International Law

Europe Gets Serious on Data Protection

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Companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter collect data from their users without their permission and this personalized data can be used, in large measure, to produce targeted advertisement. Advertising networks collect information across a wide span of sites, using cookies that are placed on a user’s computer when loading a page containing an ad, and then they use the Web surfing history to deliver other ads. Every time a user clicks on a “like” on Facebook or plus in Google that information is collected use by these companies and their clients. Internet users’ movements on the web are also being tracked for further use by countless other entities—both public and private.

Europe has been signaling an overhaul of its data protection laws that date from 1995. Last week, one legislator, Jan Philipp Albrecht, a member of the Green Party from Hamburg, introduced a bill that would create a new agency to enforce a series of measures giving Internet users greater control of their online information.

If approved, the proposal would replace an advisory panel to the European Commission with a privacy regulator with the power to make decisions for the 27 members of the European Union and levy fines of up to 2 per cent of a company’s revenue that violates Europe’s data protection laws.

The new measures would prohibit the use of a range of standard Web tracking and profiling practices that companies use to produce targeted advertising unless consumers give their explicit prior consent.

The bill would also grant European consumers a fundamental new right: data portability, or the right to easily transfer one’s personal posts, photos and video from one online service site to another.

A coalition of US, Asian and European businesses and advertisers have criticized the proposed plan, which would give Europeans much stronger legal protections to control their online identities than people elsewhere. However, the enactment of these laws is very good news for consumers concerned about the lack of regulation regarding data collection and user’s tracking on the interned and on social networks.

The European Parliament will vote on the proposal in April, and a final agreement with the upper house is expected later this year.

Tragedy in a Bus: Let’s Work for a New Year of Greater Human Rights’ Protection for Women Around the World

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It is sad that this first post of the year is about the brutal killing of a young woman in New Delhi. However, a saying attributed to Buddha states that: “[t]here are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.” We better start recognizing fairly quickly the obvious truth that we, as a society are failing women, and that we have a moral and legal obligation to do better.

As the world knows, on Dec. 16, a 23-year-old woman and her male friend were returning home after watching a movie at a mall in southwest Delhi. After they boarded what seemed to be a passenger bus, the six men inside gang-raped and tortured the woman so brutally that her intestines were destroyed. The attackers also severely beat up the woman’s friend and threw them both from the vehicle, leaving her near death, and her friend with severe injuries. On Saturday morning, 13 days after she was brutalized, she died of multiple organ failure.

Shortly after the attack, tens of thousands of people took to the streets and faced down police officers, tear gas and water cannons to express their outrage. It was the most vocal protest against sexual assault and rape in India to date, and it set off nationwide demonstrations. The protesters took to the streets outraged about the lack of legal protection for women’s rights in the largest democracy in the world.

Although India has laws against rape; seats reserved for women in buses, female officers; and special police help lines, these measures have proven ineffective in the face of a patriarchal and misogynistic culture. It is a culture that believes that the worst aspect of rape is the defilement of the victim, who will no longer be able to find a man to marry her, and where the solution is often for the victim to marry the rapist. The rapists are obviously at fault in these cases, but those who blame women who are victims of rape, or do nothing to protect them, are accomplices in the victimization.

In 2012, of the more than 600 rape cases reported in Delhi, only one led to a conviction. Police officers, politicians, diplomats, heads of States, and regular people in the street who turn the other way are contributing to the problem.  Victims often believe they will not receive justice, and that they will be shunned if they report the rape; and the lack of convictions for rape support their belief. Rapists do not fear the consequences of their actions, because often their actions carry no consequences.

The volume of protests in public and in the media has made clear that the attack was a turning point and hopefully this horrendous tragedy will lead to more stringent laws that protect women. In Geneva, Navi Pillay, the U.N. Commissioner on Human Rights, called Monday for fundamental change in India: “Let us hope that 2013 will be the year the tide is turned on violence against women in India and all women can walk free without fear. … The public is demanding a transformation in systems that discriminate against women to a culture that respects the dignity of women in law and practice,” said Pillay.

I call for fundamental change not just in India but also everywhere in the world in the protection and respect for the victims of rape and other gender violence. I hope that this tragedy will be a catalyst for change in women rights around that world and that what the victim of this horrible crime had to endure serves to prevent further suffering for other women.

 

OUR CHILDREN, NOUS ENFANTS, NUESTROS NIÑOS, NOSSOS FILHOS, הילדים שלנו, BIZIM ÇOCUKLAR, NASZE DZIECI, أطفالنا, UNSERE KINDER, I NOSTRI FIGLI, VÅRE BARN, ANAK-ANAK KITA, DÁR LEANAÍ, TIMOUN NOU, 我々の子供たち,NOSTRES FILLS, GURE SEME-ALABEK, FËMIJËT TANË, Τα παιδιά μας, ONS KINDERS, NAŠA DJECA, NAŠE DĖTI, VORES BØRN, NIAJ INFANOJ, MEIE LAPSED, , Наши дети, ATING MGA ANK NOSOS FILLOS, ANAK-ANAK KITA, 我们的孩子, DÁR LEANAÍ

arengel

The Convention on the Rights of the Child came into force on September 2, 1990, and today it is the most widely ratified international human rights law treaty in existence. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has been ratified by 193 nations.

And yet:

-20 children killed at the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut (2012).

-32 children killed in artillery barrage in Syria (2012).

-92 children killed on Island of Utoya, Norway (2011).

-1,629 children killed in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza (2000-present).

-29,000 children dead from starvation in Somalia (2011).

-864,000 children dead from Malaria in Africa (2011).

We can do better for our children.

We should do better for our children.

We must do better for our children.

Stiffer gun control laws? Greater mental health awareness and support for children and their families? International pressure to achieve peace in war ridden countries? New policies on drug distribution for developing countries? Food equity and greater sharing of resources?

Let’s start thinking, discussing and doing what we can to create a better world for our children.

THE CASE OF SOLDIER BRADLEY MANNING: ANOTHER LESSON FROM AMERICA

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23 year old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was arrested in May 2010 for allegedly handing hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables, Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and videos of helicopter attacks to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. Manning is charged with disclosing classified information and the capital offense of “aiding the enemy,” for which the death penalty can be imposed. Military prosecutors are requesting life in prison. Manning’s attorney, David E. Coombs, has filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the government’s violation of his client’s rights under Article 13 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The case is currently scheduled to start trial in March 2013.

After his arrest, soldier Manning was held in a camp in Arifjan, Kuwait for three months and then moved to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, where he was held in maximum security for approximately 8 months. The oppressive, borderline-torturous measures to which he was subjected during his imprisonment have been known for some time, but last week, as he testified about such treatment, we were able to hear some of the details.

According to the soldier’s account, for the first 4 months of his detention, he was in solitary confinement and only allowed to leave his cell for 20 minutes per day. He was made to stand for long periods of time, and forced to remove his underwear at night for fear that he would use his underpants to commit suicide. Since he was considered a possible risk of self-harm, he was under observation throughout the night, with a fluorescent light located right outside the cell blazing into his eyes. When he would try to cover his eyes with his suicide blanket, or turn on to his side away from the light, the guards would bang on his cell bars to wake him up so they could see his face.

A 14 month long formal UN investigation conducted by UN special rapporteur Juan Mendez, denounced those conditions as “cruel and inhuman.” In his report to the UN General Assembly he stated: “[i]mposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence.”

President Obama’s state department spokesman, retired air force colonel PJ Crowley, resigned after publicly condemning Manning’s treatment. A prison psychologist testified this week that Manning’s conditions were more damaging than those found on death row, or at Guantánamo Bay.

Article 13 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice states that: “[n]o person, while being held for trial, may be subjected to punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against him, nor shall the arrest or confinement imposed upon him be any more rigorous than the circumstances required to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline.”

Article 16 of the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which the United States ratified in 1994, states in part: “[e]ach State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment […] when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

Does the seriousness of the alleged crime committed by soldier Manning justify the treatment to which he was subjected during his detention?

How is the information about the conditions of soldier Manning’s detention as well as what transpired in Abu Ghraib affecting America’s image around the world?

Have United States officials acted in violation of International Law? What should be the United States government official position in this matter?

Governmental Intrusions, Twitter and the Right to Privacy

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Malcolm Harris, one of about 700 protesters who participated in the Occupy movement march along the Brooklyn Bridge last October, was subsequently arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. The prosecutor in the case subpoenaed hundreds of Twitter messages alleging that they would show that the police did not lead protesters off the bridge’s pedestrian path and then arrest them, an argument that Mr. Harris was expected to make at trial.

Although Twitter originally refused, eventually, the criminal court Judge demanded that Twitter release the data or hand over its confidential earnings statements from the last two quarters so he could determine how much of a fine to levy against the company. Twitter, which keeps such financial data secret, eventually produced the  data.

The judge’s ruling said that, “If you post a tweet, just like if you scream it out the window, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. There is no proprietary interest in your tweets, which you have now gifted to the world. This is not the same as a private e-mail, a private direct message, a private chat, or any of the other readily available ways to have a private conversation via the internet that now exist. Those private dialogues would require a warrant based on probable cause in order to access the relevant information.”

In its appeal, Twitter wrote that Harris’ tweets are protected by the Fourth Amendment “because the government admits that it cannot publicly access them, thus establishing that the defendant maintains a reasonable expectation of privacy in his communications.” The Twitter accounts in question have been closed and are no longer publicly available.

Technology that allows for the invasion of privacy evolves significantly faster than privacy protecting laws, and as a result, the laws are almost always reactive to these new legal scenarios and often rushed to meet the urgency of the case at hand. In this particular case, the question is whether a message on Twitter that a person posts for his followers is the same as a message “gifted to the world” as the Judge stated in his ruling, for which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

To the extent that Twitter allows a user to block a follower, the user has an expectation of privacy regarding his messages. I am pretty sure that Mr. Harris would have blocked a government representative who wanted to become a follower of his tweets.

Under these circumstances, did his messages become public? Were his messages “gifted to the world,” or are his messages more like emails, that would require the government to obtain a warrant to have access to them?

Secularization or Religious Intolerance?

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In 2009 in Switzerland more than 57% of voters and 22 out of 26 provinces voted in favor of imposing a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques. In 2011, France introduced a law against covering one’s face in public. Muslim women in full-face veils, or niqab, were banned from any public activity including walking down the street, taking a bus, going to the shops or collecting their children from school.  That same year, another law that banned saying prayers in the street, a practice by French Muslims unable to find space in mosques, came into effect in Paris.

In a recent ruling, a Cologne’s (Germany) District Court criminalized the religious circumcision of minors, even with the consent of parents.  In Hof, a small German town near the Czeck border, four German citizens filed criminal complaints with the local prosecutor against a local Rabbi alleging the crime of performing ritual circumcisions. In New York, the City’s Board of Health voted earlier this month to require parents to sign a consent form before having their child undergo an Orthodox Jewish circumcision ritual.

Those favoring the regulation of circumcisions cite as their main reason the health risks to the children of certain circumcision rituals. The principal reason put forth for banning the construction of minarets was to eliminate conflict. Proponents of the law prohibiting the covering of the face saw the law as a way to prevent the oppression of women in Islamic communities.

Is there a trend of governments trying to eliminate religion and impose secularism as the new religion?

Are governments being insensitive to religious beliefs, or are governments only looking out for the wellbeing of their citizens?

Do these laws violate the right of individuals to practice their religion?

Intolerance, Terrorism and International Diplomacy

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On Tuesday, September 11, individuals identified in media reports as armed “Islamist militants” stormed a United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing the American ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three members of his staff.

The attack in Libya, which came hours after a mob stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and tore down the U.S. flag, was presumed to have been triggered by a movie, whose trailer had gone viral on YouTube. Morris Sadek, a conservative Coptic Christian in the US, promoted the film on his website last week. Koran burning, Florida pastor Terry Jones also promoted the film in his church.  Within days it was fuelling outrage in Arab countries horrified at the depiction in the movie of the prophet Muhammad as an illegitimate, murderous pedophile.

By all accounts Mr. Stevens was very much respected and a loved figure within the Libyan community. He had served twice previously in Libya, including as a special representative to the Libyan Transitional National Council from March to November 2011, helping to save the city of Benghazi during the country’s revolution. Hours after Stevens’ death, Libyans had started an Arabic-language Facebook tribute page for him where they shared photos of the ambassador — in one picture he can be seen at a local restaurant sitting with some locals and eating local food with his hand. They also posted pictures of themselves holding candles lit in his memory.

In her official statement after the events Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that: “Violence like this is no way to honor religion or faith and as long as there are those who would take innocent life in the name of God, the world will never know a true and lasting peace.”

As we grieve after yet more senseless killings in the name of religion we must ask important questions:

What do we do about religious intolerance on the part of anti Islamists, who feel they can gratuitously insult those who do not share their beliefs?

Should we continue sending diplomatic missions, that often help local people, to countries such as Libya or Egypt, knowing that their political unrest make them unsafe?

And, the most difficult question of all, what can we do to eradicate terrorism? Is that even possible to achieve?

Business Law is International Law

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My grandfather had a shoe store in a small town in Granada. He bought his shoes from a manufacturer in Granada, employed his workers from Granada, and his clients were all from Granada. That scenario of a purely domestic economic enterprise is virtually impossible to envision today.

Today very few businesses are purely domestic.  In my law practice I see corporations which might have been incorporated in Andorra, conduct online sales in the United States and Spain, employ phone operators in Colombia, Argentina, and Pakistan, and source their goods from countries all over the world. In this international market, the smallest firms are affected by global competition and events around the World.

It is vital, therefore, for anyone involved in business, whether as an executive, a consultant, an attorney, an economist, etc., to understand how critical it is to have an understanding of international law and the global economy in order to be effective in the economic marketplace.

For those of us who work with corporate clients, the impact of economic interdependence makes it indispensable to learn and have an understanding about international markets, international laws, and the cultural differences among countries that make it different, for example, to conduct business in Mexico as opposed to Japan.

Given that international laws will impact our lives and economic endeavors in ever more ways, it is in the best interest of all citizens to be informed about the operation of international law. In the commercial context international law must be understood as a body of norms that affect business behavior just like domestic laws, but with an impact that extends beyond national borders.

Is it possible to create a set of international laws by which all businesses are bound?

How would these laws be enforced?