Crimes Against Humanity: : The Struggle for Global Justice

[matthew gream]

No doubt readers of this forum will be interested in Geoffrey Robertson's 
``Crimes Against Humanity: : The Struggle for Global Justice`` 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0713991976) in which he does 
excellent justice to tracing the origins of human rights and international 
human rights causes, especially as it evolved post nuremburg through the 
UNHRC, The Balkans, General Pinochet, Kosovo, East Timor and The ICC. 
Geoffrey is scathingly critical of the hypocrisy of international diplomacy 
in its failure to uphold agreed upon conventions and fundamental rights for 
individuals. His explanation not only illustrates circumstances as they 
occurred, but he tends to decribe how they should be, in order that "justice 
is seen to be done".

Although there is no mention of cryptography, the insights into geopolitics 
and "the merry-go-round in geneva" illustrate the cogs and lubricants in the 
international framework of legal and diplomatic wangling. Fans of Jack Straw 
will be pleased that he "did the right thing" in the case of Pinochet, and 
my hero Noam Chomsky gets a brief message (his incisive criticisms on 
American foreign policy - and Robertson holds nothing bad in criticising the 
continuing hypocrisy).

Matthew Gream
Brussels, December 2000

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