Transnational Law Blog

Seeing The Tibet Situation Clearly: Old Tibet and Democracy for a Future Tibet

There is always two sides to every story and the same is true about the unrest in Tibet. The state operated Xinhua News issued an editorial today entitled, Don't See Tibet Through Tainted Glasses, which argues that Tibet is better now than it was before it came under the control of China. The basic argument is that people who view the Tibet situation through rose-colored glasses intentionally distort facts and deny that Tibet is experiencing its best era of development and stability and Tibetans are enjoying the broadest human rights ever. China Daily also ran an article today entitled, CNN: What's Wrong With You, detailing how the western media has been distorting the facts about the number of people injured during the rioting, the motives of the Tibetan rioters, China's response, and the history of Tibet.

According to the Tainted Glasses editorial, before China took control of the region the Tibetan people were "politically oppressed, economically exploited and frequently persecuted. A saying circulated among serfs: 'All a serf can carry away is his own shadow, and all he can leave behind is his footprints.' It is perhaps safe to say that Tibet's serf system represents the worst systematic abuse of human rights in human history."

Serfs? I had never heard of serfs in Tibet before. Articles like the one on China Confidential entitled, No Shangri-La: Life in Old Tibet, accurately summed up my western idea of old Tibet as a paradise. My musings about old Tibet pictured an idyllic religious retreat in the mountains with pleasant and content people living in harmony with each other and the rest of the world. However, it appears I was wrong. The Tibetan people lived in a feudal system before China took complete control of the region in 1959, and descriptions of life in Tibet before the Chinese occupation portray it as a country that consisted of slavery, oppression, and unimaginable human rights violations.

An article by Michael Parenti entitled, Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (2007), presents a synopsis of Tibet's feudalism, theocratic despotism, and the Chinese occupation. He gave the following summary of life in feudal Tibet:

Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.”

Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.”

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

Land of The Not So Free

A recently released report found that more than one of every 100 adults in the US is in jail or prison, making the US the world's top incarcerator!  This report only bolsters past arguments I've made about the US being a police state (see here and here).  Moreover, a citizenry behind bars is not a productive, tax-paying citizenry!  An article by the AP included the following:

The report was compiled by the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

"Getting tough on criminals has gotten tough on taxpayers," said the project's director, Adam Gelb.

According to the report, the average annual cost per prisoner was $23,876, with Rhode Island spending the most ($44,860) and Louisiana the least ($13,009). It said California - which faces a $16 billion budget shortfall - spent $8.8 billion on corrections last year, while Texas, which has slightly more inmates, was a distant second with spending of $3.3 billion.

An article by the NY Times included the following:

But Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge, said the Pew report considered only half of the cost-benefit equation and overlooked the “very tangible benefits — lower crime rates.”

In the past 20 years, according the Federal Bureau of Investigation, violent crime rates fell by 25 percent, to 464 for every 100,000 people in 2007 from 612.5 in 1987.

“While we certainly want to be smart about who we put into prisons,” Professor Cassell said, “it would be a mistake to think that we can release any significant number of prisoners without increasing crime rates. One out of every 100 adults is behind bars because one out of every 100 adults has committed a serious criminal offense.”

Ms. Urahn said the nation cannot afford the incarceration rate documented in the report. “We tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to crime,” she said. “Being tough on crime is an easy position to take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in the ‘80s and ‘90s.”

Now, with fewer resources available, the report said, “prison costs are blowing a hole in state budgets.” On average, states spend almost 7 percent on their budgets on corrections, trailing only healthcare, education and transportation.

Is there any connection between this and a recent survey that showed a significant proportion of teenagers live in “stunning ignorance” of history and literature?  I'm willing to say there is a connection.

Why is the USA Defying China for the Sake of Tibet and Not Taiwan?

It seems quite odd the support the Bush administration is lavishing upon the Dalai Lama when they refuse to publicly acknowledge the independence of Taiwan, a democratically ruled country that China continually threatens to invade if it makes any claims of independence.

On Wednesday, October 17th, President Bush presented the Dalai Lama with the U.S. Congress' highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal. According to China Confidential and Yahoo News, China responded by postponing talks in Berlin with the UN Security Council about the Iranian nuclear crisis.

"I think they (the Chinese) had indigestion ... over the presence of certain spiritual leaders and an event in Congress," said a US State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It is extraneous to Iranian issues."

It seems quite odd that the Bush administration would choose now as the time to recognize the Dalai Lama as a "universal symbol of peace and tolerance, a shepherd of the faithful and a keeper of the flame for his people," which is how Bush described the exiled leader of Tibet. The Bush administration may have ulterior motives for delaying talks with the UN Security Council about the crisis in Iran. Namely, if the US is preparing to invade Iran on the grounds that it must prevent a nuclear Iran, then it doesn't make much sense to participate in events that would handle the problem diplomatically.

China said that the event supported Tibetan separatism, which goes against the "One China" policy legislated by the Chinese government in 2005. Most people think of the "One China" policy as being a ploy to justify invading Taiwan, but it also justifies using any means necessary to keep Tibet as part of China. It is unclear why the Bush administration would willingly cross China on this issue when it concerns Tibet but not Taiwan. It could simply be that there is still the possibility of war between Taiwan and China and the US would likely be in the middle of any conflict between Taiwan and China. When it comes to Tibet, however, the damage has already been done, and it's quite obvious that the US isn't willing to do anything more to help the Tibetan people than hang medals around the neck of their exiled leader and whisper disparaging remarks about China's human rights abuses.

Legal Development in Sierra Leone

First, I would like to apologize for my extended absence from Transnational Law Blog.  After graduating in May, I spent a delightful summer studying for the California Bar.  That experience was a piece of cake - a cake made out of glass shards, rotten eggs and fish guts, with just a pinch of self-loathing for the icing.  I spent most of August recovering by drooling on the couch and watching sports, which I highly recommend.  However, my days of flipping between ESPN, the Food Network and Bravo (I wanted Trey to win) are over as I am back in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

For the next 8-10 months I will be conducting rule of law research as a Fulbright Fellow.  My research will be examining the impact of moving the Charles Taylor trial to the Hague upon local legal development in Sierra Leone.  More generally, my research will look at the capacity building efforts of the Special Court in order to assess how war crimes tribunals can be more effective in post-conflict environments. 

I will be using this space to make periodic reports on the research as well as to comment on other Sierra Leonean and international developments.  I am coordinating my research with the American Bar Association's Sierra Leone Task Force and will hopefully be posting reports on their page as well.

I am still at a very early stage in my research; revising my research plan, drafting research materials, making contacts and setting up meetings with local rule of law experts.  For now, I will provide a brief background on the conflict in Sierra Leone and outline the details of my project. 

From the early 1990s to 2002, Sierra Leone was ravaged by a brutal civil war allegedly supported by Liberian President Charles Taylor in which an estimated 50,000 people lost their lives and the society of Sierra Leone was shattered. The conflict was characterized by campaigns of amputation, rape and the widespread use of child soldiers. In an effort to bring stability to West Africa and provide accountability for the atrocities, the United Nations and Sierra Leone established the Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2002. 

The Special Court is a hybrid tribunal comprised of international and domestic personnel and applying both international and domestic law. One of the central reasons for locating the tribunal in Sierra Leone and employing local personnel was to improve the capacity of the domestic legal system. In March 2006, Charles Taylor, the most notable figure in the conflict, was detained by the Special Court for his role in allegedly controlling and supplying munitions to the rebel forces in Sierra Leone. However, due to concerns that forces still loyal to the rebels and Taylor would pose a security threat, the Taylor trial was moved to the Hague.

While the trial will be conducted by Special Court personnel under the authority and law of the Special Court, the removal of the trial and limited involvement of Sierra Leonean personnel may undermine the capacity-building ability of the Special Court. By comparing the strategies and impact of rule of law development programs before and during the Taylor trial it will be possible to assess the development capacity of the hybrid tribunal model. The rule of law programs in Sierra Leone focus upon increasing the awareness, access and respect for law, as well as improving the basic due process standards of the local justice system. If there is a significant decline in development capacity it may indicate the necessity of trying major figures within the country of conflict. 

However, if significant legal development can be achieved in the absence of the Taylor trial, it suggests that an alternative framework for war crimes and genocide tribunals can yield positive results. This information will clarify the function and benefits of hybrid tribunals and whether rule of law development should be directly linked with hybrid tribunals. This research will provide domestic and international policy makers with valuable information for addressing future atrocities.

I intend to conduct the research in two parts. The first element of the research will focus on the rule of law development programs of the Special Court as well as civil society, including the Justice Sector Development Programme and the Lawyers Centre for Legal Assistance.  These programs provide training to legal professionals, research and advocate justice sector reform, campaign for legal awareness and provide legal assistance. The research will examine the relative success of these programs and how they have adjusted their efforts in light of the Taylor trial moving to the Hague. 

The second element of the research will involve surveys and interviews of local prosecutors, judges, legal professionals and law students at Fourah Bay College in order to study how the absence of the Taylor trial is perceived and how it has affected the local legal community. 

The research will provide insight into how the presence of the Special Courthas affected the rules, procedures, and due process standards of the local legal system. This information will be compared with the impressions and opinions of local legal professionals as to impact the Taylor trial will have upon local legal development. 

The Situation in Burma -- Update

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari has returned from Burma (also referred to as Myanmar), and has briefed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the results of his diplomatic mission. Gambari's visit was prompted after the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution calling for an end to the human rights abuses in Burma--a failure due, chiefly, to the vetos of Russia and China. No details of Gambari's visit have yet been made public, though Gambari is scheduled to brief the UN Security Council tomorrow.

Over the course of his visit, Gambari was able to meet both with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as top officials from the ruling military junta in Burma, and there has been some speculation that Gambari couriered messages between the two. Suu Kyi has been under some form of imprisonment in Burma for much of the past two decades. She was first placed in detention in 1988, when the National League for Democracy won the Burmese general election and the military junta subsequently nullified the election results.

Since Burma's military crackdown on protestors began last week, both the US and the EU have sought to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions against Burma and its military elite. On the other hand, India, who sells arms to Burma, and who has just signed a deep-sea oil exploration deal with the country, has kept its words measured. China, who is the country seen as having the largest influence on Burma (China is Burma's chief trading partner, and also has significant interests in Burma's oil and natural gas reserves), has also been careful to stay out of the limelight. However, given the reaction of the global community over the past weeks, there are rumours that China's position on the matter is quietly changing. According to an unnamed US official, the message from the US has been "You wanted to become a big power -- part of being a big power is you will be held responsible for your client states." Stay tuned.

When Will China Invade Taiwan?

Despite support from Ozzy Osbourne (see here), Taiwan's bid for United Nations admission has been rejected, again, making this the fifteenth time Taiwan has been denied since it began its attempts for UN membership in 1993. As mentioned in a previous post, the UN charter says that "Membership in the United Nations is open to all other [non-founding] peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations." There is no doubt that Taiwan is a peace-loving state, willing to accept the obligations that would be put upon it by the UN if membership was granted. However, the authoritarian China has once again bullied the rest of the world into refusing democratic Taiwan's bid for membership.

In a recent interview, Taiwan President Chen Shui-Bian said, "The Chinese government is trying to push us up against a wall. We are not part of the UN because Beijing does not recognize us as a sovereign state. Besides, Beijing insists on its One China policy, and Beijing oppresses us by claiming that we are merely a local government. This demeans us and weakens our position. But 23 million Taiwanese know that Taiwan is a sovereign state and that under no circumstances do we belong to China."

Whether China will invade Taiwan is slowly transforming into simply a question of when, and the general opinion seems to be that China will not invade before the 2008 Olympic Games. Taiwan President Chen said, "Western countries should not overlook the fact that the Chinese threaten Taiwan militarily. They had about 200 missiles pointed at us in 2000. Today it's 988. Beijing has increased its military budget by a double-digit percentage each year since 1989. An anti-secession law was adopted in 2005, creating a legal basis for an attack on Taiwan. The Chinese military is expected to be capable of attacking Taiwan by 2010, and conquering the entire island in a single strike by 2015. The world should not ignore these facts."

The United States is obligated by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 to defend Taiwan from military aggressors, including China. However, since 9/11, China has become an indispensable ally of the US, who needs China to diplomatically handle the threats of North Korea and Iran. The US is too bogged down in the war in the Middle East to defend Taiwan from an invasion by China. Consequently, the Bush administration is opposed to either country unilaterally disturbing the status quo.

Yuan Jing-Dong, professor of international policy studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said the following in an excellent article entitled, China, US delicately Juggle Taiwan:

The Sino-US relationship has evolved into one characterized as cooperative, constructive and candid or, to quote President Bush, "complex". Beijing and Washington cooperate on a whole range of issues, from the North Korean and Iranian nuclear challenges, to the environment and global warming, to the "global war on terrorism". China and the US have become ever more interdependent economically, with bilateral trade surpassing US$300 billion this year.

Both have come to recognize the importance of handling the delicate Taiwan issue. Washington seeks to maintain the status quo so it can stay focused on its "war on terrorism" and on combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Beijing recognizes the role that the US can play in reining in Taiwanese independence even as it continues its military preparation to deter and respond to such a scenario.

It is my opinion that the only possible way the US can invade Iran is if it sells out Taiwan. Despite its obligations to the US and the UN, China has been selling weapons, missile technology, and nuclear technology to Iran, which are used to bolster Iran's military as well as the military forces of its allies that are in Afghanistan and Iraq (see here). Obviously China realizes that if the US ever wants to defeat its enemies in the Middle East, it will have to make a deal with China, and the US's best bargaining chip is the island of Taiwan.       

Clear and Present Danger: University of Florida Student Tasered When he Refused to Give up the Mic

As law students we should all be very disturbed when we see a student being arrested and tasered for peacefully asking an elected representative some questions during an open mic question and answer session. Andrew Meyer, a University of Florida student, was wrestled from the microphone while he was asking Senator John Kerry some questions and he was subsequently tasered while being held on the ground by multiple police officers. Here is the video:

As you'll notice, Meyer is holding a yellow book, which has been identified as a book entitled, Armed Madhouse, written by investigative journalist Greg Palast. From this book, Meyer formulated and asked Kerry the following three questions:

1. Given that you won the 2004 election per Greg Palast's book, "Armed Madhouse", why did you concede so on the day of the election itself when there were many reports on the day of the election of disenfranchisement of black voters and corrupted vote count?
2. If you are really so opposed to the Invasion of Iraq(Iran?), why don't you urge impeachment of Bush now before he can invade Iran? Clinton was impeached for a blow job, invading Iraq/Iran is much for serious than that?
3. Were you a member of the secret society Skull & Bones in college?

Is this a dangerous book? Dangerous enough to justify tasering a student? And who is threatened by this book?

Democracy Now has a good interview with Palast about his book, which reveals how the 2000 and 2004 elections were fixed. It also delves deeply into the motives behind the Iraq war, which is about oil but not in the way most of us think. He also points out that Chavez is willing to sell the US oil at a price far cheaper than the oil the US purchases from the Middle East, and he explains why the US would rather assassinate Chavez than lower the price of gas.

We should not forget that this is not the first incident of university police tasering a student. During fall semester 2006, a UCLA student was tasered when he failed to show his student ID card (see it here on Iranian Truth).

UPDATE: FP Passport has posted an article entitled, Ahmadinejad Has More Rights Than a US College Student, which is worth reading. Here is an excerpt:

Something is seriously wrong with this picture: An American student enrolled at the University of Florida is denied his constitutionally-protected right to question an elected leader in a nonviolent way. He's tackled by a half dozen police officers, tasered, and thrown in jail. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be given free reign to hold court before a group of students and faculty — and hordes of television cameras — at Columbia University next week.

***

What's more worrisome, however, is the realization that, while Ahmadinejad will enjoy and test the very limits of the freedoms Americans are supposed to enjoy, a U.S. citizen was denied this priviledge earlier this week. American universities, one is left to assume, value the insights of a man like Ahmadinejad more than they do those of their own students.

There is something rotten in America.

Cannibalizing This American Attention Whore

Whenever I run into someone that feels the need to tell me about how they're going to some other country to combat human rights abuses, I think of a comment I left on a previous TLB post entitled, This American Attention Whore. My comment was meant to defend my assertion that the US is more of a police state than China despite China's reputation for executing more people every year than any other country in the world. What follows is a reproduction of my comment:

I'm reluctant to play number games because numbers are always so manipulatable... According to the US Department of Justice, in 2005 there were 3,254 people waiting to be executed in the U.S. of A. I'm not sure how anyone can say that more people have been executed under the compulsion of state in China than anywhere else in the world when those numbers have never been released by the Chinese government. People at best have estimates and those estimates range from 1,000 people in 3 months to 15,000 in a year. It all depends on which organization you're getting your numbers from or what renegade Chinese person has decided to badmouth his homeland because he or she has been wronged. The fact remains that the US has over 3,000 human beings locked away in a cell awaiting their deaths. If you're not one for the death penalty, then this number should appall you. If you are a proponent of the death penalty, and maybe you think it has a good deterrent effect, then maybe China is your kind of place and you think the US should pick up the pace. Apparently, China is more efficient than the US is about killing people sentenced to death, and it's obviously having the desired effect, which is less crime and less fear.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that the US still has more people in prison or jail than any other country in the world. The US also has more cops, more lawyers, and a very overworked and active judiciary. You say that's the price for security, and I query, "What security?" I can walk the streets of any Chinese city without fear and without worry that I'm going to be accosted or robbed. Yet, back in the U.S. of A. where we have more cops and supposedly more security, two people were shot dead two blocks from our law school just before spring semester ended. Don't remember? Check your Hastings email because the Dean sent out a letter explaining the situation and using it as a justification to maintain increased security on campus. My fellow law students are afraid to walk around the neighborhood at night. Is this the security that you're referring to in your comment? Because if it is, then I'll take the couple thousand executions in China as opposed to the hundreds of thousands that are imprisoned in the US.

And let us not forget to query who is China executing? People make statements like China executes more people than any other country and we're all supposed to put a tissue to our eye and think, "Thank god almighty I don't live in that heathen commie country!" The people being executed in China are not all saints, they are some bad dudes. For instance, one of the people executed in 2004 was a murderer and rapist. He murdered 67 people, and he would use hammers and meat cleavers to kill entire families. Now I know that in the US we might have put him in a cell right next to Charlie Manson and we would have all pondered the horrors of his bad deeds and every couple of years we'd send in a journalist to find out how he is doing and make sure he is getting enough bologna sandwiches. However, that shit does not fly in China, the Chinese killed his murdering ass. If you want to cry about it, well, it's a free country, go ahead-- hell, they would even let you cry about it in China.

I also noticed you threw out a bunch of fancy lawyer speak about the US Constitution. Last time I checked, which was pretty recently, China also has a Constitution and they also have a judiciary. Hell, they even let people appeal their death sentence now. As Americans, what we need to keep in mind is that we grew up in a country that has seriously hated anything having to do with communism for a long time. Not to mention, we blame the Chinese for a few blemishes on our national pride. Take for instance a little incident we call the Korean War and the Chinese call the Repulsion of the American Aggressors. We also shouldn't forget that the Soviets and the Chinese made our job in a place called Vietnam practically impossible.

We're prejudice. Frankly, Americans think they have it all right and the rest of the world is wrong, and Americans believe their way of life is so right that they even go out of their way to help these less fortunate people that have to live in these horrible places like China. Back in America, they try to drum up support for their causes by printing wild stories about thousands upon thousands of people being executed when in actuality they have no hard data. Why do they do this? I don't know. They got tired of watching American Idol and suddenly they decided they were going to help other people. The problem is that Americans fail to realize that not everyone in the world wants to live like they do. Not all the women in the world want to wear pants and have a career. Not all of the governments in the world believe that freedom comes from imprisoning a large portion of society. As shocking as it may seem, many people in the world prefer to squat rather than sit on a porcelain bowl.

Read once more what Sheehan said in her resignation. Sheehan is a woman that did all she could to stop the American war machine, to free us from the police state, and she was pushed down from every side until she was broken. The powers that be in the US-- republican, democrat, liberal, conservative-- let me make it easy, the people who are making the most money (we're all making money off it) from the war machine, the police state, the military industrial complex-- did not want her to succeed. None of us wanted her to succeed because none of us truly want the system to change. We like our jobs and we like our toys and we like our status and it comes from war. Change the system? We are the system. Change it from within? How? We were raised in the system. All we know is the system. Without the system we're lost. Destroying the system for us is tantamount to suicide. To fix the system we would have to collectively reformat our minds, wipe the slate clean, but then who would reprogram us? You can drop-out as an individual but you'll never be able to think outside the parameters of your American upbringing. It will always taint your every thought and motive.

Freaked out yet?

In his "Military Industrial Complex" speech, President Eisenhower said, "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Ponder whether unwarranted influence has taken acquisition of the government. Consider whether we take things for granted; whether misplaced power exists and persists; and whether the American citizenry is alert and knowledgeable. Then tell me whether our methods are peaceful and if peaceful methods are being used to fulfill our goals. Tell me whether we have failed President Eisenhower or if he somehow failed us. Tell me whether the military industrial enterprise could have had any other outcome. Then, and only then, will I even begin to ponder whether the Chinese should or should not execute murderers and rapists in their own country.

Libya, Lockerbie, and the Hazy Line Between Law and Politics

Several news sources are reporting that the five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian Doctor convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV have had their death sentences commuted to life in prison by Libya's highest court. The case, which has been moving through Libya's court and appeals system for more than eight years, has become the focus of intense international scrutiny, as many countries and international health organizations have questioned the strength of the evidence against the convicted medical workers.

The ruling today was hailed as a step in the right direction by Bulgaria, the EU, and the US, but there has been no final decision on whether the medical workers will be allowed to return to Bulgaria. The commutation of the sentences came as the families of the infected children agreed to a final settlement of the payment of $1 million US dollars for each child infected.

Something that has received somewhat less attention, however, is the apparent link between the trial of the six medical workers and the trial and conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2001 on a speech given by Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi suggesting that the CIA or Israeli intelligence service was behind the "experiment on the[] children" and promised the medical workers would face "an international trial, like the Lockerbie trial." And, according the Bulgaria's foreign minister, from 2001 to 2005 Kadafi repeatedly offered to exchange the six medical workers for Al Megrahi. In a somewhat surprising twist of events, last month the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission agreed to allow a reopening of the case against Al Megrahi, citing new evidence that has come to light since his conviction.

Conceding that there may be the makings of a conspiracy theory entwined in the facts just stated, both cases (the Lockerbie trial and that of the Bulgarian/Palestinian medical workers) serve as examples of just how intensely political cases against foreign nationals can become. The fairness of the trial and validity of the evidence against the accused have been strongly questioned in both cases. For these accused, it seems the line between the law and politics may be incredibly difficult to ascertain.

Feinstein Introduces Legislation to Close Detention Facility at Guantanamo

Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The legislation requires that within one year of enactment the President shall close the Department of Defense detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. All of the prisoners at Guantanamo shall be transferred to a civilian or military facility in the United States and charged with a violation of U.S. or international law for prosecution in a civilian or military proceeding. Interestingly, once the detainees are within the territory of the 50 states, then the multitude of questions concerning whether the protections of the Constitution apply to the detainees will be greatly narrowed. Over at Opinio Juris, they query whether this legislation will also eliminate military commissions as they have been set up under the Military Commissions Act?

At Balkinization, they posit that the current administration is unlikely (or reluctant) to move the detainees to the United States because it will increase their constitutional rights. Balkinization argues that it is more likely that if the detention center at Guantanamo is closed, then the prisoners will not be moved to the US but will be moved to a detention center closer to the battlefield or to countries such as Libya where the chances of the prisoners being tortured is even more likely. "All of which is to suggest that although 'Close GTMO Now' might be an understandable sentiment, it doesn't answer the question: What then? A better idea would be for Congress to require that due process and some form of meaningful judicial review be provided at GTMO and at other detention facilities around the globe."

A press release from the Feinstein website quoted the Senator as saying: “I believe this legislation works in our national interest in several ways. First, it helps to remove a symbol that directly harms our reputation as the world’s leader in support for the rule of law. Closing this facility will restore our moral authority, and make our nation more effective in the fight against global terror. And conducting trials elsewhere, either in the United States or before internationally recognized tribunals, will give these proceedings a credibility that they would likely not have if they were conducted at Guantanamo Bay.”