Minerva, Fall 2011 - Citizens for Global Solutions

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the efforts to achieve the MDGs. We willhave an estimated 1.4 billion people livingin slums in 2015. We are not dealingwith ‘minority’ groups here. Millions ofhomeless and landless people cannot be aminority. They can’t be left out. A holistichuman rights perspective must spur discussiontowards a new socially inspiredeconomic and political world order as theonly way to overcome poverty, hungerand disease and sustain common life onthis resource-limited planet. Such an immensetask will call for collective actionwell beyond 2015.”Phyllis Bennis, a Fellow of the Institute forPolicy Studies and the Transnational Institutein Amsterdam, argues that, insteadof searching for new strategies to achievethe Millennium Goals, the MDGs shouldbe re-construed as MDRs — MillenniumDevelopment Rights (YES! Magazine,27 September 2010). Then grim realitiescould be changed “through building anew internationalist movement, involvingcivil society AND governments AND theUnited Nations. And a movement basedon rights — with accountability whenthose rights are violated.”12 - Don Kraus, “The Arab Spring and aGlobal 911”, guest post on care2make adifference, 16 May 201113 - Don Kraus, The Global Citizen blog, 18 April 201114 - “With these guidelines,” assertsWalden Bello, referring to perspectivesattributed to the Global South, “very fewhumanitarian interventions would havequalified as valid and carried out legitimatelyin the last 40 years. There are perhapsonly two: the Vietnamese invasionto remove the blood-thirsty Khmer Rougefrom power in 1978 (though this lackedUN sanction) and the UN-led multinationalforce INTERFET that ended thegenocidal killings and deportations ofTimorese by Indonesian-backed militiasin 1999.”15 - Rachel Gerber, “The Trials and TestsFaced by R2P”, The Stanley Foundation’sthink., August 2011; reprinted here, page4016 - Rachel Gerber, “Mass Atrocities andthe International Community: The MultilateralFramework for Prevention and Response”,The Stanley Foundation’s think.,April 201117 - For example: the work of the UNbackedInternational Commission AgainstImpunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Createdin the fall of 2007, the CICIG is describedby David Grann (“A Murder Foretold —Unravelling the ultimate political conspiracy”,The New Yorker, 4 April 2011)as “a path-breaking political experiment.Unlike many truth commissions or humanrights bodies, it does not investigatewar crimes of the past, or merely monitorabuses. Rather, it aggressively fightsagainst systemic violence and corruption…. Composed of several dozen judges,prosecutors, and law-enforcement officialsfrom around the world, CICIGworks within Guatemala’s legal systemto prosecute members of organized crimeand dismantle clandestine networks embeddedin the state.”Thanks to national and international pressure,the Guatemalan Congress approvedthe International Commission AgainstImpunity in Guatemala on 1 August 2007.The CICIG is set up to support the PublicProsecutor’s Office, suggesting methodsof investigation and presenting evidence.The Public Prosecutor’s Office has ultimateresponsibility for deciding whetheror not to pursue an investigation. It is partlyintended to interrupt the operations ofclandestine groups that undermine respectfor the rule of law and human rights.8 • Minerva #39 • November 2011In a recent high-level case (Amnesty Internationalpress release, 26 November2010), the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’sOffice brought charges against formerInterior Minister Carlos Vielman“and 19 individuals, some of whom arein custody, for their alleged participationin the extrajudicial execution of prisonersin several Guatemalan jails. These actionshave the support of the CICIG. FormerNational Director of Police Erwin Sperisen,currently resident in Switzerland, andother former officials are being investigatedover the killings of prisoners heldat two prisons in Guatemala in 2005 and2006.” Carlos Vielman was arrested on13 October in Madrid following a judicialrequest by the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’sOffice, supported by the CICIG.He was released by the Spanish authoritieson 23 November, after Guatemalafailed to meet a deadline for filing theproper documentation for his extradition.18 - Don Kraus, care2make a difference,16 May 2011: “In the meantime the USshould support the deployment of UNpeacekeepers on the ground to protectcivilians; provision of food, water, medicineand shelter for displaced Libyans;and UN sponsored elections to bring democracyand a legitimate government.”19 - Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 7September and 31 August 201120 - Bill McKibben, Reader SupportedNews, 16 April 2011: “Climate change,above all issues, requires a transformativeand not an incremental vision. We havefundamental change to make, and a veryshort window to make it in — Obama’stypical (and often quite savvy) little-bitat-a-timeapproach doesn’t square withthe physics and chemistry that govern thisdebate.”21 - Naím and Stern, along with severalother debaters on this issue, are quoted byThanassis Cambanis, author of A Privilegeto Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legionsand Their Endless War Against Israel, in“No Big Deal — The key to solving theplanet’s most daunting problems: thinksmall”, Boston Globe, 9 January 2011.22 - Peter Baldwin, “The Narcissism ofMinor Differences: How America andEurope Are Alike”, New York Times, 28November 201023 - Christopher Hayes, of The Nation,“In Search of Solidarity”, In These Times,3 February 200624 - Editor & artist J.A. Myerson, “‘ArabSpring’ Label Hampers Global Protests’Solidarity Potential”, Truthout, 9 July201125 - “For a team to be lovable, it helpsnot to be great or too great, but rather tohave a chance to win or get lucky,” saysLawrence Wenner, of Loyola MarymountUniversity, author of the MediaSport andformer editor of the Journal of Sport andSocial Issues (quoted in 26, below).26 - Leon Neyfakh, “How Teams TakeOver Your Mind”, Boston Globe, 24 April2011; see also: Sports and Their Fans, by
Kevin Quinn, on the tribal aspect; and, oninculcation processes, Fandom: Identitiesand Communities in a Mediated World,edited by Jonathan Gray27 - Adam Sternbergh, “The Thrill ofDefeat for Sports Fans”, New York TimesMagazine, 21 October 201128 - Seeking fans, while promising to increasethe size of the military by 100,000,Mitt Romney exclaimed in October to cadetsat The Citadel: “This century must bean American century. America leads thefree world and the free world leads the entireworld. God did not create this countryto be a nation of followers.”Andrew Bacevich lamented the increasinglydominant requirement of militaristicpiety in public life: “In his Citadel speech,Romney said nothing that a thousandpoliticians and pundits have not alreadysaid a thousand times and will say again.The significance of his presentation liesnot in its originality but in its familiarity”(“America: with God on our side”, LosAngeles Times, 16 October 2011).29 - Daniel E. Doyle Jr., executive directorof the Institute for International Sportat the University of Rhode Island, NewYork Times, 5 September 201130 - For example: “What matters [to thepublic] is the story of America, not theideological structure of American exceptionalism.”- Steven Knapp, president ofThe George Washington University, “TheEnduring Dilemma of the Humanities”,The Key Reporter, Summer 2011See also Vijay Nagaraj on the humanrights “counter-narrative” to religiousfundamentalisms, page 36 of this issue.31 - From Former Under SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations BrianUrquhart’s Afterword to Working Paper40 of the Brookings Global Economy andDevelopment program, Does FairnessMatter in Global Governance?, by HakanAltinay, a nonresident senior fellowwith that program: “A universal traditionof fairness and public spirit — a gloriousobjective — will not be created quicklyor easily. This is why the foundation fromwhich it can grow needs to be establishedas soon as possible. … Until the recognitionof the notion of human dignitybecomes universal rather than a distantaspiration, progress in establishing universalrespect for human rights will remainpartially unfulfilled, and the growthof a universal tradition of fairness will bestunted.“Anyone who has worked formany years in an admittedly flawed internationalsystem becomes accustomed tobeing called deluded, naïve or unrealistic.In the end, however, it is possible to lookback on a surprising degree of progressthat was difficult to discern at the time,sometimes toward objectives that werepreviously thought to be hopelessly unattainable.Fairness and civility are vastobjectives even for a single state, but ifwe pride ourselves on having achievedglobalization and a revolution in humancommunication, why should fairnessand civility not also be global objectives?Such vast objectives may neverbe altogether realized. They stand as aguide to behavior, a great work in continualprogress …”ïThe “nuclear football”— accompanying the US president —is housed in a modified Zero Halliburtonattaché case (Photo: John Caruso)9 • Minerva #39 • November 2011rugbyALTERNATIVESSecretary-General Ban Ki-moon, at thePacific Islands Forum summit meetingin New Zealand, just before the RugbyWorld Cup there (September 2011):New Zealand is the magnificent meetingground of both the world of diplomacyand the world of rugby. I have come torealize that those worlds are not as differentas you might think. In rugby, you loseteeth. In diplomacy, you lose face. Rugbyscrums confuse anyone who doesn’t knowthe game. So do UN debates. And sometimesthey can look very similar. And yet,in heart and spirit the Rugby World Cupis a celebration, a celebration of commonvalues and a way of life: teamwork, mutualrespect, solidarity. The qualities ofgrit and determination — all very useful,I have found, in the world of diplomacy.soccerI would rather lose as Scotland than winas Great Britain.~ Craig Brown,former Scotland manager who nowcoaches Aberdeen, expressing reportedlywidespread sentiment as to whether thereshould be a team of English, Welsh, Scotsand Northern Irish players at the Olympicsin London (The Guardian, mid-September2011)
Page 1 and 2: NOVEMBER 2011Minerva39Citizens for
Page 3 and 4: First & GoalEven euphoria isn’t w
Page 5 and 6: it hopes to improve. Beyond Libya a
Page 7: 5 - Walden Bello, Princeton-educate
Page 11 and 12: Among their targets is the notion t
Page 14 and 15: The protestors in Tahrir Square and
Page 16 and 17: Having given the overall thesis, Mc
Page 18 and 19: Regions would cast weighted votes b
Page 20 and 21: proved worth the many years of stru
Page 22 and 23: Six Scenes of EndeavorJoshua Cooper
Page 24 and 25: adopted, this time the study focusi
Page 26 and 27: III • UNHRC ~ The United NationsH
Page 28 and 29: While indigenous peoples have only
Page 30 and 31: specifically Bangladesh. The rally
Page 32 and 33: ing short of food and water, underm
Page 34 and 35: Women are frequently the subject of
Page 37 and 38: the core of religious intolerance;
Page 39 and 40: NOTES ON DEHUMANIZATIONRegarding th
Page 41 and 42: All of these efforts reflect a sens
Page 43 and 44: upholding Germany’s claim to stat
Page 45 and 46: Eliminating NukesJames T. Ranney is
Page 47 and 48: how strategically we might move tow
Page 49 and 50: But see O’Hanlon, supra, at 5, 9-
Page 51 and 52: As the president is kept ready and
Page 53 and 54: 13) Jason Leopold, “Air Force Cit
Page 55 and 56: tions for improving private sector
Page 57 and 58: ~UNA’S GLOBAL AGENDAThe 2011-2012
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y the Geneva Centre for the Democra
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head of the organization’s childr
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accessibility was not the primary i
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