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The reaction to the trial of former South African Police Minister, Adriaan Vlok [BBC article, in English] again illustrates the difficulties of post conflict countries faced with questions of transnational justice.
The issue is how to best find an equilibrium between the seemingly opposing goals of peace and justice. Common tendency is to focus on either peace or justice. Thus, on the one hand, following today's trial, Mr. Vlok argued for peace and a reconsideration of the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). On the other hand, however, Mr. Frank Chikane, Vlok's former victim, was satisfied with the case that resulted in Mr. Vlok receiving a suspended sentence for admittedly attempting to kill Mr. Chikane. Independent Online has more [article, in English].
Yet, is this really a matter of choice between peace and justice, to the exclusion of one or the other? Rather not! I think the issue is to find an equilibrium between both equally important goals. (*) And probably the Vlok trial is a good step in this direction. While Mr. Vlok listened to reason and admitted his deed, he still had to face trial and a judge. That he received a suspended sentence just shows that the court allowed reason to prevail over revenge. Maybe this illustrates to other still reticent perpetrators that cooperation with the justice system has its merits.
(*) I develop an integrative model of conflict resolution emphasizing the shared responsibility of both the international community and the countries struggling with the problems of transitional justice in my recent law review article Reconciling Peace with Justice - A Cooperative Division of Labor, 30 SUFFOLK TRANSNAT'L L. REV. 271 (2007).
In public international law, one element of statehood is having a defined territory. Territory is commonly displayed through maps. Maps frequently serve planning purposes ... and for their users, maps represent something real, e.g. a destination.
Yet, what if John Doe wanted to travel to Israel, but could not find this destination on his map? Well, maybe he just was not a savvy map reader. Another explanation, however, would be that he was looking at a map where Israel was simply nonexistent. Does this mean that Israel is not a state (and that Mr. Doe should rethink his travel plans)? Certainly not!
As a lot of "states" are engaged in border dispute, the notion of "defined" for purpose of determining statehood in international law has been "adjusted" such that having controversial borders does not deprive a country of statehood. Similarly, according to an article in the New York Times, maps do not necessarily display facts, but opinions ... Click here [link to NYT article] to learn more ...
Judex non calculat. I heard this phrase a dozen times and, as a matter of fact, I encountered very little statistics during my whole legal education. Yet, I believe that data analysis should play an important role when crafting and amending laws. That is why I would like to present "Gapminder". "Gapminder" [website] is a not-for-profit organization from Sweden that aims for a visualization of human development by providing free software. On its website, "Gapminder" offers quite a variety of features, like videos, animations, charts, publications ... My personal favorite is "The Gapminder World 2006" [link] where you can choose among different indicators of human development, witness their changes over time ... even relate different indicators to each other and come up with your own theory of human development.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) [website] shall facilitate international trade. In this regard, the principle of non-discrimination plays an important role, consequence of which is, inter alia, the concept of national treatment. The concept of national treatment requires equal treatment of imported foreign and domestic products. And this concept might, according to NPR's Marketplace [link to contribution], lead to the production of the future Swiss Army knife in China (!) ... unless Switzerland cuts the Gordian knot and finds a loophole.
