Archives for October 2017

Episode 169: Farida Nabourema

Farida Nabourema

Farida Nabourema spoke to podcast listeners from an undisclosed location in West Africa, out of fear for her personal safety. Farida is a prominent Togolese activist and these are very tense times in Togo. Several people have been killed in protests in recent months amid a growing opposition movement that is calling for the re-instatement of presidential term limits. These term limits are guaranteed under the Togolese constitution, but nonetheless are being ignored by the regime.

Togo is a small country in west Africa, with a population of about 7.5 million people. It has been ruled for the last 50 years by the same family. Eyadéma Gnassingbé came to power in 1967 and ruled until his death in 2005, whereupon his son, Faure Gnassingbé became president. Faure is ruling to this day and is seeking to undertake some moves of dubious constitutionality that could extend his rule far into the future.

It is in this volatile political environment that Farida is engaging her activism and supporting a movement to enforce president term limits and a return to democracy.

We have a very interesting conversation, not only about Togo, but also about the role of anger in sustaining an opposition movement and also the strategic value of non-violence.  We also discuss how she became an activist, which you will learn was something she very much grew up with.

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How Tunisia Became the Only Real Arab Spring Success Story

Safwan Masri set out with a simple question: of all the countries caught in the turmoil of the Arab Spring, how is it that Tunisia was the only country to successfully replace a long ruling despot with a more or less functioning democracy? His new book Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly takes a deep dive into that question, examining Tunisia’s history, politics and, crucially some decades old educational reforms.

This is a very interesting conversation about both the Arab Spring, and Tunisia’s unique experience. It is the Arab Spring success story–so far at least–and Safwan Masri helps me understand why.

Safwan Masri is Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University.

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Episode 168: Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Beatrice Fihn

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, holds press conference at UN Headquarters, led by Beatrice Fihn (centre), Executive Director of ICAN. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

 

Exactly two weeks to the day before this interview, Beatrice Fihn received a phone call from Norway. It was the Nobel Committee informing her that the NGO she leads, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

The committee cited ICAN, as the NGO is known, for its work to achieve an international treaty against nuclear weapons. The treaty is often compared to the Landmine Ban Treaty and Convention Against Chemical Weapons in that it invokes broadly humanitarian principles to ban what is an inherently indiscriminate weapon. The treaty was finalized in July and has already gained over 50 signatories from governments, with many more expected in the near future.

What does this treaty hope to accomplish? What logic do Beatrice Fihn and her colleagues  use to press their case against countries who include nuclear weapons as part of their national security strategies?  How will winning the Nobel Peace Prize affect her organization’s work? Fihn discusses these questions at length, and explains how campaigning to abolish nuclear weapons takes a kind of fearlessness and disregard for traditional power dynamics.  (And it’s worth pointing out that this is a treaty that is opposed, at least for now, by all nuclear weapons possessing states.)

We also discuss Beatrice Finh’s life and career and how she first became interested in nuclear issues. It’s an inspiring conversation.

We kick off with a discussion about the moment she learned her organization had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

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This Supreme Court Case Could Have a Big Impact on US Foreign Policy

A case that is pending before the Supreme Court of the United States could have profound implications for human rights and corporate social responsibility around the world. The case is called Jesner v. Arab Bank and it is a lawsuit in which the plaintiffs allege that Arab Bank, which is a Jordanian financial institution, facilitated payments to terrorist groups that carried out attacks in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, killing and injuring them.

Under normal circumstances, a case involving foreign victims of a terrorist attack carried out on foreign soil by a foreign group would typically not be the business of the US legal system. But the plaintiffs in this case are pursing damages using a law that has been on the books since the 18th century, called the Alien Tort Statute. According to my guest Dr. Zachary D. Kaufman, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, this statute could influence corporate decision making and even US foreign policy.

Zachary D. Kaufman is a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and teaching at Stanford Law School — he is also, like me, a Humanity in Action Senior Fellow.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn how this court case could change how companies around the world do business, have a listen.

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To access to this podcast episode: subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or get the app to listen later

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Episode 167: Alexis Okeowo

Alexis Okeowo is a staff writer for the New Yorker whose debut book was published earlier this month. The book,  A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa has been getting rave reviews —  rightfully so.

The book tells the story of subtle forms of resistance; how individuals, in their own way, are pushing back against injustice. In doing so, she shines a light on some important though often overlooked global stories, like slavery in the country of Mauritania or the plight of former child soldiers in Uganda.

Alexis traces her interest in these issues to her upbringing as an American born child of Nigerian immigrants to Montgomery, Alabama where Rosa Parks’ act of resistance ignited the Civil Rights movement. Alexis also discusses her career in journalism, including some key stories she reported on like the Chibok School girls kidnapping in 2014.

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These are the Global Implications of Trump’s Blowing Up of the Iran Nuclear Deal

The diplomatic fallout from President Trump’s decision to decertify the Iran Nuclear Dead will be far and wide. As my podcast guest Spencer Ackerman puts it, this action “cannot be cauterized” from any other aspect of American diplomacy.

Ackerman recently wrote about the broader international implications of this action in an article for the Daily Beast. The article shows that even if this move does not result in the re-imposition of US sanctions — which could kill the deal — decertification nonetheless undermines American credibility among its allies and adversaries around the world.

But what does decertification actually mean? And will this action destroy the Iran Nuclear Deal? Ackerman explains these questions and offers his journalistic take on the likely diplomatic fallout from this action.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn about the broader implications of this move by President Trump, have a listen.

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The Central African Republic is facing some serious challenges right now.

Four years ago, the country was on the brink of genocide after the longtime strongman Francois Bozize was ousted in an armed rebellion. The violence quickly turned sectarian with Christian and Muslim militias attacking civilian populations and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. UN Peacekeepers along with French forces deployed to the country and prevented this crisis from spiraling totally out of control. A peace process emerged, a new government was elected and a tenuous peace took hold.

The French forces withdrew last October. Now, about 12,800 UN peacekeepers remain.

In recent months, though, violent conflict started to re-emerge — particularly in more remote parts of the country. The trend-lines now are not as positive as they were a year ago.

This episode on the Central African Republic is in two parts.

I speak with a member of Congress, David Cicilline of Rhode Island.

He visited the country in August as part of a congressional delegation examining the work and role of UN Peacekeepers in the country. He describes what he saw in the country and makes a strong case that the peacekeepers in CAR need far more support than they are currently getting. Congressman Cicilline also discusses UN peacekeeping more broadly and why he believes Blue Helmets are an important pillar of US national security and global stability.

After my conversation with Congressman Cicilline, I play an excerpt from my conversation from last May with the photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale, whose work from the Central African Republic was included in the may issue of National Geographic magazine. Marcus has travelled extensively in CAR and covered the violence in 2013. In the excerpt, we discuss the roots of the conflict — why it emerged and its effect on the population at the time. This includes a conversation of Marcus’ journalism and photos from CAR.

To access to this podcast episode: subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or get the app to listen later

https://www.globaldispatchespodcast.com/5580-2/

What the Kurdish Independence Referendum Means for the Middle East

People in Kurdish region of Iraq have voted overwhelmingly for independence in a popular referendum that took place in late September. No country in the region wanted this referendum to happen — and neither did the United States, with whom the Kurds have been a longtime ally. Soon after the results were announced, the Iraqi government and other countries in the region like Turkey and Iran threatened retaliatory measures.

The implications of this referendum and its fallout are still unfolding. Here to help me make sense of what this referendum was all about and how it may impact the political and diplomatic dynamic of the region is Morgan Kaplan, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies and the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. We discuss why this referendum was so politically significant and how it may affect the future shape of the Middle East.

If you have 20 minutes and want to learn about the broader implications of the Kurdish independence referendum, have a listen.

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Episode 165: Ambassador Keith Harper

When Keith Harper was confirmed as President Obama’s representative to the UN Human Rights Council he became the first American-Indian to achieve the rank of Ambassador. The longtime attorney for native American rights soon put his knowledge of tribal culture to use in Geneva where he represented the United States on the top UN human rights body.

Ambassador Harper is a Cherokee Indian. He was born in San Francisco and from an early age was animated by a civil rights movement known as “Red Power.” After law school he represented a number of Native Americans and Native American causes and this culminated in a multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit against the federal government that he successfully litigated.

We spend this first few minutes of this conversation with a timely discussion the work of the Human Rights Council. The Trump administration is currently deciding whether or not to continue American participation in the council, and Harper makes the case that despite its flaws American interests are better served working with the institution than criticizing it from the outside.

About the Human Rights Council

This is a 47 member body in which each member state is elected by the entire UN membership to three year terms. One of its flaws that critics sometimes identify is that some of the members of the council have pretty lousy human rights records themselves–and this is undoubtedly true. But the reason they get elected to is because the membership of the council is apportioned based on a UN principle known as equitable geographic representation. This means that a certain number of seats are reserved for a certain number of countries in each region. (There are more African countries than there are western European countries so it would stand to reason that Africa gets more seats.) Problem arise when regions negotiate amongst themselves to nominate an equal number of candidates as there are seats so you get uncompetitive elections that result in countries like Burundi getting a seat.

That is one of they key flaws of the council. American officials also consider its undue focus on Israel to be another problematic bug. But despite these flaws, Harper makes a compelling argument for why the United States should nonetheless stay engaged. He also discusses at length some tangible outcomes in the service of human rights that the council achieved while he was the US ambassador there.

If you have 45 minutes and want to learn about how the Human Rights Council work and how a pioneering individual became the first American Indian to become a US Ambassador, have a listen.

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