Seven months after the United Nations General Assembly created a Human Rights Council to replace the much-maligned Commission on Human Rights, the new council already has garnered a level of condemnation that its predecessor took decades to achieve. While the council is in deep trouble, it can be saved if supporters of human rights exert leadership and mount an effective drive to win over moderate states from all regions of the world.
It's been a long time since the days of back-alley abortions in the U.S. Perhaps that's why South Dakota Gov. Michael Rounds signed into law a ban against abortion in his state, with one narrow exception: protecting the life of the pregnant woman.
Perhaps Rounds, who was only 19 when Roe vs. Wade was decided in 1973, doesn't remember what it was like to live in a country where women had no right to a safe, legal abortion. But there is a place he could visit if he wants to refresh his memory: Latin America.
The extradition of Ricardo Miguel Cavallo from his hiding place in Mexico to Spain for alleged crimes committed during Argentina's "dirty war" marks a historic moment in the effort to bring to justice the perpetrators of the worst atrocities. Cavallo's transfer is the first time that one country has extradited a person to another country to stand trial for abuses that happened in a third.
"International justice" is already beginning to be a plausible backstop when national justice fails or a perpetrator flees. In Sierra Leone and Cambodia, the UN is preparing to sponsor tribunals together with local authorities. Former dictator of Chad Hissène Habré was arrested on torture charges last year in his Senegalese exile. (The Senegalese Court of Final Appeals ruled in March that he could not be tried there, but human rights groups are now seeking his extradition to stand trial in Belgium.) The Mexican government has agreed to extradite to Spain an Argentine naval officer accused by Judge Baltasar Garzón of torture.
Seven months after the United Nations General Assembly created a Human Rights Council to replace the much-maligned Commission on Human Rights, the new council already has garnered a level of condemnation that its predecessor took decades to achieve. While the council is in deep trouble, it can be saved if supporters of human rights exert leadership and mount an effective drive to win over moderate states from all regions of the world.
It's been a long time since the days of back-alley abortions in the U.S. Perhaps that's why South Dakota Gov. Michael Rounds signed into law a ban against abortion in his state, with one narrow exception: protecting the life of the pregnant woman.
Perhaps Rounds, who was only 19 when Roe vs. Wade was decided in 1973, doesn't remember what it was like to live in a country where women had no right to a safe, legal abortion. But there is a place he could visit if he wants to refresh his memory: Latin America.
The extradition of Ricardo Miguel Cavallo from his hiding place in Mexico to Spain for alleged crimes committed during Argentina's "dirty war" marks a historic moment in the effort to bring to justice the perpetrators of the worst atrocities. Cavallo's transfer is the first time that one country has extradited a person to another country to stand trial for abuses that happened in a third.
"International justice" is already beginning to be a plausible backstop when national justice fails or a perpetrator flees. In Sierra Leone and Cambodia, the UN is preparing to sponsor tribunals together with local authorities. Former dictator of Chad Hissène Habré was arrested on torture charges last year in his Senegalese exile. (The Senegalese Court of Final Appeals ruled in March that he could not be tried there, but human rights groups are now seeking his extradition to stand trial in Belgium.) The Mexican government has agreed to extradite to Spain an Argentine naval officer accused by Judge Baltasar Garzón of torture.