| On Saturday 28 June the Geneva School of Diplomacy celebrated
its graduation ceremony at the Château de Penthes. Fresh new
doctors, masters and bachelors of international relations paraded
under the huge chestnut- and plane trees; I had the pleasure of
being in the doctoral and masters commissions of many of them, and
as in prior years, I will miss the regular contact with these young,
promising students, but will surely hear from them when they want
references! Laura Maillet was an enthusiastic valedictorian. Doctorates
honoris causa were conferred by GSD President Dr. Colum
Murphy on Esam Yousif Janahi, an acclaimed Middle East economist,
famous for the Bahrain Financial Harbour and the "Energy City";
also on Professor Curtis Roosevelt, grandson of Franklin and Eleanor,
a truly fine mind -- and a gentleman. A third honorary doctorate
was conferred in absentia upon His Serene Highness Albert
II of Monaco, who will come next Tuesday to personally receive it
from Dr. Murphy.
On Thursday 19 June we flew to Florence and rented a car to go
to Arezzo, the birthplace of Petrarca, creator of the sonnet, and
of Guido the Monk. We admired the amazing frescos by Piero de la
Francesca -- "Legend of the True Cross". On the way to
Mondavio we stopped at Cortona to visit the Etruscan museum and
over the Appenines we reached the Adriatic coast, went swimming
in Fano, visited Urbino, birthplace of Raphael. Particularly intriguing
were the golden horses of Pergola -- four figures of prominent personalities
who had fallen out of grace with Emperor Tiberius, who ordered them
erased from history (damnatio memoriae) and their statues
destroyed and buried (abolitio imaginum). Maybe there is
where Stalin got the idea of erasing so many Bolsheviks from Soviet
history books. 26 June back to Geneva.
On Thursday 19 June I participated in a UN Panel on discrimination
and harassment of staff members. Well attended and many good questions.
The United Nations Society of Writers held its annual General Assembly
on Tuesday 17 June at the Escargot lounge in the Palais des Nations.
We celebrated the 57 authors of our most successful Ex Tempore
yet -- number 18 and drank some elderflower champagne and some of
the real stuff too. The UN Special published a
nice little article with photo illustration: "Ex
Tempore- Nouveau Numéro et Soirée Littéraire"
on page 33 of the April 2008 issue. Indeed, volume 18 of Ex
Tempore is remarkably variegated with its 164 pages of essays,
poetry, short stories, drama and aphorisms in Arabic, English, French,
German, Italian , Russian and Spanish. A literary tour de force.
ISSN 1020-6604. Elections went as expected -- Karin Kaminker
remains our President, Carla Edelenbos our Vice-President, Janet
Weiler our Treasurer and we have a new Secretary, Rose Buisson-Sauvage.
I was confirmed as Editor-in-Chief.
Justice Jakob Th. Möller and I have finished our 500-page
book "The Case-Law
of the United Nations Human Rights Committee 1977-2007",
a handbook for practitioners. It is to be published by N.P.Engel
in Kehl/Strasbourg this fall.
The Centre Suisse romand of P.E.N. International held its spring
outing on Saturday, 24 May on the shores of Lac Leman at Rolle.
A wonderful afternoon of poetry and essays in French -- with some
Arabic, English, Spanish and German added for good measure. Luce
Péclard's sonnets were particularly evocative, as Jacques
Herman's were touching and humorous. David Walter's short story
was riveting and compassionate. We also discussed the new format
of the forthcoming edition of our Pages littéraires,
for which we still have to get an ISSN number, and the preparations
for our joint events with PEN Svizerra italiana and Deutschschweizer
PEN in November, to commemorate Writers in Prison day.
The Geneva journal DIVA
International devoted its May/June 2008 issue to Human Rights.
I contributed the commentary "Human Rigjhts in the New Millennium"
on pages 4-5 (http://www.divainternational.ch/spip.php?article354).
On Thursday 22 May the UN Human Rights Council held a special session
on the world food crisis. I could only observe part of it, since
I teach on Thursdays. In spite of imperfections, it is good and
necessary to have a forum where human rights issues such as food
and the environment can be discussed. It is obscene that governments
are spending trillions in armaments and wars, when people do not
have enough to eat.
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)
The 22nd Salon du livre de Genève (annual book
fair) opened on 30 April and will last through 4 May. The last issue
of the UN literary journal Ex Tempore can be seen at the
United Nations stand on Rue Balzac. Myself, I spent two hours at
the stand of the Société genevoise des Écrivains
on Rue Flaubert 8 on Friday 2 May, exhibiting a selection
of my books, including the very last copies of the first
edition of my Rilke translations. The second, revised edition is
coming out very shortly with Red Hen Press in Los Angeles
-- with a perceptive foreword by the great Ralph Freedman, who is
not only the foremost Rilke expert in the US, but also
a fabulous Hesse biographer. I already corrected the proofs. What
a joy it is to be surrounded by millions of words written by a thousand
felicitous fencers of the pen! Elating indeed!
Above with Fanny Mouchet, Secrétaire-Générale
of the Société genevoise des Ecrivains and member
of the Committee of P.E:N. Swiss romande at the bookfair on 2 May
(Photo by Zeki Ergas).
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.
On 4 April 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 Professors
Andreas Auer and Daniel Thürer of the University of Zurich,
Professor Thomas Bruha of the University of Hamburg, Professor Stelios
Perrakis of the University of Athens, as well as distinguished Greek,
Turkish, Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot colleagues.The Conference
was opened by Micheline
Calmy Rey, Foreign Minister of Switzerland. Together with me
on the panel were Professor Kalliope Agapiou-Josephides, University
of Cyprus; Professor Constantin Economides, former member of the
United Nations International Law Commission, and Dr. Antonis Ellinas,
Oxford University (see photo below). I spoke on the procedural issues
associated with self-determination
referenda..
On 26-28 March I was in Königswinter for the spring conference
of the Kulturstiftung. Other participants were Professor Gilbert
Gornig, Prof. Detlef Horn. High-level lectures and 120 persons in
the audience -- but too little media attention.
Bernward Koch-Boehm has just issued 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!
Also on 7 March I spoke at a side-event of the Council, on a UN
panel at the Palais des Nations devoted to extreme poverty and the
human right to peace. Professor Carlos Villán Durán,
President of the Asociación Española para el Desarrollo
y la Aplicación del Derecho Internacional de los Derechos
Humanos, moderated the discussion together with the Director de
Unesco Etxea (Pais Vasco). Other participants were Charlotte Le
Den of the Institut International de Recherches pour la paix (Gipri),
Geneva, Rogate R. Mshana of the World Council of Churches:, Viet
Tu Tran of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Mario
Yutzis, Former Chairperson of the UN Committee on Elimination of
Racial Discrimination. My topic was the right to development as
a component of the human right to peace. I also focused on the Millennium
Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals. I counted 54 persons
in the audience -- not too bad considering the competition.
On 3 March the seventh session of the UN Human Rights Council was
opened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights Louise Arbour held a well balanced and inspiring
speech, while Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy Rey spoke plain
language about human rights violations that must stop -- in Malaysia,
in Sri Lanka, in Colombia, in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Big news is that Cuba signed the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights. Signing a treaty is not the same as
ratifying it, but it is a step in the right direction -- in more
ways than one. A subsequent post-revolutionary Cuba will not be
able to turn the clock back and renege on the Cuban guarantees of
social and economic rights -- especially in the fields of education
and medical care. Thus, ratification of ICESCR actually cements
the achievements of the revolution in this field. As to ICCPR, let
us hope that political pluralism becomes a reality and that the
death penalty is abolished. What is now needed is reconciliation
and justice -- fe y adelante!.
On 23 February we held the annual General Assembly of PEN Centre
Suisse romand in Lausanne. We elected four new members to our Committee:
Alex Caire, Jacques Herman, Fanny Mouchet and Glorice Weinstein.
Looking forward to working with the new team, together with Vice-President
Claude Krul and Sec-Gen Zeki Ergas. Next event will be the PEN International
meeting in Glasgow. Literature is for literature -- but it is also
a marvelous medium to promote a culture of peace and human rights.
On 25 January we hosted the 12th annual Ex Tempore evening.
67 poets and essayists from the United Nations family (UNOG, ILO,
WHO, UNHCR), including members of PEN International, Centre Suisse
romand, came to our home to celebrate literature in English, French,
Spanish, Russian, Arabic and even Vietnamese. This time we missed
Chinese, which we have had in previous years, as well as German
and Italian. Aline Dedeyan did her humorous sketch, and people left
pretty happy. It was a fun evening..
From 28 December 2007 to 2 January 2008, thirty thousand young
people flocked to Geneva for the annual congress of the oecumenical
Christian movement Taizé -- Bolivians (Cochabamba), Kenyans,
Egyptians, Palestinians, Israelis, Iraquis, Chinese, Philippinos,
Indonesians, Lithuanians, Poles (the largest contingent), Czechs,
Slovaks, Hungarians, Germans, French, Dutch, Belgians, Bosnians,
Croats, Serbs, Albanians, Montenegrins, Kosovars, Belorussians,
Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians, Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards,
etc.. They stayed in Calvin's protestant citadel (Frère Roger
was also a Protestant), assembling primarily at the convention centre
Palexpo, where they conducted their workshops on practical ethics,
peace, spirituality -- not exactly as the "United Nations",
but surely as "united young people" of the world. They
were housed all over town, mostly in private homes and apartments
in the whole area of Lac Leman, as far as St. Saphorin. We hosted
8 young people -- six Spaniards and two Italians -- four girls and
four boys -- a delightful little group. We participated in a few
of their activities, including the prayer meeting from 7 to 8 p.m.
on 30 December -- there were 38,000 people at Palexpo, and everyone
received a candle. The flame came from Bethlehem. Next annual congress
will take place in Brussels from 29 December 2008 to 2 January 2009.
Our guests are gone - back to their own homes - and we miss them.
On 18 December 2007 the United Nations commemorated International
Migrants Day. Here at the United Nations in Geneva a round table
was organized in room XXIV of the Palais des Nations to revisit
aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which will
be celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2008. We discussed the meaning
of the Declaration for UN staff, which is made up of "migrants"
from 193 nations. I read out the Migrants-Day statement of Secretary-General
Ban Ki-Moon: "Migrants are often driven by the aspiration for
a better life. They seek a safer, more prosperous future for their
children, and they are willing to work for it. Given the chance
to make the most of their abilities, on an equal basis, the vast
majority of migrants will be assets to society." I reminded
our listeners that migration is no "deviant" behaviour,
and that the Europeans were the migrants of the 16th, 17th, 18th
and 19th centuries, when they fled poverty and unemployment in Europe
to build new lives in the Western Hemisphere.
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.
On 7 December the Deutsche Welle interviewed me by telephone on
the Kosovo situation, pros and cons of a unilateral declaration
of independence and its implications for the self-determination
aspirations of Kurds, Basques, Catalans etc.. The Interview was
broadcast on 10 December.
The Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches
Recht und Völkerrecht just published my long review of
Frank Hoffmeister's book on Cyprus and the Annan Plan, Vol. 67,
Nr. 3, pp. 987-991. The 2007 Cyprus Yearbook of International Relations
is publishing another article by me on the subject, but, alas, the
issue ist not out yet. Maybe before Xmas.
Diva International just published in its December
2007 issue pp. 40-41 my article on September
21, International Day of Peace, which contains the full text
of the statement by Ban-ki Moon, which I read out at the Salle de
Conseil at the Palais des Nations during the round table on the
human right to peace.
On 15-16 November 2007 PEN Clubs world-wide commemorated "Writers
in Prison Day" and organized symposia and memorials on behalf
of persecuted writers and writers in prison. The three Swiss PEN
Centres, coordinated by Kristin Schnider of the Deutschschweizer
Zentrum, invited a noted Algerian poet, Hamid Skif, to come to Switzerland
and read from his writings at various events. Our PEN Centre Suisse
romand hosted M. Skif at the Bibliothèque de la Cité
on a very frosty Friday evening. The event was well attended, and
we had opportunity to discuss the principles of freedom of artistic
expression, freedom of research, freedom of opinion and freedom
of the press. Our members Claude Levenson reported on the situation
in Burma/Myanmar, Zeki Ergas on the assassination of the Turkish-Armenian
writer Hrant Dink and Mavis Guinard on the assassination of the
Russian journalist Anna Politskaya. I spoke briefly on the commonalities
of the Charter of PEN with article 19 of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and elucidated the state-reporting
and individual-complaint procedures of the UN Human Rights Committee.
I read excerpts from the concluding observations of the Committee
following the examination of the third periodic report of Algeria
on 23/24 October 2007, document symbol CPR/C/DZA/CO/3/CRP.1. I also
explained the significance of the Committee's Views of 10 July 2007
in the case Kimouche v. Algeria, in which for the first
time the Committee found a violation of article 16 of the Covenant
in the context of disappeared persons. CCPR/C/90/D/1328/2004. As
OHCHR Chief of Petitions I had long advocated this jurisprudence
-- and now it has become precedent!
In September 2007 PEN Suisse romand published volume 1 of a new
literary journal , with poetry and essays in French language from
our members. Special thanks are due to editorial committee members
Jacqueline Tanner and Dr. François Clement. I made a modest
contribution by translating Rilke's Volksweise ("Airs
de Bohème") into French (from the cycle Larenopfer):
Elles me touchent à l'extrême
les chansons du peuple bohème,
qui se glissent dans le coeur,
le grevant de langueur.
Quand un enfant chante
doucment en sarcland dans les champs,
écoute dans tes rêves ce même chant
tard dans la nuit résonnant.
Et même si tu pars en voyage
en des terres éloignées,
te suivront cet air cette image
au fil des années.
On 17 October the United Nations celebrated International Day
for the Eradication of Poverty. How easy it would be do eliminate
extreme poverty if instead of building more cruise missiles we would
devote those resources to the millennium development goals! On 23
October our Geneva ngo Millennium
Solidarity held its second autumn meeting and we discussed our
cooperation with the the Global Marshall Plan Initiative and with
the Convention on the Global Commons (www.global-commons.org).
On 24 October the UN celebrates world-wide the 62nd anniversary
of the entry into force of the United Nations Charter, in which
the peoples of the world expressed their determination "to
save suceeding generations from the scourge of war".
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.
The sixth regular session of the United
Nations Human Rights Council opened on Monday 10 September
at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. On 21 September, International
Human Rights Day, I participated in a panel of experts at the Security
Council chamber in the Palais des Nations, the famous Francisco
de Vitoria room. It was my honour and privilege to read out the
peace-day statement of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and to comment
on the overarching UN mandate to promote peace through all of its
organs and specialized agencies. I noted that the human right to
peace is not a vague "third generation right", but rather
an enabling right that facilitates our enjoyment of the
so-called first generation rights (civil and political) and second
generation rights (economic, social and cultural). I objected to
the prevalent, artificial hierarchy of rights, and proposed instead
to classify human rights into a) enabling rights, b) over-arching
rights and c) end rights. The right to peace is not only an enabling
right, but it is also an over-arching right and an end right. Indeed,
the goal of all human rights is to empower us to affirm and develop
our own identity in dignity and security. Peace is thus not only
a beginning, but it is also a means to the end and the end itself.
On this occasion we also presented the new book "La Declaración
de Luarca sobre el derecho humano a la paz", edited by
Carmen Rosa Rueda Castañón and Carlos Villán
Durán, 2007, Ediciones Madú, Granda-Siero, Spain,
ISBN 978-84-95998-39-2, including my chapter on "El crimen
contra la paz". On 15 March 2007, during the Council's fourth
session, Professor Carlos Villan Duran officially presented the
"Luarca
Declaration" on the human right to peace, which
was adopted on 30 October 2006 in Luarca, Spain, by the Asociación
Española para el Desarrollo y la Aplicación del Derecho
Internacional de los Derechos Humanos (AEDIDH), of which I am
a member. For a short introduction and excerpts in French click
here. On 15-16 March we held two round tables to discuss the
imput of civil society to the Luarca declaration. On 11 June 2007,
during the fifth Council session, we held another round
table on the progress being made since the last Human Rights
Council. On 21 September Professor Villán Duran presented
the new book publication "La Declaracion de Luarca sobre el
derecho humano a la paz", edited by Carmen Rosa Rueda Castañón
and published by Madú Ediciones (www.edicionesmadu.com)
in which I have a chapter "el crimen contra la paz". Particularly
lively was the first round table discussion we held on Wednesday
12 September -- with the participation of the first Chairperson
of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Luis de Alba, and the Independent
Expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity, M. Rizki.
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.
On 25 September our Geneva ngo Millennium
Solidarity opened its fall season with a meeting devoted to
our library project in Burkina Faso. Parfait Bayala reported on
the distribution of 200 books to four high schools in Burkina. He
will report back in November when he is back from Burkina. I gave
a brief report on the three UN panels I participated in during the
6th session of the Human Rights Council. On 2 October, the Human
Rights Council reassembled to hold its fifth special session and
adopt a resolution expressing concern about the human rights situation
in
Myanmar.
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
The May-June 2007 issue of Diva International published
my interview with Isabel
Contreras, Director of Life
Motivations. The October 2006 issue of the Swiss journal Diva
International published my article on "Peace and
P.E.N.International", focusing on the contribution of Poets,
Essayists and Novelists to a culture of peace and of human rights.
This was the hope of the young British poet Wilfried Owen, who fell
in WWI, and of the young German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, whose
"All quiet on the western front" remains one
of the most perceptive analyses on youth, war and the will to live.
Pax optima rerum. Indeed, it is the noble function of poets,
essayists and novelists to remind the politicians of the values
for which we ostensibly stand, for tolerance and human dignity,
for reconciliation and the Sermon on the Mount.
Martin Tielke's (ed.) Biographisches Lexikon
für Ostfriestland, Vol. 4, Aurich 2007, ISBN 3-932206-62-2
just came out, including my entry on the late Admiral
Karl Smidt, known by all his crews and his friends
as "Karolus", the NATO Navy Chief and former commander
of the "Erich Giese", sunk in Narvik in April 1940. What
a privilege to have known this honourable man with such a sense
for history, humour and humanity!
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.
René Maria Rilke was born on 4 December 1875,
in Prague. The November 2005 issue of the Blätter
der Rilke Gesellschaft published a nice review
of my translations of his second cycle of poems, Larenopfer
(Offerings to the Lares -- i.e. to the household deities),
published in January 2005 as a bilingual edition with commentary
and 12 wonderful original drawings by Martin Andrysek. My publisher,
which specializes in poetry and literature, is Red Hen Press in
Los Angeles, California. P.O. BOX 3537 | GRANADA HILLS, CA 91394
| Telephone 818.831.0649 | FAX 818.831.6659 | PRODUCTION@REDHEN.ORG
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 2007 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)..
The book was presented
at the 10th annual "Ex
Tempore" evening in Geneva, and at a conference
before members of the Rainer Maria Rilke Foundation at the Maison
de Courten in Sierre, Canton de Valais, just a few kilometers away
from the Château de Muzot, where Rilke spent the last six
years of his restless life. Notwithstanding a blizzard and 40 cm
of fresh snow, we had a full room and a lively question and answer
period on the topic: René Rilke, not only a metaphysical
poet, at times even a Heimat
troubadour. You can order Larenopfer from
the editor Mark E. Cull (mark@redhen.org),
also redhen1@earthlink.net, or go on the publisher's website www.redhen.org.
Of course, you can order it through www.Amazon.com and www.Amazon.de.
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.
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Guantanamo:
On Thursday, 27 January 2005, I delivered a public lecture
on the U.S.
occupation of Guantanamo at the University of Trier
(Treverus), where I also gave an intensive international law course
to more than 100 eager students. The Guantanamo lecture was published
as Nr. 28 in the Rechtspolitisches Forum/ Legal Policy Forum
series of the Institut für Rechtspolitik an der Universität
Trier, ISSN 1616-8828.
On Thursday, 16 September
2004, the Centre Culturel
Suisse de Paris hosted a press conference on the new
exhibit "Guantanamo Initiative" followed by my lecture
on the subject "Le
défi de Guantánamo", favourably
reported in the Paris press, including l'Humanité..
Meanwhile the lawyers
entrusted with the defense of Guantánamo detainees are having
a rough time, because the Bush Administration is apparently intent
on circumventing the US Supreme Court's judgement of 29 June 2004
ruling that the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights apply in Guantanamo
Bay, and that therefore the detainees are entitled to due process.
See my relevant articles in English, French and German on the subject,
under "Articles-monographies-chapters
in books" in particular the Douglas
McK Brown lecture at the University of British Columbia,
37 U.B.C.Law Review 277-341 (2004) © Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib
are deliberate crimes. Patrick Buchanan's recent book "Where
the Right Went Wrong" (St. Martin's Press, New York 2004),
sheds light on the wrong priorities of the Bush adminsitration.
I reviewed the book for the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung on 17 November 2004.
Click for my short Essay
on Genesis, Essay
on Easter, on the Samaritan
woman, on Hölderlin,
on historiography and
the "discovery" of America, on indigenous
names in America,
Maison de Paroisse
And
now for some Reviews of:
Nemesis
at Potsdam (Picton Press, Rockland Maine, 6th
revised edition, 2003, sales@pictonpress.com, candyperry@pictonpress.com).
German version Die Nemesis von Potsdam, Herbig
Verlag, Munich, 2005 (g.koralus@herbig.net).
"His is a lucid, scholarly and compassionate study. Most pertinently he insists that we deny what the lesser histories conspire with us to invent--that there are stopping places in history." Tony Howarth, Times Educational Supplement
"The author traces the genesis of the relevant territorial arrangements and ensuing population trnasfers and then gives a well-documented and horrifying account of the exodus, the sufferings and deaths of millions, the ruthlessness of the new masters -- a travesty of the 'orderly and humane' fashion in which the measures were supposed to be carried out." William Guttmann, Observer
"A young legal scholar from New York, Alfred
M. de Zayas, has written a book on a subject long taboo and ignored
by German writers...Truman, Churchill and Stalin agreed at Potsdam
in 1945 that the German populations of Eastern Europe should undergo
'transfer to Germany' but 'in an orderly and humane manner.' Out
of consideration for their Soviet ally, the Western powers made
little attempt to force compliance....Until recently the subject
has been treated with a mixture of shame and resentment. But now
it has begun to come out into the open...Mr. de Zayas said that
he got the idea for the book at Harvard Law School... " New
York Times, 13 February 1977.
"These Volksdeutsche were tragic figures, unfortunate
enough to have been located in the wrong areas at precisely the
wrong times. The circumstances leading to their abysmal situation
are tellingly related by de Zayas in this most important work."
Norman Lederer, Worldview
"An interesting, well-written, and important book covering a topic on which almost nothing has appeared in English" Choice
"The lesson from this well-organized
and moving historical record is not merely that retribution which
penalizes innocent human beings becomes injustice, but that acceptance
of political realities may be a better road to human fulfilment
than the path of violence. Alfred de Zayas has written a persuasive
commentary on the suffering which becomes inevitable when humanitarianism
is subordinated to nationalism"
Benjamin Ferencz, American Journal of International Law
"Books such as this ... deserve a respectful
welcome. There can be no dispute that the eviction and resettlement
of some 16 million people which occurred in Eastern Europe at the
end of the war caused enormous suffering. It is important that authors
such as Mr. de Zayas should form time to time remind us of man's
inhumanity to man." Michael Balfour in International
Affairs
"Profusely illustrated with photographs, documents
and excellent maps, this book analyzes the origin and the effects
of article XIII of the Potsdam Protocol which provided that ethnic
Germans living in the eastern countries would be transferred to
the truncated remains of the Reich 'in an orderly and humane manner'.
As the 16 million Germans were driven westward, some two million
died, but the world remained silent. Outraged by the crimes Nazis
had perpetrated ...the whole world, with a few exceptions, like
Bertrand Russell and Albert Schweizer, remained mum.... de Zayas
is perhaps best when delineating the legal aspects of the Potsdam
action, although his historical facts are equally impeccable....Due
to the willingness of the press and the scholarly comunity in the
West to ignore these facts of the Potsdam accord, few Americans
or Britons know there ever was an expulsion, let alone authorization
of the compulsory transfer. Questioning rhetorically whether the
wrong could ever be righted, de Zayas maintains that the West could
affirm its regard for individual guilt or innocence and reject the
concept of collective guilt." Professor LaVern Rippley, St.
Olaf College, Die Unterrichtspraxis, Vol. 11, No.
2, 1978, pp. 132-133.
"L'ouvrage est édifiant et sera pour
beaucoup une révélation. M. de Zayas n'est pas tendre
pour les Alliés, qui ont fermé les yeux sur l'une
des entreprises les plus inhumaines de l'histoire de la civilisation
occidentale, la responsabilité des démocraties anglo-saxonnes
étant a cet egard primordiale." Revue Générale
de Droit International Public
In minuziöser Quellenarbeit zeigt de Zayas,
dass in Polen und der Tschechoslowakei schon lange vor dem Krieg
die Absicht gehegt wurde, die dort wohnhaften Deutschen aus ihrer
rund 700-jährigen Heimat zu vertreiben. Beide Staaten missachteten
ihre völkerrechtlichen Verpflichtungen zum Schutz von Minderheiten
... De Zayas erkennt darin einem Präzedenzfall fuer spätere
Vertreibungen in Palästina, Zypern, Bosnien oder Kosovo. Sein
engagiertes Wirken gegen solche 'Kriegsstrategien' hat bedeutdenden
Anteil daran, dass sich das Recht auf die Heimat in den letzten
Jahren als fundamentales Menschenrecht etablieren konnte.
Patrick Sutter in der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung.
Reviews of The
Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau (Picton Press, 4th revised
edition, 2000, sales@pictonpress.com; candyperry@pictonpress.com
). German version Die
Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle (Universitas Verlag,
Munich, 7th edition 2001, g.koralus@herbig.net)
"De Zayas is undoubtedly one of the world's leading legal scholars addressing forced population transfers ... [his] work provides massive confirmation of the truism that atrocities are committed in war by all sides, that many go unpunished, and some are part of national policy....the possibility that truth might be misused in argument by the devil is not a reason to suppress truth. I have no personal doubt that this book is a useful attempt to preserve an important truth. By writing it, the author -- whose own humanitarian sympathies are beyond question, as is Levie's scholarly detachment --has done a service to scholarship." Alfred Rubin in The Fletcher Forum
"The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1495
is a fascinating book. It is well-organized and elegantly written
... a sobering new look at the Second World War and ourselves ..
With the appearance of this new book ... our innocence comes to
an official end." Arnold Krammer, Journal of Soviet
Military Studies
"The facts were painstakingly resarched by the author. Archives were consulted and cross-checked and survivors interviewed. It is an academic job well done, and a must for students of small islands of sanity in the ocean of madness called war" Lt.-Gen. G.C. Berkhof, Netherlands International Law Review
"thoroughly and skillfully researched"- Col. Ernest Fischer in Army
"This well-written book, which is based on
thorough research of original sources... triggered a broad discussion...
It is timely and necessary to discuss the legal, sociological and
psychological problems involved in the investigation of war crimes
during and after armed conflicts." Dieter Fleck, in Archiv
des Völkerrechts
"Dr. de Zayas first came upon the previously
undiscovered 226 volumes of WUSt documents as a Fulbright fellow
on leave from his studies in International Law at Harvard. After
concluding his legal studies, de Zayas subsequently earned a Ph.D.
in history and the University of Göttingen, where he later
became an associate. The Institute supported the research on which
this study is based and arranged for the assistance of a Dutch international
law specialist, Dr. Walter Rabus ... Mindful that the WUSt might
have been manipulated by Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry, the authors
were punctilious in their verification. They carefully examined
the documents for internal consistency and continuity and then verified
the reports and testimony, where possible, with judges, medical
examiners and witnesses still alive. In addition, they compared
WUSt documents with those of other German agencies in seven additional
German archives, and with documents in British,.Dutch, Swiss, and
American archives. In this exhaustive analysis, it becomes clear
that the WUSt operated with scrupulous objectivity and therefore
that its documents constitute a valuable new source for the study
of the conduct of war. This carefully documented administrative
history together with its excellent bibliography will therefore
become an important introduction to this extensive archive. The
Wehrmacht-Untersuchungsstelle is at once an interesting history
of an internal agency of the Third Reich and an important archival
and historiographical contribution to the study of the war."
German Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Feb., 1981),
pp. 150-151.
"a well-founded book" Professor
Norman Stone in the Sunday Times, London
"an excellent book" Professor
Christopher Greenwood in The Cambridge Law Journal
"an important book" Professor L.F.E.
Goldie in the American Journal of International Law
Reviews of A
Terrible Revenge new revised edition (Palgrave/Macmillan,
New York) e.leithauser@palgrave.com.
German version Die deutschen Vertriebenen, Leopold
Stocker Verlag/Ares, Graz 2006, stocker-verlag@stocker-verlag.com
"This popularly written but still scholarly
study follows the author's other successful books in the fields
of history and international law [which] were hailed by historians
as well as lawyers as masterpieces of academic craftsmanship. His
book.presents in a nutshell the history of the ethnic German population
which had settled in the early 13th century in large parts of what
is nowadays Eastern Europe." Netherlands International
Law Review
"The author has given the history of these
expulsions a dramatic immediacy through a series of eyewitness accounts
...The remarkable sequel to this recital of inhumanity is that this
displaced population has, in the 50 years since the war, managed
to find a new home in a reunited Germany where nearly 20 percent
of the population is made up of first- or second-generation descendants
of these exiled millions." Army
"Western historians have long averted their
eyes from the stupendous crime authoritatively described by Alfred-Maurice
de Zayas in this grim, essential book. The author has impeccable
credentials for this work: a law degree from Harvard, a doctorate
in history at Göttingen, mastery of five languages. He has
worked in foreign archives and interviewed many survivors for this
book, his fourth. For many years he has been a senior legal adviser
on human rights to an international organization in Switzerland...
The author conservatively takes the lowest available estimate of
the deaths: over two million people died in the expulsions...."
Ottawa Citizen
"De Zayas, a lawyer, historian and human rights
expert specializing in refugees and minorities, has uncovered testimony
in German and American archives detailing these atrocities, adding
a new chapter to the annals of human cruelty. His carefully documented
book serves as a reminder that many different peoples have been
subjected to ethnic cleansing." Publishers Weekly
"In stark and gruesome detail, Mr. de Zayas
presents the personal testimony of literally dozens upon dozens
of these German victims during those years of expulsion. Soviet
soldiers were given carte blanche to rape and plunder tens of thousands
of people. In their thirst for revenge, Soviet troops gang-raped
women over and over ... Though the American government did not overtly
endorse the brutalities that accompanied the expulsions of the Germans,
support for the deportation of these millions of people was laid
down as official U.S. policy while the war was still in progress."
Freedom Daily. The Future of Freedom Foundation
(http://www.fff.org/freedom/0795f.asp)
"Fast ein Klassiker" Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung
Reviews of Heimatrecht ist Menschenrecht
(Universitas Verlag, Munich 2001, g.koralus@herbig.net):
"The central thesis of this unique and timely
book is that the right to one's homeland belongs to the most fundamental
human rights, since its observance by state and non-state actors
is a prerequisite for the enjoyment of most other human rights.
Indeed, human rights are not exercised in a vacuum, but in a concrete
geographical and temporal context, which is most frequently the
place where one was born, where one's historical and cultural links
lie. The denial of the right to live in one's homneland by mass
expulsion or ethnic cleansing entails not only the obvious violation
of the right to self-determination, which is considered by many
international legal experts as jus cogens, but a breach
of most civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights."
Netherlands International Law Review
"De Zayas hat deutlich weiter an Reife
gewonnen. Das Recht auf Heimat sei ein wesentliches Merkmal der
Zivilisation ...im thematischen Vergleich zu seinem bisherigen vorwiegend
Sachverhalte feststellenden Werk, wird de Zayas jetzt zwar ebenso
unbequem, aber nunmehr wölkerrechtlich bahnbrechend, ja visionär."
Neue Zeitschrift für Wehrrecht, 2002, Heft 1
Honours and Awards:
1980 Ehrengabe zum Georg Dehio-Preis für Geschichte
(Künstlergilde), Esslingen
1985 Human Rights Award of the Danube Swabian Society of the United
States and Canada
1996 VDA Cultural Award, Weimar
1997 Plakette for the Right to Self-Determination, Berlin
1998 Humanitas Award of the Ost-West Kulturwerk, Frankfurt a.M.
2001 Dr. Walter-Eckhardt-Ehrengabe für Zeitgeschichtsforschung
für das Buch Heimatrecht ist Menschenrecht, Ingolstadt
2002 Cultural Award of the Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen, Leipzig
2003 Scholarly Achievement Award of the Armenian National Committee
of America, Los Angeles
2004 elected to the Conseil Scientifique of the Académie
internationale du droit constitutionnel
2004 Human Rights Award of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft,
Munich
2007 Human Rights Award of the Volksgruppe der Donauschwaben, Stuttgart
Links
to my work on other sites
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