Tag: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

December 16, 2003

Capture of Saddam Hussein: Pyrrhic Victory?

The “capture” of Saddam Hussein is being hailed as a great victory for President Bush. After all, who needs to worry about the missing weapons of mass destruction or the lack of ties between Hussein and the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, now that we’ve caught the “Butcher of Baghdad”? Bush is likely to… Read more »

October 15, 2003

Bush Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba

In a brazen move to solidify his electoral support among Cuban-Americans in Florida, George W. Bush is gunning for another “regime change.” Last week, Bush announced the formation of a commission to “plan” for a Cuban change in government. No country has the right to change the regime of another. The International Covenant on Civil… Read more »

July 10, 2003

Affirmative Action Counteracts Centuries of Racism

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent momentous affirmative action decisions, the talking heads have railed against “reverse discrimination,” a term that entered our vernacular 25 years ago with the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke opinion. But focusing on equal rights for whites misses the point. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her separate… Read more »

Affirmative Action Counteracts Centuries of Racism

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent momentous affirmative action decisions, the talking heads have railed against “reverse discrimination,” a term that entered our vernacular 25 years ago with the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke opinion. But focusing on equal rights for whites misses the point. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her separate… Read more »

June 11, 2003

Dropping the Ball on Torture: The US Supreme Court Ruling in Chavez vs. Martinez

The use of torture to obtain information from suspects has become an important topic in fighting the war on terror. In December, for example, the Washington Post reported that CIA officials at Bagram air base in Afghanistan used interrogation techniques that could constitute torture. In Chavez v. Martinez, decided May 27, the United States Supreme… Read more »

February 6, 2003

A Double Standard on Torture: The U.S. Should Practice What We Preach

The Bush administration has a double standard on torture and human rights violations as it prosecutes the “war on terror.” While trying to convince the American people in his State of the Union address that war with Iraq is necessary, President George W. Bush marshaled accusations that Saddam Hussein has tortured his people to coerce… Read more »

February 9, 2002

Bush and The Geneva Convention: Begging the Question

In a striking example of double-talk, President George W. Bush has announced that the United States will apply the Geneva Convention to the captured Taliban fighters in Guantanamo, but won’t classify them as prisoners of war. This is like being half pregnant. The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War spells out… Read more »

June 28, 2000

The WTO: A New World Government Dedicated to the Principle That Property Interests Are More Sacred Than Human Rights

What brought more than 50,000 trade unionists, environmentalists, human rights and social justice activists from all over the world into the streets of Seattle in late November and early December of last year to protest the World Trade Organization? They all understood: “Economic globalization is the number one threat to the survival of the natural… Read more »

April 18, 2000

Lethal Law: America Must Follow International Lead, Abolish Death Penalty

“The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg wrote in a 1976 article in the Boston Globe. Echoed by all Western democracies except the United States, Goldberg’s words aptly describe the tragedy promised if… Read more »