On Friday evening 20 January 2012 we held the 16th
annual Ex Tempore literary salon, this time dedicated to the 300th
anniversary of the birth of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but only
with 47 participants, since the weather was rather inclement.
We still had a fine spectrum of English, French, Spanish, German,
Russian and even Vietnamese readings and declamations, as well
as Aline Dedeyan's very funny sketch. Here a picture opening the
event with quotations from Rousseau's Confessions:
On 11 January 2012 Professor Paul Gottfried, Horace
Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania
and Guggenheim scholar posted a long article-review of "Völkermord
als Staatsgeheimnis" in the on-line site Takimag. Comments
follow galore. http://takimag.com/article/the_eternal_german_guilt_trip/print#disqus_thread
Carla and I had roast goose for Christmas. The
Gänseschmalz is wonderful for omelettes. Now we are
off again to the olive harvest in Piegon/Nyons, France. There is
something very genuine about climbing on an olive tree and plucking
olives one by one. The olive oil we obtain from the old-fashioned
mill is more flavourful than any other we have ever poured on decades
of salads. Which brings me to a new year's resolution: consume
more salads, more veggies and less animals.
On Sunday 18 December we sang Kodaly,
Rimsky-Korsakov and other favourites at the oecumenical concert
we give every December at St. Hippolyte/Chapelle des Crêts.
Since there were only three of us tenors this year, I could use
my lungs more generously. But the choir director mostly wants piano
or even pianissimo! Tja!
The December 2011 issue of UN Special brings my poem
Hiking
in Engadin -- even with photos!
On Thursday 8 December Earth Focus held its annual
human rights conference. Among participants were former UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan, Nicola Furey,
Professor Bruna Molina and myself. Among other things, we introduced
our new website for the International Bill of Rights Association. http://www.internationalbillofrights.org/
On 15-18 November the 3 Swiss PEN Clubs commemorated
Writers-in-Prison day. A noted Libyan author
in exile -- Ibrahim Al Koni -- was our guest, and the evening was
intellectually challenging.
Professor
Israel Charny, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, just published a review
of my book "Völkermord
als Staatsgeheimnis" in
the Fall 2011 issue Nr. 8 of Genocide
Prevention Now.
On Friday 11 November I spoke at the
Club de la Presse on the Ashraf
crisis. Other panelists were Gianfranco
Fattorini, co-president of MRAP, Jacques Neirynck, member of the
Swiss Federal Parliament, Professor Christianne Perregaux, Jean-Charles
Rielle, member of the Federal Parliament, Eric Sottas, Secretary-General
of the OMCT, Queens Council Georffrey Robertson, Professor Eric
David and Préfet
Yves Bonnet. Let us hope that the crime of silence will be broken
and that the UN will take effective action to protect the 3400
innocent civilians in the camp. If R2P means anything, here is
a good place to apply it.
On Friday 4 November singing rehearsals for the oecumenical
Christmas concert began at the Chapelle des Crêts.
Once again the tenors are in the minority, which gives me the opportunity
to sing louder. Fun! Kodaly, Arrian, Berthier, Lécot.
On
Thursday 3 November the Association por la recherche, la promotion
et le Développement
de l'Ingénierie
Eco-Moderne (AIEM.DI) held ist constitutive assembly in Geneva.
Dominique Simondet is President, Geneva Conseiller Marc Falquet
was elected Director and I Vice-President in charge of international
relations.
On
Sunday 30 October Carla and I did the 3-hour hike through the Bois
des Chênes
near Vich (the "toblerone" walk),
through rustling forests in brown, red and yellow, next to the
murmur of the Severine stream.
The October issue of the UN
Special published my
short piece on the alpine horn, "Le cor des alpes, un instrument
de paix."
On Saturday 22 October Carla and I did a lovely hike
through the vineyards near Aubonne, collected over a hundred fresh
walnuts and chestnuts and I even took a final Indian-summer swim
in lake Geneva. It was wonderfully sunny and unseasonably warm--
both air and water temperature were around 14-15 degrees. The beach
was deliciously deserted.
On
Thursday 20 October the International Parliamentary Union held
a conference with Parlamentarians from all over
the world. I spoke on the links between civil and political rights
and the implementation of the right
to development.
On Monday
10 October, on the occasion of the commemoration of the World Day
Against the Death Penalty, I spoke at the Place des Nations at
a large gathering of the relatives of refugees at Camp Ashraf in
Irak, who have every reason to fear another massacre. I noted the
considerable increase in the number of death sentences and executions
in Iran, which pose a grave threat to all opposition leaders and
their families.
On Satuday 8 October Carla and I conducted the lay
service at the Chapelle de Crêts with readings from Matthew
and Mark. Such religious services are often more authentic
than official worship, and the tradition goes back to early
Christian times, when lay Christian communities met to meditate,
discuss, commune. It was beautiful and breathed life.
At the General Assembly of the United
Nations Society of Writers on Friday, 7 October, the board was
reelected and I was confirmed in my function as editor-in-chief
of Ex
Tempore.
Volume XXII is about to come out.
On Wednesday 5 October, after my morning lecture
and advising a master's student on her thesis, Carla and I "stole"
one last swim in the lake. Water temperature was 18 degrees, air
temperature 21. Not bad for beginning of October. But a cold front
is approaching. Alas. There we were, looking at the water and munching
on Noah's bagels from San Francisco. We are undecided whether the
pumpkin or the Asiago bagels are the best.
Just learned that my correspondence with Golo Mann
is in the Schweizerisches Literaturarchiv, http://ead.nb.admin.ch/html/mann_F.html.
Besides visiting him at home in Kilchberg, we had been together
on ZDF discussing the fallacious "collective guilt" doctrine, http://archiv.preussische-allgemeine.de/1988/1988_01_02_01.pdf
On
Tuesday 4 October I participated in the Second
International Conference "Public diplomacy and youth
volunteering" in Room VIII at the Palais des Nations,
organized by the International Youth Movement with headquarters
in Moscow. I spoke on the work of the International Bill of Rights
Association, made my introductory remarks in Russian and even
took some of the questions in Russian. Nice kids -- bright eyed,
bushy tailed.
It's UN panel time again. Monday 19
September on self-determination, Wedesday 21 and Thursday 22 September
on Camp Ashraf, Monday 26 September on Women's Rights, Tuesday
27 September noon on Kashmir, Tuesday 27 Sepember 3 p.m. on the
right to peace. Be glad when when UN Council is over.
On 11 September the Tagesspiegel in Berlin brought
a nice review of "Völkermord als Staatsgeheimnis" by Professor
Dr. Arnulf Baring (Berlin).
Carla and I cycled some 60 kilometers
around lac de Rousses (in France) and lac de Joux (in Switzerland)
on Sunday 25 September. It's Indian Summer and the air temperature
was 25 degrees, water temperature 17 degrees. We tried out both
lakes!
The human rights journal "Menschenrechte" just
published on page 29 of its Nr1/2011 a short but fine review of
my book "Völkermord als Staatsgeheimnis"
On Thursday 11 August I
was again on a UN panel, as a side-event
to the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council, this time with Professor Jean Ziegler,
member of the Advisory Committee, with Professor Guy Goodwin Gill
(Oxford), Professor Vera Gowlland (Geneva), Dr. Eric Sottas (Geneva),
the Spanish barrister Juan Garces (Madrid) and Mme
Maryam Radjavi.
I focused on the UNAMI report 2010 and its deplorable euphemisms.
On Wednesday
10 August I participated on the panel of the International
Conference on Camp Ashraf and the Responsibilities of the United
Nations, held at the Inter-Continental Hotel. Mme
Maryam Rajavi opened the conference, other speakers
were former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former Congressman Patrick
Kennedy, former Amnesty International Chief Irene Khan, and the
French-Colombian human rights activist Ingrid Betancourt. I focused
on the issue of "legal
status" of
the residents of Ashraf and on the inacceptable notion of "legal
black holes". The Ashraf residents are human beings and enjoy
the protection of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, the Refugee Convention and the Fourth Geneva Convention
of 1949. As Baruch Spinoza observed in his Ethics, "nature
abhors a vacuum". The event was also reported in the German-language
press.
On Monday 8 August I spoke 7 minutes (I only had
the right to 4 minutes, but the chair did not cut me off!) at the
Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council -- on the Declaración
de Santiago and possible amendments to the Draft Declaration on
the Human Right to Peace.
On Sunday 7 August I was one of the three
panelists in the expert consultation on the human right to peace,
held at the John Knox Centre. We are realy moving ahead!
On 28 July
at the General Assembly of the Société
Espagnole pour le Droit International des Droits Humains,
I was appointed Treasurer. Our President is Prof. Carlos Villan
Duran and our Secretary, Jose Luis Gomez del Prado, is currently
the President of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries.
On Thursday, 21 July the Human Rights Committee adopted
General Comment Nr. 34 on freedom of opinion and expression. Particularly
important is paragraph 49:
" Laws that penalise the expression of opinions about historical
facts are incompatible with the obligations that the Covenant
imposes on States parties in relation to the respect for freedom
of opinion and expression. The Covenant does not permit general
prohibition of expressions of an erroneous opinion or an incorrect
interpretation of past events. Restrictions on the right of freedom
of opinion should never be imposed and, with regard to freedom
of expression they should not go beyond what is permitted in paragraph
3 or required under article 20." For the full, advanced unedited
version see:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/GC34.pdf
On 21 July Europe News published
an article on the Cyprus question that relies in part on Professor
Andreas Auer's constitutional law paradigm of a Principled Basis
for a Just and Lasting Cyprus Settlement. http://europenews.dk/en/node/45462
See
also an earlier article by Henrik R. Clausen, which cites my work: http://europenews.dk/en/node/42657
On
Monday 4 July I spoke to a large group of Mujaheedins and their
families demonstrating at the Place des Nations on "Ashraf
et le crime du silence" just in front of the
United Nations building.
The International Human Rights Association of American
Minorities (IHRAAM) has invited me to join their Directorate. It
is a matter of ethics and intellectual honesty to serve the "unsung
victims".
The
June 2011 issue of UN Special carries my article "Music
as International Language."
On Friday 10 June I participated
on a UN panel, hosted by the Indian Council of South America and
the Indigenous Peoples and Nations Coalition on "Self-determination
and Human Rights". I spoke about the problem of international
law à la
carte, and the arbitrary application of the principle of self-determination,
depending on geopolitical considerations of the great powers, and
compared the situations in Kurdistan, Palestine, Katanga, Biafra,
Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Transnistria, Southern Ossetia, Abkhazia, Hawaii,
Alaska and Sudan.
On Tuesday
7 June I participated on a UN panel, hosted by OCAPROCE, on the
millennium development goals and in particular on goals 2 and 3
concerning education and equality of women at the workplace. I
spoke about the maquiladoras.
On Tuesday 31 May I participated
on a UN panel hosted by the International Human Rights Association
of American Minorities on "Detention
in Conflict." The
other panelists were Professor Dr. Joshua Catellino, Prof. Nazir
Shawl, Dr. Elvira Dominguez Redondo, Dr. Nadia Bernaz, and Barrister
Majid Tramboo.
On Monday 16 May
I delivered a paper at a closed UN
side event, a consultation on the human
right to peace, with the participation of the Western and
Eastern European groups of the Human Rights Council. Indeed,
dulce bellum inexpertis -- war is only attractive
to the unexperienced (attributed to Erasmus of Rotterdam)
Issue 934 of
the EU weekly newspaper published in Brussels New
Europe,
8 May 2011, carries my full-page analysis on the Armenian
Genocide and International Law on page 14.
On Saturday 7 May at the Stadttheater in Freiburg
in Breisgau, Germany, I delievered a Laudatio to
Judge Baltasar Garzon Real at a dignified ceremony during which
the Freiburger Kant Gesellschaft conferred upon him the Weltbürgerpreis.
The Badische
Zeitung published a nice report on 9 May at page 26. Zeit-Fragen published excerpts of my Laudatio.
On
6 May my interview on "Völkermord
als Staatsgeheimnis"
was published in the Preussischen Allgemeine Zeitung, on page 10.
On 2 May I gave a lecture
in French on Rainer Maria Rilke at the Geneva Salon
du livre (bookfair). It was reasonably well
attended (some 25 people, PEN members and non-members). From
left to right Fanny Mouchet, Hoang Nguyen, Claude Krul, Alexis
Koutchoumow, Bruno Mercier, Zeki Ergas, myself. Literature is
so much nicer than politics!
On
Thursday, 28 April I read at the UN library the pretty thorough
review of my new book "Völkermord
als Staatsgeheimnis",
published in the Netherlands International Law Review.
The reviewer highlights the inter-disciplinary methodology of
the book. I guess that international lawyers will read the review
-- but how many historians?
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&pdftype=1&fid=8266566&jid=NLR&volumeId=58&issueId=&aid=8266565
On
Wednesday 20 April I spoke on a panel held at the Club de la Presse
on the international criminal aspects of the Einsatzgruppen-like
actions of the Iraqui army against the Ashraf refugees. The Television
de la Suisse Romande reported on the panel in the Wednesday
evening news, and the Tribune de Genève and Le
Temps published
intelligent articles on the Ashraf crisis on Thursday 21 April.
On Saturday 16 April I participated on a panel on the Iraqui massacre
against the Aschraf refugees, Iranian Mujaheidins held at a camp
in Irak, formerly under the protection of the U.S. government.
On 8 April Iraqi soldiers attacked the refugee camp, killed 34
and wounded more than 300 refugees. Surely a crime against humanity,
a grave breach of the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949 -- disgraceful
and yet largely unreported. The other panelists were Pofessor Jean
Ziegler, vice-President of the Advisory Committee of the Human
Rights Council, Dr Jean-Charles Rielle, Conseiller national and
Député au
Parlement Suisse,
Pastor Daniel Neeser and
Marc Falquet, Député au Grand Conseil Genevois.
Here again we recognize the phenomenon of victims of crime -- and
victims of silence. More generally we are confronted with the
inhumanity of silence and indifference -- because these victims
are not deemed politically correct. We adopted
a declaration.
of On 31 March Canadians
for Genocide Education conferred upon me their "Educator's
Award" 2011.
CGE is an association of some 53 organizations of survivors of
genocide and ethnic cleansing including indigenous Americans, Armenians,
Bosnians, Chaldeo-Assyrians, Croatians, Cypriots, Germans, Greeks,
Jews, Kosovars, Kurds, Macedonians, Rwandans, Roma, Sinti, Serbs,
Slovenes, Tamils, Ukranians etc. I could not fly to the University
of Toronto to accept the award, but my acceptance
speech was
read out. It was reported in the press, including the German-Canadian Neue
Welt on
6 April, page 3. Genocide
Prevention Now, a publication edited
by Professor Israel Charny, Jerusalem, reported on it.
My new book "Völkermord als Staatsgeheimnis" has
just been published by Olzog Verlag, München, 2011. 206 pages,
Index, Facsimiles, ISBN 978-3-7892-8329-1
From the preface by Professor Dr. Karl Doehring, former Director
of the Max Planck Institut für ausländisches öffentliches
Recht und Völkerrecht
(Heidelberg): "... Aber letztlich geht es ihm um die Frage, ob es eine Kollektivschuld
der Deutschen für die Judenmorde gab. Das würde voraussetzen, dass
zumindest der 'normale' Staatsbürger von diesen Vorgängen etwas gewusst
habe, und zwar nicht nur durch Andeutungen und Flüsterinformationen, sondern
durch klare Kenntnisse. Dass eine solche Kenntnis nicht vorhanden war, belegt
der Autor in seinem Buch durch Heranziehung solider Informationen, auch aus den
Nürnberger Prozesssen, von Dokumenten und Aussagen von Zeitzeugen. Weitere
Versuche, eine Kollektivschuld der Deutschen zu belegen, werden and er Arbeit
des Autors nicht vorbeikommen..."
The UN Human Rights Council was in session in
March and the non governmental organizations put up some
of the most interesting panels. At the side-event on freedom of
the internet I participated from the audience and raised the issue
of censorship by Google in countries like France, Germany and Switzerland.
I participated myself on eleven panels on a variety of issues
-- the human right to peace, women and childrren in armed conflict,
self-determination, a restatement
of the law of human rights, and
the World Court of Human Rights. Some of the speakers were genuinely
inspiring and the public responded with intelligent
contributions and questions. A fruitful exercise and -- after all
-- better bla bla than boom boom.
On 1 March the FAZ published
on page 18 a shortened version of my letter to the editors concerning
the CDU proposal of establishing a National Day of Remembrance
for the Victims of the Expulsion 1945-48.
18-20 February I was in Nicosia, Cyprus for the
World Congress of Displaced Hellenes, which dealt with the expulsions
and massacres of Greeks of Pontus and Smyrna, Armenians, Chaldeo-Assyrians,
and with the "ethnic
cleansing" that
accompanied the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The successful
colloquium was hosted by the Kyrenia refugees association “Adouloti
Kerynia”. I focused on the report of the International Panel "A
Principled Basis for a Just and Lasting Cypriot Settlement" and
on the need to start the process for a Constitutional Convention
in Cyprus. I gave several interviews, including to the Cyprus
Weekly.
Friday evening 21 January: 15th annual Ex Tempore
salon. 63 UN and PEN Club members recited poetry in English, French,
Spanish, Dutch, Latin, and Vietnamese. Alas, this time we had no
Arabic, Chinese or Russian, although I managed to put in a couple
of Russian words edgewise. Aline Dedeyan did a fine sketch with
Alexis Koutchoumow. Connie Ouko sang her own songs in Swahili,
and a quartet sang 3 Bulgarian songs a capella. We had two pauses
in which people enjoyed Ngozi's shrimp with spinach, while other
guests brought home-made enchiladas, brownies, and all that wonderful
high-calorie finger-food. Practically nothing was left-over. The
last guests left at 0:30 Saturday morning. See "Le Numéro
XXI d'Ex Tempore est tiré; il faut le lire" U.N.Special,
février 2011, p.
10.
On
Wednesday 19 January I spoke at the Advisory Committee of the Human
Rights Council and commented on the progress report of the working
group on the Human Right to Peace. I actually went over my time
limit -- and, mercifully, the Chairperson did not cut me off. It
was very well received by the members and we had to make additional
copies of my oral statement.
Every now and again there comes a political and
moral essay that is worth reflecting upon. In that category we
should include Ambassador Stéphane
Hessel's October 2010 manifesto "Indignez-vous!". Every
young person -- and some older ones, particularly politicians !
-- ought to study it. Below is a photo taken at Mikhail Gorbachev's
World Political Forum Human Rights Conference in
Bosco Marengo, Italy, on 7 November 2008 together with Ambassador
Hessel, a collaborator at the drafting of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights of 1948.
On 10 December, on the occasion of UN celebrations
of Human Rights Day, Curtis Roosevelt, grandson of Eleanor and
Franklin spoke to the students at the Geneva School of Diplomacy.
Here a picture together with Dr. Colum Murphy, GSD President, Curtis
Roosevelt and some members of the faculty.
In the morning I also participated on a panel organized
by Earth Focus, in which I introduced Berkeley University's Project
2048.
40
centimeters of snow in the garden -- haven't seen that for years!
Time to make snowmen, throw snowballs and go skiing.
This year P.E.N. International celebrates the 50th
anniversary of the founding of the Writers in Prison Committee,
upon a felicitous proposal of the Centre Suisse romand. On 15-18
November the three Swiss Centres commemorated the event
with public lectures by and discussions with notable speakers.
On 18 November our guest was Deo Namujimbo, a Congolese journalist
for Reporters
sans frontiers, the agence de presse Syfia Grands
Lacs and
InfoSud Suisse. For more than twenty years
he reported independently about political developments in the Congo,
covering in particular the war in East Congo, in Kivu and Bukavu.
After his brother, also a journalist, was murdered and Deo and
his family were repeatedly threatened, he obtained political
asylum in France, where he currently lives and continues writing
about the plight of the Congolese people, always with a sense of
proportions and a commitment to the human dignity of all concerned.
During the discussion I addressed issues of impunity, reconciliation,
the International Criminal Court and the role of the UN Mission
in the Congo.
The 17-minute video on the 100th
session celebration of the UN Human Rights Committee
on 29 October 2010 has now been issued, with excellent excerpts
of statements by Bertie Ramcharan, Robert Badinter, Mohammed Bedjaoui,
Antonio Cançado Trindade, Committee members and representatives
from UNHCR, ILO, etc.. http://vimeo.com/16823400.
I briefly speak on the implementation gap and the need to enact
enabling legislation so as to give Committee decisions status in
the domestic legal order of States parties and thereby facilitate
their enforcement.
On Sunday 7 November our Pontifex Benedict XVI
consecrated the Basilica of la Sagrada
Familia in
Barcelona before King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia and 6,500 faithful
in the truly huge church. Some 51,000 faithful followed the ceremony
on giant screens outside Antoni Gaudi's (1852-1926) amazing building
(UNESCO world heritage site). Yet another reason to go back to
beautiful Barcelona. Last time I was there in 2004 for a P.E.N.
congress on writers in prison, I would not have dreamt that the
Basilica would be ready for Papal consecretion in my lifetime.
The building, the altar, the columns, the stained glass windows
are just spectacularly beautiful. Next year the Pope travels again
to Spain, this time to Madrid, on the occasion of the 26th
World Youth Day.
Friday 5 November was our second Christmas rehearsal
in the oecumenical choir of Crêts/St. Hippolyte. We added
to the program a piece by François Couperin that I had never
heard of before. Lots of fun for the tenors.
Friday 5 November was UPR day for the US at the
Human Rights Council. Most interesting was perhaps the one-and-a-half
hour presentation by Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks.
I posed three questions to him concerning Article 19 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the problems of national
security, censorship and self-censorship. What balance ought to
be struck with the crucial right in every democarcy to have
access to all information, the right to disseminate such information,
the right to ask questions and demand answers. This brought us
to the obligation to investigate violations of human rights
and international humanitarian law, and the issue
of impunity and universal jurisdiction. Indeed, if the ICC, ICTY
and ICTR were all established to fight impunity, what does this
mean with regard to the impunity of NATO coalition forces and Iraqi
police? There were tough questions asked and the large conference
room XXII was filled to capacity.
On
Thursday 4 November Mr. Ramsey Clark, 66th Attorney General of
the United States, spoke at the Pavillon
Gallatin of the Geneva School of Diplomacy. I
asked the first long question concerning the US mid-term elections
of 2 November and the dangers posed by the growing military-industrial
complex in the United States and the unconscionably high "defence"
budget, which eats up more than 50% of the U.S. budget, notwithstanding
urgent needs for health, education and general welfare. Ramsey
dedicated one of his books for me, "The Fire this Time",
which I read and used when I was professor in Chicago.
On Wednesday
3 Noverber, in connection with the preparation for the examination
of the U.S. report by the Human Rights Council, I participated
on the panel hosted by the International Association of Democratic
Lawyers, the Associaition of Humanitarian Lawyers, the Arab Lawyers
Union, and the International Youth and Student Movement for the
United Nations, devoted to the extra-territorial violations of
human rights by the United States and private military companies,
primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan. My paper focused on the right
of victims to a remedy. Other panelists were
former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Dr. Dirk Andriansens
of the Brussels Tribunal Executive Committee, and Prof. Curtis
Doebbler.
On Tuesday 2 November I spoke at the UN "side
event" on Self-Determination hosted by Ambassador Ronald Barnes.
Other panelists were Mrs. Mary Ann Mills, Tribal Chair and Tribal
Judge of the Kenaitze Tribe in Alaska, Mr. Kai'opua Fife, Mr. Pola
Laenui and HE Leon Kaulahau Siu of the Koani Foundtion of the Hawaiian
Kingdom. I focused on the implications of the Apology Resolutions
sigend by Bill Clinton in 1993 and by Barak Obama in 2009.
On Friday,
29 October the Human
Rights Committee commemorated its
100th session. I spoke on behalf of the International Society for
Human Rights at the 100th
session celebration of the Human Rights Committee. I focused
on human dignity as the source of all human rights and on the necessity
of enabling legislation in all States parties to the ICCPR so that
Committee decisions have status in the domestic legal order.
On 29 October the oecumenical choir of the parishes
of St. Hypolyte and Crêts started rehearsals for the Christmas
concert. Great fun. We rehearsed the Gloria of Camile Saint Saens
and some little known "traditionals", with lots of syncopated
rhythm.
Professor Henry Thierault has
finished our joint Report on Reparations to Victims of the Armenian
Genocide. On Saturday 23 October Henry presented it at the UCLA
international conference on Reparations, which, alas, I was unable
to attend personally. At least I did participate by
telephone conference and could deliver my statement and
take questions from the audience successfully. The Press has
resported extensively.
On Friday 22 October in room XXVII of
the Palais de Nations, we held the second CRED atelier on the
rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association. I
reported on the good progress made by the Human Rights Committee
in adopting, in first reading, their new general comment No.
34 on article 19.
At the General Assembly of the UN Society
of Writers, held on 13 October 2010 at the Palais des Nations,
the following colleagues were reelected: President:
David Winch;
Vice-President: Carla Edelenbos;
Secretary: Ngozi Ibekwe;
Treasurer: Janet Weiler; Editor in-chief: Alfred
de Zayas.
On Monday 11 October a.m. and p.m. CRED held its inter-active
symposium on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom
of association, in Room IV at the Palais des Nations. I worked
on the text of the declaration and put emphasis on the jurisprudence
of CERD and HRC. The Representatives of Angola, Bahrain, Russia
and Uruguay made fruitful contributions.
the On Monday, 4 October
I lectured in Russian and English to a group of Russian students
in Room V of the Palais des Nations on
"Project 2048 - Youth and new Approaches to a new International
Bill of Human Rights". The event was jointly organized by
the Parliamentary Centre of the Russian Federation and by the Moscow
International Investment Centre. The youngsters were absolutely
delightful - bright eyed, intellectually curious, eager to absorb,
not at all blasé.
On 1 October 2010 the Preussische
Allgemeine Zeitung published
on page 2 my long interview on the Stiftung Flucht,
Vertreibung, Versöhnung in Berlin.
On Monday 27 September I participated
on the panel "les
stratégies
de mise en oeuvre de législations contraignantes" at
the UN 2nd forum international des ONGs Pour les Droits Economiques,
Sociaux et Culturels de la Femme.
On Monday 20 September I delivered an
oral statement at the Human Rights Council on behalf of the International
Society for Human Rights.
On Thursday 16 September it was back to the UN for
the International P.E.N. panel with P.E.N. President John Ralston
Saul. Our P.E.N. Suisse romand organized a cheese fondue dinner
in honour of John Saul.
On Thursday 16 September I also participated in the
panel on the human right to peace, in which I sat next to the UN
Rapporteur on Human Rights and Solidarity, Judge Rizki, and reported
on the December Workshop and on the work of the Advisory Committee.
 .
from left to right Manuel Diz, Secretary General
and Co-Ordinator of the 2010 World Social Forum on Education, Professor
Carlos Villán Durán, Moderator Christina Papazoglou, head of the
human rights programme of the World Council of Churches, Rudi Rizki,
Independent expert on human rights and international solidarity,
and myself.
On
Wednesday 15 September I taught human rights law at Webster University,
then rushed to the Palais des Nations to be on the roundtable &
interactive dialogue on international norms and crowd control,
followed by my participating in the panel of the Cercle de Recherche
sur les Droits et Devoirs de la Personne.
Oxford University's Refugee
Survey Quarterly just published
a nice review of Jakob Möller's and my book on the case law
of the Human Rights Committee, in its volume 29, pp.
206-207. (2010)
Issue 2/2010 of Diva International brings a nice report on "Celebrating
Cultural Diversity: The UN Journal 'Ex Tempore' at 20" on pages
32-33, well illustrated with pictures.
Thanks to my friends Alex
Gutsaga and Martin Andrysek the new extempore
website is
now operational. Still have to upload a lot of information, old
issues of the journal, news, events, etc., but it looks splendid. Vita
brevis ars longa!
(old Hippocrates aphorism)
On 7 August Carla and I cycled 15 km to the mermaid beach
in Collonges Bellerive, and 15 km back. Absolutely delightful.
Best possible weather and the lake water super-clean.
On Thursday 5 August
I delivered an oral
statement before the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights
Council on the human right to peace and summarize the outcome
of the workshop of 15/16 December.
On Wednesday 15 September I shall speak in the CRED (Cercle
de Recherche sur les Droits
et les Devoirs de la Personne Humaine) side-event
on human rights and duties at the Human Rights Council and on Thursday-Friday
23-24 September I shall lecture in the CRED seminar on the
rights and duties of persons. See
programme.
On Thursday
22 July the Swiss daily "Le
Temps" published
my
commentary on collective
guilt and human rights on page 2.
On
Sunday 4 July Carla and I went cycling around the Lac de Joux in
the Swiss Canton de Jura. Barely 30 kilometers around, and splendid
weather. Jumped in the lake three times! Visited the Church of
Saints Peter and Paul at Le Brassus -- which has wonderfully modern
stained glass windows and a beautiful old baptismal font.
On Saturday 26
June we had commencement exercises at the Geneva School of Diplomacy
-- under a wonderful blue sky, 24 degrees and mercifully short
speeches. Here the GSD campus at the Château de Penthes.
On Saturday 19 June P.E.N. Suisse romand held its traditional
poetry afternoon at the Casino in Rolle. It was animated (Walters),
inspiring (Peclard), evocative (Koutchoumow), philosophical (Hansen-Rasch),
humourous (Herman) -- and we even had rhymed translations from
Arabic (Krul) and from German (me). The lake fish
was also delicious.
On Wednesday 2 June I participated on the UN panel on
the independence of the judiciary, organised by the International
Council for Human Rights and the Human Rights Institute of
the International Bar Association.
I just gave an interview to ZENIT on Pope Benedict's
forthcoming visit to Cyprus. Here the English version. Here the German version.
Veni Creator Spiritus! It's Pentecost. Carla and I
climbed our local mountain, the Mont
Salève. Absolutely magnificent
weather. After that: barbeque in the garden.
The UN Special published
in the May issue my article on Timor-Leste President José
Ramos Horta. Diva-International published in the spring 2010
issue my essay on indigenous
place names.
30 April -- Koninginnendag in Holland. Took a bottle of Oranjebitter
to the bookfair and shared it with the P.E.N. crowd. Meanwhile
the report of our workshop on the human right to peace has been
published http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.38_en.pdf
29 April -- first barbecue of the season. Gorgeous weather outside.
The wisteria is out and perfumes the garden. Put my Armenian Genocide
book at the Armenian stand at the bookfair. Just one copy left,
so cannot sell any.
25 April Carla and I went for a 2 1/2 hour walk along the Rhone
river and the Moulin-de-Vert natural reserve with 4 large
ponds in which we saw at least a dozen water turtles, twenty or
so very green singing frogs, half a dozen swimming pikes, a green-and-yellow
non-poisonous snake, and countless birds. And this barely 20 minutes
away from the house! Saturday 24 April we could not resist the
temptation to hit the slopes once again -- at Verbier in the Canton
of Valais (3000 m), where we skied for only 3 and a half hours
(the snow was getting wet) but saw the arrival of at least 100
happy participants of the famous pdg -- patrouille des glaciers,
the traditional ski marathon from Zermatt to Arolla and on to Verbier.
What a magnificently beautiful day!
13-15 April was in Paris for the Armenian
Genocide Conference and the Turkish-Armenian Protocols signed
in Zürich, shared the panel with Prof.
Israel Charney, Prof.
Frédéric Encel, Ali Ercen, Prof.
Yair Auron, etc.
gave a one-hour-plus
radio
interview and learned a good bit. I gave an interview to
the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and expressed my view that the Protocols
were ill-conceived and that there seemed to be a serious lack
of good faith and commitment on the Turkish side, so that the
Protocols were actually counter-productive.
The tragedy of Lech Kaczinski in Smolensk reminds us of the great
suffering of the Polish people in Katyn and elsewhere. Patrick
Buchanan devoted his column
of 13 April to this suffering and mentioned
favourably my book "Nemesis at Potsdam"
The April UN Special carries an article by Irina Gerassimova
and Christina Giordano on the origin of Encyclopedias. They had
interviewed me on the issue and a little excerpt is published
in http://www.unspecial.org/UNS694/t32.html
Monday
29 March our P.E.N. President Claude Krul, our Vice-President Jacques
Herman and myself spoke at Lucienne Serex' "Les Lundis de Mots"
in Neuchatel, mostly about our past presidents Denis de Rougement
and Jacques le Chable.
On Thursday 25 March
the Record,
the local daily in the Kitchener/Waterloo area in Ontario, Canada
-- and beyond (circulation 60,000) -- published my letter
to the editors, objecting to the caricatures and stereotypes
of a column by a local professor postlulating paradigms as silly
as those of Goldhagen. Thought that was all over by now! O, well.
On Wednesday 24 March I delivered a lecture on
human dignity and victimhood to a completely overcrowded auditorium
at the University of Toronto, over 260 in the audience, plus maybe
10 standing. The host was
"Canadians
for Genocide Education", a coalition of associations of victims
of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Sold all the books I had brought from Geneva plus all that the
organizer had. Got a standing ovation from a mixed crowd of Armenians,
Ukrainians, Kurds, Palestinians, Serbs, Croats, Roma, Sinti, Tamils
Germans and other "unsung
victims".
On Tuesday 23 March delivered a lecture to the modern languages
faculty at the University of Waterloo, on Rilke
als Heimatdichter. On Monday
22 March I delivered a lecture on Ethnic
Cleansing 1945-48 to a
200 plus audience at the University of Waterloo. Local television
came and broadcast part of it in the evening news. I also gave
a long televised interview to Canadian Television, which is
to be aired on Sunday 28 March. On Sunday 21 March I gave a long interview to
the Waterloo Paper, which was published in excerpts on Monday 22
March.
On 18 March I was again on a UN Panel --
this time on the issue of genocide. We were honoured by the allocutions
of the Ambassador of Rwanda and of the former Ambassador of Burundi,
Colette Samoya, as well as by Aline Dedeyan's update on the issue
of negationism and the Armenian genocide. I opened the panel with
the survey of norms and mechanisms.
On 17 March,
St. Patrick's Day, I listened to the panel on the right to education
-- with Prof. Emmanuel Decaux of the Advisory Committee to the
Council. I then participated on the UN panel on freedom of assembly
(article 21 ICCPR) and focused on the jurisprudence of the Human
Rights Committee.
On 16 March I participated on the UN panel organized
by OCAPROCHE and spoke on human
dignity.
On
11 March Pol, my doctoral student at GSD, breezed through the defence
of his doctoral thesis, notwithstanding rather tough questions
from the panel. He was composed, eloquent and thoroughly convincing.
From there I rushed to the UN to participate on a panel on torture
in room XXVII and from there on to another panel in room XXIV,
where I reported on the UN
Workshop of December 15-16 and on the
adoption of the Declaracion de Bilbao last 24 February. From there
on to a dinner with Manfred Nowak at the Café du
Soleil. There are some days when everything falls into place! On
9 March Manfred Nowak, the UN Rapporteur on Torture, opened our
panel on the World Court on Human Rights, during which Professor
Kirk Boyd, Carlos Villan Duran and myself talked about the Berkeley
conference of last November and the progress we have made since
then. Our panel also
focused on the Swiss Agenda for Human Rights and Project
2048.
On 4 March I participated in the panel
of a side-event of the Human Rights Council on the issue of the
self determination of indigenous peoples, organized by the Indian
Council of South America, the International Human Rights Association
of American Minorities, the International Education Development,
OCAPROCE International, the International Council for Human Rights
and North South XXI. We even had a professor from the University
of Puerto Rico on Skype!
On 2 March I spoke at
a UN Panel on the right to property and succession. I focused on
the relevant jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee and the
potential for further development.
On 22-25
February the Spanish Assocition for International Human Rights
Law met in Bilbao, Spain, to adopt the Declaration
of Bilbao on the Human Right to Peace, which further develops and refines the
earlier Luarca Declaration. I also visited the Guggenheim Museum
-- what an amazing building!
15-16 December
the UN Workshop on
the right to peace was held in Room XI of the
Palais des Nations -- historical room where the UN Human Rights
Committee used to meet. I was on the first panel Tuesday morning
together with Professor Vera Gowlland and on the last panel Wednesday
afternoon together with Professor Bill Schabas and Professor Mario
Yutzis. ICJ Justice Antonio Cançado
Trindade delivered the keynote address -- absolutely superlative!
We discussed the holistic approach to human rights, a change of
paradigms, questions of disarmament, NPT, R2P and the Luarca Declaration.
10 December -- Human Rights Day -- participated
in 2 panels -- one hosted by Earth
Focus on
the proposal of a World Court of Human Rights and Project 2048.
The other at the Forum Genève on "dignité et droits
de l'homme".
Then went to the Hautes Etudes Internationales to hear Professor
Christian Tomuschat deliver a masterly lecture on reparation
for victims of gross violations of human rights. This was followed
by a cocktail and dinner at the beautifully refurbished Maison
Monier on the grounds of the Graduate Institute of International
Law in the Parc Mon Repos.
Our Jubilee number of Ex
Tempore -- number XX! -- is out -- 160 pages of literature
with contributions
in Latin, Esperanto, Czech, Dutch, Vietnamese -- besides the usual
languages. I already have 37 pages for number XXI. Just fixed the
Ex Tempore evening for Friday 22 January 2010.
China is considering ratification of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights. I
participated on panels at an ICCPR symposium in Beijing on Saturday-Sunday
5/6 December. At left on the photo is Harvard and NYU Professor
Jerome A. Cohen, who is also a bow-tie wearer like myself. I took
advantage of the opportunity to visit the Great Wall and the
Temple of Peace.
On Wednesday,
18 November, at the invitation of Professor Robert Kolb of the
Law Faculty of the University of Geneva I delivered a two-hour
lecture to an audience of 250 students on "The
Human Right to Peace", focusing on the Luarca Declaration
and on Human Rights Council Resolution 11/4 of 17 June 2009, by
virtue of which the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights is preparing a study on the content and enforceability of
the right to peace. I elaborated on the existing norms
and the implications of the doctrine of "responsibility to protect" in
the light of UN Charter article 2(4). The students had lots of
good questions. It was quite refreshing -- and fun.
On Friday, 13 November our P.E.N.
Centre Suisse romand held its
yearly
"Writers in Prison" conference -- this time at the Club
Suisse de la Presse. Our speakers were Zeki Ergas,Pinar
Selek from Turkey, our President Mousse Boulanger, and Susanne
Scholl from Austrian television. The general
topic was: Liberté
d'expression - un défi moral pour les femmes. Very
animated discussion with a knowledgeable audience.
Project
2048 hosted an international workshop at Berkeley University
Law School to discuss the drafting of a statute for an international
court of human rights. Among the participants were the first UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights Jose Ayala Lasso, the UN Rapporteur
on Torture Prof. Manfred Nowak, the former Acting High Commissioner
for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan, Professor
Kirk Boyd, Prof. David Caron, and ICTY Judge Ted Meron. Among other
things, I spoke about new human rights paradigms, enabling rights,
end rights and the human right to peace, including the
Luarca Declaration and
gave the Villan Duran book on Luarca to Prof. Caron. Kirk, Bruna,
Mishana and myself are on the Board of Directors.
Authors and editors are usually the last to see their books. Since
I am both co-author and co-editor of "International
Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms", I guess that's why I had to
wait so long for my own copies of the book, Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, Leiden 2009, ISBN 978 90 04 16236 5. But it does look
good, after all.
2-3 November on panels of OCAPROCE, Organisation
pour la Comunication en Afrique et de la Promotion Economique Internationale
"Droits Economiques, Sociaux et Culturelles: Quelle place à la
Femme au 21ème Siècle".
Oxford has just uploaded two more of my articles for
the Encyclopedia
of Public International Law. I now have six: Curzon Line,
Forced Population Transfer, Guantanano, Marshall Plan, Repatriation,
and Spanish Civil War.
On
Wednesday 23 September we held the general assembly of the United
Nations Society of Writers. David Winch was confirmed as President,
Carla as Vice-President, Janet as Treasurer and we elected a new
secretary -- Ngozi Ibekwe. We also discussed the cover of volumes
XX and XXI. I remain as Editor-in-Chief of Ex Tempore.
On Tuesday, 22 September I
participated in a UN Panel hosted by Princesse Micheline Djouma
on empowerment of women and gender mainstreaming. I spoke on the
relevant jurisprudence of the UN Human Rights Committee, in particular
the general comment on Article 3 of the CCPR, and on goals 3 and
5 of the Millennium Development Goals..
On Friday, 18
September I participated in the inter-active dialogue on the environment
and water hosted by the Flux Project and sponsored by the Heim
Foundation in Geneva and animated by Antony Hequet.
On Thursday 17 September I spoke on the "Regulation of solidarity
rights in the light of International Human Rights Law and the right
of peoples and individuals to global solidarity" at the UN consultation
with the independent expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity,
Professor Rudi Rizki, in room XXII of the Palais des Nations.
On
16 September I participated on the UN Roundtable "Enforced
disappearance" at Room XXII of the Palais des Nations, together
with Alan McClue, Fellow of the Foreinsic Institute at Cranfield
University, UK, Kashmir reporter Gustavo Perodista, Barrister Majid
Tramboo, Ambassadord Ronald Barnes, etc. on the panel. I focused
on the recent jurisprudence on disappearances cases before the
UN Human Rights Committee.
On 3-4 September I participated in the international
conference on the Armenian genocide, held at Beirut, Lebanon. I
gave several televised interviews. Below is the link to a published
article in El Mundo, the Spanish daily. http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/09/04/orienteproximo/1252078237.html
Also took advantage of the opportunity to visit old Phoenian cities
like Sidon and Tyre and admire the UNO world heritage sites.
The handbook is finally out -- Justice Jakob
Th. Möller
and I are happy to announce:
United
Nations Human Rights Committee Case-Law 1977-2008 --A
Handbook. 630-pages with annexes, index,
etc. obtainable from N.P.Engel, Kehl and Strasbourg,
2009, hardcover · ISBN 978-3-88357-144-7 · 2009 · € 148;
US$ 188; £120; SFr. 236 email: n.p.engel@eugrz.info
Extravantly expensive, but also frightfully thorough and still user-friendly.
On 16 July Jakob and I personally handed the
book to Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at
her Palais Wilson office, and discussed its potential as a practitioner's
handbook. On 15 July the book launch at the Château de Penthes
took place, Christine Chanet spoke for the Committee and Bertie
Ramcharan about the commitment of OHCHR to the treaty bodies and
in particular to the creation of meaningful jurisprudence. After
the "official" part of the event, Isabel Möller presented Jakob
and me with "unofficial" Human Rights Committee baseball caps and
a bagfull of publicity flyers for the book. Here are the happy
authors
On 22 July I lectured at Sirnach in the canton of
St. Gallen, on the jurisprudence of the HRC and focused
on the spectacular "Views"
in Sayadi v. Belgium, and on the decision to take the Sayadi family
out of the terrorist list of the Security Council's Sanctions Committe.
Quite a success for human rights. The audience of some 200 kept
asking questions for more than an hour!
The UN Special of June 2009 brings a nice review by
the former High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan
on pages 18-19.
7-8 July 2009 I lectured on United
Nations Mechanisms to uphold international humanitarian law --
at the International
Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy, as part
of their very successful summer course. Bottom line of my lecture
is that human rights law is fully applicable during war and that
it is not replaced by the regime of international humanitarian
law. In other words, the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights is not suspended when armed conflict occurs and the Hague
and Geneva Conventions become applicable. The two regimes are complementary,
not mutually exclusive. The Latin maxim "lex
specialis derogat lex generalis" does not mean that
the laws of war replace the laws of peace -- this is a bad translation
of the Latin verb derogo,
which does not mean abolish (aboleo, exstinguo, tollo, rescindo)
but rather to make or propose modifications to a law. I thus suggested
a new maxim: Lex specialis suppleat lex generalis, i.e.
special legislation supplements or completes general legislation.
I also listened to the presentations by the other distinguished
lecturers, including ICJ Judge Abdul G. Koroma of Sierra
Leone, and took advantage to jump in the Mediterranean and swim
at the felicitous Morgana beach.
David Forsythe's Encyclopedia of Human Rights (Oxford)
just came out, including my six articles on
Jose Ayala Lasso (Vol. I, pp. 130-132), Aryeh Nyer (vol. 4, pp.
62-64), P.E.N. and Human Rights (vol. 4, pp.. 204-206), Bertrand
Ramcharan (vol. 4, pp. 313-314), Kenneth Roth (vol.4, pp. 204-206),
and Simon Wiesenthal (Vol. 5, pp. 327-330) ISBN13: 9780195334029.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Public International
Law just uploaded my online article on "Guantanamo Naval Base".
11 June I participated in a "Roundtable and Interactive Dialogue"
hosted by the International Human Rights Association of American
Minorities and the International Council for Human Rights, in room
XXV of the Palais. I spoke on the Council's mandate on Self-Determination.
3 June I participated on a UN Panel on migration and human rights.
5 June UN consultation on the human right to peace. 9 June again
a UN Panel - this time on the economic, social and cultural rights
of women -- all in French, together with Ambassador Mbaye of Senegal
and Princess Micheline Makou Djouma.
23 May was our spring
outing with P.E.N. Suisse romand -- fabulous weather on the shores
of Lac Leman at Rolle -- good poetry and conviviality. I read part
of my longer conference on Rilke as poet of the Valais Heimat,
concentrating on his Quatrains Valaisans -- I expect to read the
entire conference at the Cercle 21 in Geneva next fall. On Tuesday
night we enjoyed the Cercle 21 conference of Jacques Meylan on
Rilke's Cornet -- and his remarkable translation of Rilke's classic
ballad on youth, love, war and death..
The Durban Review Conference ended up with an acceptable "outcome
document" and High Commissioner Navy Pillay gave the right
tone in concluding it. The media, however, engaged in an orgy of
desinformation. Seldom have I seen it so bad. The Conference was
not only Mr. Ahmadinejad, but hundreds of ngos, thousands of victims
who came to hear and to be heard, excellent side-events and good
discussions. I myself participated in two UN panels and gave two
televised interviews. I cannot escape the feeling that if Barak
Obama had come to the Durban Review Conference no one would have
given much notice to Ahmadinejad. Obama would have
stolen the show. And if the EU heads of State had constructively
supported the Conference, then the dialogue would have been more
fruitful. Both the boycott and the walkout were counterproductive
in the eyes of most of civil society -- and the "red line" of
the EU was perceived as the red line of arrogance -- not of human
rights. I guess we Americans and Europeans have still a very bad
conscience (with good reason) because of the slave trade, centuries
of exploitation and colonialism.
Wednesday
15 April -- met with the Argentinian Armenians who brought me the
new booklet in Spanish -- my legal opinion -- "El
Genocidio contra los Armenios y la relevancia de la Convención
para la prevención
y la sanción del delito de genocidio" with a Prologue
by the International Commission of Jurists, Buenos Aires, 2009,
ISBN 978-950-895-277-6. As soon as I get the electronic version
I will upload it. The English brochure containing my legal
opinion on the Armenian genocide is currently out of print.
The book A Constitutional Convention for
Cyprus edited by Professor Andreas
Auer (Zürich) just came out, containing the studies presented
at the 2008 Conference, in which I delivered a paper on "Self-determination.
Turkish settlers and Cyprus referenda", Wissenschaftlicher
Verlag Berlin, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86573-423-5.
The conference was hosted on 4-5 April 2008 by the Centre
for Research on Direct Democracy of the Univesity of Zurich.
I participated on Panel
2 of the Conference on "A
Constitutional Convention for Cyprus". The conference
was attended by 120 participants and enriched by the lectures
of many distinguished professors including Daniel Thürer
of the University of Zurich, Thomas Bruha of the University
of Hamburg, Stelios Perrakis of the University of Athens,
as well as distinguished Greek, Turkish, Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot
scholars.The Conference was opened by Micheline
Calmy Rey, Foreign Minister of Switzerland. I outlined
the procedural issues associated with self-determination
referenda.
Friday, 20 March - lectured
at the Fourth Global Issues Network (GIN) Conference "Giving
Everyone a Chance" in
Geneva. Linked up with Berkeley Professor Kirk Boyd of the 2048
Project.
Good students, challenging questions. Thursday 19 March -- participated
in a UN-Panel
on the three pillars of the UN: peace, development and human rights
Tuesday,
17 March -- sat on a UN-panel on the Human Right to Peace
and the Durban Review Conference as a side-event of the 10th session
of the Human Rights Council. 9 March - participated in the NGO-meeting
with High Commissioner Pilay, I represented the International Society
for Human Rights and spoke on the Luarca Declaration on the Human
Right to Peace.
Thursday, 5 March --
participated in a side-event of the Human Rights Council and spoke
with the President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann
(Nicaragua) on the human right to peace. Personally handed him
a copy of the book by Carlos Villán
Durán "La
Declaración
de Luarca sobre el Derecho Humano a la Paz", in which I wrote
the chapter "el crimen contra la paz".
Wednesday, 4 March. The President of the UN General Assembly
gave a remarkable address to the Human Rights Council. Finally
someone who tells politically incorrect facts -- even when they
upset the powerful, who evidently believes in human
rights and not in the human rights industry. This is more than
the many delegations of the HR Council who mostly play politics.
His speech showed factual knowledge and
refreshing honesty. Din't expect to hear such words in the Council.
It's a confirmation that 2 plus 2 actually adds up to 4.
The Pages Littéraires of the Centre PEN Suisse
romand have just come out -- edited by our Committee member Jacques
Herman, and with excellent articles by Etienne Barilier,
VaheéGodel, Mousse Boulanger, Alexis Koutchoumow etc. It is such
a pleasure to hold the finished product in my hands -- indeed,
it took much effort on the part of everybody. I only contributed
an introduction focusing on the Charter of PEN and our vocation
to work for peace and greater understanding among nations -- through
literature.
The March issue
of UN
Special published
my poem "Salève,
Parnasse Genevois" very nicely on the last page -- p. 50.
Beautiful photo with it.
Just received a copy of Humanitäres Völkerrecht,
published by The German Red Cross -- with my article "Gewaltverbot,
Menschenrecht auf Frieden und die Luarca Erklärung vom 30.
Oktober 2006" , vol.
21, No. 4/(2008), pp 214-220.
Saturday
28 February, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published on page
10 my op-ed on the ongoing German-Polish debate on the establishment
of a Stiftung
Flucht Vertreibung Versöhnung in Berlin.
Tuesday 20 January I was interviewed in Geneva's Radio Cité on
the inauguration of Barak Obama and what he should do in his first
100 years. Let's be optimistic!
Saturday 10 January Carla and I spent a glorious afternoon skating
on the Lac de Joux under a deep blue sky and surrounded by snowed-under
conifers. Lots of happy people and dogs of all sizes and colours
on the ice. The only thing missing was the Dutch Windmills on a
painting by Henrick Averkamp or Jan van Goyen. Took a lot of pictures
-- see Photos/Leisure7 with me the
Dent de Vaulion (1482m ). Saturday 17 January we were back on the
slopes -- this time skiing in
Combloux with a marvelous view of the Mont Blanc. Friday/Saturday
13714 February we celebrated Valentines skiing and bubbling at
the thermal baths of Ovronnaz in the Valais.
The January 2009 issue of the UN Special (staff
monthly magazine with a run of 11,000 copies) published my article "The UN Society of Writers Welcomes 2009" which
brings an update on activities of UNSW/SENU and
a picture of the "Soirée Ex Tempore" 2008. the
article goes online next week.
Just back from 5 days harvesting olives in the Provence (some
400 kilos) and then 3 glorious days of skiing in
Alpe d'Huez, in Savoie, staying at a cute hotel in La Foret de
Maronne, a small village near La Garde.
Whoever has temporarily lost her/his joie de vivre should run to a performance of Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. On 22 December we saw a brilliant production at the Grand Theâtre in Geneva -- bubbling Lebensfreude! Especially this Glyndebourne mise en scène by Stephen Lawless, Benoît Dugardyn and Ingeborg Berneth. Pure fun!
From 15 to 20 December the Geneva School of Diplomacy hosted a successful seminar on disarmament, attended by several Ambassadors, together with the UN University of Peace. This time I am not lecturing, but only joining in the discussion -- especially on issues associated with the Non Proliferation Treaty. An impressive course.
On Wedenesday 17 December I represented the Spanish Association for the Advancement of International Human Rights Law at the UN consultation held at the Palais Wilson, hosted by the UN Working Group on Mercenaries. I made the link between promoting a culture of peace, eliminating impunity for gross human rights violations and banning the use of private military companies, e.g. in Iraq. War should be abolished, not privatized!
On 9-10 December 2008 the Institut Pierre Werner in Luxembourg,
the Instituto Internazionale Jacques Maritain, Rome, and the University
of Luxembourg held a conference focusing on new approaches to contemporary
human rights issues. I spoke on "the universal system of Protection of Human Rights" and elaborated on a new human rights paradigm where enabling rights like the right to peace play a central role. Other
participants were Professorr Nicholas Michel of the University
of Geneva, Ambassador Christian Strohal of Austria and Roberto
Papini, Secretary General of the International Jacques Maritain
Institute.
The UN Staff magazine UN Special just published my article on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its December issue, available online.
On 22 November I gave a Rilke lecture at the Alte Zwirnerei in Bazenheid in the Ostschweiz, near Wil. The event was hosted by the Kulturkommission Mühlau, and moderated by Dr. Peter Küpfer of the Kulturkommission in Toggenburg. Two newspaper headlines in the local press : "Ein Hochgenuss für Literaturfreunde" (a delight for literature friends) and "Von René zu Rainer Maria Rilke". The knowledgeable audience numbered some 60 persons and the animated discussion lasted until well past eleven p.m., in spite of the snow storm outside.
On 13-16 November the three Swiss PEN Clubs commemorated Writers in Prison Day by holding a number of public debates and poetry readings in Lugano, Zurich and Geneva. On Friday 14 November at the Bibliothèque de la Cité in Geneva, our Centre PEN Suisse romand hosted two Iraqui poets Ali Al-Shalah and Khazal Al-Majidi, who recited in arabic from their books. Three professional actors read out the translations into French with high emotional impact. Zeki Ergas moderated the discussion and our Vice-President Claude Krul provided simultaneous Arabic-French translation during the debate. Musical accompaniment
was provided by Ozan Cadas and his troupe who performed Turkish-Kurdish music. The event was announced and commented on 13 and 14 November in the Courrier de Genève under the rubric "Culture" (page 16).
The yearly event implements our commitment under the Pen Charter to engage "en tout temps de leur influence en faveur de la bonne entente et du respect mutuel des peuples; ils s'engagent à faire tout ler possible pour écarter les haines de races, de classes et de nations, et pour répandre l'idéal d'une humanité vivant en paix dans un monde uni."
In the photo above Ali Al-Shalah recites from his collection "Babylonian Decline" (from left to right: Khazal Al-Majidi, Claude Krul, Ali, de Zayas).
On 5 October 2008, at the Darwish Memorial Lecture hosted by PEN Suisse romand and the UN Society of Writers, Abdel Wahab Hani recited in Arabic the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. I moderated the literary and human rights event, which was attended by 31 persons and lasted from 4 to 7 p.m. on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.. Claude Krul, Jacques Hermann and Zeki Ergas of PEN delivered profound words about the Palestinian poet, accompanied by readings of translations into French and English.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, President of the World Political Forum, hosted a fascinating conference at Bosco Marengo in Piemonte, Italy, on the Implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 5-7 November. Top participants including the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Fausto Pocar, Anatoly Adamishin, UN Special Rapporteur Doudou Diène, Danielle Mitterand, Professor Hal Gardner, Dr. Jona Bargur, Lelio Bentes Correa, Ambassador Stéphane Hessel, etc. etc. I spoke on the Human Right to Peace and personally gave Gorbachev the book "La Declaracion de Luarca" in his very hands -- chatted a while with him and understood every word. He speaks a clear, friendly Russian -- worthy of the glasnost predicate. By the way, the second, revised edition of Carlos Villan Duran's book just came out with Ediciones Madu in Spain. I considerably expanded and updated my article "el crimen contra la paz". Besides Spanish entries, there are other contributions in French and English. At the conference I presented one working paper and participated in two workshops. My closing remarks in the plenary of the Bosco Marengo conference: "Alvaro Gil Robles has reminded us of a number of uncomfortable realities. Allow me one observation: our politicians always pretend to be the 'good guys', and yet they often apply international law à la carte, give lip service to human rights, keep silent about violations by our friends and go around pointing fingers at the others. This has resulted in a feeling of malaise and even pessimism, because we know we are not being entirely honest with ourselves. The Oracle at Delphi told visitors: know yourself - gnothi seaton. Maybe our politicians should try this for once -- just get some mirrors. Then maybe when we regain our credibility we shall have the needed strength to advance the cause of peace, disarmament, solidarity and human dignity. Gospodin Gorbachev, eto sosedanie bila diestvitelna prekrasna. Mi vse ochen blagodorim vas."
On 2-3 October the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights conducted a seminar on the links between articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I was the first ngo to take the floor, and reported on the Charter of PEN International and our commitment to promote freedom of expression. I also summarized the relevant judgment of 7 November 2007 of the Spanish Constitutional Court. On 3 October I again took the floor with a statement on the responsibility of writers to promote international understanding. A few days after this important conference, on 10 October 2008, Professor Pierre Nora,
member of the Académie française, launched the Appel de Blois on behalf of the liberty of historians to conduct their research freely and the aberration of legislatures that pretend to legislate history and establish dogmas protected by penal law. I strongly support the Appel de Blois, which is consistent with article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Public International Law (edited by Professor Rüdiger Wolfrum, completely rewritten new edition of the famous Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, edited by Professor Rudolf Bernhardt) has just gone on-line. Of my five entries, three are up: "Forced Population Transfer", "Repatriation" and "Spanish Civil War". Two more are in the pipeline: "Marshall Plan" and "Guantanamo Naval Base". See http://www.mpepil.com/
On 18 September the Rheinischer Merkur brought a nice review of
my "50 Thesen zur Vertreibung". We have sold nearly 5000
copies in barely 4 months.
From 18 to 25 August Carla and I cycled blithely though Zuidholland and Zeeland, discovering historic mills and churches -- including the magnificent Grote Kerk in Maassluis with its wonderful Garrels organ. Maassluis lies on the Nieuwe Waterweg some 20 Km downstream from Rotterdam - and the fresh, raw haringe are
tasty indeed! The "Lange Jan" of the Nieuwe Kerk in Middelburg delighted us with its wonderful carillon.
On 26/27 July the Südmährischer
Landschaftsrat and the city of Geislingen an der Steige conferred
upon me their Kulturpreis. The Geislingen Zeitung and the Göppingen Zeitung reported on 28 July. I received the "Ehrenbrief"
from the hands of the Oberbürgermeister of Geislingen, Wolfgang
Amann, and from the Sprecher of the Süddmährer Franz Longin.
It was a beautiful ceremony in which I articulated my gratefuil
appreciation of the cultural heritage of this part of Europe that
produced Adalbert Stifter, Franz Schubert and Rainer Maria Rilke,
who mean so much to me. I also had the opportunity of introducing
the second, revised edition of my Rilke translations, published
in July 2008 by Red Hen Press in Los Angeles, with a preface by
Professor Ralph Freedman, the foremost Rilke and Hesse expert and
biographer in the United States. René Rilke was not "just"
a metaphysical poet, but at times a kind of Heimat
troubadour.. You can order Larenopfer from
the editor Mark E. Cull (mark@redhen.org),
also redhenpress8@verizon.net,
or go on the publisher's website www.redhen.org.
Of course, you can also find it through Amazon. The November 2005
issue of the Blätter
der Rilke Gesellschaft did a nice review of the
first edition of my translations of Larenopfer (Offerings
to the Lares -- i.e. to the household deities) with commentary.
In these charming 90 poems the then 20-year old Rilke sings his
hometown Prague and homeland Bohemia. For another review in a German-Canadian
journal click here.
The summer reading list of Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois,
praises Larenopfer and the "exquisite illustrations" by
Martin Andrysek. http://www.millikin.edu/english/archives/read07.html).
Red Hen Press is a small publisher specialized in poetry and literature
-- P.O. Box 3537 Granada Hills, California 91394, Tel. 818 - 831.0649,
Fax 818 - 831.6659.
On Friday 27 June I interviewed the Al-Jazeera journalist Samy El Haj, who spent six years unjustly detained in Guantanamo. The interview was published in the July issue of the Swiss newspaper Current Concerns.
On 7 May 2008 my 50 Thesen zur Vertreibung (info@verlag-inspiration.de)
were published in a first edition of 10,000 copies. ISBN 978-3-9812110-0-9.
www.verlag-inspiration.de.
DIE WELT commented them favourably in its edition of 10 May, page
2 http://www.welt.de/welt_print/article1982667/Sudetendeutsche_hoffen_auf_neuen_Prager_Fruehling.html
On 18-19 April I participated in an intenational conference on
the Armenian genocide, held at Nicosia, Cyprus, on the occasion
of the 93rd anniversary of the beginning of the genocide. I delivered
a lecture before
some 80 participants.
On 10 April I repesented the Spanish Society for the Advancement
of International Human Rights Law before the UN Working Group on
the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and
impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination.
I spoke of the the human right to security of person (article 9
of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) and
the grave danger posed by the immunity/impunity of private security
contractors (PSCs) and private military companies (PMCs), operating
in ways analogous to mercenaries. In this context I referred to
GA Resolution 62/145 of 18 December 2007 and the corresponding HRC
Resolution extending the mandate of the Working Group. It is imperative
to adopt and enforce international rules to prevent the abuses committed
by PMCs in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, etc. Of course, if the Luarca
Declaration on the Human Right to Peace were respected, there would
be no armed conflict and no PMCs. Privatization of industry is one
thing. Privatization of war is chaos and a serious challenge to
human rights. Other participants were Amnesty International, the
International Commission of Jurists, the Geneva Centre for the Democratic
Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and Human Rights First.
Bernward Koch-Boehm issued in March 2008 a CD-recording with
Erdenklang/da music, Nr. 61182. Deutsche Austrophon GmbH,
D-49356 Diepholdz, 2008. The piano CD is dedicated to Hermann
Hesse 1946 Nobel laureate for Literature, and reproduces
the text of Hesse's wonderful poem "Stufen",
together with my translation. The CD is entitled "Montagnola.
Dedicated to Hermann Hesse. Meditative Piano Improvisations".
Just lovely!
On 13 December 2007, I participated in the working meeting of
the advisory board of the Stiftung Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen
in Berlin. Our successful exhibit "Erzwungene Wege" is now
in Munich and will go on to Düsseldorf and Stuttgart in 2008.
A new exhibition on the German settlements in Eastern Europe is
now being elaborated by a team of experts.
On 10 December 2007, 59th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly, I was honoured
in Stuttgart with the Human Rights Award of the Danube Swabian Society
of Germany (Volksgruppe der Donauschwaben e.V.). My former law professor
in Tübingen, Professor Thomas Oppermann held the laudatio.
Nice to have such friends! The Tapach Choir accompanied the ceremony
with Schubert and Beethoven. The event was reported on 11 December
in the Stuttgarter Zeitung under the header "Donauschwaben
zeichnen aus", p. 22.
The University of Toronto journal Genocide
Studies and Prevention ( Vol. 2, No. 2, 2007) just published
my study "The Istanbul Pogrom of 6-7 September 1955 in the
Light of International Law". See abstract.The
article was translated into Greek and published in full length in
two consecutive issues of the Athens newspaper ó Politeis,
under the title "Septemvriana", September/October
2007. A longer version of the legal opinion was published in the
book by Professor Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe,
ISBN 13: 978-0-9747660-6-5, second revised edition, New York 2007.
On 17 September I moderated a round table at the Palais des Nations,
Salle XXI, just outside the meeting room of the Human Rights Council.
Topic was "la dignité
de la personne au coeur des droits de l'homme", and the
participants were Archbishop Silvano Tomassi, Nonce apostolique,
Clément Imbert, représentant de Points-Coeur, Philippe
LeBanc, délégué permanent de l'Ordre Dominicain
aux Nations Unies, Jakob Möller, ancien juge à la Chambre
des Droits de l'Homme à Sarajevo, and Bertrand Ramcharan,
former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
In October 2007 the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich,
together with the Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen in Berlin, published a small book "Die Posdamer Konferenz 60 Jahre danach",
containing the speeches delivered at the Berlin Colloquium on the
Potsdam Conference. The panelists were Prof. Helmut Altrichter of
the University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Prof. Alexei Filitov of the
Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Prof. Anthony Nichols of
Oxford, Prof. Georges-Henri Soutou of the Sorbonne, and myself.
Prof. Guido Knopp, chief historian at ZDF, moderated the lively
discussion. On 23 July 2005 the Bayernkurier
had already published a short version of my thesis on Potsdam
Das unbewältigte
Erbe der Potsdamer Konferenz.
On 15 September 2007 I delivered a lecture at the Felix Ermacora
Institut in Vienna entitled "Rainer
Maria Rilke als Heimatdichter: von böhmischer Heimat zur
walliser Wahlheimat". There were about 100 persons in the audience
and I learned a lot from the discussion that followed.
On 28-30 June I participated in the Civil
Society Development Forum 2007 in Geneva, which is working on
a "Platform for Development: Countdown to 2015". The goal
is to implement the Millennium Development Goals which the UN General
Assembly adopted at the 2000 Millennium summit and reaffirmed at
the 2005 summit. I spoke on behalf of the Spanish Society for the
Advancement of International Human Rights Law,
Asociación Española para el Desarrollo y la Aplicación
del Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos (AEDIDH) and
focused on the "Luarca
Declaration". I moderated the workshop
on the human right to peace, in which Proferssor Krishna Ahooja
Patel (India) spoke eloquently on the sequels of colonialism and
the ravages of 21st century imperialism, while Dr. Zeki Ergas (Millennium
Solidarity) focused on extreme poverty as a form of genocide by
omission or passive genocide, and a threat to international peace
and security. See the conclusions
of our workshop. Renate Bloem, President of the Conference of NGOs
in consultative relationship with the United Nations (CONGO), awarded
Commendations
to Millennium Solidarity and Gcap Geneva for our support in the
white band campaign and the successful "Stand
Up Against Poverty" event in October 2006 (23,542,614 people
throughout the world marched or stood up against extreme poverty
and for solidarity with the less fortunate of our planet).The certificates
are signed by Salil Shetty, Director, UN Millennium Campaign.
On 18-19 June at the Hôtel Westminster in Nice, the UFR Institut
du Droit de la Paix et Développement de l'Université
de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, avec la collaboration de l'Institut International
de Droit Humanitaire (Sanremo), held a fascinating colloquium on
"Religions et Droit International Humanitaire". I was
on the panel devoted to "les doctrines religieuses et les sources
formelles du droit international humanitaire" and delivered
a paper entitled "Normes
morales et normes juridiques: concurrence ou conciliation",
which will be published shortly.
The Geneva Post Quarterly
just published my new article on "Minority rights in the New
Millennium". Citation: The Geneva Post Quarterly, Volume 2,
Number 1, May-June 2007, pp. 155-208
On 15-17 December I attended a conference on Cyprus
at Athens and took time to admire the Acropolis, grateful to the
ancient Greeks for their gift to civilization -- the cult of reason,
the Logos, and a sense for moderation, meden agan.
On 27 January we had a follow-up meeting in Geneva with Professor
Andreas Auer of the University of Geneva.
On October 17-19 New York University's Jean Monnet
Centre for International and Regional Economic Law and Justice
hosted an international symposium at its Florence (Italy) "La
Pietra" campus, which was devoted to "Rethinking
the Cyprus Problem: A European Approach". (http://www.nyulawglobal.org/events/cyprusparticipants.htm)
Professor Joseph Weiler presented a ground-breaking, thought-provoking
working paper, which a round
table of professors, diplomats, practitioners and experts analyzed.
We tackled not only the principles but also the functional and practical
aspects of Professor Weiler's proposals. I introduced and commented
the joint paper on constitution-making, which a year ago, on
12 October 2005, members of the "International Expert Panel
on a Cyprus Settlement" had presented before the European Parliament
in Brussels, where I had made opening
remarks on a "principled basis for a just and
lasting Cyprus settlement", and focused on the peaceful settlement
of disputes and on the principles of sovereignty, equality and independence
of States embodied in Article 6 of the European Union Treaty.
At the Florence round
table, I also delivered a paper on "The
Legal Status of the Turkish settlers".
See also Profressor
Auer's site.
On 8 October 2005 the International Association
for the Protection of Human Rights in Cyprus hosted a conference
under the auspices of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe,
and with the participation of numerous judges and advocates of the
European Court in Luxembourg and the European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg. Here is the abstract
of my paper. On
Thursday, 1 September 2005, at Nicosia, Cyprus, members of the international
expert panel presented "A
principled basis for a just and lasting Cyprus settlement in the
light of International and European Law" to President
Tassos Papadopoulos of Cyprus, to the leader of the Turkish-Cypriot
community, Mehmet Ali Talat, and to his eminence, Bishop Nikiforos
of Kikko. The paper was prepared by eight professors including Andreas
Auer, Marc Bossuyt, Peter Burns, Dieter Oberndorfer, Silvio-Marcus
Helmons, Malcolm Shaw and myself. Click here for the executive
summary. On 3 September 2005 I gave an interview to
the Cyprus Weekly,
which was published on 14 September 2005. I particularly enjoyed
meeting Titina Loizidou whose courage and perseverance
led to the now famous judgements of 1996 and 1998 of the European
Court of Human Rights. Titina is an expellee from Northern Cyprus
and her efforts to vindicate the right to return and the right to
restitution are of immeasurable value for the development of international
law. She is a true heroine of human rights and a living icon of
international law.
En 18-19 diciembre 2006 estuve de nuevo en Alcalá
de Henares, cuna de Cervantes, donde participé en la comision
de doctorado de un joven Aleman, Björn Arp, a quien le concedimos
la nota más alta de summa cum laude por una tesis
estupenda sobre los derechos de las minorías. A finales de
Noviembre había gozado de 5 espléndidos días
en Madrid, donde visité a mis primos de Oviedo, y conocí
el Club Zayas.
Disfruté enormemente el intercambio con 26 estudiantes de
derecho que tomaron mi curso intensivo en la Universidad de Alcalá,
ciudad patrimonio de la humanidad, llena de simpáticas cigueñas
y vestigios de la vieja ciudad Romana que se llamó en su
época Complutum.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
favourably reviewed the new edition of my book "Die deutschen
Vertriebenen" on 31 July under the felicitous headline "Fast
ein Klassiker" (almost a classic). This new
edition of Anmerkungen zur Vertreibung was published by
Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz
(Ares), under the new title "Die deutschen Vertriebenen".
ISBN 3- 902475-15-3. For more information contact: carina.spielberger@stocker-verlag.com.
The new American version of the book "A Terrible Revenge"
(Palgrave/Macmillan) was mentioned favourably in the New York Review
of Books in an article by Robert Paxton on 22 November 2007 pp.
49-50 at p. 50. Didactically
useful are the Thesen
zur Vertreibung (ISBN 3-00-016129-6, August 2006).
The very successful Kohlhammer
paperback edition is now completely sold out. Myths and simplifications
are dangerous. One of those myths that I challenge in my theses
is the manichaean myth of the "good guys" and the "bad
guys", which ignores the complexities of life and disregards
the principle of equality and the imperative of respect for the
human dignity of each and every individual, including the victims
of the Vertreibung. At a commencement exercise at Yale
University in 1962 President John Fitzgerald Kennedy said something
very much in point:"The great enemy of truth is very often
not the lie-deliberate, contrived and dishonest-but the myth-persistent,
persuasive and unrealistic. . . . We enjoy the comfort of opinion
without the discomfort of thought.".
The English version of "The German Expellees" (Macmillan,
New York and London, 1993), was subsequently issued in paperback
under the title "A Terrible Revenge" (St. Martin's
Press, New York, 1994).In May 2006 a much revised third edition
was published by Palgrave/Macmillan. Both the English and the German
new editions contain about 20% new material, new photos, new statistical
tables, including new testimonies from Heinz Schön, a survivor
of the greatest sea catastrophe in history, the sinking of the "Wilhelm
Gustloff" on 30 January 1945 with more than 9,000 drowned refugees,
from young Ansgar Graw, born in the Federal Republic of Germany
of East Prussian parents, Bruno Kosak, an Upper Silesian who remained
in the homeland, Erika Murwig, a Pomeranian expellee who expresses
her sense of loss in poetry "Ein Traum", etc. High school
and college teachers may find the "Theses on the Expulsion"
didactically useful. Click here for the Theses.
On Friday 3 February 2006, the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung published my review
of Professor Norman Finkelstein's thought-provoking
book Beyond Chutzpah, University of California Press, Berkeley.
This book calls for an intellectually honest discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and deplores the instrumentalization of Jewish suffering
for political purposes, in particular the aggressive use of the
past to excuse and justify human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied
Palestine territories today. Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust
survivors and keenly aware of the suffering of the Jewish people.
He convincingly calls for a human-rights approach to the solution
of the conflict. Click
here for the review in English translation.
On
Saturday, 6 August 2005 six thousand German expellees and their
families came to Berlin to commemorate "Tag der Heimat"
(The Day of the Homeland). Principal speakers were Angela Merkel,
head of the Christian Democratic Union, then candidate to the German
chancellorship, and now first woman Kanzlerin (Prime Minister) of
Germany, Otto Schilly, the then Social Democratic Minister or the
Interior,
Erika Steinbach, member of the German Parliament
for the CDU party and President of the Zentrum
gegen Vertreibungen in Berlin, and the first UN-High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr.
Jose Ayala Lasso, former Foreign Minister of Ecuador.
For the English text of Ayala's fine speech, click
here.
The Ullstein paperback
edition of Die Anglo-Amerikaner und die Vertreibung der Deutschen
(German version of "Nemesis
at Potsdam") is now sold out. On 6 September 2005
a much revised and enlarged 14th edition (hardbound) was published
by Herbig Verlag in Munich under the title Die
Nemesis von Potsdam,
ISBN 3-7766-2454-X. See the very positive review by
Patrick Sutter in the Neue
Zurcher Zeitung, also the review by Herbert
Ammon, and my interview "Verbrechen
gegen die Menschheit" The English version, originally
published by Routledge in London and Boston, ran three editions,
was then republished by the University of Nebraska Press, which
sold out two editions, and today hails its sixth revised and enlarged
edition with Picton Press, rockland, Maine. See "Publications",
infra.
Ninety-one
years ago the first genocide of the Twentieth Century started when
Ottoman Turkey attempted to exterminate its Armenian minorities
numbering two million. On 24 April 1915 the Armenian intelligentsia
was arrested and murdered in Istanbul and elsewhere throughout Turkey,
then the common folk in the towns and villages of Eastern Anatolia
were overrun, slaughtered, deported to the Syrian desert. One and
a half million human beings lost their lives. The survivors either
fled to Russia or went into exile, building the Armenian diaspora
of France, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia, etc.
On 20-21 April 2005 a major international conference was held in
Yerevan, with the participation (www.armeniaforeignministry.com/conference/speakers.html)
of American, Canadian, Belgian, German, Israeli, Turkish and other
scholars. My legal
opinion on the Armenian genocide and the 1948 Genocide
Convention was distributed to the participants, as well as the text
of my oral prensentation on International
Law, Human Rights and Genocide. On Sunday 24 April
an estimated one million persons, including many foreign delegations,
among others representatives of the U.S. and French Embassies in
Armenia, lay flowers and wreaths at the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan.
This very moving ceremony was followed by a performance of Verdi's
Requiem and an oecumenical service officiated by His Holiness Karaken
II, Catholicos of all Armenians, at the St. Gregory the Illumitator
Cathedral in Yerevan.
The
spring 2005 issue of the International Review of the Red Cross
was published in May in a new format, and is devoted entirely to
the growing problem of detention (volume 87, number 857, 2005) .
I contributed the chapter on "Human
Rights and Indefinite Detention" -- a matter of relevance
not only in connection with the so-called "war on terror",
incommunicado detention and ill-treatment in Guantanamo and Abu
Ghraib, but also in connection with the internment of undocumented
migrants and asylum seekers. |
