Corporations are persons... unless it's inconvenient for them

Basically, they get most of the rights of personhood, but don't get some key responsibilities:

Companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Nigerian unit aren’t subject to U.S. lawsuits by foreigners seeking damages for human rights violations, a federal appeals court in New York ruled.

A panel of the court ruled 2-1 today that the Alien Tort Statute gives U.S. courts jurisdiction over alleged violations of international law by individuals only, not by corporations.

The decision dismisses claims by a group of Nigerians that Shell aided in the torture and murder of dissidents in Nigeria in the 1990s, including the playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa.

“The principle of individual liability for violations of international law has been limited to natural persons -- not ‘juridical’ persons such as corporations -- because the moral responsibility for a crime so heinous and unbounded as to rise to the level of an ‘international crime’ has rested solely with the individual men and women who have perpetrated it,” Judge Jose Cabranes wrote on behalf of the two-judge majority.

Cabranes said that the Alien Tort Statute, enacted in 1789, allows U.S. courts to hear death and injury claims by non-U.S. citizens connected to violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

From Bloomberg. There's also a separate, partly dissenting opinion:

“The majority opinion deals a substantial blow to international law and its undertaking to protect fundamental human rights,” he wrote. “According to the rule my colleagues have created, one who earns profits by commercial exploitation of abuse of fundamental human rights can successfully shield those profits from victims’ claims for compensation simply by taking the precaution of conducting the heinous operation in the corporate form.”

He agreed that the case should be dismissed, saying the plaintiffs didn’t properly claim Shell intended to cause the Nigerian government to violate human rights.

Hmm. I can't comment on the strength of the plaintiffs' case, but I agree with the first paragraph; the majority ruling is a travesty.

Canada's growing human rights gap

Amnesty International, no less, is harshly critical of the way human rights are going in this country:

"Amnesty International is more and more concerned about the serious worsening of the human rights approach of this government," Shetty said in a speech to the CIVICUS world assembly on citizen participation.

"There is a real shrinking of democratic spaces in this country. ... Many organizations have lost their funding for raising inconvenient questions," he added.

"You expect more from Canadians. ... I think there is a growing gap between the values and the track record of Canada historically and the actions of the current government, which is deeply concerning."

From the Ottawa Citizen (h/t pogge). How much longer will Canadians stand for this? Do we have no shame? The latest poll would suggest that this is the case...

I can't believe I'm about to defend this guy

A pastor has gotten himself arrested for protesting the mascot of the school's sports teams (the Demons, in case you were wondering). Now to me it sounds like a pretty darn silly thing to protest, but should it be illegal?

A minister who was arrested outside a Georgia high school for disorderly conduct says he was speaking out against the school's evil mascot.

Pastor Donald Crosby told CBS affiliate WMAZ he was "standing up for Jesus" when he was arrested Monday outside the Warner Robins school, and he'd do it again.

Now to be fair, there may be other aspects of the story that weren't reported. But they do report this:

"Officers found the group did not possess a picketing permit," the release says.

"On several occasions, offers asked Crosby to leave the premises. He refused to comply with officers and was arrested. The remaining people dispersed in an orderly fashion," police said.

Now I'm pretty sure that if he'd been harassing people that would have been mentioned in the story. But it seems the only thing they could get him on was the fact that he didn't have a licence to picket. You need a licence to do that in Georgia? What's next -- will you need to get a blogging licence? This goes well beyond the ravings of an overzealous backwoods preacher; it is a matter of putting a serious chill on free speech, and should not be allowed to stand. And if he gets good legal representation, it probably won't; it sounds as unconstitutional as hell.

Edited to add: There's more on the case here. Apparently it's the city of Warner Robins that requires a picketing permit, not the state. And that article also has a photo, which raises yet another question -- would they have bothered him if he were white?

Teabaggers -- the paranoia continues

Exhibit A is Dan Maes, who hopes to be governor of Colorado. He thinks bike share programs are a UN plot:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are "converting Denver into a United Nations community."

"This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor's efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes "that's exactly the attitude they want you to have."

"This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said.

He added: "These aren't just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to."

From the Denver Post. Happily, virtually every comment that I read on that story thought Maes' position to be ridiculous.

Exhibit B is an organization called the Family Research Council (and yes, this is one book that you can judge by its cover). Not surprisingly, they aren't at all happy to hear that their beloved Proposition 8 runs afoul of their supposedly even more beloved Constitution. As Ken at Popehat points out, the judge in the case, Vaughn Walker, is a longtime Republican, appointed by Reagan against the will of liberal Democrats. So when he doesn't do what conservatives think he should do, they have a novel explanation:

It turns out that the Judge behind Proposition 8′s undoing was just biding his time until he could unleash his ultimate agenda: decimating marriages that have defined civilization since the beginning of time.

Straight from the horse's mouth, via the above linked Popehat post. A sinister sleeper agent, presumably put there by Satan, the Communists, the Freemasons, the Elders of Zion, lizards from outer space, or some combination thereof, for the sole purpose of destroying the institution of marriage. I guess it makes sense to somebody...

Water resolution passes at UN

So the resolution to declare water and sanitation to be basic human rights passed at the UN General Assembly. But guess who sat out the vote:

Although the motion passed with 124 countries voting in favour of the resolution drafted by Bolivia, Canada was among the 41 nations to abstain on the issue.

Hmm. And why did John McNee (Canada's ambassador to the UN) abstain? Don't know; perhaps it was a compromise between him and the government.

One thing that bothers me about the resolution, though, is this:

The final resolution "Calls upon States and international organizations to provide financial resources, capacity-building and technology transfer, through international assistance and co-operation, in particular to developing countries, in order to scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all."

All of that is very good. Safe, clean, accessible, and affordable drinking water and sanitation should be available to all. But in that list I'd like to have seen the word sustainable.

Speaking of water...

The UN General Assembly is expected to vote shortly on a resolution declaring water to be a basic human right. Sounds like a good idea, no? However, the usual suspects would disagree:

Barlow, former senior adviser on water at the UN and chair of the Council of Canadians citizens group, is optimistic the resolution will pass by majority vote.

However, it appears powerful nations — including Canada — either will not support it or will push for a version that Barlow says would continue to allow water to be bought and sold as a commodity.

“My fear is that the world is going to be divided into North and South — developed and developing nations — and that’s a disaster for the United Nations and for the world,” said Barlow. She was referring to apparent behind-the-scenes opposition by the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Britain and other European countries, as well as Canada.

Now why would this be? Dunno; perhaps some people fear it would limit their ability to sell stuff like this?

US conducted research on torture -- report

Physicians for Human Rights reports that the Bush administration conducted research on "enhanced interrogation techniques" with human subjects:

In the most comprehensive investigation to date of health professionals’ involvement in the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program (EIP), Physicians For Human Rights has uncovered evidence that indicates the Bush administration apparently conducted illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on detainees in CIA custody. The apparent experimentation and research appear to have been performed to provide legal cover for torture, as well as to help justify and shape future procedures and policies governing the use of the “enhanced” interrogation techniques. The PHR report, Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation Program, is the first to provide evidence that CIA medical personnel engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after 9/11, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture.

This evidence indicating apparent research and experimentation on detainees opens the door to potential additional legal liability for the CIA and Bush-era officials. There is no publicly available evidence that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel determined that the alleged experimentation and research performed on detainees was lawful, as it did with the “enhanced” techniques themselves.

Source (h/t escherichiacola at ontd_political). If this is true, it marks, not so much a new level of barbarism for the US, as a return to an old one...

A story from "liberal" California

This is disgusting:

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.

One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes. Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

Source (all emphasis is in the original). Would that happen in Canada? I honestly think not (one of a diminishing number of things for which we can still feel genuine pride in our country). However, we shouldn't be too smug about even this. After all, it's not because we're intrinsically better people, but merely because our constitution is worded in such a way that implies the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation. Were it not for that, I wouldn't be surprised to see abuses like the above in some parts of this country (including some places a few kilometres outside the Perimeter).

What constitutes a rogue state?

Here are two country summaries from Amnesty International's annual international human rights report. The first country:

Attacks on journalists were widespread. Human rights defenders continued to suffer harassment. Prison conditions provoked hunger strikes in facilities across the country. Some significant steps were taken to implement the 2007 law on violence against women but there was a lack of commitment from many of the authorities responsible. Lack of arms control contributed to high levels of violence and public insecurity.

Hmm. Not so hot certainly, but compare it to this:

Thousands of people continued to be detained without trial as terrorism suspects and hundreds more were arrested. In October, the government announced that more than 900 would be brought to trial. Human rights activists and peaceful critics of the government were detained or remained in prison, including prisoners of conscience. Freedom of expression, religion, association and assembly remained tightly restricted. Women continued to face severe discrimination in law and practice. Migrant workers suffered exploitation and abuse with little possibility of redress. Refugees and asylum-seekers were not adequately protected. The administration of justice remained shrouded in secrecy and was summary in nature. Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees were widespread and systematic, and carried out with impunity. Flogging was used widely as a main and additional punishment. The death penalty continued to be used extensively and in a discriminatory manner against migrant workers from developing countries, women and poor people. At least 102 people were executed.

As Stimpson points out, there are additional differences between these countries:

Country A's head of state has won national elections. Country B doesn't hold elections for its leader.

A has no death penalty; B has capital punishment and uses it a lot.

AI's report lists prisoners of conscience in B but not A.

Torture is "widespread" in B but not in A.

So neither country has a stellar human rights record, but B seems far worse than A. And, notably, the way these countries are treated by the Western powers is dramatically different; one is seen as a valuable ally, while the other has been declared an international pariah. And what are these countries?

Country A is Venezuela. Country B is Saudi Arabia. Gee, wonder why such a difference?

Foreign activities bill angers miners

Periodically we hear stories about the activities of Canadian mining companies in the Third World, and it's not a good thing at all. Liberal MP John McKay has introduced a bill to remedy this, and the mining companies are freaking out:

Thursday, a trio of Canada's largest miners will attempt to answer their accusers and argue against a proposed law which they say could devastate their industry and result in the loss of billions of dollars in financing and investment.

Executives from three mining heavyweights – Barrick Gold Corp., (ABX-T 46.240.671.47%) Goldcorp Inc., (G-T 46.520.681.48%) and Kinross Gold Corp. (K-T 21.200.683.31%) – are slated to testify in front of a parliamentary committee examining Liberal MP John McKay's bill, which has passed second reading. In a submission, the gold miners warn Bill C-300 will lead to “frivolous and vexatious claims” against mining firms and will put Canadian companies at a disadvantage against their international competitors.

They claim that the bill, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, would create a potential “exodus” of mining companies leaving Canada.

From the Globe and Mail. I guess respect for the environment and human rights is too much to expect of the mining industry.