Digest

Digest

Somali Cabinet Votes to Implement Islamic Law

Last Tuesday, the Somali Cabinet voted to introduce a bill that would make Islamic law, also known as Shariah, the basis of Somalia’s legal system. The bill is pending approval by parliament, which is expected to hear it in a matter of days.

In the past two years, fights between insurgents and pro-government forces have led to the deaths of thousands of Somalis. The new bill is an attempt to end insurgent attacks by weakening extreme groups within an increasingly divided Islamic insurgency. Several moderate insurgent groups, including the Islamic Party, have agreed to stop fighting if Shariah is formally introduced.

Although Somalia’s transitional charter recognizes Islam as the basis of Somali law, scholars have argued it is un-Islamic because it is not based on the Quran. Information Minister Farhan Ali Mohamed suggests that if the new bill is passed, the next step would be to bring Somalia’s constitution in line with Muslim principles.

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Digest

U.S. Sends Envoy for North Korea to East Asia

Steven Bosworth, recently named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as special envoy to North Korea, is traveling this week to east Asia. The ambassador will be making stops in Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing and Moscow. He will “consult on next steps to move the Six-Party process forward,” according to Clinton. Bosworth, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, is responsible for a range of issues concerning North Korea, including nuclear and sensitive weapons development and human rights.

The ambassador departs as North Korea is making plans to launch a communications satellite using ballistic missile technology. Experts believe the launch also has military purposes.

Read more about it here.

Digest

UN: Police Deployed in Eastern Congo

On Wednesday, the UN announced that 332 Congolese police officers are being sent to Eastern Congo in order to support Congolese military operations there. Sixty of these police officers will be deployed with the goal of ensuring the safety of approximately 1,200 people who have been constructing a road between the town of Sake and Masisi in Eastern Congo. The construction was halted in late August 2008 due to violence between the National Congres for the Defence of the People (CNDP) and Congolese national troops (FARDC).

The UN Security Council has called for a the UN mission in the Congo, MONUC, to focus on bringing stability to the eastern provinces of the Congo. The UN Special Representative of the Secretary of the Secretary-General stated that although the situation in Eastern Congo has experienced some improvements, “there is still much to be done, particularly in areas of humanitarian action.” In recent months, more than 250,000 civilians have been displaced by militia violence, adding to the 800,000 that were displaced in earlier fighting.

In further attempts to quell the violence, MONUC has overseen the repatriation of approximately 1,380 Rwandans associated with militias and the separation of 900 children from these armed groups.  However, there are still concerns over attacks perpetrated by the Ugandan rebel militia, the Lord’s Resistance Army. 

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Digest

Robotics Revolution Collides With Laws of War

Observers of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have hotly debated the wisdom of using unmanned drone aircraft to carry out military operations.  These debates have taken place within the traditional laws-of-war rubric for assessing tactics and strategy: did the attack accomplish a military objective and did it minimize the risk of civilian casualties?  However, the substitution of machines for men in an ever-increasing number of combat roles means that armies, governments, and legal scholars will have to rethink the laws of war as they apply to robot belligerents.

The trend towards employing more sophisticated machines in larger and larger numbers will only accelerate, writes PW Singer in his new book, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.  The American military has already recognized the myriad benefits of robot warfare, including greater accuracy, reduced risk to personnel, and much more cost-effective operations.  Consequently, the Pentagon plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in developing and deploying machine warriors.  However, as Singer discusses, no concomitant investment in fleshing out the legal ramifications of killing machines exists.  The laws of war do not have a framework established for evaluating the next step in weaponized robot technology – one where the machine has no human controller.  Under the current legal paradigm, in the absence of a person to appear before a tribunal as the responsible actor, mistakes might go unpunished.

Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen in Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong, take some of the first steps toward imagining how robots could make ethical choices.  They examine serious shortcomings in the ability of current choice algorithms to yield predictably good, safe, legal outcomes.  As a result, in the absence of human control, they, along with Singer, advocate restricting the weaponry available to mechanized combatants to nonlethal weaponry only.

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Digest

WTO Director-General Warns Against Protectionism

In a speech given at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy warned that protectionism is a recipe for a global economic slump.  Protectionist measures adopted by even one government, Lamy said, could lead to a domino effect of dire consequences.

Lamy noted in his speech that shrinking world trade in 2009 will adversely affect export dependent jobs in both the developed and developing world.  Because of this, he expected there to be talk in different countries about “protecting domestic jobs.” Lamy warned that adopting protectionist measures could only aggravate the current crisis.  Rather than adopting isolationist trade policies, he suggested countries should instead coordinate their recovery efforts.

Lamy also emphasized the important role the conclusion of the Doha Round would play in reviving the economy, though some academics believe the Doha Round is outdated and should be scrapped.  This argument, Lamy said, ignores both the politics of international trade negotiations and the pressing needs of developing countries.  He finished the speech by noting that while it is important for WTO members to begin thinking about the future, current priorities have to be addressed and resolved first.

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Digest

Russia and US Set to Cooperate on Arms Control

Landing in Europe after her recent tour of Asia, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov last Friday in Geneva. Reflecting the Obama Administration’s new policy of cooperation in international relations, the pair discussed initiating a new nuclear arms control treaty.

Clinton called the project of “highest priority” and predicted significant movement on a supplement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty before the current version expires at the end of the year. “We will do everything to have this agreement reached,” Lavrov added. The agreement will also supplement further nuclear non-proliferation talks already scheduled for 2010.

The diplomatic meeting comes ahead of the April meeting of the G20 nations in London, which will be the first meeting of President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

For more information see here.

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