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum ties into the problem of corporate influence in a democracy, especially since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision opened the floodgates of political contributions by corporations.

Christiane Amanpour Interviews Obiang

Since the opening of the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly last week, Equatorial Guinea's longtime dictator (33 years and counting) Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been making the rounds in the United States in an effort to burnish his image. Yesterday he sat for an interview with CNN's veteran reporter Christiane Amanpour. The video is available here.

Regarding the corruption charges in France and the United States against his son and vice president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, President Obiang contended that these were the work of his country's enemies. (All dictators have enemies--sometimes unnamed, as in this case--who provide a rationale for repression and an excuse for external criticisms.) He said that his son's wealth was earned from businesses that he owned in Equatorial Guinea and Malaysia. In fact, according to the Justice Department's filing in its suit to recover proceeds of corruption from the younger Obiang, President Obiang granted his son a timber concession in Equatorial Guinea (involving public lands) that he then used to sell timber to a Malaysian lumber company. This arrangement continued even after the younger Obiang was appointed to the newly created position of Minister of Forestry and Environment (later designated Minister of Forestry and Agriculture), a position involving oversight of the timber industry in Equatorial Guinea.

Amanpour asked Obiang about the special referendum under which a limit of two seven-year presidential terms was added to Equatorial Guinea's constitution. Specifically, she wondered if Obiang was prepared to step down in 2016 as this new constitutional provision would seemingly require. Obiang, while noting that the law would not be retroactive (i.e., it would not apply to him), said that the people would decide. (Dictators generally promote the illusion--and sometimes come to believe themselves--that they are the embodiment of the will of the people.) Interestingly, at the United Nations Treaty Event last week, Obiang urged respect for the rule of law in his brief remarks. The government's press release about those remarks says that in Equatorial Guinea "respect for the rule of law is a firm principle and constant aspiration of the government. Upholding the law is the primary responsibility of a nation's political system."

Obiang has clearly become more comfortable addressing diplomatic gatherings and reporters, but the message, which is the same as it's always been, is the message of dictators everywhere: My people love me but everyone else is out to get me.

Arguing the ATS . . . Again

Today is the first Monday in October, which means the United States Supreme Court is beginning a new term. The Court leads off with a second round of oral arguments in a case--Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum--that was first argued in February. The continuation of the case to a new term and the scheduling of a second session for oral arguments is unusual, but hardly unprecedented.

Kiobel is a case brought by Nigerian nationals alleging the complicity of Royal Dutch Petroleum (aka Shell), an oil company operating in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, in serious human rights violations that included the unlawful executions of nine individuals who had protested local environmental damage caused by petroleum production. (For more on the background, see this post from last February.) The statutory authority for the suit brought by Esther Kiobel, the wife of one of those executed by the government, and others lies in a 1789 snippet of law called the Alien Tort Statute, which gives federal courts in the U.S. jurisdiction over cases involving violations of the law of nations regardless of the nationality of the plaintiff, the defendant, or the location of the alleged violation. Since 1980, when the ATS was first used to give victims of human rights violations abroad access to U.S. courts, the limits of the law have been regularly tested in federal court; Kiobel is the second ATS case to make it to the Supreme Court.

In February, the principal question before the Supreme Court was whether corporations can be held liable for human rights violations under the terms of the ATS. This is a very important question as many of the most important legal victories won by victims of human rights abuse in the last thirty years have involved settlements with or judgments against corporations for their misdeeds. Without corporate liability for human rights abuse under the ATS, an important means of securing justice will be foreclosed and corporations will be relieved of the responsibility to consider human rights in the way they conduct operations in states with weak or corrupt legal systems.

The question before the Supreme Court now is whether violations of the law of nations that occur outside the United States should be adjudicated in U.S. courts under the ATS. Critics of the ATS as currently interpreted (including the Justice Department, which filed a surprising amicus brief in June--one not signed by State Department lawyers) argue that cases involving human rights violations abroad may threaten the sovereignty of a foreign state in some circumstances. Supporters of the status quo argue that, if the scope of the ATS is restricted, "an important avenue for redress will be closed to foreign victims of human-rights abuses--and America's beacon as a leader in advancing such rights will shine less brightly," as the Christian Science Monitor puts it today.

Meanwhile, Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, writing in USA Today, states that "if the Supreme Court sides  with Shell, it would represent a terrible step backward for human rights." Arguments and analyses abound on the Internet. Kali Borkoski's excellent survey of the various stakeholders' views is available at SCOTUSblog. Click the "Alien Tort Statute" tag below for more of my own commentary on the law--and on the earlier arguments in Kiobel.

Those Clever Quadrotors

Back in March, I linked to a video of quadrotors--small robotic flying machines programmed to act autonomously--playing the James Bond theme. I'm not sure this is better, but it's still pretty impressive.

Not for Attribution

The story about Iran's Fars News Agency plagiarizing a story from The Onion is too good not to share. Enjoy.

Equatorial Guinea v. France

Equatorial Guinea has filed an application with the International Court of Justice seeking an order that would compel France to end its corruption investigation against the country's president and vice president. France, in an investigation known popularly as biens mal acquis or ill-gotten gains, has seized a Paris estate valued at approximately 150 million euros along with several million euros worth of art, wine, and automobiles owned by Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, Equatorial Guinea's second vice president and son of long-time president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. A similar forfeiture case involving property in the United States was filed last year by federal prosecutors and is now being litigated.

A press release issued by the ICJ today states,

Equatorial Guinea asserts that those procedural actions violate the principles of equality between States, non-intervention, sovereignty and respect for immunity from criminal jurisdiction. The Republic of Equatorial Guinea therefore asks the Court "to put an end to these breaches of international law" by ordering France, inter alia, to "bring a halt to [the] criminal proceedings" and to "take all measures necessary to nullify the effects of the arrest warrant issued against the Second Vice-President of Equatorial Guinea and of its circulation”. In its "request for provisional measures", Equatorial Guinea requests the Court, in particular, to "order  . . . the return . . . of the property and premises . . . belonging to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea" and seized by the French judges in the context of the investigation.

Equatorial Guinea has argued that the estate that was seized in Paris, along with its contents, is a diplomatic residence--and thus protected by diplomatic immunity--as a result of the fact that its principal resident Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue is, in addition to his other responsibilities, the Equatoguinean representative to UNESCO, which is headquartered in Paris. French authorities have taken the position that Obiang's diplomatic responsibilities were created in an effort to extend diplomatic immunity after the corruption investigation was well under way.

Before the ICJ can proceed with a case based on Equatorial Guinea's application, France must consent to the jurisdiction of the Court.

There has been no comment from the French government regarding Equatorial Guinea's application.

The Emancipation Proclamation and the Lieber Code

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation--the instrument by which Abraham Lincoln transformed the Civil War from a struggle against Southern secession into a moral crusade to rid the nation of the blight of slavery. In a commentary published on the New York Times Opinionator blog, John Fabian Witt, a professor at Yale Law School and author of Lincoln's Code: The Laws of War in American History, draws an interesting connection between the Proclamation and the formulation of the Lieber Code.

The Lieber Code, more formally known as Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field, is the forerunner of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the conduct of U.S. military personnel while also codifying the law of armed conflict for them. In a broader sense, the Lieber Code is the forerunner of the international law of armed conflict--or international humanitarian law--as a whole. In the late nineteenth century, a number of European countries modeled their own codes of military conduct after the Lieber Code, thus contributing to the convergence of views on international humanitarian law that was manifested in the 1907 Hague Conventions and the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

Witt notes that the emancipation of slaves was contrary to the laws of war as they were understood at the time. The Confederacy's president, Jefferson Davis, reacted strongly against the Emancipation Proclamation and threatened to respond by enslaving or executing any captured black Union troops while also subjecting their white commanding officers to punishment as war criminals. The Union threatened retaliation for any such responses and the Civil War seemed to be on the verge of taking a decidedly uncivil turn.

In this context, a new code of conduct for the Union armies was created by Columbia University law professor Francis Lieber. Its provisions were drawn largely from customary international law, but it defended the emancipation of slaves by the Union as a humanitarian measure and promised a vigorous defense of the rights of black soldiers. Article 58 states, "The law of nations knows of no distinction of color, and if an enemy of the United States should enslave and sell any captured persons of their army, it would be a case for the severest retaliation, if not redressed upon complaint."

The Union hardly had a spotless record in its conduct of war. General William Tecumseh Sherman, in fact, regarded his own cruel tactics as an essential part of bringing the war to a successful conclusion. In his September 1864 letter to the city of Atlanta, he wrote, "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out." In the end, however, the Lieber Code probably helped to deter some of the inhumane conduct that might have occurred in its absence. And, without a doubt, it contributed to the international effort to codify the law of armed conflict.

Joshua Casteel (1979 - 2012)

I learned this week of the death, back on August 25, of Joshua Casteel. Chances are that you've never heard of Joshua Casteel, but he left his mark on the world in a way that deserves to be pondered, discussed, and perhaps even emulated. If nothing else, the trajectory of his life and the "crystallization of conscience" that he experienced merit thoughtful consideration, especially in an age when it seems that, as Yeats put it, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity."

Casteel grew up in an evangelical Christian home in Iowa, steeped in patriotism and conservative views. At 17, he joined the Army Reserves, then went to the University of Iowa on an ROTC scholarship. On entering active duty, he was assigned to language school where he studied Arabic. In 2004, just weeks after the torture scandal became public knowledge, Casteel was assigned to Abu Ghraib as part of the Army's 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion. He was a translator and an interrogator in one of the world's most notorious prisons.

The "crystallization of conscience"--the moment when Casteel decided to apply for conscientious objector status--came in response to the comments of a Muslim prisoner (and self-proclaimed jihadist) he was interrogating:  "[He said] I wasn’t fulfilling the call to turn the other cheek, to love one’s enemies. When posed with that kind of challenge, I had nothing I could say to him. I absolutely agreed with him. My position as a U.S. Army interrogator contradicted my calling simply as a Christian."

Casteel was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector in May 2005. He joined Iraq Veterans Against the War, published a book entitled Letters from Abu Ghraib, earned an MFA in writing at the University of Iowa, and wrote two plays about his experiences in Iraq. In 2010, be began studies at the University of Chicago's Divinity School. Soon after, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, which claimed his life on August 25, 2012.

Soldiers of Conscience, a documentary produced in 2007 and broadcast on PBS the following year, featured Casteel's story. An excerpt appears in the clip below.

A Milestone for Transparency

For over a decade, a global campaign to promote government accountability in resource-rich states--some of which are dictatorships and, more to the point, kleptocracies (like Equatorial Guinea)--has been underway. The name of the campaign, as well as its premise, is simple: Publish What You Pay (PWYP). The idea is that if oil and mining companies reveal what they pay to governments for the right to extract natural resources, the veil of secrecy that often facilitates corruption will be lifted. The people of the state--and the governments of other states--will be in a better position to compare government expenditures on education, health, and other social goods to the income the government derives from the sale of natural resources that are also national resources.

As I have often noted here, Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea has spent thirty-three years in power amassing a fortune for himself and his family while the country as a whole remains mired in poverty as bad as any in Africa. Obiang's son--less discreet in his spending than his father, whom he is being groomed to succeed--is under investigation in the United States, France, and Spain for corruption. In the U.S., a $30 million mansion in Malibu, a $38 million jet, and a $2 million collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia are at stake in a Justice Department lawsuit. In France, a $180 million estate has been seized by authorities. The staggering dimensions of Equatorial Guinea's corruption are, in large measure, a product of its petroleum wealth, which, in the 1990s, launched the Obiang family into the ranks of the super-rich (and super-corrupt). The American oil companies that have operated in Equatorial Guinea for the past twenty years have not been required to reveal what they pay in royalties to the Obiang family (also known as the Equatoguinean government)--until now.

Two weeks ago, on August 22, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) issued rules required by the Cardin-Lugar Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The Amendment, cosponsored by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), is also called the Extractive Industries Disclosure Provision. (For the text of the amendment as enacted, go here.) Under the SEC's new rules (available here), all companies involved in resource extraction (oil production and mining) that are required to file reports with the SEC--all publicly traded companies involved in extractive industries, in other words--must "include in an annual report information relating to any payment made by the issuer [the company], a subsidiary of the issuer, or an entity under the control of the issuer, to a foreign government or the Federal Government for the purpose of the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals." The data provided must be broken down by payee, project, and type of payment and must be presented in a format that facilitates automated search functions.

Intense lobbying by oil companies delayed the rules for sixteen months beyond the deadline mandated by Congress. The companies claimed that disclosure was not permitted in some of the countries where they operate and that the cost of data collection and reporting would be prohibitive. These arguments were undercut by the fact that some companies--including Newmont Mining, an American company, and Norway's Statoil--voluntarily disclose the information being required by the SEC rules with no apparent effect on either operations or profits. (James North, writing in The Nation, has more on industry opposition to the rules.)

Rather than putting American corporations subject to the reporting requirements at a competitive disadvantage, there are indications that the SEC's PWYP rules will establish an international standard that will be adopted by other resource-importing countries. In May 2011, the G8 Summit in Deauville, France expressed support for mandatory reporting rules for extractive industries. In October 2011, the European Commission proposed legislation for the European Union similar to the Cardin-Lugar Amendment. There are proposals for similar rules in Canada and Australia. In this respect, American leadership in the promotion of transparency in the resource sector may mirror the experience with the adoption of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, which led to a global movement to ban the payment of bribes. In any event, the decision to put the weight of the United States government behind the international effort to promote transparency in extractive industries is a welcome addition to the global campaign against corruption.

The Militarization of the Ivory Trade

The world is currently experiencing "what is likely to be the greatest percentage loss of elephants in history," according to Richard G. Ruggiero of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A very compelling story in today's New York Times describes the problem and its causes, which include the sale of ivory to finance the operations of both rebel forces, among them the Lord's Resistance Army led by fugitive war crimes suspect Joseph Kony, and state-based military forces, such as the Ugandan army that has been pursuing Kony with American support. Underlying the calculus that turns elephant poaching into weapons is a thriving black market driven by demand in China where ivory now sells for as much as $1000 per pound. Like oil in Nigeria, coltan in Angola, and diamonds in Sierra Leone a few years ago, ivory is now fueling conflict, enriching transnational criminal organizations, and testing the limits of international cooperation.

The dimensions of the problem are visible in the fact that 38.8 tons of ivory--representing over 4,000 dead elephants--were seized by customs officials worldwide last year. In Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, park rangers use military-style tactics  while wielding machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades to battle poachers. They are commonly outnumbered and outgunned.

Read the story. It provides an outstanding case study of the way that global demand for scarce natural resources can drive armed conflict.

"In a Consistent World"

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, the 1986 Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, and the 2005 Gandhi Peace Prize (among many others), suggested yesterday that, "in a consistent world," George W. Bush and Tony Blair should be facing prosecution by the International Criminal Court for their roles in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Tutu's comments, published as an opinion piece in The Observer in which he explained his reasons for backing out of a conference in which Blair was scheduled to speak, were reported by the Associated Press as a call for the prosecution of Bush and Blair.

Here are Tutu's actual words, which seem to fall somewhat short of actually calling for prosecution but are quite damning nonetheless:

The cost of the decision to rid Iraq of its by-all-accounts despotic and murderous leader has been staggering, beginning in Iraq itself. Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.

On these grounds alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague.

While it is highly unlikely that Bush or Blair will ever face prosecution for their roles in the invasion of Iraq, both men left office with a tarnished image in large part due to the Iraq War. Bush, in fact, had a 22 percent approval rating at the end of his second term (the lowest approval rating for a departing president in the history of Gallup's approval poll) and is the only living ex-president with an approval rating below 50 percent. He was given no role--and was scarcely mentioned--during the recently concluded Republican National Convention. For his part, Blair also left office (in 2007) with an approval rating under 30 percent.

Health Security and Bad Governance

Sometimes it helps to read the end of a news story first.

An article by Adam Nossiter published yesterday in the New York Times ("Cholera Epidemic Envelops Coastal Slums in West Africa") concludes with an observation from Jane Bevan, a sanitation specialist working with UNICEF in West Africa: "We know governments have the money for other things. I'm afraid sanitation is never given the priority it deserves."

The article describes a serious cholera outbreak centered in the slums of Freetown, Sierra Leone and Conakry, Guinea. Sierra Leone reports over 11,600 cases of cholera since January with 1,000 new cases each month. According to Doctors Without Borders, 250 to 300 people have died in Freetown and Conakry since February.

Cholera is a highly contagious disease caused primarily by exposure to the feces of an infected person. It causes vomiting and diarrhea leading to dehydration and electrolyte imbalances that, if not treated with rehydration therapy, may be fatal.

Heavy rains, which have caused flooding in shanty towns where sanitary toilets are rare, must be listed among the immediate causes of this outbreak. The existence of the shanty towns in Freeport and Conakry, however, owes much to a decade of civil war in Sierra Leone that drove many people from the countryside to the cities and to over fifty years of dictatorship in Guinea with similar effects on the distribution of population there. But if Jane Bevan is correct, these causes of the cholera outbreak could have been averted--or at least significantly mitigated--if the governments of Sierra Leone and Guinea had allocated resources in a way that took the health of their people into account. And this is something that Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights seems to require. (See also Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.)

The primary responsibility of government--anywhere--is to ensure the security of its citizens. This responsibility is commonly, but improperly, framed in terms of national security with a focus on external military threats. But the most serious threats affecting people all over the world--that is, the threats most likely to kill or threaten the well-being of people, even in a state like Sierra Leone that has recently emerged from conflict--are not generally military threats. Disease, poverty, environmental degradation, climate change, political repression, and a host of other "soft" threats are what people must face more often than the "hard" threat of war. It is important, consequently, for governments (even in the developed world) to shift their focus from national security to human security.

"Quite Spectacular"

Today's New York Times provides an overview of the French government's property seizures in the biens mal acquis case involving Equatorial Guinea. The money quote comes from William Bourdon, founder of Sherpa, which was one of the organizations that brought the original complaint in the biens mal acquis case:  "We didn't wish to target the Obiang clan particularly, but their looting of public funds is quite spectacular."

Modern Warfare

C. J. Stivers, a New York Times reporter covering the civil war in Syria, last week posted photos on his blog of a member of the anti-government al-Tawhid Brigade checking text messages while handling the machine gun in the back of a truck racing toward Aleppo at 80 miles per hour. The subject could have been catching up with members of his social network, but under the circumstances his texts more likely contained tactical information--"watch for government forces near the airport," or something like that.  Regardless, the suggestion the photos make is that all fighting forces--military and paramilitary alike--are networked these days.

Walking Wounded

Nicholas Kristof's piece in tomorrow's New York Times about Maj. Ben Richards is a must-read.  It is a reminder that the human costs of war are truly incalculable.  It is also a reminder that when we fail to pay the economic costs of war--by inadequately funding the care of veterans--we dishonor brave men and women.

From Torture Victim to President

As a young woman, Dilma Rousseff joined a guerrilla group opposed to the military junta ruling Brazil.  She was captured and spent three years in various prisons where she was repeatedly tortured.  Now, four decades later, she is Brazil's president.

Rousseff's story, the subject of a front-page article in yesterday's New York Times, is remarkable, but it is not unique.  So many of Latin America's politically active citizens were victims of state repression from the 1960s to the 1980s that we should not be terribly surprised to find that some of the ones who survived have now made it to the tops of their political systems.  In addition to Rousseff, there is former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet who was tortured by Chile's military dictatorship in the mid-1970s.  (Her father, a general loyal to President Salvador Allende, suffered a fatal heart attack while being tortured by the regime of General Augusto Pinochet, which ousted Allende.)  José Mujica, president of Uruguay, was also tortured by his government.

Perhaps the best-known torture victim to experience such a dramatic change of fortune was South Africa's president from 1994 to 1999, Nelson Mandela.  In Eastern Europe following the fall of communism, several former dissidents who had been imprisoned (but not tortured) for their anti-communist activities, including Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia and Lech Wałęsa in Poland, assumed the leadership of their states.

Teddy Bears for Human Rights

Two Swedish ad agency employees--Thomas Mazetti and Hannah Frey--flew a small plane from Lithuania into Belarus last month and dropped 879 teddy bears with parachutes and human rights messages over various cities, including Minsk, the capital. This week, in response, Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994 and is called Europe's last dictator, fired the country's generals in charge of border security and air defense.

Belarus represses all forms of dissent and regularly jails those suspected of opposing the regime. Dissidents in the country have posed teddy bears on the streets of Minsk in silent protests against the Lukashenko regime. This, in fact, was the inspiration for the air drop undertaken by Frey and Mazetti.

Frey said, "Hopefully, we've made people more aware in the world and that there will be more people supporting Belarusian people."

For more on the air drop, see the Associated Press story here or the Los Angeles Times story here.  Mazetti and Frey's video appears below.

France Gets Serious

According to multiple sources, on July 19 French authorities seized the Paris home of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue.  Obiang is the subject of a French arrest warrant issued in connection with a corruption investigation.

The home, a six-story mansion near the Arc de Triomphe, is estimated to be worth between 100 and 150 million euros.  Last year, eleven luxury automobiles were seized as part of the same investigation.

The arrest warrant and most recent property seizure came after Obiang failed to appear in response to a summons for questioning.  According to his attorney, "Mr. Obiang has judicial immunity as he is the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea and therefore could not attend the summons."  His appointment as vice president in his father's government came in May.

For more on the property seizure, see BBC News, Reuters, or AFP.

A Warning on Cyber Attacks

"Destructive cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure are coming."  This was Gen. Keith Alexander's warning to the Aspen Security Forum last week.  Gen. Alexander heads the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command.  He should know what he's talking about--although he also clearly knows how to grow a budget.

According to Gen. Alexander, efforts to hack into U.S. infrastructure systems increased 17-fold between 2009 and 2011.  However, the number of attacks for any given year were not provided.

A video of the interview with Gen. Alexander, conducted by NBC News correspondent Pete Williams, is available here.

The Arms Trade Treaty: A Postmortem

On July 2, representatives of 193 UN member states met in New York City for the UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty. The objective of the conference was to agree on the text of an international agreement that would provide for greater coordination among states in the regulation of trade in conventional weapons. On Friday, the meeting concluded without an agreement. The search for consensus was impeded by the reluctance of some of the biggest arms-trading states, including the United States, to see a treaty adopted.

Expectations for reaching an agreement ran high but were probably unrealistic given three key factors influencing the actual outcome of the negotiations.  First, the conference operated on the basis of a rule of consensus.  This meant that a single state could play the role of spoiler in the negotiations, both with respect to individual provisions of the treaty being considered and the final outcome of the negotiations.  Put differently, all participants had to accept the results in order for a treaty to be adopted.  Second, although most of the world's states were willing to sign on to rules that would make it more difficult to transfer weapons to governments that support terrorism or abuse human rights (and in fact many already adhere to domestic restrictions on arms sales to unsavory regimes), a few states profit greatly from their willingness to sell in a market made less competitive by the moral scruples of others.  The most important aim of a treaty to regulate conventional arms sales was to correct this flaw in the system, but the consensus rule meant that diplomatic pressure--shame, basically--rather than democratic processes would be required to prevent the unscrupulous from shutting down the negotiations.  Finally, one of the major players in global arms sales that also happens to be fairly scrupulous in its choice of customers--the United States--faced a significant domestic barrier to benign participation, much less effective leadership, at the conference.  As it did during the 2001 UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, the American gun lobby said, in effect, "Go ahead, make my day" to all in the American political system who might have considered support for any form of regulation of the international arms trade.  On the eve of the conference's final day, a letter signed by 51 senators that expressed reservations about a potential treaty's effect on gun ownership in the United States--a matter explicitly and consistently excluded from treaty negotiations--was delivered to the White House and the Department of State.

Supporters of the ATT, as the treaty is called, were frustrated that the Obama administration broke with the consensus by claiming on the last day of the conference that more time was needed to reach an acceptable agreement.  The call for more time came after the conference had agreed on limits in the treaty designed to appease those in the United States with concerns about the domestic protection of gun ownership.  (These concerns were, in the first place, "irresponsible demagoguery" and addressed thoroughly in this issue brief from the Arms Control Association.)  It is not the first time that the United States has lobbied to weaken the substantive provisions of a major international agreement only to reject the final product after getting what it wanted.  (See the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.)

While the control of the American gun lobby over the United States Senate combined with the two-thirds majority vote required for treaty ratification makes U.S. participation in an agreement unlikely for the foreseeable future, the rest of the world seems certain to reach agreement on the Arms Trade Treaty soon.  A statement at the end of the conference, issued on behalf of over 90 participating states, called on the conference president, Ambassador Roberto García Moritán of Argentina, "to report to the General Assembly on the progress we have made, so that we can finalize our work."  Such a report is expected to give the UN General Assembly an opportunity to vote on the text of the ATT.  Under the rules of the General Assembly, a two-thirds majority vote would be needed to adopt the treaty and send it on to UN member states for ratification.  No veto would be possible.

As incredible as it sounds, the solution posed by the American gun lobby to the problem of gun violence outside the borders of the United States is the same solution offered for the same problem inside our borders:  more guns.  The putative right to own guns of any size or class is held by merchants of death to be more important than the very real right to life.  This, at least, seems to be the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from opposition to a treaty designed to curb arms sales to governments like those in Syria, Iran, Burma, and North Korea.

The London Olympics . . . and Gender

Whether legal or cultural, gender barriers--almost all of which cause women to be left out or otherwise disadvantaged, in case that needs to be said--remain all too common in the modern world.  My own university has never had a female president or provost; my college within the university has never been led by a female dean.  The United States, Mexico, France (etc., etc.) and 52 of the 53 countries on the African continent have never had a female president.  In spite of the remaining barriers, not just in education and politics but in business, the arts, religion, and many other fields, progress is occurring.  In this year that just happens to mark the fortieth anniversary of the adoption of Title IX, there will be more women than men representing the United States in the London Olympics.  That has never happened before.  And in the upcoming Olympic Games, every single country participating will do so with both female and male athletes.  That, too, has never happened before.

Three countries--Qatar, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia--had to overcome their long traditions of gender discrimination in order ensure that every team participating in the London Olympics has both male and female representatives.  Ironically (given what I said about my university), a Pepperdine student, Sarah Attar, will be half of the female contingent on Saudi Arabia's Olympic team.  A member of the women's track team at Pepperdine, Attar will compete at 800 meters in London.

Attar was born and raised in California but has both U.S. and Saudi Arabian citizenship.  Given the limited opportunities for women in sports in Saudi Arabia, going outside the Kingdom to find Attar or someone like her was one of the few options for bringing a woman onto the Saudi Arabian Olympic team.  (The other woman on the Saudi Arabian team, Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, is from Saudi Arabia and will compete in judo.)

As this essay by Eman Al Nafjan points out, terrible discrimination against women persists in Saudi Arabia; giving in to the International Olympic Committee's threat to bar Saudi Arabia from participating in the Olympics hardly qualifies as a magnanimous gesture on the part of the royal family.  Nevertheless, from small beginnings great things sometimes emerge.  Just ask the 269 women on the U.S. team, most of whom are beneficiaries of a law called Title IX.

Torture from the Inside

Worth watching.

The French Arrest Warrant Appears

France has issued an arrest warrant for Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president of Equatorial Guinea and son of the country's president.  (The existence of the warrant, previously concealed, was first reported in April.)  Obiang failed to appear for questioning as ordered in France's Biens Mal Acquis case in which it is alleged that millions of Euros worth of goods, including a lavish home near the Arc de Triomphe, were acquired with the proceeds of corruption.  Obiang is currently facing a civil action brought by the U.S. Department of Justice last fall that seeks to seize American property, including an estate in Malibu, and almost $2 million worth of Michael Jackson memorabilia, for the same reason.

Clinton Confronts a Legacy of the Vietnam War

Secretary of State Clinton is in Phnom Penh where she attended the just-concluded annual foreign ministers' meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).  Earlier in the week, she became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Laos since John Foster Dulles visited in 1955.  In the interim, there was the Vietnam War.

Like Cambodia, Laos was a sideshow in the Vietnam War.  But that hardly means it was ignored.  In fact, on a per capita basis, there is no country in the world that has been bombed as much as Laos.  Because the Ho Chi Minh Trail passed through Laos and the Viet Cong used Laotian territory both as a refugee and as a source of supplies, the United States extended its massive bombing campaign to Laos.  According to testimony by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Scot Marciel before a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2010, the United States dropped 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos during the Vietnam War--more than were dropped on Germany and Japan, combined, during World War II.  Many of the bombs were cluster munitions with failure rates as high as 30 percent.

Even now, an estimated 300 people per year die when unexploded ordnance (UXO) explodes--because they stepped on unexploded submunitions from a cluster bomb, because they were trying to recover the valuable scrap metal from unexploded bombs, because they stepped on landmines--in short, because they were going about the normal activities of daily life in Laos.

Secretary Clinton met a survivor during a stop at an artificial limb center in Laos.  Phongsavath Sonilya, who lost both forearms and his vision when a cluster bomb exploded three years ago, had a message for the secretary of state.  The nineteen-year-old suggested that more needs to be done to halt the use of cluster munitions like the ones that contaminate many places where the United States has made war:  Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

There is a Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international agreement that prohibits the use, manufacture, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster bombs.  It was adopted in May 2008 and entered into force on August 1, 2010.  Seventy-four states have ratified the CCM, binding themselves to eliminate this particular weapon and to aid those countries, like Laos, that have suffered so much from its use.  The United States is not a party to the CCM.  No one could make a better case for why the United States should ratify the agreement than Phongsavath Sonilya did when he met Secretary Clinton.

Silverstein on Obiang

As usual, Ken Silverstein has Teodorin Obiang in his sights and is right on target.  As he points out in his New York Times op-ed today, there's more that the United States needs to do to make it difficult for dictators--and their families--to launder their ill-gotten gains here.

Carter on Obama

Nowhere in yesterday's New York Times op-ed does former president Jimmy Carter mention Barack Obama, but his lament concerning the failure of American leadership on human rights is clearly a shot fired across the bow of the current administration.  Not that the Obama administration bears sole responsibility for a situation in which, by President Carter's count, the United States now finds itself violating "at least 10" of the 30 articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The slide that began with the Bush administration's response to 9/11, according to Carter, "has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public."  We all bear responsibility.

Where American human rights policy is concerned, President Obama has much left to do to effect the change that he promised in the 2008 campaign.  In some cases (for example, the use of drones to carry out extra-judicial killings of suspected terrorists, some of whom have been U.S. citizens), he has adopted the misguided policies of the Bush administration so that change now requires a 180-degree turn.

President Carter was right to call the current administration to account.

Investing in Corruption

Having recently restructured the family business--the limited partnership known as Equatorial Guinea--Teodoro Obiang came to the United States seeking investors willing to funnel more money into his private bank accounts.  According to a government press release, "The government of Equatorial Guinea laid out the welcome mat in Houston Monday [June 11] for U.S. investments in information technology, telecommunications, fisheries, construction, agriculture and agroindustry, mining and hydrocarbons."

If, as the press release indicates, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) was indeed present at the event (along with Rep. Al Green [D-TX]), then an explanation is necessary.  On May 10, 2007, the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, together with the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, held a hearing under the heading, "Is There a Human Rights Double Standard?  U.S. Policy Toward Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia."  In a statement prepared for the hearing  (see page 62), Rep. Jackson-Lee made the following comments:

     Mr. Chairman, I believe it is crucial that we practice what we preach.  In this country, we struggled to achieve democracy, fought for our own human rights, and we now call for the observance of these same values around the world.  Yet we persist in providing support to non-democratic regimes in exchange for their cooperation on strategic issues.
     Citizens of Equatorial Guinea do not enjoy the freedoms that we as Americans would believe to be crucial.  According to a Freedom House report, "the country has never held a credible election," and freedom of the press, as well as the rights of association, assembly, collective bargaining, and travel abroad are all limited.  Coupled with a lack of an independent judiciary, the nation's citizens have little constitutional or legal protection or recourse.

Rep. Jackson Lee should know that there have been no significant changes in Equatorial Guinea that would negate the validity of her statement since it was presented five years ago.  On the contrary, there has been another sham presidential election since then and members of the Obiang family are now subjects of corruption investigations in the United States, France, and Spain.  President Obiang may believe that Equatorial Guinea is "now considered a model country in African development," but this is true only if by "model country" he means one that illustrates what not to do to promote freedom and prosperity for ordinary citizens.

On Friday, Obiang met with representatives of four civil society groups that have been critical of his regime's record on human rights and corruption:  Human Rights Watch, Global Society, the Open Society Foundation, and Oxfam America.  The meeting was arranged by the State Department and the Woodrow Wilson Center.  The meeting was off the record, but going into it the four organizations had promised to "press Obiang to take concrete steps to increase public transparency, combat corruption, prioritize anti-poverty spending, cease political repression, enact judicial reforms, and permit domestic and foreign civil society activists and journalists to operate freely."  It is worth asking whether Rep. Jackson Lee and Rep. Green pressed Obiang in the same way on Monday.

In all likelihood, Obiang received some advice on how to handle human rights NGOs the night before his meeting.  Josh Rogin reports that Carlton Masters, the CEO of a firm called GoodWorks International (not, as its name might suggest, a non-profit), hosted a dinner party in Obiang's honor Thursday night.  Masters, a former banking executive, founded GoodWorks International with Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to represent American companies seeking to do business in Africa and the Caribbean.  The company was particularly successful in parlaying personal ties with former Nigerian dictator Olusegun Obasanjo into lucrative contracts for American oil companies.  (See this interesting story dated April 18, 2007, in the New York Times.)  In short, Masters' interest in Obiang is more pragmatic (read "profit-oriented") than principled.

No doubt the same can be said of Rep. Jackson Lee and Rep. Green, whose interest in potential contracts for Houston-based firms caused them to overlook the abysmal human rights record of the Obiang regime.

Flame

On Monday, the Russian computer security firm Kaspersky Lab identified what it said "might be the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed," a malware product dubbed "Flame."  The malware is known to steal data of all types, including voice and video communications, from infected computers.  It has been found on hundreds of computers in the Middle East with Iran leading the target list.

Kapersky's researchers believe Flame was developed by the same organization that created the Duqu and Stuxnet malware, which also attacked computers in Iran.  (Stuxnet is reported to have caused roughly one-fifth of the centrifuges then being used in Iran's nuclear enrichment program to malfunction.)  Its massive size (20 megabytes) has made it difficult for computer security experts to decipher all of its capabilities.

Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said, "This is the third such virus we’ve seen in the past three years.  It’s larger than all of them. The question we should be asking now is:  How many more such campaigns are going on that we don’t know about?"

Taylor's Sentence

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has imposed a sentence of fifty years in prison for former Liberian president Charles Taylor.  Judge Richard Lussick, who delivered the sentence, said the crimes Taylor had committed were of the "utmost gravity in terms of scale and brutality."

For more on the sentence--and the trial as a whole--see the Open Society Justice Initiative's special website here.

The BBC or the Onion News Network?

In a segment last week on "News at One" about Amnesty International's criticism of the UN Security Council over its failure to take decisive action in the face of atrocities in Syria, the BBC displayed two logos:  the familiar candle encircled by barbed wire of Amnesty International and the bird atop a globe with a banner reading "UNSC" that represents the United Nations Space Command.  If you didn't know there was a United Nations Space Command, you probably haven't played Halo, a science fiction video game series owned by Microsoft.  There is no logo for the UN Security Council, which would normally be represented by the UN logo, a blue globe flanked by laurel branches.

Here's the offending segment:

For more, go here.

Presidential Power

A number of observers have lamented the extraordinary power over national security matters vested in the president of the United States since the rise of the national security state following World War II.  Garry Wills, in Bomb Power:  The Modern Presidency and the National Security State, puts too much emphasis on the nuclear dimension but nonetheless effectively traces many of the steps that have produced  the problem.  Andrew Bacevich, in Washington Rules:  America's Path to Permanent War, places the issue in the context of a consensus regarding the indispensability of American military might for world order.  The late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in War and the American Presidency, critiqued the way the Bush administration expanded presidential power while noting that the tendency was not unique to George W. Bush.  There are many other scholars who ask why power, once taken up by an American president to meet the immediate demands of a national security crisis, cannot be relinquished in the manner of Cincinnatus in ancient Rome.

Those who want to contemplate the problem as it relates to the Obama administration would do well to read the long article in today's New York Times about the ongoing hunt for suspected terrorists.

Free to Travel . . . and Return

Nobel laureate and opposition political leader Aung San Suu Kyi left Myanmar yesterday for the first time since 1988.  She arrived in Bangkok intending to visit Burmese refugees in Thailand but apparently neglected to inform Thai officials of her plans.

Before her departure from Yangon, Suu Kyi met with Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to discuss Myanmar's ongoing political transition.  Singh delivered an invitation for Suu Kyi to deliver the next Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture.  The Times of India noted that the meeting represented a "course correction" for India's government, which had previously opted to deal with the military regime in Myanmar that had repeatedly confined Suu Kyi to house arrest while suppressing the country's pro-democracy movement.

Suu Kyi plans to travel to the U.K., Norway, Switzerland, and Ireland next month.  She will  address Parliament in the U.K., receive her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, address the International Labor Organization in Switzerland, and meet with Bono in Ireland.

Reporting on Rights

On Wednesday, Amnesty International released Amnesty International Report 2012:  The State of the World's Human Rights.  Yesterday, the State Department released its 2011 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.  Both are valuable reports, but there are a few differences worth noting.

First, the State Department's report is more comprehensive, both with respect to the number of countries and the range of issues covered.  (Country Reports on Human Rights Practices covers "almost 200 countries" while Amnesty's State of the World's Human Rights covers 155.)  Topically, the State Department reviews state practices under seven broad categories:  (1) respect for the integrity of the person, (2) respect for civil liberties, (3) respect for political rights, (4) official corruption and government transparency, (5) government attitude regarding international and nongovernmental investigation of alleged violations of human rights, (6) discrimination, societal abuses, and trafficking in persons, and (7) workers' rights.  Amnesty's report focuses more on the civil and political rights that are central to its mission (including use of the death penalty), but individual country reports are not as formulaic as those in the State Department report.

There is one significant difference in the two reports that Americans should note.  The State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices contains no assessment of the human rights record of the United States; Amnesty's report does.  It is instructive reading for those with illusions of righteousness.

LOST Returns

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee began hearings on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (sometimes called the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST) yesterday with testimony from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey.  Secretary Clinton noted in her testimony that Republican and Democratic presidents, the military establishment, and American business interests have all supported ratification.  Moderate Republicans in the Senate favor ratification, but 26 conservative Republicans, led by Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, have signed a letter vowing to oppose the treaty if it comes to the floor for a vote.  Chair of the SFRC, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, has indicated that the treaty will not be brought up for a vote before the November elections.

For more, see the Boston Globe coverage here, the New York Times story here, Secretary Clinton's statement here, and Secretary Panetta's statement here.

Preparing for the Transition

Reuters on Tuesday reported that Teodoro Nguema Obiang--Teodorín--has been appointed by his father to be "First Vice President in charge of National Defense and State Security."  The move is the clearest indication yet that the elder Obiang, who turns 70 on June 5, has chosen his oldest son to be his successor in spite of the legal problems he faces in France and the United States.

Teodorín's appointment was one of five made by presidential decree on Monday.  A government news release with information about each of the appointees is available here.

Anachronism

Today's Sovereign Monarchs lunch at Windsor Castle seems the very definition of "anachronism."

If only all in the group were figureheads, as is their host, Queen Elizabeth II.

Human Rights in Africa: Will South Africa Lead?

Last week, a South African court ruled that South Africa, under its International Criminal Court Act, has a legal obligation to investigate crimes against humanity and that, consequently, it must investigate officials from neighboring Zimbabwe who are suspected of having tortured opposition figures in 2007.  A group of Zimbabweans who fled to South Africa in the wake of election-related violence in 2007-2008 were among those who brought the case.

Peter Godwin, president of the PEN American Center, wrote in the New York Times earlier this week that the ruling "could cement South Africa's commitment to protecting human rights and broaden the application of universal jurisdiction."  He also notes, however, that South African authorities are reportedly planning to appeal the ruling in an effort to side-step the diplomatic problems that would accompany police investigations of Zimbabwean officials who travel to South Africa frequently for both official and personal reasons.

The court's ruling, as it ought to be, is based on principles of justice and the rule of law.  President Zuma's concern with the ruling, on the other hand, is for its possible political impact.  Zuma is currently acting as a mediator between political factions in Zimbabwe to try to ensure that the next national election will be free and fair.

False Start in the Mladić Case

The trial of Ratko Mladić, which began yesterday in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, was suspended today due to errors in the prosecution's handling of evidence.  Both sides have conceded that the errors were clerical in nature, but the defense must be given time to review documents that have not previously been made available.  The judge in the case, Alphons Orie, has not indicated when the trial will resume.  Defense attorneys are asking for a delay of six months.

Mladić was the commander of Bosnian Serb (Republika Srpska) forces in the Bosnian War of 1992-1995.  He is accused of ordering two of the worst atrocities of that conflict, the 44-month-long Siege of Sarajevo, in which over 10,000 residents of the city were killed by random shelling from the surrounding hills, and the Srebrenica Massacre, the largest mass murder in Europe since the end of World War II.  He was indicted by the ICTY on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in 1995, but remained at large in Serbia until his capture on May 26, 2011.

In the first day and a half of the trial, before the suspension, prosecutors presented an overview of the atrocities committed in the war, previewing what will be their efforts in the trial to establish Mladić's responsibility as the commander of Bosnian Serb forces for those crimes listed in the indictment.  Videos of Mladić, including one from Srebrenica, were shown to supplement radio intercepts and narrative descriptions of evidence linking Mladić to the crimes.  In one clip he speaks directly to the camera saying, "We give this town to the Serb people as a gift.  Finally, after the rebellion against the Dahis, the time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this region."  (The "rebellion against the Dahis" refers to the Serbs' 1804 revolt against Ottoman rule.)

Although Mladić is 70 and frail, the critical role he played in the Bosnian War has made his prosecution especially important to those seeking justice for what happened in that conflict.  Prosecutors and victims alike must hope that the trial of Mladić does not play out like that of Slobodan Milošević, who died in prison without a verdict after having been on trial for five years.

The Two-Liter Light Bulb

I had not heard of this low-cost, low-tech solution to a problem affecting the roughly 1.5 billion people in the world living without electricity until Sandy showed me her upcoming presentation for the class she's taking on innovation.  (This video is part of that presentation.)

For more on this idea (and its application in Africa), see this report from VOA News.

(And, yes, some homes where these lights have been installed do have electricity, but it's not free, unlike these light bulbs.)

Indigenous Peoples: An Addendum

When I posted yesterday about the UN special rapporteur on indigenous peoples' rights and his assessment of the state of Native Americans, I hadn't seen Nicholas Kristof's column on the Oglala Sioux lawsuit against Anheuser Busch.  Kristof writes of the Sioux reservation, "Pine Ridge encompasses one of the poorest counties in the entire United States—Shannon County, S.D.—and life expectancy is about the same as in Afghanistan. As many as two-thirds of adults there may be alcoholics, and one-quarter of children are born suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders." 

Alcohol is banned on the Pine Ridge reservation, where tribal sovereignty makes such a ban possible, but Whiteclay, Nebraska, a town of ten people just outside the reservation, has become a major distribution point for alcoholic beverages that are carried onto the reservation in violation of the ban.  Attorneys for Anheuser Busch and others have argued that the focus should be on individual responsibility, but this overlooks the fact that alcoholism is a disease and that tribal leaders on the Pine Ridge reservation are trying to deal with a public health disaster.

For more on the situation, see this recent article in the Washington Post.

Niebuhr--with Hair

I have to admit, Reinhold Bieber made me laugh.

(Thanks, Lora Walsh.)

The Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Americans generally view human rights abuses as problems that happen elsewhere.  The drama surrounding Chen Guangcheng's escape from house arrest and flight to the American Embassy in Beijing this past week--complete with front-page coverage in American newspapers--underscores the standard narrative that, when it comes to human rights, the United States is a beacon of hope in a dark world.  As a New York Times editorial put it yesterday, "We have little doubt of the Americans' commitment to Mr. Chen's safety and his cause."  And as if that weren't enough, the Times reminded its readers that "this episode is first and foremost an embarrassment for China and a glaring reminder of its abysmal mistreatment of its own citizens."

The Times' editorial board probably got it right about Chen and the American commitment to the cause of human rights in China, even if that commitment does sometimes give way before other considerations in the Sino-American relationship.  From what I can tell, however, the New York Times has not reported anywhere in its pages the conclusions of James Anaya regarding the failures of the United States to respect the rights articulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Anaya is the special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples.  His mandate, renewed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2007, is primarily to "gather information on alleged violations of the rights of indigenous peoples" and forward recommendations to the UN on means of remedying those violations.  At the conclusion of a twelve-day fact-finding trip in the United States, Anaya stated that "it is evident that more robust measures are needed to address the serious issues affecting Native American, Alaska Native and Hawaiian peoples in the United States, issues that are rooted in a dark and complex history whose legacies are not easy to overcome."

Although his formal recommendations have not yet been drafted, Anaya suggested that lands taken from Native Americans should, in some cases, be restored.  The Black Hills of South Dakota, the ancestral home of the Oglala Sioux, were specifically mentioned.  "I'm talking," he said, "about restoring to indigenous peoples what obviously they're entitled to and they have a legitimate claim to in a way that is not divisive but restorative."

Official policies toward Native Americans were shameful in the nineteenth century (as when the U.S. Congress in 1877 passed a law unilaterally reversing concessions made to the Oglala Sioux in an 1868 treaty), but they haven't been much better in the twenty-first century.  Many Native American communities suffer from poverty, unemployment, suicide, and alcoholism rates that far outpace national averages.  The reasons are not hard to see.  From the perspective of those outside the United States, the fundamental problem is a long history of human rights abuse.

World Press Freedom Day

In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly designated May 3 as World Press Freedom Day to underscore the importance of a free press as a foundation for freedom of expression and other human rights.  The date marks the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, the work of the participants in the UN/UNESCO Seminar on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press in 1991.  As the Declaration proclaimed, "the establishment, maintenance and fostering of an independent, pluralistic and free press is essential to the development and maintenance of democracy in a nation, and for economic development."

 On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a special report on the "10 Most Censored Countries," the first such report since 2006.  Topping the list are Eritrea, North Korea, and Syria.  Eritrea was cited for its extensive and oppressive government-imposed controls on all media in the country.  North Korea, which was ranked first in 2006, also imposes strong centralized control over all news coverage, but the CPJ notes that the Associated Press has been permitted to open a bureau in Pyongyang this year.  Syria jumped from ninth to third on the list due to its efforts to impose a news blackout on the country as the government of Bashir al-Assad attempts to suppress widespread opposition to his rule.

Here's the complete list:

1. Eritrea
2. North Korea
3. Syria
4. Iran
5. Equatorial Guinea
6. Uzbekistan
7. Burma
8. Saudi Arabia
9. Cuba
10. Belarus

The CPJ report says this about the ten countries on the list:

The 10 most restricted countries employ a wide range of censorship techniques, from the sophisticated blocking of websites and satellite broadcasts by Iran to the oppressive regulatory systems of Saudi Arabia and Belarus; from the dominance of state media in North Korea and Cuba to the crude tactics of imprisonment and violence in Eritrea, Uzbekistan, and Syria.

One trait they have in common is some form of authoritarian rule. Their leaders are in power by dint of monarchy, family dynasty, coup d'état, rigged election, or some combination thereof. . . .

Lagging economic development is another notable trend among heavily censored nations. Of the 10 most censored countries, all but two have per capita income around half, or well below half, of global per capita income, according to World Bank figures for 2010, the most recent available. The two exceptions are Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea, where oil revenues lead to much higher per capita income than the global level.  But both of those countries are beset by vast economic inequities between leaders and citizens.

UPDATE:  Amnesty International offers a way to take action on behalf of some of the many journalists who have been imprisoned for independent reporting in states with heavy press censorship.  Go here and take a few minutes to help the cause of press freedom.

Split or Steal

From a British game show called Golden Balls, here's a great illustration of the prisoners' dilemma:

(Via NPR's Planet Money.)

Private Empire

Private Empire:  ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll is being released today.  Coll is the author of Ghost Wars:  The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, which won a Pulitzer Prize.  Private Empire promises a look inside what may be the most powerful corporation on the planet.

Coll will be discussing the book in Los Angeles at the Petersen Automotive Museum (6060 Wilshire Boulevard) at 7:30 p.m. on May 10, thanks to Zócalo.  (The talk is free, but reservations are requested.)

For a sense of what to expect (from the book and the talk), here's part of the Zócalo description:

Put aside that the annual revenues of ExxonMobil exceed the GDP of Norway.  It only overstates the power of Norway.  In fact, in many oil-rich nations, ExxonMobil exercises more sway over day-to-day policy and economics than the United States government.  It also spends more on lobbying in Washington than almost any other company.  In short, ExxonMobil has a huge influence on the United States and the world.  And yet we know almost nothing about it.  What goes on inside the black box?

Dwight Garner reviewed Private Empire in the New York Times last Thursday.