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Saturday, January 5, 2013
Book Review - Lawfare
Published by Oxford USA (2012)
Reviewed by John Harrison
Friday, January 4, 2013 at 8:08 AM
The verdict of history depends on who writes it, and the lessons of history depend on who reads it. Contemporary readers will look for the lessons of a 19th century international human rights initiative that involved treaties, international courts, and criminal prosecutions for crimes against humanity, all driven by the human-rights policy and the vast naval power of one pre-eminent state. Professor Jenny Martinez? excellent book, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law, presents the story of Great Britain?s partly successful effort to suppress the Atlantic slave trade while abiding by the limits imposed by international law as it then stood. This brief review will quickly recap some leading features of Professor Martinez? story and then address one of the lessons she suggests can be drawn.
In the early 19th century the British government, responding to strong domestic pressure, undertook to suppress the transatlantic slave trade. Although the Royal Navy dominated ocean travel, Britain faced important legal obstacles. The slave trade was conducted on the high seas by vessels sailing under the protection of other sovereigns and was not itself unlawful. Principles of equal sovereignty, private property, and free navigation meant that seizing a slaver and releasing its human cargo was unlawful and could give rise to personal liability for British naval personnel.
Its great naval power constrained by law, the British government pursued its goal along two tracks. It entered into treaties with other maritime powers that participated in the trade. Those treaties imposed substantial limits on the trade, authorized naval vessels of the parties to enforce the agreements against one another?s merchant ships, and created so-called mixed commissions. The latter were maritime courts, staffed by judges from both parties, that adjudicated captures of alleged slavers. (Criminal jurisdiction was left to the parties? domestic courts.) Britain entered into such treaties with Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands in 1817, and with Brazil in 1826. Spain?s American colonies and Brazil were the main markets for slave imports; Martinez describes the combination of promises, threats, and appeals to shared interests that Britain brought to bear in obtaining Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian legal endorsement of Royal Navy anti-slavery efforts, and a limited amount of active cooperation, from those treaty partners. (France and Britain entered into a treaty in 1831 that provided for mutual search but not mixed commissions.) As she documents, the enforcement program under the treaties had substantial success, though it did not fully eliminate the slave trade.
Absent from that list of treaty partners throughout the period when it mattered most was the United States. President Monroe submitted such a treaty to the Senate in 1824, but the Senate?s consent was given on conditions that Great Britain would not accept, and no treaty was ratified by the United States. Especially interesting to Americans today is that the proposed treaty had no mixed commissions, due to American constitutional scruples. In a mixed commission, foreign judges not appointed by the President of the United States would enforce American municipal law. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams took the position in negotiations with the British that the U.S. Constitution did not allow such an arrangement. His personal view may have been that it did: he and Attorney General William Wirt disagreed on this question in President Monroe?s cabinet deliberations, but Adams either changed his mind or, as an experienced diplomat, was prepared to put aside his private opinions. Only in 1862 was a suppression treaty, this time including mixed commissions, agreed to by the United States and Great Britain. Republican anti-slavery sentiment prevailed over remaining constitutional concerns. (The Senate?s debates on the 1862 treaty were conducted in closed executive session, so we have hardly any official records of views expressed on the constitutional issues.)
Treaties and mixed commissions were a powerful tool, at least when backed by the Royal Navy, but then as now, bilateral agreements did not change customary international law. Great Britain also sought to have the slave trade declared to be piracy by the general consent of nations. That principle, if adopted, would sweep aside all Britain?s difficulties: suspected pirate ships were subject to boarding and inspection, actual pirate ships could be seized and forfeited by any nation, and actual pirates were liable to be tried criminally and executed by any country that captured them. But even as more and more countries forbade the slave trade in their domestic law, entered into treaties for its suppression, and abolished slavery itself, 19th century customary international law did not come to regard the slave trade as piracy.
Over-all, the story was one of real but limited accomplishment. Acting in ways consistent with international law, Great Britain used its military, political, and economic power substantially to reduce the transatlantic slave trade. Martinez tells the story superbly, with detailed accounts of particular episodes, presentation of the available data about the slave trade and its suppression, and incisive discussions of international and United States domestic law. Martinez also does the important work of restoring this story to its important place in the history of international human-rights law and international criminal law.
The unavoidable but difficult question concerns the contemporary applicability of the history. Martinez suggests that international law augmented Britain?s raw power. Britain ?used international law as one important tool for persuading other countries to abandon a widespread and profitable practice.? P. 14. After an initial attempt at unilateral action, ?Britain found it could not rely on its military power alone but instead had to utilize that power in conjunction with cooperative legal action to achieve its goals.? Id. That cooperative legal action consisted of the treaties described above, but ?at critical moments, Britain was forced to deploy its ?hard? powers, as well as its domestic law and courts, to bring reluctant treaty partners back into the legal fold. In short, neither raw coercive power nor international law alone was enough to achieve the abolition of the slave trade.? Pp. 14-15.
One might say instead, not that Britain used international law, but that British efforts to suppress the slave trade were constrained by international law, and that Britain?s decision to act lawfully limited those efforts. There was no legal bar on the slave trade to enforce, and British efforts to create one were unavailing. The slave trade treaties were somewhat effective, but Britain frequently had to pay for what it received, often in hard cash subsidies. Had the slave trade not been protected by international law, those treaties would have been unnecessary and the Royal Navy probably could have all but eliminated that traffic without the involvement of other nations. Maybe the basic international law principle of pacta sunt servanda made it possible for Britain, by binding its treaty partners, to achieve its goal more cheaply than through direct military action, but that is not clear. Under the treaties, governments had to be paid off and limits had to be accepted, and active cooperation seems to have been forthcoming only when the other parties wanted to give it anyway. One plausible interpretation is that through the treaties Great Britain did no more than buy the legal right to protect natural rights. Absent other aspects of international law, it could have done that for free.
It may well be that on balance the international rules that secured sovereignty, free navigation, and private property, were a good thing. Great Britain may have been wise not to cut down all those laws to get at the devil of the slave trade, and instead to work within their constraints. These are difficult questions, as is the question whether the rules of international law were, in a narrower sense, an aid or an obstacle to the accomplishment of this great object.
(John Harrison is a professor of law at the University of Virginia; he served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, United States Department of Justice, and Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser, United States Department of State.)?
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Friday, January 4, 2013
RIMS President John Phelps Outlines Future for RIMS - Risk ...
January marks the changing of the guard for the acting President of the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS). This?morning the RIMS office in New York welcomed John Phelps, the 2013 RIMS President. Phelps is currently the director of business risk solutions for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida and has been a member of RIMS for close to 33 years and served on its board of directors for nine years.
?For far too long, the mention of ?risk? has struck fear in board rooms around the world,? said Phelps. ?As President of RIMS I want to focus on the resources and services that will better equip our members to demonstrate how a more comprehensive understanding of risk can help straighten the path for an organization?s success and exploit the opportunities risk offers every company. I sincerely look forward to the year ahead and to helping our members advance their organization?s risk management capabilities in all business disciplines.?
In the meeting, Phelps stressed that what he sees for the future of RIMS consists of:
- Being a global leader in all aspects of risk management, which aligns with the vision of RIMS
- Helping RIMS members add value to their organizations, which will advance risk management in their organizations and help them connect at the c-suite level, which connects to the RIMS mission
- Bring the next generation of risk management leaders into the fold now, so they can network with risk managers that have lived through the evolution, access the education available to them to enhance their skills and utilize practical resources
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Source: http://www.riskmanagementmonitor.com/rims-president-john-phelps-outlines-future-for-rims/
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Carving depicts stylishly plump princess
A 2,000-year-old relief carved with an image of what appears to be a stylishly overweight princess has been discovered in an "extremely fragile" palace in the ancient city of Mero?, in Sudan, archaeologists say.
At the time the relief was made, Mero? was the center of a kingdom named Kush, its borders stretching as far north as the southern edge of Egypt. It wasn't unusual for queens (sometimes referred to as "Candaces") to rule, facing down the armies of an expanding Rome.
The sandstone relief shows a woman smiling, her hair carefully dressed and an earring on her left ear. She appears to have a second chin and a bit of fat on her neck, something considered stylish, at the time, among royal women from Kush.
Team leader Krzysztof Grzymski presented the relief, among other finds from the palace at Mero?, at an Egyptology symposium held recently at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
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Researchers don't know the identity of the woman being depicted, but based on the artistic style the relief appears to date back around 2,000 years and show someone royal. "It's similar to other images of princesses," Grzymski told LiveScience in an interview. He said that the headdress hasn't survived and it cannot be ruled out that it actually depicts a queen. [ Image Gallery: Amazing Egyptian Discoveries ]
Why royal women in Kush preferred to be depicted overweight is a long-standing mystery. "There is a distinct possibility that the large size of the Candaces represented fertility and maternity," wrote the late Miriam Ma'at-Ka-Re Monges, who was a professor at California State University, Chico, and an expert on Kush, in an article published in The Encyclopedia of Black Studies (Sage Publications, 2005).
An ancient palace
The discovery occurred in 2007 as Grzymski's team was exploring a royal palace in the city, trying to determine its date. The sandstone blocks that made up its foundation were "extremely fragile," according to Grzymski, and the team found that the palace dated to late in the life of Kush's existence. The blocks were re-used in antiquity by the palace's builders and were originally from buildings that stood in earlier times.
When they found the relief it "was loose and falling apart so we just took it out," Grzymski said. It was brought to a museum in Khartoum, Sudan's modern capital, for safekeeping. "There's always a danger of robbers coming and taking (them) out, so many of those decorated blocks were in danger."
They found many other decorated blocks as well, Grzymski said. Because they had been re-used in antiquity the blocks were out of order and presented researchers with a giant jigsaw puzzle.?
"Ideally, I would like to dismantle this whole wall, this foundation wall, and take out the decorated blocks and see if we would be able reconstruct some other structures from which the blocks came," Grzymski told the Toronto audience.
It's one of many, many, tasks that need to be done in the ancient city. "It's considered one of the largest archaeological sites in Africa," Grzymski said of Mero?. "This site will be worked on for 100 years perhaps before it's fully explored."
Grzymski is a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum and the symposium was organized by the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities and the museum's Friends of Ancient Egypt group.
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook? and Google+.
? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50354293/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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Kiki Prottsman: Why American Students Are Trailing in Computer ...
This hypothetical may seem ridiculous, but the truth is that a similar situation is being played out in America today with the subject of computer science. For many, computer science isn't introduced at a k-12 level, so their first exposure comes in an undergraduate classroom, where they're forced to absorb all of the basic building blocks of computational thinking at lightning speed before they can begin to fathom the concept of programming, design or engineering. To add further blows, a handful of students (often boys) will actually have skills in these areas, making the newcomers feel deficient, awkward and behind.
How can we rectify this frustrating situation? It could be as easy as giving formal language to computational thinking concepts beginning in elementary school. Students don't have to be given computers as toddlers in order to start creating a technological foundation. It's not as if we currently go looking for grants to put graphing calculators in the hands of kindergarteners for arithmetic. We start with age appropriate tools, preferably tactile examples, then associate the formal language of math to the skills they're learning. We show them how to count two groups of objects, then have them count the total and call that "addition." Why can't we have them step through sorting blocks from smallest to largest and call that an "algorithm?" Why can't we have them find a solution that works for two different types of problems and call that "abstraction"?
I acknowledge that it's more than the fear of calling curriculum "computer science" that holds us back. Teachers are overwhelmed with the number of subjects that they already have to squeeze into a day. After all, mathematics is required in educational assessments and computer science is not. My challenge to you is to think of the world that our students will be working in, and ask yourself whether we should be preparing our children only for assessments, or if we should be preparing them for life-long success. Computational thinking gives students the skills required to solve problems even when they have never explicitly been taught the answers. It encourages them to think of things in creative ways and helps them to navigate complex situations by breaking them up into manageable pieces. Don't those skills seem fundamental to a successful adult? Isn't it possible that skills like those could help a student raise their scores on all required assessments? I invite educators everywhere to take a challenge of numbers. Feed your kids computer science for one year, with or without machines, and look at the scores that they produce on required exams. Post your results here and we'll have a healthy, hearty discussion.
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Follow Kiki Prottsman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kiki_lee
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Thursday, January 3, 2013
Boost Your Business Success With These Mobile ... - Maynas Eric
In the world of mobile marketing, there are plenty of great resources available to both new and experienced marketing alike. There are many websites, programs, e-guides, books, videos, and other resources available. This set of tips contains some of the best advice for helping a good marketer become a great marketer.
Qr Codes
In order to entice customers and expand your branding, use QR codes. QR codes can help you share coupons, discounts, and other promos. They are easy to capture via a cellphone and easy to use. These codes help you communicate with an increasingly digital audience.
TIP! Use your conventional website to advertise your mobile site. Advertise on your site to easily create more traffic for your apps or mobile site.
Get a good understanding of your audience. It?s important to know what your target audience needs and wants before you waste any money on mobile marketing. Are they more likely to use a mobile phone than a computer? What mobile platform is their cell phone? Knowing as much as possible about your prospective customers will increase your ability to reach them successfully with your marketing message.
When working to develop a mobile marketing strategy, do not leave the people who have older phones out of your plans. Most smart phones can access full websites, but you should still update your mobile website regularly. However, if your website uses Flash, you need to be sure your links only lead to your mobile site.
Do not pester your clientele with pointless messages. Every message you send them should be relevant and useful. A marketing campaign that starts sending out random or useless texts will not be a success. Customers expect to receive information from you, not humorous messages that a close friend might send.
TIP! Spice up your mobile marketing campaigns with interactive elements, such as trivia games or quizzes. A quiz question, when sent to a mobile device, can prompt consumers to provide you with valuable information.
Get yourself short codes that are dedicated as opposed to sharing them. You can actually link it to your brand, the only thing is it?s kinda pricey, $2,000 prices. Before too long, there will be people who can recognize the short code you use. The price is more than justified because it allows you to sidestep costly legal battles. Note that you too can get into trouble if any code sharing company decides to abuse the system.
Mobile Campaign
Offer savings and special offers to customers who sign up for your mobile campaign. Advertise your mobile campaign in your traditional marketing methods such as your social networks and your website. When you convince customers that your mobile campaign will benefit them, subscriptions are sure to follow. Let them know it will be fun and they will be better informed.
TIP! You will have to learn more about mobiles and mobile websites to understand how you can optimize your material for a mobile platform. Head out to a cell phone store.
If you have a social network page for your business, link to it on your main business webpage. Your customers usually will not search for you at random on a social networking site, as much as they will search for you if they realize you are on it.
Almost everyone is familiar with the idea of offering free apps, but not everyone understands just how easy it can be to develop one that meets the needs of your business. Your business could always offer its own special app and really take your mobile marketing to the next level. You have a wide range of features to choose from here.
Although most people these days do use texting as a means of communication, not all of them know what every abbreviation stands for. Using language that they do not understand will only lead to your customer deleting the advertisement quickly, and that is possibly a lost sale.
TIP! Many people access social networks on their mobiles: take advantage of this to promote your products. One way to use social media is to ask your customers to send tweets about your company or a deal located on your website.
Make sure you thoroughly test your mobile website, exactly as you would your regular website. Try viewing from various browsers, and don?t forget to test the display of advertisements on your pages. Mobiles have different web browsers and have different screens or keyboards. Your ads and site may not look the same on one device as they do on another. Your mobile marketing campaign should be tested on all popular devices, to be sure that it looks right on each one.
Especially when it comes to your mobile website, you must remember that less is more. Mobile device screens are small, so droning on and on about a product just to get more keywords in is annoying to readers. Mobile marketing is all about concise advertising.
Be honest with your customers about the service. No one wants to be spammed. Allow them to opt in or out of your service. If using SMS, beware of mobile device notification systems if you?re using SMS improperly. It can feel very intrusive. Ensure that your texting service requires opting in, and make sure your customers know that you won?t send more than a certain number of texts each month. Your customers should respond to your honesty.
TIP! Focus on understanding your customers. You need to know what your customer wants in order to properly market them through mobile formats.
Don?t overdo it on the offers. Somewhere between once a week or once every other week is the optimal time frame for sending promotions. Create a sense of urgency and let your customers know that failure to act may cause them to miss out on a great deal. If people think it?s easy to take advantage of, they won?t take action as fast.
Mobile Marketing
Paying attention to your colleagues and customers, and absorbing their knowledge and wants, will give you a great start to a mobile marketing campaign. Get a good idea of your customers? needs and wants, and make your campaign suit them. Make sure to look at your competition and check out how they are doing their mobile marketing. Try to think about implementing similar tactics to improve your business.
TIP! Mobile marketing messages should be clear and brief. They need to be able to understand and absorb your message in that brief period.
These tips can help you see what mobile marketing is about and how it can help your business. Remember that learning new information is only the first step. The next step is proper application of the knowledge. So keep that in mind, and implement our tips in order to achieve the success you?re looking for.
Join me on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/maynaseric
Source: http://www.maynaseric.com/boost-your-business-success-with-these-mobile-marketing-tips-4
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Baby/Toddler Coupons Round Up As of 01/02!
I'm a supermom of 4 married to my high school sweetheart. I grew up in Ohio where I learned the value of a dollar from the best dad in the world. Over the years I have found my way to paradise here in Naples, FL. I love my family, and spend most of my free time shopping, dining out, finding deals, relaxing with my family, and socializing online. My motto: Let's make saving fun!
Source: http://coupondivas.com/babytoddler-coupons-round-up-as-of-0102
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