Wangari Maathai, Nobel laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, passed away late Sunday night while undergoing cancer treatment in Nairobi. But she left the world having fully lived her 71 years, to the benefit of the rest of us. Like many prominent women her age, Maathai had to break through many […]
Last week the UN declared a famine in two regions of Southern Somalia and warned that it could spread to other parts of the Horn of Africa. That is a big deal. As Mark Leon Goldberg of UN Dispatch pointed out, a famine is a technical finding based or mortality, malnutrition and water consumption; they […]
Last week Libya became the subject of official investigation by the International Criminal Court, the sixth since the court’s inception in 2002. There are three ways in which an investigation can be initiated by the Office of The Prosecutor; referral of a situation by a state party of the Rome Statute, referral from the U.N. […]
It was announced today that between 9 and 11 Kenyan’s who have conducted attacks in Kenya have had training within Somalia, a disquieting thought as Harakat al-Shabaab has announced the possibility of more focussed attacks on Kenyan soil in the near future. In the meanwhile, Mustapha Ali, advisor to the UN has warned that the spillover […]
Among other things, 2010 marked a number of national elections gone wrong. From Guinea to Haiti, Rwanda to the Philippines, Madagascar, Burundi and Belarus to name just a few, elections that were fair, free, non-violent and undisputed have been difficult to find this past year. Even elections in the US and UK took on more […]
The latest Wikileaks revelations are too extensive for any single person to have yet sifted through, and they pertain to so many aspects of foreign policy that it is difficult to know where to focus. Here are some of the highlights related to corruption. In the category of “I knew just as much simply by […]
By Miranda Jolicoeur, Guest Contributor The effect of the African Commission’s ruling last month on indigenous land rights in Kenya is an important ruling, not only for the recognition of land rights among indigenous populations in Africa, but for a wide-scale acknowledgment of indigenous people and their marginalization. The ruling could also potentially help other […]
A committee of the Kenyan Parliament has agreed to do away with the position of prime minister as part of a reform of its constitution. The position of prime minister was created in 2008 as a way to allow for power sharing in bring an end to the bloody confrontations that followed Kenya’s national elections […]
Year in Review: This year in War Crimes began with two historical events that will change the shape of War Crimes and International Law for years to come. The first of those events: The beginning of trials at the International Criminal Court. This marks the beginning of International Criminal Justice on a truly global level. […]
Elections are events that always garner attention. Whether its to see how a particular politician will fare, what direction a country may be headed with its policies, or as a barometer of corruption, elections are covered by the world media regardless of where they occur. Unfortunately, there are places where election coverage can only achieve […]
One of the scenarios that Gore discusses in “An Inconvenient Truth” is the triggering of a massive cooling in the Northern Hemisphere as a consequence of the altering of the “Great Ocean Conveyor.” NASA scientists, among others, have looked closely at this “chilling possibility.” The freezing of the North, the warming of the South, and […]
Late last week Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, received an envelope containing the names of a dozen top suspects of crimes against humanity in Kenya. The alleged crimes against humanity occurred following the disputed 2008 Kenyan presidential election and the list is rumored to implicate some of Kenya’s most senior […]