Suchergebnisse

Every military expedition by the West now dons the mantle of human rights. What happens to international law when justice is the name of power? Examines the charade of NATO's tribunal in The Hague. Adapted from the source document.

The exigencies of intergenerational and of international justice seem to conflict. This paper discusses this problem and develops a solution to it. After criticising several alternative justifications from the literature, a fully universalistic (i.e. universalistic in the temporal as well as spatial dimension) prioritarian welfare-ethic is developed and justified on the basis of our sympathy: first a criterion of moral value is proposed, followed by a conception of moral duties, which relies on socially binding norms and requires to strive for moral efficiency (most moral value for a given effort). Finally, these ideas are applied to determining priorities between several big social agendas. It turns out that, in practice, dimensional conflicts are less prevalent than initially thought.

When the International Criminal Court announced on March 4, 2009, that it was pressing charges of war crimes against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, a set of unintended consequences were thrown into motion. Al-Bashir responded by expelling thirteen of the international humanitarian aid organizations working in Sudan, as well as shutting down Khartoum's human rights organizations & human service agencies. In a country already racked by violence, poverty, & insecurity, the results were disastrous. This article looks at the legitimacy & effectiveness of the ICC in the face of such defiance & unintentional consequences. Adapted from the source document.

On March 4, 2009, Pre-Trial Chamber 1 of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it was charging Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Long anticipated, the arrest warrant was immediately used by al Bashir's National Islamic Front (NIF) regime as a pretext for expelling thirteen major international humanitarian organizations from Darfur and from other highly distressed regions of northern Sudan. In Darfur the expulsions represented over half the total humanitarian capacity. At the same time, Khartoum also shut down some of the most important Sudanese human service and human rights organizations. In all cases, the explanations offered for expulsions or shutdowns were not supported by any evidence made public. In particular, Khartoum's claim to have evidence that the aid organizations had cooperated with the ICC was patently false.

In many instances human rights violations are better confronted as a political problem rather than as an ethical or legal challenge.