Shaking Hands With UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon . . .

Some readers may recall from previous posts the illustrious name "Deva Hupaylo." Here's the person:

Okay, it's only a photo of the person, but it's the best I can do at the moment. Deva is a long-time friend from my Ozark youth who has turned into a world traveler like me. Currently, she lives in The Hague, where she works as the Head of the Industry Verification Branch at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons:

Organisation

for the

Prohibition

of

Chemical Weapons

As one might expect, such a post brings her into that higher sphere of the powers that be, "the archons of this age," with whom she rubs shoulders and shakes hands. Speaking of which, Deva recently had the opportunity to shake hands with this man:

Ban Ki-moon
Wikipedia

Lots of Koreans have shaken the hand of Ban Ki-moon, of course, so some of my local readers might be shrugging a 'so-what' shrug, but this sort of handshake is less common for us folks from the Ozarks. Anyway, the happy event took place at the OPCW during the Third Review Conference and can be glimpsed in this video link at just past 3:00 minutes, specifically at 3:05, when Deva steps forward as the first in line and extends her hand to an approaching Ban Ki-moon, with whom she has the following exchange of words:

"Hello! I'm Deva Hupaylo, Head of the Industry Verification Branch here at the OPCW."

"Ban Ki-moon. Pleased to meet you."

Or so she claims to me in an email yesterday reporting the "she-said-he-said." But I can lip-read, so I know that they actually discussed the finer points of modern Japanese architecture and the political situation in Kiribati, and that he also asked if she would advise him on the best tropical surfing beaches so that he could perfect his goofy foot aerial. I'm not entirely certain what a "goofy foot aerial" is, but if you watch his lips carefully, you can see that he says precisely that.

There might be some skepticism among my readers that Deva and Ban Ki-moon managed to discuss all these things in the five seconds of their interaction, but people at that level of power learn to speak very concisely.

You'll just have to believe me . . .

President Obama at the UN: Free Speech

President Obama
Google Images

I'm behind the curve on this, but I finally had an opportunity to read Obama's UN speech, and I'll just excerpt from the White House transcript what he said on free speech. But first this:

[Violence] is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.

I think this choice of words generally appropriate. Obama speaks not for the US government, but for himself in rejecting the video's message, and I think that's consistent with the American separation of religion and state. With that point out of the way, let's see what he says about free expression:

I know there are some who ask why we don't just ban such a video. And the answer is enshrined in our laws: Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech . . . . [I]n the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs . . . . Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views, even views that we profoundly disagree with. We do not do so because we support hateful speech, but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views . . . may be threatened . . . . [and] because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities . . . . [T]he strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression; it is more speech . . . . I know that not all countries in this body share this particular understanding of the protection of free speech . . . . But in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete. The question, then, is how do we respond? . . . [W]e must agree: There is no speech that justifies mindless violence . . . . In this modern world with modern technologies, for us to respond in that way to hateful speech empowers any individual who engages in such speech to create chaos around the world. We empower the worst of us if that's how we respond.

I can,for the most part, agree with these words. The President defends a fairly vigorous version of free speech after the administration's somewhat faltering initial response a couple of weeks ago, somewhat as the assistant attorney general first faltered on, but later affirmed free expression last summer. Oddly, this is often the case with principles set down in the Constitution. People tend to forget them, falter in response to some difficult situation, but when reminded that Constitutional principles are at stake, they usually rally in support.

One expects the US government to rally with more alacrity on such a fundamental principle as free speech . . . but better late than never.

Philip Bobbitt's Response to Critics?

UN Security Council
Construing the UN Charter
with
Implications for the Charter of Paris
(Image from Wikipedia)

As I noted yesterday, Philip Bobbitt's chapter 10 of Terror and Consent 'appears' to present a response to critics of The Shield of Achilles who argued that he had misconstrued the Peace of Paris as legitimating military intervention for humanitarian reasons.

Recall the words of the "Charter of Paris for a New Europe":

"we renew our pledge to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or from acting in any other manner inconsistent with the principles or purposes of these documents. We recall that non-compliance with obligations under the Charter of the United Nations constitutes a violation of international law." (Page 5, Charter)

I noted that this is no ringing endorsement of intervention but that some ambiguity remains due to an appeal to the UN Charter. Consequently -- or so one might suspect -- on pages 453-454 of Terror and Consent, Bobbitt argues:

Humanitarian intervention would also appear to be a violation of the text of the charter [of the UN] and its notions of opaque sovereignty [i.e., a state's "supreme authority to govern matters within its domestic jurisdiction," among other powers] . . . . Nevertheless, humanitarian intervention has been endorsed by the Security Council. This brings intervention on humanitarian grounds within the custom and practice of the [UN] charter, which has recently come to reflect ideas of translucent sovereignty. On this view, anticipatory intervention can be lawfully undertaken, but only with the [Security] Council's blessing. (Terror and Consent, 453-454)

Does this answer Bobbitt's critics? I'm no lawyer, but I do know that interpretations of constitutions evolve in practice, and I imagine that the same can hold for interpreting a charter.

In reflecting upon Bobbitt's 'answer', I noticed that he doesn't explicitly mention the Peace of Paris in chapter 10 of Terror and Consent. I looked over the chapter twice after reading critics attacks on Bobbitt's construal of the "Charter of Paris for a New Europe," and unless I overlooked an explict reference, then none appears. That absence left me wondering if Bobbitt was consciously responding to critics, so I emailed him and inquired:

Was this chapter a response to your critics concerning the significance of the Peace of Paris?

I received a quite prompt reply, within hours, in fact:

I am at present . . . in Vineyard Haven with only a Blackberry to respond and I wonder if you might wait until I return to NY in mid-week for a proper response?

The short answer to your question is that I do not read the UN Charter, as construed by the Security Council, in the same way as my reviewer and therefore did not think it necessary to defend my claims about the Peace of Paris which, as you know, goes well beyond the Charter of Paris.

The fact that my most recent book appears to buttress my earlier claims is either a lucky fortuity or merely a reflection of a deplorable lack of imagination on my part. I was not consciously responding to the review, only a small part of which I have read.

Many thanks for writing and apologies for the fragmentary nature of my reply.

Bobbitt's reply clarifies one point. He didn't compose the chapter as an intentional response to critics' remarks on his reading of the Peace of Paris. However, it raises other questions for me. By "Peace of Paris," Bobbitt means more than the literal "Charter of Paris for a New Europe," a point that I had missed -- probably because I was relying on the critics for my knowledge of what he argues in his earlier book, The Shield of Achilles. What, precisely, Bobbitt means by "Peace of Paris" is therefore a question that I must answer for myself by reading that earlier book . . . maybe over the winter break. I'm also left wondering about Bobbitt's understanding of the UN Charter since he mentions that he does not read it the same way as his critics. Plus wondering about how he views the UN Security Council's construal of the UN Charter.

Perhaps if Bobbitt has time midweek, we'll hear more about these things.