Category: Foreign Policy
Diplomatic Impunity: Trafficking Women to the United States
by Yuko Narushima | Mar 1, 2013 | Foreign Policy, Legal AffairsNew York City Three Filipina women crowd the kitchen of a New York City apartment, ribbing one another over a bubbling fish stew. The eldest, Dema Ramos, is an exceptional cook and has given up trying to suppress her laughter. This outwardly serious mother of five is forcing sweet dough into the funnel of a […]
Clamping Down on Trafficking of Women
by WS Editors | Mar 1, 2013 | Foreign Policy, PoliticsSince the Government Accountability Office identified weaknesses in the A3 and G5 visa system in 2008, the U.S. government has taken steps to strengthen the program. Consular personnel are required to screen diplomats more closely prior to issuing visas to household staff. When diplomats’ domestic workers apply for A3 and G5, U.S. consular personnel must […]
Learning to Love Torture
by Bonny Tamres-Moore | Feb 1, 2013 | Foreign Policy, National Security“There can be no doubt that torture is illegal. There are no wartime exceptions for torture, nor is there an exception for prisoners or ‘enemy combatants,’ nor is there an exception for ‘enhanced methods,’” lawyer/journalist Scott Horton wrote in Harper’s in 2008. Prohibition of torture is jus cogens (compelling law), a principle of international law […]
The Anti-Torture Lobby
by WS Editors | Feb 1, 2013 | Foreign Policy, Legal Affairs1. Amnesty International Amnesty International is engaged in a campaign to pressure President Obama to close the U.S. prison at Guantánamo. 2. National Religious Campaign Against Torture NRCAT is lobbying the White House and Congress to create an independent commission of inquiry on torture. 3. Open Society Justice Initiative The Justice Initiative has sued Romania […]
American Torturers on Trial, But Not in the United States
by James A. Goldston | Feb 1, 2013 | Foreign Policy, National SecurityAlmost a decade after he was kidnapped and forcibly disappeared by Macedonian officials acting at the behest of the CIA, Khaled El-Masri has finally secured a measure of redress. After years of denial in Skopje (capital of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), stonewalling in Berlin and silence in Washington, the European Court of Human […]