Lectures & Seminars

Abstract
During the 2004 presidential election campaign, the successful presidential aspirant, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said that resolving the three decade long separatist conflict in Aceh was one of his priorities. The war had to be ended to prove that Indonesia was indeed a viable state as constituted, that it was able to find political solutions to political problems, and because it needed to demilitarise the state, including reducing the military’s role in business and criminal activities along with its political influence. A political resolution to this war was achieved 11 months after Yudhoyono took office. This political solution incorporated many elements of a previous declaration of ‘special autonomy’ for Aceh, but took them further, particularly around local decision making on local affairs. Despite some problems, to date this peace agreement has held.
Despite at the same time having declared ‘special autonomy’ for Indonesia’s other troubled province of Papua, there has been no similar subsequent political resolution to separatist claims there. Despite a call from the Papuan separatist umbrella organisation for such a resolution, there has been no government expression of interest in doing so. This paper assesses both the parallels and differences between the options for a political resolution in Papua. It then considers possible steps towards a finalisation of claims that address the needs of both the Indonesian government and the indigenous people of Papua, and whether such an approach could be incorporated as a policy position into the 2009 Indonesian elections.

Bruce "Ossie" Oswald is a lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne. Ossie has served in the Regular Australian Army as a legal officer. He has seen operational service in Rwanda, the Former Yugoslavia, East Timor and Iraq. He has provided legal advice and held staff appointments as a legal officer at tactical, operational and strategic levels. During his service in Australia he provided legal advice to the Deployable Joint Force Headquarters, Headquarters Australian Theatre, Strategic Command and Directorate of Operations and International Law. Ossie continues to serve in the Army Reserves as a legal officer. For his service as the Legal Officer for the Australian Service Contingent serving in Rwanda, Ossie was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross (CSC). In 1997 Ossie worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Former Yugoslavia. Ossie is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. His area of research is the use of force by peacekeepers on peace operations.

Gabrielle Simm holds B.A.(hons) and LL.B. (hons) from the University of Melbourne. She also holds an M.A. from Monash University and an LL.M. from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her LL.M. thesis compared the gender guidelines for refugee decision makers in Australia, Canada and the United States. Gabrielle has worked as a government lawyer advising on international law in the Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She also worked as a lawyer, predominantly in refugee and migration law, in the Human Rights and Civil Law section of Victoria Legal Aid. Gabrielle's PhD thesis aims to evaluate the regulation of United Nations peacekeepers in the context of calls to reform the UN.

This seminar wais about reconciliation in societies that have recently experienced genocide or other human rights atrocities. Currently there are international trials ongoing to prosecute those most responsible for these atrocities. Critics argue that criminal trials often make matters worse for achieving reconciliation in these societies. Professor May tried to refute the arguments of these critics of international criminal trials.
Most of Professor May’s time was spent rethinking reconciliation, an under-analysed concept in political and legal philosophy. In this respect Professor May argued that it is not the victims or the perpetrators that are the key, but the bystanders. Robust reconciliation occurs only with the diminishment of the complicity that allows for large-scale atrocities like genocide. Trials, properly conducted, can aid rather that retard this effort.

Larry May is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St Louis and Research Professor of Social Justice at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at ANU.

For more information please see the flyer.

Antonio Donini presented the findings of a major 12-country research project that looks at how communities affected by crisis or conflict perceive and understand the role external aid actors. The research focusses on four key issues: whether humanitarian action is perceived as a universal effort (or not); the impact of terrorism and counterterrorism on humanitarian action; the relationship between humanitarian action and political agendas; and issues related to the security of humanitarian personnel.

The Feinstein International Center strives to improve the lives and livelihoods of communities caught up in complex emergencies, war, and other crises through researching the politics and policy of aiding the vulnerable, on protection and rights in crisis situations, and on the restoration of lives and livelihoods. This research feeds into both its teaching and its long-term partnerships with humanitarian and human rights agencies.

For information on the presentation please see the flyer.

For more information please see the Center's website at: http://fic.tufts.edu/

Peter Walker and Antonio Donini presented an analysis of the future of humanitarianism which is being used to construct a major two year action-research programme, involving a number of transnational humanitarian agencies, helping them think through how their roles and structures must change to remain effective for the future.

The Feinstein International Center strives to improve the lives and livelihoods of communities caught up in complex emergencies, war, and other crises. The Center researches the politics and policy of aiding the vulnerable, on protection and rights in crisis situations, and on the restoration of lives and livelihoods which feeds into both its teaching and its long-term partnerships with humanitarian and human rights agencies.

For information on the presentation please see the flyer.

For more information on the Center please visit their website at: http://fic.tufts.edu/

In this seminar Ms Karagiannakis reflected on the operation of international justice from her knowledge and experiences of the international criminal courts, international fact finding inquiries and the ICJ. She will discuss the effectiveness of these forums, from the perspective of victims’ justice, normative development, peacebuilding and deterrence, to address the question of what works best in international justice.

Ms Karagiannakis is a Barrister who specialises in Human Rights and related areas of law. She has worked as a prosecutor with the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, junior counsel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and most recently acted as a senior legal advisor and investigator to the UN inquiry into the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister.

This Presentation was a case study of Prosecutor v. Krstic, which resulted in the first criminal conviction for genocide in Europe by an international criminal tribunal. It will outline the main evidence and legal arguments presented in that case which lead to the Srebrenica massacre of over 7,000 men and boys, being declared a genocide. This was followed by an explanation of how this case and other evidence of the Srebrenica massacre were subsequently utilised in international civil litigation between sovereign states in the International Court of Justice, to form the basis of the first finding of genocide and state responsibility under the provisions of the Genocide Convention.

Ms Karagiannakis is a Barrister who specialises in Human Rights and related areas of law. She has worked as a prosecutor with the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, junior counsel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and most recently acted as a senior legal advisor and investigator to the UN inquiry into the assassination of the former Lebanese prime Minister.

For more information please see flyer.

Adérito is a PhD student in the Centre for International Governance and Justice at RegNet. He holds a bachelor of law degree from Satya Wacana University in Indonesia and a Master of Law from New York University.

Prior to the Timor-Leste referendum in 1999, Adérito worked for human rights NGOs in Indonesia. He returned to Timor in 1999, actively campaigning for independence and worked for several NGOs in Timor-Leste. In 2001 he was elected to East Timor’s Constituent Assembly and was instrumental in drafting East Timor’s first constitution. He left the Assembly in 2002 to pursue his studies in the US.

From 2003 to 2007 he worked for various national and international NGOs in Timor; as a consultant to the UN; and a law lecturer at Timor’s university. He has been published in the International Journal on Minority and Group Rights; and has written extensively on Timor-Leste and Indonesia for international newspapers including the International Herald Tribune, South China Morning Post, The Jakarta Post and Christian Science Monitor. He is regularly interviewed as a commentator on Timor-Leste by international media such as the ABC, The Age, AFP, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, Democracy Now, Times Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent judicial body with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The ICC has recently embarked on its first prosecution: the trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for crimes allegedly committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Arrest warrants have been issued for individuals in relation to the situation in Darfur, Sudan, and for crimes allegedly committed in Uganda. An investigation into crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic has also commenced. 105 countries are now party to the Court's statute, so recognising its role in the promotion of justice and the rule of law internationally. In this public lecture, the ICC’s first prosecutor, Mr. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, addressed the new system of international criminal justice being spearheaded by the Court.

For more information please see the lecture flyer.

For more information on Mr Moreno-Ocampo please see his biography at the ICC website http://www.icc-cpi.int/otp/otp_bio.html

Mr Moreno-Ocampo's powerpoint presentation from the lecture is available here.

A podcast of the lecture is available at http://info.anu.edu.au/Discover_ANU/News_and_Events/Public_Lectures/_Luis_Ocampo.asp

Professor MacKinnon surveyed the state of women's human rights around the world through asking whether the international legal system is "male," as her prior work showed states are. International law is found to separate public from private, treat dominance as difference, hide coercion behind consent, and treat politics as morality, but at the same time has taken far more significant strides toward substantive equality for women than any national system has. Largely through discussing interventions with which she has been involved, the lecture considered why this is the case, why sexual violence has been so central to women's international advancement, and the potential of international law for women's rights around the world.

For more information please see the lecture flyer.

Malainin is a human rights activist and secretary general of the Saharawi Journalists and Writers Union. He is particularly interested in the topic of rights over natural resources, the UN peace process and standard aspects of this decolonization issue.
Kamal is the Polisario representative in Australia. From the Spanish abbreviation of Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro the Polisario Front is a politico-military organization committed to the liberation of the Saharawi people and to the independence of their territory from Morocco.
Nick is Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law at UNSW and national president of the Australian Western Sahara Association (AWSA).

Western Sahara is Africa's last colony (of Spain), but contrary to an ICJ advisory opinion and the UN Charter and decolonisation principles was invaded by Morocco in 1975. Since then efforts to resolve the matter by letting the people of Western Sahara exercise their right to self-determination through a UN sponsored referendum have failed. The Western Sahara is a copybook example of some of the key things the UN was set up to achieve namely the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the overseeing of the decolonisation processes. Three issues of international human rights law stand out. These are: 1. the right to self-determination, 2. the right to exercise civil and political rights and the obligation of governments to protect the people they govern, even as a result of invasion, and 3. the right of the peoples of non-self-governing territories not to have the natural resources of their countries exploited without their consent.

This seminar discussed these matters and the difficulties in translating the fine statements of principle in treaties and UN resolutions in effective action and outcomes in relation to Western Sahara.

Pdf of the Power Point presentation available.

For more information please visit the AWSA website

Leanne Smith recently returned from two years in  Afghanistan with the UN where she worked as a Human Rights Field Officer with  UNAMA and with OHCHR as an International Legal Adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Foreign  Affairs on human rights treaty reporting.  She was seconded from DFAT where she has worked since 1999, mostly in the International Organisations and Legal Division, also serving as Second Secretary in the Balkans from 2001-2004. Prior to this, Leanne worked with HREOC and the Asia-Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions. She graduated from ANU Law School in 1998.

Augustine SJ Park is a visiting fellow involved with theoretical and empirical research on the role of restorative justice in reintegrating and reconciling child soldiers in post-conflict Sierra Leone.  She recently completed her doctorate in Sociology at York University (Toronto, Canada), and there examined the ways in which increasingly globalised conceptions of childhood inform post-conflict responses to child soldiers in Sierra Leone. 

Pdf of the Power Point presentation available.

Read Augustine's CIGJ Issues Paper Restorative Approaches to Justice: Strategies for Peace in Sierra Leone

In the past two decades there has been a revival of interest in international criminal law. This renaissance has been stimulated by the wars in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and the establishment of the world's first permanent international criminal court. This seminar considered a particular, and perhaps idiosyncratic, project within this field: namely, the attempt to criminalise war itself.

Gerry Simpson is professor in Public International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of Great Powers and Outlaw States (Cambridge, 2004) (awarded the American Society of International Law's annual prize for Pre-eminent Contribution to Creative Legal Scholarship) and is co-editor (with Tim McCormack) of The Law of War Crimes: National and International Approaches. His most recent books were War Crimes Law Volumes I and II (Ashgate, 2005) and he is currently completing two books: Law, War and Crime (Polity, 2006) and Iraq and Just War (ed. Ashgate, 2006).

For more information please visit his LSE or University of Melbourne staff profiles.

Lisa Jones recently returned to Australia after 12 years of political and humanitarian work with the United Nations in a variety of roles and countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Cyprus and New York. From 2002, this work included addressing the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations personnel and partner organizations and developing strategies and practices for prevention and response. Efforts to agree on and implement a system-wide code of conduct and policy for responding to the needs of victims raised a number of human rights issues, as well as strong personal views. The seminar covered the debates that surrounded developing a common code of conduct and victim assistance strategy, including the controversial proposal to introduce mandatory DNA sampling for all United Nations staff.

Audio available.

Dr Rwamasirabo is the current Ambassador of the Republic of Rwanda to Australia with base in Tokyo, Japan.

Soon after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, he was appointed to re-open the main country hospital, Kigali Central Hospital where he worked along with the Australian medical contingent of the UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda). From 1998 to 2004 he became the Rector of the National University of Rwanda and as such he stood to various higher education international executive boards such as the AAU, the AUF, and the ANSTI.

In his presentation he discussed the reconstruction of Rwanda since 1994, and its future aims and development.

Pdf of the powerpoint presentation available.

Archbishop Ncube is a prominent human rights and pro-democracy activist in Zimbabwe, and seeks to improve conditions of Zimbabweans. He received an award in 2003 from Human Rights First, an international human rights organisation, in recognition of his speaking out against torture and confronting the Mugabe government for starving certain regions of Zimbabwe for political reasons.

In this lecture Archbishop Ncube discussed the current political and human rights issues affecting Zimbabwe.

Please see flyer for more information.

Anne Gallagher worked with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1992 to 2002 and was Adviser to Mary Robinson, the High Commissioner, from 1998 to 2002. She is currently Technical Director of ARTIP: an AusAID project that is working with ASEAN and national criminal justice agencies in South-East Asia to strengthen their legal, technical and institutional responses to human trafficking.

Despite its status as one of the very early human rights issues, human trafficking has traditionally been relegated to the outer reaches of international political and legal discourse. Over the past decade, public perception of the nature and seriousness of the problem has changed dramatically Trafficking is now widely recognised as a major revenue earner for organized criminal groups and a source of political, social and economic insecurity for States as well as for individuals.

The seminar explored recent legal and political developments around human trafficking. It focussed particularly on the tensions between human rights and criminal justice responses and the issue of state responsibility. The seminar also touched on the controversy around monitoring and evaluation of individual State performance when it comes to trafficking. And asked should this be the task of international institutions using international standards - or is there a legitimate role for unilateral assessment/sanctions regimes of the kind currently used by the US?

For more information on ARTIP please see the project design document.

UN Peacebuilding Commission and The State of Practice in International Peacebuilding
Dr Elizabeth Cousins, Vice-President of the International Peace Academy & Dr Bruce Jones, Co-Director of the Center for International Cooperation at New York University and a senior adviser to the President of the UN General Assembly
9 February 2006 - 5.30pm

Audio available (RealOne Player is required to download audio)