This unit examines the concept of war crimes—violations of the rules of proper warfare—and how our modern society has prosecuted individuals who commit them.
The appointment of a woman to the post of Minister of Justice in 2003 under the Presidency of Moo Hyun Roh drew attention to the emergence of women's leadership in Korea. The post of Minister of Justice has long been considered a central position of power in the Korean government. Madame Kum-Sil Kang will discuss the history of women's leadership in Korea, the features and limitations of such leadership, and its broader prospects, based on her experience.
Madame Kang - the first woman appointed Minister of Justice in Korea - initiated reforms within the Ministry to protect the independence and political neutrality of the offices of government prosecutors. She also implemented measures to solicit and reflect the views of different offices within the Ministry that operates Korea's prosecutorial system. Her goals were to improve the efficiency and fairness of prosecutorial proceedings and to improve the protection of individual civil liberties.
Since leaving office, Madame Kang has been chosen to be President Roh's special ambassador on women's human rights in Korea. Madame Kang is deeply interested in human rights issues, particularly those that concern women and people residing in North Korea. She is also committed to increasing government transparency, fighting corruption, improving Korea's education system, and nurturing future leaders.
West Vidalakis Dining Room
Schwab Residential Center
680 Serra Street
Stanford University Campus
Fifty years ago, in April 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia, the country's then-president Sukarno hosted a meeting that became a global icon of anti-colonial solidarity. The 29 African and Asian states represented at that first Bandung Conference swore their support for sovereignty and self-determination. Their priority was on national not individual freedom. The final declaration mentioned human rights. But it ignored the danger that foreign colonialists might be replaced with indigenous dictators. Democracy, corruption, and good governance were issues for the future.
This year in Indonesia, from 18 to 24 April, some 87 delegations, including 40 heads of state or government and more than 100 ministers, celebrated the "golden jubilee" anniversary of the Bandung Conference. In a series of summit, ministerial, and other meetings they sought to "reinvigorate the Bandung spirit" and forge "a new Asian-African strategic partnership" for the 21st century. The week climaxed on 24 April on the same day and in the same hall where the original conferees had launched the "Bandung spirit" of solidarity against imperialism half a century before.
Some of the leaders gathered for the celebration -- Bandung II -- were content to repeat the nationalist pieties of the past, or to redirect them from European colonialism to American unilateralism as the enemy of the day. But the current president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, known as SBY, struck a different note. His theme was not independence but introspection, not sovereignty but self-reform. He gently urged his fellow rulers to replace the old dogma of national liberation with a commitment to "good governance" as the latest and highest priority for developing countries -- in effect, self-reform as the new spirit of Bandung. At that moment, in Blitar, East Java, where he is buried, the nationalist firebrand Sukarno must have rolled in his grave.
"Good governance" did not and will not become the buzzword of Bandung II. The only other speaker who mentioned it, to my knowledge, was Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong. Fewer voices were raised in favor of self-reform than were aimed at American unilateralism. North Korea's Kim Yong Nam was among the latter. So was "Comrade R. G. Mugabe," as Zimbabwe's dictator called himself.
An Iraqi delegate, unable to insert in the ministers' communique a paragraph supporting his country's embattled transition to democracy, told me privately and bitterly, "The spirit of Bandung has not changed at all." In his view, most of the conferees in Bandung II preferred the odious sovereignty of Saddam Hussein to the induced democracy that followed, just as the leaders of the anti-colonial movement had tolerated tyrants in their ranks.
Yet SBY's speech did not fall on wholly deaf ears, and Iraq is not a good test case. More than a few delegates in Bandung supported democracy but opposed democracy-by-invasion. In developing countries, as representative government has spread, so has the desire to make it less corrupt and more effective. Over time, a new Asian-African agenda could give more prominence to democratization, religious moderation, the rule of law -- and honest, accountable governments as means to these ends.
But even if this does not happen, even if SBY's challenge is forgotten, the prestige of successfully hosting Bandung II already has strengthened his otherwise vulnerably "American" position inside a country whose future will help tip the balance of extremism and moderation in the Muslim world.
SBY is John F. Kennedy-esque: tall, handsome, young for a head of state, and able to project a democratic vision for Indonesia. A retired army general, he received American military and civilian training, including a master's in management from Webster University. No president before him has had more American exposure. This background will be in the spotlight when he pays his first presidential visit to the United States at the end of May.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim society, the third-largest democracy, and a tropical archipelago where defenders of the Bush administration are as scarce as snow. Indonesians will appreciate SBY's American experience if it enables him to deal with the world's only superpower in ways that help Indonesia. But if he is seen as too enamored of supposedly "American" values, he will create an opening for his political opponents.
In Bandung on the last day of the commemoration, crowds lined the streets, smiling and waving at the VIPs. Through the closed windows of air-conditioned limos and busses, the VIPs waved back. Compared with the week's grand abstractions -- sovereignty and self-reform -- this third spirit of Bandung was fleeting and local. But unless Asian-African solidarity becomes more than a slogan, or the vision of a better-governed Indonesia comes true, it may have been the most real.
In December 1997, Kim Dae-jung, longtime opposition leader and survivor of multiple assassination attempts, imprisonment, exile and political persecution, was elected the eighth president of the Republic of Korea, marking the first transition of power from the ruling to the opposition party in Korea's modern history. President Kim was immediately faced with an unprecedented financial crisis and strained relations with North Korea. He devoted himself to economic recovery and reform, pulling Korea back from the brink of bankruptcy. In February 1998, he announced his intentions to pursue what he called the "sunshine policy" with North Korea in hopes of encouraging greater discussion and cooperation with Seoul's northern neighbor. In December 2000, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in recognition of his "extraordinary and lifelong works for democracy and human rights in South Korea and East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular," awarded the him the Nobel Peace Prize.
On his first visit to the United States since leaving the presidency, his Excellency Kim Dae-jung, former President of the Republic of Korea and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, delivered a major lecture on inter-Korean relations and the future of the Korean peninsula. The lecture, which took place at Stanford on April 27, was sponsored by APARC's Walter H. Shorenstein Forum and the Asia Society.
Please join the Walter H. Shorenstein Forum at the Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Asia Foundation for an evening with His Excellency Kim Dae-jung, Former President of the Republic of Korea and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
In December 1997, Kim Dae-jung, longtime opposition leader and survivor of multiple assassination attempts, imprisonment, exile and political persecution, was elected the eighth president of the Republic of Korea, marking the first transition of power from the ruling to the opposition party in Korea's modern history. President Kim was immediately faced with an unprecedented financial crisis and strained relations with North Korea. He devoted himself to economic recovery and reform, pulling Korea back from the brink of bankruptcy. In February 1998, he announced his intentions to pursue what he called the "sunshine policy" with North Korea in hopes of encouraging greater discussion and cooperation with Seoul's northern neighbor. In December 2000, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in recognition of his "extraordinary and lifelong works for democracy and human rights in South Korea and East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular," awarded the him the Nobel Peace Prize.
On his first visit to the United States since leaving the presidency, Kim Dae-jung will address the challenges for the Republic of Korea in its continued engagement with North Korea and future of the Korean Peninsula.
Stanford Faculty Club
439 Lagunita Drive
Stanford, CA
Since the beginning of President Chen Shui-bian's second term in 2004, there has been great controversy about plans to rewrite or revise the national constitution and what that new constitution should include. Although it is largely seen as a declaration of Taiwanese sovereignty, one important area of constitutional reform concerns human rights for the 450,000 Aboriginal people of Austronesian descent on the island and their communities.
In the summer of 2004, a series of public consultations were held at the Indigenous Peoples Council in Taipei to debate how indigenous rights should be incorporated into the new constitution. After a long process of debate in Taiwan, as well as studies of similar cases in Canada, Latin America, New Zealand and elsewhere, a series of clauses on indigenous rights were drafted and submitted for deliberation at higher levels. These included demands on such issues as return of traditional lands, regional autonomy, and increased representation in the central government.
Professor Simon will discuss the relationship between the indigenous social movement and the Taiwan Independence Movement. How do there interest merge; and where do they differ? What does aboriginality mean for the evolving Taiwanese national identity?
Philippines Conference Room
Poverty reduction on a large scale depends on empowering those who are most motivated to move out of poverty - poor people themselves. But if empowerment cannot be measured, it will not be taken seriously in development policy making and programming.
Building on the award-winning Empowerment and Poverty Reduction sourcebook, this volume outlines a conceptual framework that can be used to monitor and evaluate programs centered on empowerment approaches. It presents the perspectives of 27 distinguished researchers and practitioners in economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and demography, all of whom are grappling in different ways with the challenge of measuring empowerment. The authors draw from their research and experiences at different levels, from households to communities to nations, in various regions of the world.
Measuring Empowerment is an invaluable resource for planners, practitioners, evaluators, and students?indeed for all who are interested in approaches to poverty reduction that address issues of inequitable power relations.
When the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami struck Asia and East Africa on December 26, Indonesia took a devastating hit. More than 100,000 people died and another 500,000 were left homeless, with some experts predicting that the final death toll may rise above 250,000. Aceh province on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, where the Free Aceh Movement rebel forces have been fighting against the Indonesian Defense Forces for almost 30 years, was at the center of the destruction. Donald Emmerson, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for International Studies and director of its Southeast Asia Forum, is an Indonesia specialist who has been traveling to Aceh since the late 1960s. He's finishing a book entitled What is Indonesia? Identity, Calamity, Democracy.
STANFORD: What do we need to know about Aceh province?
That it's a wonderful place, that the people have a tradition of hospitality, and that they share with you what they have. It's very sad that it has been subject to so much violence and conflict for so many years.
What's been happening in recent times?
Since May 2003, Aceh has been virtually off-limits to foreigners. The [military] reasoning is that it's for security reasons, but there's always been a suspicion that it's also because bad things -- horrible things, killings and so forth -- are done in the dark, and they don't want people to watch. Certainly the human rights community has had great difficulty getting access to Aceh.
What could happen as a result of some 1,000 representatives of aid organizations being on the ground there?
The opening of Aceh to foreign and domestic humanitarian aid workers has the potential to introduce elements that can serve as a check on human rights abuses. Obviously, the time for mourning is not over. But if we can insert a silver lining in this very dark cloud, it might be that the devastation of the tsunami opens up an opportunity to rebuild much of Aceh, and that it will require cooperation among all Acehnese. I am cautiously optimistic about the opening that this catastrophe represents for trying to lessen the man-made pain of the Acehnese people.
What might a rebuilt Aceh look like?
The plan is to take villages that were destroyed, and maybe even the town of Meulaboh on the west coast, which was the worst hit, and move them inland a certain number of kilometers. Then, construct mangrove swamps as barriers against a repetition of the tsunami, and also to protect the soil from erosion and generate the possibility of brackish-water fishing for the livelihoods of the people. This is a massive effort that is going to last for years and years. Authorities have estimated that the rebuilding costs in Aceh could run to $2.2 billion.
Fishing villages would no longer exist on the coast?
I spent nine months in fishing villages in East Java, and I found that the relationship of the populations on the coast to the ocean is not necessarily what one would expect. They are not happy bathers on the beach, fishing is an extremely dangerous operation, and the ocean is considered a wild place.
Many fishing communities are overfishing the source. I wrote a long report for the Ministry of Agriculture's fisheries office, arguing that what Indonesia ought to do was take the money the government was spending to supply nylon fishing nets and higher horsepower outboard motors, and spend it on wives who were involved in craft commodities. The women have commercial skills, and getting microcredit programs for women to set up shops and expand is the future.
How will religion figure in that future?
Aceh is known in Indonesia as "the front porch of Mecca." The Acehnese are almost entirely Muslim. While there's a tendency among Americans to presume that [a Muslim nation] must be fanatic, Indonesia remains an overwhelmingly moderate society. There is a poignant photo, which hasn't been circulated in the U.S. press, of a sign at a depot for humanitarian relief supplies. It reads, "If you try to steal this material, you will be responsible to Allah."
The following is supplemental material that did not appear in the print edition of STANFORD.
What was the overall impact of the tsunami in Indonesia?
I think it's important to keep in mind that each of the affected countries was affected in a somewhat different way. In Sri Lanka, an estimated 70 percent of the coastline of the entire island was affected, so the economic consequences there are going to be more severe than the damage that was done to Indonesia. If you go down the west coast of Sumatra, you will see damage, but the main damage was overwhelmingly concentrated in a single province, Aceh, which represents less than 2 percent of the total population of Indonesia. Aceh got a double-barrel assault -- from the earthquake and the tsunami. The death toll was horrid, with a huge loss of life, but it was concentrated on the coasts.
How does Aceh's history set it apart from the rest of Indonesia?
The first record we have of an Islamic sultanate in what is now Indonesia is a stone carving dated 1297, on the north coast of Aceh. Aceh was closest to the Middle East, and there were Muslim traders who would go short distances, pause, sell, buy and reload. Long-distance Arab-Malay trade finally got to Indonesia, and the logical landfall was Ache.
Then there were tremendous and unequal casualties in the war against the Dutch, who recruited Ambonese troops to fight a colonial war in Aceh in the 19th century. There's a photograph of Dutch troops standing on the dead bodies of Acehese rebels. The Acehnese war lasted a long time, and it was one of the last parts of the archipelago to be fully brought into the colonial orbit.
Aceh has been for some time under a state of military emergency, and an estimated 13,000 have died as a result of the [rebel] war since 1976. But the tsunami has changed all that. Looking at it from a political science point of view, if we don't begin trying to analyze the situation, I'm not sure we can make it better down the road.
What needs to happen?
In a time of crisis what you need is efficiency and effectiveness, and you need somebody to stand up and say, "This is the way things are going to be." But the governor of Aceh is, by all accounts, exceedingly corrupt. He is in Jakarta now, in detention, awaiting trial on corruption charges. So you don't even have an active, sitting provincial government leader to take charge.
The number of members of the provincial administration who died in the tsunami is quite high, and the central government has had to send up 300 replacements from Jakarta. The administration of Aceh has essentially been completely taken over by the central government. This is potentially unhelpful, depending on how sensitive and effective the central government is and how corrupt the atmosphere is within which masses of foreign aid are moving.
The somewhat optimistic scenario is that now Aceh is even more dependent on the central government than it was before, with the need to rebuild substantial portions of its coastline. So a leader of the [freedom] movement [might] look down the road and say, "It's unrealistic for us at this point, with this incredible body blow to our economy, to expect that we can now somehow take over Aceh. We are more dependent than we were before on the central government."
And, conversely, in Jakarta there might be the thinking that since Aceh now so obviously needs support within the republic, "We are in a stronger position, and therefore we can afford to be generous, and to extend concessions, short of independence, that will take advantage of this." The bottom line is that two enemies who were at each other's throats now face a third enemy -- nature.
Are there other voices that should be heard in Aceh?
One of the difficulties of having negotiations between the Acehnese Freedom Movement and the central government is that it tends to exclude other Acehnese views, which is one reason why negotiations that took place previously were not successful. Acehnese society is pretty diverse, and the Acehnese Freedom Movement does not represent all Acehnese, not to mention the Javanese and Indonesians who have migrated into the province, who are university students and [members of] religious communities.
The conflict has lasted for 30 years in its present form, and it has created such enmities that there is no particular mood to compromise. The government has no incentive to reach out, and the Acehnese Freedom Movement remains intransigent. In the long run, those who disagree with a so-called freedom movement are in the shadows and their views tend not to be reported. My hope is that as these voices are allowed to take part in determining the future of Aceh and its political leadership, the polarization will decrease and there will emerge a kind of more moderate center, in favor of autonomy and full rights.
In the 1990s, the United States cut military assistance programs to Indonesia. Is the relationship between the two countries improving?
SBY -- Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono -- is a former military man, but he's identified as relatively clean, and associated with a somewhat more reform-minded element within the military. More than any previous president of Indonesia, he has had exposure to the United States. Certainly this is an opportunity for an improved relationship between Indonesia and the U.S.
Dr. Sarah Mendelson is a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Before joining CSIS in 2001, she taught international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Dr. Mendelson received her B.A. in history from Yale University, and her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. She also earned a certificate from the Harriman Institute.
At CSIS, she manages several projects that explore the links between security and human rights. Her current research includes collaborative work on public opinion surveys of Russian attitudes on democracy, human rights, Chechnya and the military. She directed a collaborative study evaluating the impact of Western democracy assistance to Eastern Europe and Eurasia. In addition, she has served on the staff of the National Democratic Institute's Moscow office, and was a resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has also been a fellow at CISAC and at Princeton University's Center of International Studies.
Dr. Mendelson serves on the steering committee of Human Rights Watch, the editorial board of International Security, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, East 207, Encina Hall
Tonya Putnam has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and received her Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Stanford University in March 2005. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC, but will be moving to the Center on Globalization and Governance at Princeton University for a postdoctoral fellowship next academic year. Her dissertation, Courts Without Borders? The Politics and Law of Extraterritorial Regulation, explores the extraterritorial reach of U.S. federal courts and regulatory institutions, and implications for the development of de facto international regulatory frameworks. Other research areas have included human rights in peace implementation missions, comparative legal responses to the threat of cybercrime and cyberterrorism, risk communication in the context of radiological terrorism (dirty bombs), and obstacles to military reform in Russia.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, East 207, Encina Hall
Tonya L. Putnam (J.D./Ph.D) is a Research Scholar at the Arnold A. Salzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. From 2007 to 2020 she was a member of the Political Science at Columbia University. Tonya’s work engages a variety of topics related to international relations and international law with emphasis on issues related to jurisdiction and jurisdictional overlaps in international regulatory and security matters. She is the author of Courts Without Borders: Law, Politics, and U.S. Extraterritoriality along with several articles in International Organization, International Security, and the Human Rights Review. She is also a member (inactive) of the California State Bar.