Panel discussion moderated by McGill law professor Payam Akhavan

For reservations contact Louis-Philippe Jannard: louis-philippe.jannard_at_mhmc.ca

Sponsored by Canadian International Council & Montreal Institute for Genocide & Human Rights Studies

For reservations email Alexandra Buskie: abuskie@alor.concordia.ca

Date/Time: Jan. 17, 3pm

Location: Australian Mission to the United Nations, New York

The budget negotiations are taking place in New York this week as part of the annual meeting of the Hague-based court’s 120 member countries.

Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Italy, which together contribute more than half the court’s funding, have pushed for zero growth in the court’s budget because of the global financial crisis, said the diplomats, who  declined to talk on the record.

The five states are trying to ensure that the “budgetary constraints of all member states are well reflected in the ICC budget,” said a French diplomat.

The International Criminal Court, which investigates war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, had a budget of 103 million euros ($134 million) for 2011, 20 million euros ($26 million) short of what it says it needs for 2012. The court has not received a budget increase for two years. In 2009, its budget allocated funding for 218 prosecution staff, responsible for investigations in four places. In 2011, the same allocation covered investigations in seven places.

Asked what a zero-growth budget would mean in practical terms, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said, “No Cote D’Ivoire. No Libya.” Read the rest of the article as it appeared.

“A masterful feat of original research and reporting, Fighting for Darfur is an authoritative account of the impact of the first sustained citizens’ movement against genocide. With Hamilton’s fierce determination to get beyond self-congratulatory slogans and taken-for-granted assumptions about what is required to save lives at risk, she provides insights that will be invaluable for concerned citizens, human rights advocates and policymakers alike for years and years to come. Essential reading for anyone who wants to help build a better world.”

– Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines

The state court was responding to a request from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had asked whether state law authorizes the sponsors to defend Proposition 8, given that the state itself has declined to defend the initiative.

The sponsors have appealed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which found last year that Proposition 8 violated the equal protection and due process standards of the U.S.   Constitution. Read the rest of the article as it appeared.

The third annual Achebe Colloquium on Africa will be held at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA from 3-4 December, 2011.

The themes of the conference will include: The Arab Spring: Challenges to Democratization and Nation Building; Darfur: Toward sustainable peace; and Southern Sudan: Obstacles facing the world’s newest nation. On Day two the conference continues with a focus on China and its presence in Africa, Zimbabwe and its tethering democracy and Literature and the power of the written word.

The Achebe Colloquium will bring together officials from African governments, the United Nations, US government, the European Union, members of African civil society, international human rights organizations, elections monitoring groups, writers and opinion leaders, and research and policy institutions to deliberate on the importance of sustaining Africa’s fragile democracies.

“Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide“