The Bill Richardson who announced a repeal of the death penalty in New Mexico on Wednesday was not the same Bill Richardson who usually shows up for face time with the news media.
The Richardson who usually hosts the media goes out of his way to convince you of the rightness of his decision. He is confident, bigger than life and even becomes jocular at times; he is a master of the room.
The Richardson who sat before a phalanx of news media Wednesday was anything but. At moments he appeared still to be working out the issue in his head and doubt occasionally crept in to darken his face.
Are there people who deserve the death penalty? Is it right for the state to execute a killer? What about the flaws in the system? And what of the United States’ general approval of the death penalty when compared to most Western democracies?
As a human rights advocate, I do not condone violence, even upon those that by virtue of their crimes, deserve some punishment. However, this is a thorny issue, especially to the family and friends of the victims. Who will explain to them their loss will not be avenged? That the perpetrators deserve the right to live, when they grossly violated the life and dignity of others? Gov. Richardson was sensitive about this.
Though some law enforcement agents do not approve of the decision, Gov. Richardson does rightly argue minorities are over-represented in the prison population and on death row, and said the U.S. is out of step with most Western democracies, including those in the European Union, that ban capital punishment.
From a couple of days ago, but definitely worth posting. Via the Washington Post:
The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration’s treatment of al-Qaeda captives “constituted torture,” a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document.
[...]The findings were based on an investigation by ICRC officials, who were granted exclusive access to the CIA’s “high-value” detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning.
At least five copies of the report were shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007 but barred from public release by ICRC guidelines intended to preserve the humanitarian group’s strict policy of neutrality in conflicts. A copy of the report was obtained by Mark Danner, a journalism professor and author who published extensive excerpts in the April 9 edition of the New York Review of Books, released yesterday. He did not say how he obtained the report.
Mark Danner has been all over this – the excerpts are a must-read for all human rights advocates. Here is an interview of him with Rachel Maddow:
By all means, this is not breaking news for human rights advocates. Salon thoroughly documented a harrowing 3 months of detainee abuse in the Abu Ghraib files. All of us had to fight with the mainstream media and the loyal Bushies, the latter’s ferocity reaching Holocaust-denial levels, even when shown pictures of actual people being tortured. What is significant about the IRCC describing torture, besides the obvious? By international law, anything documented by the IRCC cannot be used in court. Its findings are not available to the general public, and they prefer to engage states directly by engaging in low-key, direct negotiations to both document treatment to prisoners of war and lobby for their improvement. That’s how they obtain such high-level access.
In other words: we’ve got the evidence, who will be brave enough to pursue justice through the legal system?
What: A training day for all women and girls (high school-age and over) focused on how to be: AFemale Condom Advocate and Involved inSex Education Activism!
Sponsored by: Chicago Women’s AIDS Project (CWAP), Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH), PEARLS, and Global Girls!!!
At AMSA’s national convention in Washington, DC this last weekend, international aid hero Paul Farmer gave the keynote address to hundreds of enthusiastic medical students. Dr. Farmer, a Harvard professor, is famous for his ground breaking work on tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in Haiti, Russia and in Africa. In his hour long time with AMSA he encouraged medical students to continue to work for human rights and improved medical care for the poor. Dr. Farmer encouraged students to demand more from government, in terms of aid and commitment to development and global health. He was taking the place of Dr. Jim Kim, a fellow Harvard professor, who was recently named the 17th president of Dartmouth College.
You can learn more about Dr. Farmer by reading the biography, Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder.
The pontiff reiterated the Vatican’s policy on condom use as he flew from Rome to Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, CNN Vatican analyst John Allen said.
Pope Benedict has always made it clear he intends to uphold the traditional Catholic teaching on artificial contraception — a “clear moral prohibition” — Allen said. But his remarks Tuesday were among the first times he stated the policy explicitly since he became pope nearly four years ago.
He has, however, assembled a panel of scientists and theologians to consider the narrow question of whether to allow condoms for married couples, one of whom has HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Unbelievable. I understand, and respect, the argument about not using contraception for birth control, save for abstinence. However, assembling a debate to “consider whether to allow condoms for married couples is a bit difficult for me to understand. There are a myriad of ethical questions, but the thought of a married couple who know their partner has HIV/AIDS, and are sexually active, NOT using condoms based on a religious notion seems like a throwback to the Dark Ages.
At the 59th annual AMSA National Convention, hundreds of medical students rallied at Capitol Hill. They then broke off into teams to meet with legislators and their aides to discuss strengthening the National Health Service Corps and supporting efforts to increase the number of health workers in low income countries.
(From left to right: Julio Bracero, Susan Lewis, Jennifer Weinberg, Hana Akselrod, and Paul Johnson)
We certainly had a great time at convention! Each of us has a different background, yet we share the same passion for global health & human rights. In case you are wondering about the colorful background, the picture was taken at the groovy and most excellent Jaleo restaurant in Crystal City, Virginia.
Of course, the GP editors were very active and visible at the convention. There are plenty of pictures, but here is a nice one:
Julio Bracero and Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan).
Speaking of Access to Essential Medicines, a very cool student group (ok I am biased as an active member) is in the midst of an active campaign encouraging our Universities to adopt Global Access Licensing policy. (ie, insert global access language into technology transfer policy, which would affect the way patented medicines and related technologies developed at Universities are licensed to industry). As locuses of innovation, especially for HIV/AIDS drugs and vaccines, this would have an enormous impact. The Global Access to Medicines Day is coming up on March 30th, so visit the UAEM website today to learn more about the UAEM campaign and to find out how you can become involved! http://www.essentialmedicine.org/
And stay tuned for a UAEM/AMSA PharmFree partnership coming to fruition this year…
I had the pleasure of attending AMSA’s 59th Annual Convention this past weekend with some of my fellow Global Pulse editors.On Saturday, convention attendees had the opportunity to learn about the link between global access to essential medicine and domestic efforts to limit the pharmaceutical industry’s influence in health care. The talk centered around a discussion of the issues contributing to the fact that around 10 million people in developing nations around the globe die each year due to a lack of access to existing vaccinations and medicines. This health crisis is influenced by the pharmaceutical industry’s common refusal to permit impoverished countries from manufacturing generic versions of life-saving brand-name medicines.
Sarah Rimmington of Essential Action (http://www.essentialaction.org/access/) spoke about global access to medicines, stressing the importance of introducing generic competition to the market as a means of driving down prices of essential drugs. The success of this strategy is evident in the case of HIV/AIDS medicines, which cost around $10,000-15,000 per patient per year around 10 years ago compared to approximately $90-130 per patient per year today with the introduction of generic medicines for developing nations, a 98% reduction in price of these life-saving medications. Several resolutions address this balance between adequate global access and innovation and development of new medications. For example, The World Trade Organization’s 1995 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) requireed all member countries to adopt U.S.-style patent rules for all products, including medicines. The 2001 Doha Declaration clarified that TRIPS should be interpreted to support the obligation to protect public health and promote access to medicines. The Doha Declaration affirms that WTO members may utilize the flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement “to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all,” including the issuance of compulsory licenses. Compulsory licenses authorize price-lowering generic competition for products on patent.
Despite this declaration, the US administration has unfortunately not respected the spirit of this effort in several ways. For example, the US continues to negotiate intellectual property provisions in bilateral trade agreements leading to restrictions on the use of TRIPS flexibilities. Additionally, the US has employed threat tactics against countries using the flexibilities. A prominent example of this threat technique appeared in 2007 when the US Trade Representative placed Thailand on the Special 301 Priority Watch list, citing Thailand’s lawful issuance of compulsory licenses for two vital HIV/AIDS medicines and a heart disease drug. Special 301 is an annual review of trading partners’ intellectual property rules, highlighting nations judged to provide inadequate protection for patents, copyright, trademarks, and other forms of intellectual property. Similarly, the US Trade Representative placed Brazil on the Special 301 Priority Watch list due to their consideration of a lawful compulsory license to address the countries HIV/AIDs crisis (which it has since issued).
Efforts like Brazil and Thailand’s actions are supported by UNAIDS, Doctors Without Borders, President Clinton and many other public health and international development experts as well as the American people. A nationwide June 2007 poll of 2246 adults conducted by the Wall Street Journal-Harris Interactive showed 61% of Americans supported the use of compulsory licensing if it enabled developing countries to treat more patients, with only 20% opposed to such actions.
For those of us interested in the health care rights of excluded groups in the US, I wanted to share some thoughts from Friday’s presentation by Clarissa Martinez de Castro of the National Council of La Raza, on the inclusion of immigrants in the ongoing health care reform efforts.
Children of immigrants in the US are eligible for health coverage under current state laws and policies. However, many parents are unaware of this and are fearful of seeking medical care for their children. Furthermore, under previous policies, children and pregnant women who had been in the US for less than 5 years were excluded from these programs. The recent reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is an important step forward, extending coverage to over 4 million children of working immigrants and doing away with the 5-year waiting period.
However, much work remains to be done in promoting the health rights of all immigrants and new American residents. Some of the themes behind the persistent disparities in health care for Hispanics and immigrants in the US are lack of health insurance; lack of access to health services; shortage of health services and information in Spanish; and discrimination and fear of the system.
The NCLR poses the following criteria for judging new health care reform legislation: inclusivity of all of the nation’s residents; equity in employer-based coverage requirements and quality of care; affordability; access; and respect for Latinos and other immigrants.
