Eickj Blog

Aboriginal People in Australia and the United States

2007-04-18T18:42:49Z

presentation Introduction for Thurday April 19, 2007:

The aboriginal people in the United States (Native Americans) and the aboriginal people in Australia have a long history of oppression by the national governments. Both nations were settled by the English who brought with them diseases and new ideas. The aboriginal people in both nations were forced from their lands by the British people’s greedy desire to have more land and resources. Over time, the people were forced onto reservations and their rights were slowly taken away. Today, many issues still exist in regards to the human rights of both peoples; there are governance issues, land issues, and issues with the overall quality of life of the aboriginal people.

Since I assume that most people have a more solid background on the rights of Native Americans, the readings focus more on the rights of Australian aboriginals.

http://www.eniar.org/issues/history.html -this page gives a brief history on the aboriginal people of Australia

http://www.eniar.org/issues/nativetitle.html - A description of the Native Title Act and its effect on the people.

http://www.eniar.org/issues/humanrights.html - a little bit on the human rights violations against aboriginal Australians

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Legal Status of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay

2007-03-26T02:51:19Z

Introduction for Thursday's presentation (March 29, 2007):
The legal status of the detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is still up in the air. The United States Government originally made the decision to hold suspected terrorists at Guantanamo because they believed they could argue that because the base was not located on United States soil that the nation’s laws and jurisdiction did not apply to the base. The Bush administration also holds that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to suspected terrorists because they are not soldiers sanctioned by any government and are actually “enemy combatants.”
There are three important Supreme Court cases that deal with the legal status of the detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v. Bush, and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The last case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, declared that it was illegal to try the prisoners using Military Commissions (trials in front of military judges). In January of 2004, the both houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom wrote an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of granting the prisoner’s in Guantanamo access to the U.S. court system. The brief argued that U.S. government’s behavior was contrary to the nation’s “commitment to the rule of law and its international obligations.” International organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have declared the United State’s detainment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to go against international law and the Geneva Conventions.
The United Nations, in a report released in February 2006, called for the release or trial of prisoners at Guantanamo, but their ruling has been ignored by the U.S. This study was already discussed in Lauren’s presentation regarding the prison conditions at Guantanamo Bay, so I don’t think it is really necessary to reread it.

Readings:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_legal.htm (just read the first section regarding the U.S. Supreme Court decisions).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4721068.stm (this is newspaper article that was releases on the day after the UN’s report was released that summarizes the findings of the UN)

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Guantanamo Bay response

2007-03-01T02:32:53Z

I have heard many stories about the inhumane treatment of the prisoners detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, both on the news and in classroom discussions. Most of us think of the United States as some great country that is a great advocate of human rights. Yet, at the same time, our government condones such horrendous treatment of its prisoners. It is unbelievable that our government would permit such treatments as prisoners being kept in the kinds of cells that they are kept in, deprivation of sleep and food, and extended isolation. The thing that is even more surprising to me is the fact that the United Nations study suggested that the United States discontinue their practices in Guantanamo Bay, and yet the government refused to changes its tactics. I understand that there are situation that warrant extreme actions, but obviously, since the United Nations, and therefore a great deal of nations, the practices used in Guantanamo Bay are seen to be inhumane. It is astounding that the United States still practices these treatments on its prisoners.

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Kosovo Ethnic Cleansing response

2007-02-27T03:41:23Z

I actually learned a lot from the readings on the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; this could possibly have been because I really had no background information on the subject in the first place. I never realized how ill informed I was of the situation until I began reading the sources about the topic. The main thing that shocked me was that all of this was going on when I should have been able to understand the seriousness of the situation, and yet I had no idea. How could I have been alive in the world and still been ignorant of such a horrendous situation?
For me, it was hard to believe that over 11,000 thousand people were murdered, and 1.5 million people driven from their homes, in what was an act that obviously violated a great many people’s human rights. Honestly, while reading, I could not help but compare the situation to Nazi Germany when thousands of people were driven from their homes, many of them sent to extermination camps. It seems odd that we hear more about the Holocaust, than the situation in Kosovo; maybe this is because the Holocaust occurred further back in history and as a result we know more information about the situation.

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The International Court of Justice

2007-02-11T23:52:34Z

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the “principle judicial organ of the United Nations.” It was established in 1946 when it replaced the Permanent Court of International Justice and is located in the Hague, Netherlands. The Court performs two different roles: to settle legal disputes between nations and to give advisory opinions to authorized agencies.

The Court has 15 judges, all from different nations, who serve nine year terms. The judges are elected by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, independent of each other. The elections are held every 3 years, where 1/3 of the judges are up for election each time.

The first role of the ICJ is to settle Contentious Cases between nations. Basically, this is a court case between two nations; individuals may not appear before the Court. The Court only has jurisdiction over cases in which both nations have agreed to the Court’s jurisdiction.

Cases in which the Court has jurisdiction (Article 36 of the Statute of the ICJ):
1. The interpretation of a treaty
2. Any question of international law
3. The existence of any fact which, if established, would constitute a breach of an international obligation
4. The nature or extent of the reparation to be made for the breach of international obligation

The Court has two official languages: English and French. There is a written and an oral phase and the proceedings are conducted in a public setting. There is no opportunity for appeal and if a nation refuses to comply with the decision, the other nation may bring it to the UN Security Council. The decisions made by the Court only apply to the nations directly involved, they cannot be used a precedent for future cases.

Sources of Law:
1. International conventions, whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by contesting states;
2. International custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
3. The general principles of law recognized by civilized nations;
4. …judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations.

In addition to settling Contentious Cases, the Court may also give Advisory Opinions. They can only be given to certain authorized bodies- 5 organs of the UN and 16 specialized agencies. The decisions are not binding and only 25 have been given to-date.

Although the Court is an important part of UN, it has many shortcomings. Only 67 of the 192 members of the UN accept the Court’s jurisdiction. The United States does not submit to compulsory jurisdiction and only accepts the rulings of the Court on a case-by-case basis.

A good summary of my research can be found at: http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/igeneralinformation/inotice.pdf

Possible Essay Questions:

1. What are the main problems with the International Court of Justice?

2. Do you think the fact that the United States does not submit to compulsory jurisdiction (only accepts rulings on a case-by-case basis) poses a problem for the ICJ?

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Introduction

2007-01-24T00:03:25Z

Hello, my name is Jennifer Eick and I am from DeBary, Florida. DeBary is a small town about halfway between Orlando and Daytona Beach; I have spent my entire life living in the sunshine state. I have been fascinated with politics, government, and human rights for almost as long as I can remember. My family, in a way, forced me to become interested in current events and politics from a young age. Whenever my family gets together for dinner, discussion usually quickly turns to political topics. While our conversations do not always include human rights, they sometimes stray into an area where we must discuss human rights in order to further our different arguments.
Other than discussions with my family, I have no other real background regarding the study of human rights beyond the basic lessons taught in high school history and government classes. Of course I know about the Declaration of Independence, which states that we are which states that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and am familiar with the concepts of the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, this is where my knowledge of human rights ends and I must rely on the rest of this semester with my fellow students to further my understanding of the subject.

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