Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 10 September

There’s now a slight chance that the United Nations Security Council will respond to the slaughter in Syria by imposing international monitoring of Syria’s chemical weapons. This step ought to prevent future use of such heinous weapons, but what it won’t do is bring justice to the war’s many victims. However, council members could help provide justice by insisting on an immediate referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC).  Perhaps lost in the international debate over chemical weapons, of the many horrors that Syrians have suffered since the uprising began in March 2011, detention is among the most terrifying. Syrian security forces have arrested thousands of people and held them for months without charge, torturing and mistreating them. The International Olympic Committee elected Thomas Bach as its new president today. Bach succeeds Jacques Rogge, whose 12-year tenure as IOC president was marred by human rights abuses linked to the Olympics in host countries including Russia and China. Bach, in his new role as IOC president, should adopt a principled approach to upholding the Olympic Charter and focus on human dignity, non-discrimination, and media freedom. After decades of devastating effects US drug enforcement has had on millions of people, it’s heartening that the US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on the conflict between federal and state laws on marijuana.  The hearing comes on the heels of a Justice Department announcement that it will not interfere with states’ implementation of laws legalizing marijuana so long as they don't conflict with certain federal priorities.  In Australia, the repeated  election slogan of “stopping the boats” gained traction – using the issue of immigration to score political points while turning a deaf ear to the treatment of asylum seekers. But the boats keep coming.