The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Makes a Sensible, if Delayed, Decision (Advancing A Free Society) April 3, 2012
Posted by daviddavenport in Policy Articles & Papers.Tags: International Law
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The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced today that it would not pursue an investigation of Israel for “acts committed on the territory of Palestine since 1 July 2002.” This closes off, for now, an attempt by Palestine to draw the Court into its dispute with Israel over alleged war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09.
But there is an even larger story here about whether the relatively young Court (established in 2002) would seek to expand its jurisdiction and play a role in deciding whether Palestine is already a state. To that the answer is “no, for now.”
The Minister of Justice of the Government of Palestine filed a submission with the Court in January, 2009, asking the Court to take jurisdiction of the matter and open an investigation. But the Court’s own rules limit submissions to “States,” so from the beginning the key question was whether Palestine was a state for this purpose.
The Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, seriously entertained the question for three years, following a remarkable prosecutorial process of inviting outside submissions, posting briefs on the Internet, and hosting roundtable arguments in his offices in The Hague. He seemed open to the possibility that the definition of “State” for purposes of the ICC might be different than a “State” in international law generally. He spent three years looking at arguments that Palestine possessed this or that mark of statehood. One sensed that he was under political pressures to open the doors of the Court more widely to take this case.
In the end, the Prosecutor said it was really up to the United Nations to decide what is a “State” and that, so far, Palestine was only treated there as an observer. It thus becomes a political decision for the U.N., rather than a legal decision for an international court, which was surely the right answer all along. The lengthy process for what should have been a straightforward decision reminds us of the dangers of these politicized and expansionist international courts.
To view the article please click on the link: http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/2012/04/03/the-prosecutor-of-the-international-criminal-court-makes-a-sensible-if-delayed-decision/#more-5729
Independent vot… February 29, 2012
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Commentaries.Tags: Presidential Elections
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Independent voters elected President Obama in 2008, and they will decide his reelection in 2012. But a great deal has changed in 4 years.
A recent poll shows Obama’s support among independents is down to 31 percent, from the 52 percent he carried in ’08. And a study shows that in 8 key battleground states, registration among independents is growing by 3-4 percent, so they will be important deciders.
Nearly half of independents say they haven’t made up their minds about Mitt Romney. But if the Republican race and its negative attack ads go on much longer, and then Obama spends heavily defining Romney, it will be tough.
Many independents are disgusted with both parties, so they’re difficult to predict. But in a year of negative campaigning, the effort to reach them will be both ugly and enormously important.
To listen to the audio please click on the link:
Global Governance Hits Sacramento (Advancing a Free Society, Hoover Institution) February 22, 2012
Posted by daviddavenport in Newspaper Columns/Essays.comments closed
If you would like to see how the global governance movement could impact theU.S., look no further thanCalifornia’s capital city,Sacramento. Mayor Kevin Johnson recently received a warning letter aboutSacramento’s drinking water and sanitation—not from a constituent or city councilmember, not even from a legislator across town—from the Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Yes, there is such a person and she believes she has some jurisdiction over you! Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque visitedSacramento“under [her] mandate,” where she met with a community of homeless people. She saw a “lack of access to adequate water and sanitation and adequate housing.” She also found that parks, with their public restrooms, were closed at night, and thatSacramento“criminalizes public urination and/or defecation.” All of this causes her to conclude that international human rights may be violated.
This is one of those classic cases where theU.S.signed, but did not ratify, an international treaty. But one little-known implication of that, under international law, is that the signer agrees not to do anything to defeat the object and purpose of the treaty pending a ratification decision. This is why President Bush “unsigned” the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, which President Clinton had signed but the Senate had not ratified. I think there’s plenty of room to argue here that Sacramento’s sanitation and water problems, while serious, are not defeating the treaty, but then the U.N. Human Rights Commission doesn’t usually worry a lot about possible limits on its jurisdiction.
Apparently it’s time to rewrite those American Government textbooks about federalism. Yes, some issues are still local, some state and some federal. But if you sign one of those treaties the global governance people are forever advancing, local issues can become global in scope. In the end, it seems clearly preferable to take your beating for not signing apparently inconsequential, feel-good treaties, rather than have the U.N. show up to inspect your toilets.
Please click here for a link to Advancing a Free Society: http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/
Courts Overturn Prop. 8 (Townhall.com) February 9, 2012
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Commentaries.comments closed
The 9th Circuit federal court has decided that California’s Proposition 8, which limited marriages to a man and a woman, is unconstitutional. The 2-1 decision, authored by one of the Court’s most liberal judges, says there was no other purpose or effect other than lessening the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians. The dissenting judge said there could have been a rational reason for it, based on procreation and parenting.
The case will surely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, though perhaps first to the full 9th Circuit. No same sex marriages will be performed in the meantime.
So many questions are raised:
- Should 2 federal judges substitute their judgment for the people’s vote?
- Should states or the federal government decide social questions?
- Will other states have to recognize California’s gay marriages?
Only the Supreme Court can now say.
To listen to the audio please click on the link: http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/634418
Urging the FCC to Tune In, Drop Out (Hoover Digest » 2012 no. 1 » Regulation) January 23, 2012
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In announcing recently that the Fairness Doctrine would be wiped off the books, the Federal Communications Commission took one small step into the information age. Characteristically, the commission was decades behind the times, and it left other media regulation still stuck in the industrial age and in serious need of rethinking.
A major problem with government regulation of business is that it is based on markets and technologies as they exist when the rules are imposed. In the case of radio, this body of law has largely been the Radio Act of 1927, the Communications Act of 1934, and the Fairness Doctrine adopted by the FCC in 1949. There were fewer than three thousand radio stations in the country in 1949, compared to the fourteen thousand that ply today’s robust and competitive market.
The Fairness Doctrine required radio stations to air opposing points of view. So, for example, if a radio host or guest favored a particular policy, the station was obligated to air a message against. Perhaps this made some sense when a geographic market had few stations, but today, with satellite radio, Internet radio, and thousands more terrestrial stations, every point of view under the sun can find its way onto the air. For decades, the market itself has provided protection for minority points of view, so the primary question should be why it took government so long to catch up to market realities.
If the Fairness Doctrine were enforced today, there would be no Rush Limbaugh, no Sean Hannity, no talk show hosts with a point of view. Whether you enjoy their programs or not, these radio talkers have rescued and re-energized talk radio. If a listener wants balance or fairness, he or she can simply turn the dial to another station whose talkers have a different point of view. Rather than diversity on every program, there is a diversity of programs and even a variety of distinctive stations and networks—a market that achieves the same fairness goals intended by the outdated Fairness Doctrine.
In the end, like many government regulations, the Fairness Doctrine had become a political football as much as an agency rule. The FCC suspended it during the Reagan years but didn’t take it off the books. Then for years, concerned about the rise of conservative talk radio, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate threatened to put it back in force. Finally it died as part of President Obama’s push to satisfy business that he was seeking to streamline government and eliminate unnecessary regulation. Even now, the moldering regulation doesn’t seem fully dead. Some of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, for instance, have called for reinstating it. Such is the life of federal regulatory schemes.
What federal agencies in general, and the FCC in particular, need to be concerned about is whether federal regulations continue to make sense as markets and technologies develop. In that sense, eliminating the Fairness Doctrine was no better than a baby step into the information age. What about the equal time rule, a kind of companion to the Fairness Doctrine? It requires that if one candidate for an office appears on the broadcast media, other candidates must be given equal time. This rule also is anachronistic and has been so swallowed up in exceptions as to be meaningless. If Donald Trump had run for president, for example, his appearances on The Apprentice might require equal time for other candidates, unless the show were on cable television, which is a meaningless distinction in these days of cable and satellite TV. If a candidate sits down for a few minutes with Letterman or Leno, another exception for “news/interviews” illogically comes into play. Isn’t it time for equal time to go the way of the Fairness Doctrine?
And how about government subsidies and funding for public broadcasting? Again, the support may have made sense when there were only three or four television networks. If there’s a need for public broadcasting’s programs today, shouldn’t they compete for funding and airtime with everyone else? I find little justification for a nearly bankrupt government to spend money on television and radio programming when we live in a 24/7 media cycle. Yet taxpayers continue to provide more than $400 million for public broadcasting, roughly 15–20 percent of its budget, and some executives in that business make more than the president of the United States. Further, it drags the government directly into questions of political content, exemplified by the controversy surrounding commentator Juan Williams and the termination of his contract by National Public Radio. The bipartisan budget deficit commission recommended phasing out taxpayer subsidies to public broadcasting.
So, one cheer for the FCC for burying the Fairness Doctrine. But let’s hold off on three cheers until more work is done to align government policy toward the media with the market realities of the media age in which we live.
Special to the Hoover Digest. Link to the article: http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/105206
Federal-State Tug of War in the Supreme Court (Townhall.com) December 27, 2011
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Commentaries.comments closed
The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided it should review the 9th Circuit Court’s decision that parts of Arizona’s immigration law are unconstitutional. This is both right and hugely important.
We are in the midst of a major tug of war between a growing federal government and the power of the states. And now, having decided to hear both the Constitutional challenge to Obamacare and the attack on Arizona’s immigration law, the Supreme Court is correctly weighing in on two of the biggest federal power grabs in recent years.
At issue in Arizona is whether federal immigration law preempts, in effect, any state action on the matter. Arizona argues persuasively that its law complements federal law and is essential because the feds aren’t controlling the problem.
Both healthcare and immigration are important politically, just months before the election. But they are more important for maintaining state powers under the 10th amendment.
To hear the audio please click here: http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/631941
Obama Turns to Class Warfare (Townhall.com) December 19, 2011
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Commentaries.comments closed
President Obama traveled to Kansas recently to tell Americans that inequality is “the defining issue of our time.” So with a nod to “occupy” protestors, Obama played the class card, calling for tax increases on the wealthy to fund programs for the middle class.
At one level, the President is framing the big issue of the election in his favor—that our economic problem is not government spending and deficits, but income inequality. It may not be the defining issue of our time, but he’d like it to be for his reelection.
He’s also coming down on the wrong side of the long debate in America between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1800s, the French believe in equality and security whereas Americans believe in freedom.
The President says the Republican economic approach is old school, but there’s nothing older or more inappropriate than Obama’s European style socialism and class warfare.
To hear the audio please click here: http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/630301
Public Prayer Does Not “Establish Religion” (Townhall.com) November 28, 2011
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Commentaries.comments closed
For years, clergy have led prayers to open sessions of the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Board of Commissioners in Forsyth County, North Carolina. But according to a federal court, they can’t do that in Forsyth County anymore because it violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment.
The winds of postmodernism and diversity are trying to blow God out of the public square. Cases have challenged “under God” in the pledge of allegiance, “in God we trust” on our money, and now public prayer at county commissioner meetings.
The point of the Establishment clause was to prevent the government from establishing state religions, not to remove God from the public square entirely. Indeed, the Founders said that a free republic requires a virtuous people which, in turn, requires faith.
The case has now been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we should all hope they have a better sense of history and the Constitution.
To listen to the audio please click on the link: http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/629229
The Palestinian End Run (Townhall.com) November 4, 2011
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Commentaries.Tags: International Law
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The Palestinian campaign for statehood marked one more notch towards
Courtesy of Townhall.com
victory when the U.N. cultural arm, UNESCO, voted to admit them to membership. But the win came at a high price—the U.S. will end its financial support, which comprises 22 percent of the agency’s budget.
There is an established and objective test for statehood, which Palestine does not meet. But in recent years, a competing postmodern approach says, if other nations think you are a nation-state and treat you as one, then you must be one.
It is this kind of international legal nonsense that Palestine is pursuing, seeking to get its statehood card punched by every international body and nation it can. The U.S. is right to oppose this end-run by vetoing it in the Security Council, voting against it elsewhere, and declining further funding to bodies that give into it. Otherwise international law reflects little more than the mood of international leaders on a given day.
To listen to the audio please click here: http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/628327
How Free is Your State (Townhall.com) March 13, 2012
Posted by daviddavenport in Radio Commentaries.Tags: Public Policy
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Justice Louis Brandeis wrote about states’ rights in 1932, saying “a single courageous state may serve as a laboratory and try novel social and economic experiments.”
One problem with state experiments today is that federal courts so quickly strike them down, but another problem is illustrated in the Mercatus Center ranking of which states are the most free, noting that large states such as California, New York and New Jersey, all in the bottom 5, use their experimentation to limit freedom. Laws banning transfat, or mandating health insurance or family leave will quickly push a state down the list.
Do you know where your state falls on the freedom scale? If you like freedom, maybe you should move to New Hampshire, South Dakota, Indiana, Idaho or Missouri, all in the top 5.
Take a look yourself at the Mercatus Center website and live free!
To listen to the audio please click on the link: http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/635977