The International Criminal Court and the Darfur crimes: The dilemma of peace and supra-national criminal justice

ABSTRACT

The supra-national criminal prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of the alleged crimes committed in Darfur raises critical legal and conceptual issues. This article addresses the dilemma of peace, justice and reconciliation from a legal perspective, as well as the justice options that are available. The article also assesses the Sudan's criminal and military laws (both at the substantive and procedural levels) in terms of the country's ability to prosecute international crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. In this respect, the article argues that these laws fall short of international criminal law standards and principles – particularly the amendments introduced after the United Nations Security Council referred the Darfur situation to the ICC. The article critically examines the Sudan government's policy of non-engagement, which ultimately led to supra-national criminal prosecution (represented by the ICC intervention under the complementarity principle of the Rome Statute). Finally, the article interrogates the report issued by the African Union High-Level Panel on Darfur (AUPD), and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of its recommendations.     

Mandates,Geography, and Networks: Diffusion of Criminal Procedure Reform in Mexico

Why have some Mexican states proceeded faster than others in the revolutionary transformation of overhauling criminal procedure? Contributing an original index of criminal procedure reform across Mexico's 32 states from 2002 to 2011 and building on existing research on policy diffusion, this article seeks to answer this question. It finds that the 2008 constitutional reform at the federal level exerts a strong positive effect (federal mandate); being situated in a neighborhood of states that have reformed has a counterintuitive negative effect (spatial proximity); and having a governor from the same party as governors of other states that have reformed has a positive influence (network affinity). These findings yield a better understanding of the vertical, cross‐level and horizontal, cross‐unit diffusion of reform, with implications for understanding how to overcome challenges to criminal justice reform in Mexico, Latin America, and elsewhere.     

Russia,the death penalty,and Europe: the ambiguities of influence

Studies of capital punishment worldwide investigate how international influence affects the death penalty. We analyze European influence on the death penalty in Russia over the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods, using two parameters: the changing mechanisms of influence in each period and the death penalty's significance in the broader spectrum of punitive violence. On the first parameter, in the tsarist period, European influence on Russian policy was “productive” – exercised through prestige, moral suasion, and “diffusion.” In the Soviet period, European influence was blocked. In the post-Soviet period, European influence is coercive, as the Council of Europe has unsuccessfully sought to compel Russia to abolish its death penalty. On the second parameter, the death penalty in Russia has always been only one of many forms of state-sanctioned punitive killing. In consequence, the Council's involvement in Russia's death penalty has produced an incoherent policy outcome and has entangled the Council in Russia's authoritarian politics. Russia thus exemplifies the hazards of external involvement in death penalty abolition.     

Amending the Youth Criminal Justice Act, 2007–2012: dynamics and contingencies of a ‘transforming Canada’ agenda

This paper addresses the Conservative Party of Canada's three-phase effort (2007–2012) to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act to prioritise public protection, accountability and victims' rights over prevention and rehabilitation. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and criminology and critical policy scholarship, the paper situates this tough-on-crime initiative in relation to a US-led punitive turn that Canada is belatedly catching-up on, positions this catch-up effort in relation to the Conservative's larger transforming Canada agenda, and explores cultural, institutional and political contingencies salient to its impacts on Canadian law and society.     

American policy toward Beijing, 1989–1990: The role of president Bush and the White House staff

The Tiananmen massacre of June 1989 created a major crisis in U.S. policy toward China. President Bush and his aides on the National Security Council staff took the lead in formulating the U.S. response to the crisis. The president took charge personally in dealing with various issues during the next two years. He strove hard to maintain a balanced policy that would allow for continued U.S. involvement with the people and leaders of China. In the crisis atmosphere of 1989–1990, the president appeared to judge that it was important to narrow sharply the circle of officials who would manage U.S. policy toward China. In part, this was because the president was attempting to strike a difficult balance in U.S. policy. On the one hand, he was attempting to elicit positive gestures from Beijing's beleaguered leaders in the wake of Tiananmen. On the other hand, he was attempting to avoid what he judged were overly punitive and counterproductive U.S. measures against China, which were being pressed on the administration by U.S. leaders in the Congress, media and elsewhere. The president and his close advisors took steps to ensure that State Department and other U.S. officials avoided comment on the most sensitive policy issue of 1990—the extension of most-favored-nation tariff treatment to China. By the end of 1990, however, the president's policy efforts had not stilled congressional debate or restored a consensus in U.S. China policy. President Bush still labored under the misperception in many quarters that he was less interested than others in human rights in China, was overly attentive to the interests of Chinese leaders, and stressed excessively China's alleged strategic importance for the United States. In fact, the Chinese government's relatively constructive role in world affairs, especially over such vital issues as the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf crisis, appeared to do more to win U.S. support for the president's carefully balanced approach to China than the efforts by administrative leaders to explain the policy.     

Hiroshima and the Historians: History as Relative Truth

As is clear from the historiography of the US decision to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the judgments of historians are relative to the time, place, and perspective from which they are writing. There are four major schools of historical interpretation of the decision. First is the orthodox view that was offered by the participants in the decision. Second is the revisionist view of historians writing during the era of the Vietnam war who adopted a much more critical interpretation. Third is an interpretive school that gives weight to the Japanese role and responsibility. Finally, the author's view is found in a more long-range perspective that finds the momentum created by President Roosevelt's unconditional surrender policy as the decisive factor. This policy provoked unconditional resistance in the Japanese military. By 1945 the legacy of Roosevelt's policy was firmly embedded in American public opinion. Historians have reached no consensus among these different interpretive schools.     

Water,Sheikhs and Dam Builders: Stories of People and Water in the Middle East

Edward Said's idea is that intellectuals should be ‘amateurs’, in the French sense of the term, in order to be involved with knowledge production out of their passion and keen interest, rather than as a duty-bound job. This should generate excitement and create dedication in their explorations and activism in and out of their professional fields. Following this idea, I argue in this paper how Egypt's radical feminist, Nawal el Saadawi, a physician by profession but humanist by passion, became a key dissident figure inside her country and abroad. I discuss her writings and activism that contribute towards advancing social justice for all, especially repressed women under patriarchy. Further, I argue that Saadawi's writings take part in a Gramscian hegemonic war against power in order to assert non-coercive knowledge in opposition to power's discursive formation. In doing so, Saadawi is guided by her moral principles. The combination of these two aspects not only makes her a Saidian ‘amateur’ but also a voice of resistance to be reckoned with.     

Education and the development of Turkish and Yugoslav immigrants' political attitudes in Germany

A primary challenge facing both immigrants and German society more generally is immigrants' integration into the wider social, economic and political community, including the development of their political attitudes and behaviour in the host country. This paper examines how one aspect of the immigrant experience – individuals' educational experiences – has influenced the development of immigrants' political attitudes and behaviour. Twenty-five in-depth interviews conducted in 2002 with second-generation Turks and Yugoslavs living in Berlin illuminate how individuals' educational experiences in German schools influence the development of their political attitudes and behaviour. Survey data from the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP) are then used to test specific hypotheses concerning the relationship between education and various political attitudes and behaviour. Results suggest that, while interviewees reported numerous negative experiences in German schools and often used these experiences to form unfavourable opinions about government policies, quantitative analyses reveal that German education has generally benefited the political engagement of immigrants.     

South African foreign policy in the post-Mbeki period

President Thabo Mbeki's resignation in September 2008 six months before the expected end of his term was triggered by the recall issued by the ANC National Executive Committee. It is highly unlikely that any major changes in foreign policy will be made by the caretaker government of President Kgalema Motlanthe before the 2009 elections. However, the significant changes in the domestic political environment signal the start of a new era in South Africa's transformation — what might be called the ‘post post-apartheid period’. This paper explores what those changes might entail, especially in the realm of foreign policy. After reflecting on the legacy of Mbeki's foreign policy, the paper considers the potential implications of the relevant resolutions agreed at the December 2007 ANC National Conference in Polokwane. Constraints on South African foreign policy towards the African continent are considered, especially with regard to perception versus reality of its economic and political hegemony as well as its complex identity as a nation. In light of this analysis and the inevitable impact of the current global economic crisis, the paper concludes with a series of recommendations for a new vision and agenda for South Africa's foreign policy under the government to be elected in 2009.     

CHINA’S ‘POLITICAL RE-EDUCATION’ CAMPS OF XINJIANG’S UYGHUR MUSLIMS

Recently, reports have emerged that China operates “political re-education” camps of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. China justified them as a sort of vocational training program to assist Uyghurs in participating in the Chinese economy. In actuality, they are brutal incarceration camps; these forms of ‘education’ can qualify as torture that perhaps 1.5 million adults have been subjected to, and have led to detaining children of people incarcerated in state-run boarding schools. It is necessary to interrogate the underlying factors that have enabled the Chinese government to open and operate these camps under the guise of education. This paper first examines the impact of the current geopolitical interests of China's Belt & Road Initiative and the historical backgrounds of Xinjiang and the Re-Education through Labour program. It then explains the methods of ‘education’ taking place within the camps and interrogates China's justifications for building them. This education issue is more about inhibiting Uyghur power than China's claim that the camps are meant to empower Uyghurs to participate in the Chinese labour force.     

Student Protest and the Nueva Mayoría Reforms in Chile

Chile's Nueva Mayoría government (2014–2018) responded more forcefully to student demands for a more assertive public role in education than any of its post‐authoritarian predecessors. Existing scholarship suggests that this change reflected the success of the 2011 student protests in tapping into latent public discontent with neoliberalism and the politics of consensus. This article argues that it is also crucial to understand how the wave of protest interacted with the dynamics of party politics at the elite level. Public support translated into substantive policy and institutional changes because it contributed to a coalition and platform shift that favoured more extensive reform.     

Breaking with tradition? South Africa–UK relations

Just over twenty years into its new era of democracy, South African foreign policy appears to be undergoing important changes in orientation and global positioning. Indeed, post-apartheid South African foreign policy has been steadily shifting away from a preoccupation with more traditional partnerships to developing alliances and coalitions with emerging economies and actors seeking to reform the global governance order. The paper seeks to understand the implications of this shift for South Africa's relationship with its most pivotal and enduring traditional ‘partner' – the United Kingdom. Thus, the paper proposes that this relationship can be best understood by considering it on different and at least partially contradictory levels, reflecting South Africa's own ambiguous identity as an emerging middle power.     

“Men who smell of fear”: The Menzies Government and Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence

This article uses international archival sources to examine Australian policy on the problem of Rhodesian independence during the 1960s. It demonstrates that until November 1965 the Australian government led by Sir Robert Menzies followed a finely balanced policy that was broadly supportive of Britain but also sympathetic to the Rhodesian Front. However, the Australian response to Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) revealed increasing bureaucratic conflict in Australian policy‐making and exposed the limits of Australian support for Britain in dealing with the international consequences of the UDI. Analysis of Australia's decision to not attend the Lagos Conference in January 1966 demonstrates the Menzies government's anxiety about the implications of racial issues for Australian domestic and foreign policies. This suggests that historians should pay more attention to the significance of Africa in Australian foreign relations during the Menzies era.     

The symbiosis of politics and crime in Lithuania

Abstract

The article argues that since the mid 1990s organized crime in Lithuania has undergone significant transformation. During the early 1990s organized crime was characterized by groups challenging the state in the process of privatization of state property. At this time the most important mode of organized criminal activities was coercion, intimidation and violence. Since the mid 1990s the degree of violence typical to organized criminality has declined significantly. Instead organized crime associations have became active in attempting to partially appropriate the state by influencing, bribing and corrupting state actors. Membership of organized crime associations also underwent changes. Formally a number of prominent crime groups were made up of socially homogenous, lower class “outsiders” who used violence as the primary means of domination and enrichment. Contemporary criminal associations typically are comprised of informal networks of individuals of higher socio-economic standing, who are influential in a wide range of domains: legal and illegal, state and private, bureaucracy and private enterprise. Instead of violence a multiplicity of interactions and transactions among these elite networks are utilized to enable, transact, exchange and enhance mutually beneficial influence and criminal enrichment. We explore the dynamics that have facilitated the emergence of the postmodern organized crime associations that have gained legitimate and illegitimate social and political standing and influence within Lithuania. To illustrate the organized crime transformation the most recent political crisis, involving President Paksas' office engagement in corruption and organized crime, is analyzed. The implications of the transformation in organized crime for the criminal justice system in the country are discussed.     

The Dog That Didn’t Bark: Explaining Change in Germany's Tobacco Control Policy at Home and in the EU

This article revisits the earlier debates on Germany's abysmal record on tobacco control policies, which attributes that record to cultural, institutional, and political barriers. This article shows that Germany has made progress in tobacco control, though its commitment to smoke-free public spaces is lagging. We argue that the explanation for Germany's progress on tobacco control is that EU legislation directly and indirectly influenced public attitudes, raised awareness about the health consequences of smoking among the public and medical establishment, elevated the visibility of medical and health NGOs, and altered the institutional venue of policy making. However, in areas where the EU does not impose legislation, such as second-hand smoke, Germany continues to show more modest progress, owing to its federalised structure of health policy. State governments are in change of smoke-free eateries/drinking establishments and they are more susceptible to pressures from the gastronomy sector and allied tobacco interests.     

Greening growth in the South: practice,policies and new frontiers

Today's development model promotes the exploitation of natural resources regardless of the consequences for the environment or the impact that the quality of the environment has on people's lives and livelihoods. Without a shift in current consumption and production patterns, a sustainable model of development is out of reach. The 1992 Earth Summit acknowledged the need to marry growth and environmental sustainability, but more than 20 years later the world still lacks concrete goals, commitments, benchmarks of progress and frameworks to secure benefits across social, economic and environmental dimensions. The global South is emerging as a green growth laboratory, with innovation and creativity to tackle these concerns. This article analyses these efforts in the context of public policy, and shows that both positive and negative patterns in practice and policy are emerging, which should be considered as broader global green growth efforts are further consolidated and the post-2015 development agenda is being defined.     

Groups and Deliberation

We present a group‐based approach to the study of deliberation. Deliberation occurs in groups, yet many studies of deliberation do not take the group as a unit of analysis. We argue that group composition and the attendant social dynamics to which they give rise are an important aspect of deliberation. We offer several examples of ways to study these effects, including the interaction of gender composition and the group's decision rule in the context of an experimental study of decisions about justice, the effect of racial composition in simulated juries, and the effect of ideological composition in local meetings. We examine the consequences of these factors on a variety of outcomes, including individuals' private opinion, individuals' behaviour, and group decisions. In conclusion we discuss the implications that group effects have for empirical and normative theories of deliberation.     

The war in Georgia and the Western response

This article considers Western, and most particularly American, policy towards Tbilisi in the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008. The article does not accept the view of Russian leaders that the United States actively promoted the Georgian attack on South Ossetia. It does, however, argue that Washington's alliance with Georgia was sufficiently close to make President Saakashvili believe he would receive American support in the event of war with Russia. The war, however, was not in America's interest since it threatened its position in the South Caucasus and provided Russia with an opportunity to re-emphasize its growing power in the world.     

Complying with European standards of minority education: Estonia's relations with the European Union,OSCE and Council of Europe

Abstract

Between 1993 and 2000, Estonia's policy towards minority education experienced four approximate phases of development, each denoting an increasing degree of compliance with European norms, which call on governments to provide individuals belonging to minorities with access to education in their mother tongue. This article argues that the European Union, OSCE and Council of Europe played a role, at timed key and at times mediated, in Estonia policy transformation. Whereas EU material incentives triggered Estonia's willingness to embark on policy change, the dialogue conducted by OSCE and COE representatives helps explain the content and trajectory of the changes introduced thereafter.     

‘Raising a moral generation’: the Republican People's Party and religious instruction in Turkey, 1946–1949

When Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, as the Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic, declared his government's intention to raise a ‘religious generation’, his proposition drew harsh criticisms from Turkey's secularists, who argued that doing so would clearly challenge the secular nature of the Turkish state. Yet it may come as a surprise to many that it was not a conservative party with Islamist leanings that first experimented with the idea of relying on religious education as an antidote to the perceived moral decadence of the society. Rather, it was the secularist party, the Republican People's Party, which attempted to use religious instruction for the same purpose during the heyday of Kemalism in the 1940s. Against this backdrop, providing an analysis of how the Republican People's Party had come to the point of offering religious education to school children and how it justified this policy can shed light on today's debate on secularism and the secular character of the Turkish state.