The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
By Lauren Pak
Lauren Pak is a senior at Vanderbilt University studying Political Science and Community Leadership Development. According to paragraph 138 of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/1 (2005), the state has the ultimate responsibility to “protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity” (p. 30). Under such state responsibility, the Outcome Document also qualifies this protection to entail prevention. The significance of the role determination stated in the resolution is the manner in which the United Nations defines state sovereignty. If the state fails to satisfy its obligations, the international community has the right to “collective action”, which paragraph 139 states is to “build capacity to protect” and “use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means” in order to prevent human rights atrocities (2005, p. 30). In other words, the resolution proclaims the international community’s overriding authority and ability to intervene in state affairs. The implications of this stance are one in many. First, the document assumes that states have the moral responsibility to abide to the universal standards of human rights. Though the assumed universal values are unarguably grounded in Christian, Western, liberal thought, this should not be a point for exclusion or non-intervention. The assumed ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ philosophies as it relates to human rights do not contradict or oppose each other as simplified categorization would have it (Cook, 1993). Rather, the real contention lies in the fact that institutions are assumedly functioning on morality, dismissing the political agenda of structures. Such idealism is the fuel that backs the call for international councils such as the League of Nations and ultimately the United Nations (David, 2016). But the claim of universal peace and democracy blankets the darker reality that is a perpetuation of colonialization, belittling a state’s autonomy and capacity to work non-violently and in a civilized manner with another entity. The failure of states in this context becomes a moral failure, where the international body finds itself needing to teach ‘values’. This leads to the justification of a Western hierarchy, a ‘New World Order’, or imposition of foreign principles that does not respectfully engage with local contexts. What are the implications that the majority of ICC indictments are involving heads of African states when the “most horrific mass atrocities in recent years have taken place outside of Africa” (Taylor, 2015)? The disparity points very clearly at the fact that there is a color to the power controlling the narrative of global governance and a dangerous selectivity when it comes to determining legitimacy.
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By Wajeeha Ahmad
Wajeeha Ahmad is a rising senior at MIT studying mathematics. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, freedom of expression is the right of every individual to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. [1] The ability to exercise this freedom without fear is central to living in an open and fair society. Although access to the Internet affords ease of expression, in all too many countries around the world, citizens find that governments block or restrict access to the internet, or close down sites that represent a particular viewpoint. In December 2014, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko approved the law titled "On introducing amendments to the Law on Mass Media of the Republic of Belarus." Based on vaguely formulated legal provisions, these amendments give the state the expansive right to interfere with any information posted on the Internet. At the end of 2014, more than 10 informational resources were blocked for some time without legal grounds for doing so. Moreover, the government in Belarus has gone after journalists who seek to skirt state censorship by broadcasting from outside the country. Early this year, a journalist was found guilty of “illegal dissemination of media products” for having “illegally interviewed” residents of a Belarusian village for Belsat, an independent Belarusian channel that broadcasts from neighboring Poland. [2] By Sanjay Dureseti
Sanjay Dureseti is a rising sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania and an associate editor of the Penn Undergraduate Law Journal. After Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump clinched the presidential nominations for America’s two major political parties, the country’s electorate and press started focusing on the vitriolic and vainglorious stump speeches that will define the remainder of this election cycle. Despite the victories of Clinton and Trump, the general tone amongst voters with regards to the Republican and Democratic nominees has been one of begrudging acceptance. The party bases, despite their overarching desire for unification, have painted their respective choices as the lesser of two evils, with two-thirds of voters declaring both Trump and Clinton to be untrustworthy and dishonest. [1] The existence of such an uninspiring duo, other than galvanizing more extensive support for major alternative entities like the Libertarian and Green parties, begs the question of how the two managed to get chosen in the first place. While both Trump and Clinton won solid portions of the popular vote, their unpopularity suggests that the institutional structures of the nomination system may obscure the true will of the American electorate. |
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