What does it take to convince Kim Jong-il to do something the US wants? It takes celebrity attention. Let me explain. Earlier this year, two American journalists from California were imprisoned in North Korea. They had entered the country illegally from China. For this offence, they were sentenced to 12 years hard labour. The US…
There is a strange anomaly in UK law that allows those suspected of genocide and other serious crimes against humanity to remain in the UK with impunity. This arises following the UK ratification of the 1998 Rome Statute which establised the International Criminal Court based in the The Hague and adopted by the UK in the International Criminal Court…
A series of unfortunate events occurred in the United States in the last couple of weeks: a jammed door, an emergency call, a huge misunderstanding, an accusation, an arrest, and some really terrible statements to the press. I am referring, of course, to the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. last month…
Local elections tend to get very little coverage and when they do it is mainly for their implications for the parties nationally. For many electors, it is difficult to find out what the candidates stand for. They may occasionally get a leaflet pushed through the letterbox, if that, but with little opportunity to find out…
Protecting individual privacy is, to my mind, fundamental to a free society. Without privacy and the opportunity to have personal possessions, the state is all powerful. Too often, we allow the public sphere to expand, eroding personal privacy and hence freedom. There is a balance to be drawn between the public and private, between the…
Shortly before the final sitting of the law lords, one of their number – Lord Mance – gave an interview on the move from the Palace of Westminster to the new Supreme Court the other side of Parliament square. You can link to the interview here. In the course of it, he provides an answer…
You can tell when Governments aren’t quite sure of themselves by the way in which they unveil their ideas. Those which they hope will be popular are trailed on the Today programme, and then big statements are made in the Commons, and further spinning goes on with journalists in the lobby afterwards. What tho’ if…
I visited Rwanda just a few months after the horrific slaughter of approximately 800,000 people in 1994. I remember a Rwandan woman with whom I worked showing me a wedding photograph with about 50 guests and pointing hesitantly to a few saying ‘He’s still alive and she’s also still alive..’ She could identify only about five…
Back in the UK to catch up on the news. I’m very pleased the Law Lords have decided to ask the CPS to clarify their position on when they will prosecute a person who assists a suicide. It doesn’t move us very much further forward on the issue of whether a terminally ill individual in the UK…
