On Friday the Jolie-Pitt Foundation sponsored a session on Darfur at the symposium on International Law and Justice at the nonprofit Council on Foreign Relations. Angelina Jolie was named a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in 2007, which is a great honor. The nonpartisan CFR is considered “the greatest influence on US foreign policy outside the State Department,” according to Wikipedia. Other members include dignitaries and politicians such Jimmy Carter, Condoleezza Rice, Henry Kissinger, John Kerry, and Bill Clinton. At the symposium, Jolie served to introduce speaker Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, who spoke about the ICC’s efforts in Darfur.
Jolie talked about her personal experience in the field and the heartbreaking things she’s witnessed and heard about as a UN Goodwill Ambassador. She said she’s not sure if the ICC is the right way to handle the atrocious human rights abuses that have occurred there, but says that something needs to be done to bring justice to the victims and their families. She ended by saying “No one should have to chose between peace or justice.”
Taking a break from promoting her upcoming movie Changeling, Angelina Jolie hosted a symposium on international law and justice Friday at the Council on Foreign Relations headquarters in New York. “Over the past seven years, I’ve worked with UNHCR and I’ve traveled around the world trying to bring attention to refugees,” she said. “It’s been a remarkable education.”
Jolie, who has visited dozens of war-torn countries around the world, spoke passionately on behalf of the victims she’s met. “I’ve seen refugees return to live among the same people who attacked them,” she said. “They are returning to the same lawlessness that sent them running in the first place. I’ve seen aid workers tear up as they put ladies on a bus and say, ‘I don’t know what we’re sending them back to.'”
Jolie’s remarks personalized the symposium, which featured a discussion by foreign policy experts (including advisers to Senators Barack Obama and John McCain) on the pursuit of justice – using courts, diplomacy, and military action – and its role in international peace. Of particular importance: how to proceed in Darfur and U.S. participation in the International Criminal Court.
“I don’t know if the ICC is the answer. And I don’t know what type of court is, or what it would need to be to make all of us agree and make it strong enough,” Jolie admitted. “But I do know this: No mother who had her children killed in front of her, no young girl sold into slavery, no boy kidnapped and forced to be a child soldier and no young girl like the 3-year-old I met in Sierra Leone, who had her limbs cut off, should be expected to simply forget. No one should have to choose between peace and justice.”
[From People]
On Friday, the Jolie-Pitt foundation and Microsoft announced the formation of KIND, The Kids in Need of Defense Fund, which will provide pro bono legal support for immigrant children working their way through the system. Their aim is to ensure that all unaccompanied immigrant children in major metropolitan areas have a lawyer to represent them by the year 2010. KIND is also supported by donations and by law firms and corporate legal departments throughout the country. It will be based out of Washington, DC.
According to the website for KIND, over 8,000 children a year escape to the US from other countries without parents or guardians. They face an arduous and confusing legal process, are often sent to “prison-like detention facilities,” and are usually deported back to their home countries to face desperate circumstances. Those that are not apprehended often become homeless.
Here is a segment of Angelina’s speech. You can watch the full video on CFR’s website:
Images are screengrabs from the video of Angelina’s speech.
KIND sounds like a wonderful idea and fair play to Microsoft and the JP Foundation for organising it.
This conference sounds very interesting; I hope that some sort of useful strategy or commitment towards international justice comes out of it.
I’m not sure however, what the context of her comments on the ICC was – was this as part of a speech being delivered, or was it part of her introduction to Luis Moreno-Ocampo? If it was as part of the introduction, I think she was wrong to comment somewhat negatively on the ICC at that moment – it could be pre-empting anything he was about to say.
Such comments would have been more appropriate during a separate presentation or any discussion period afterwards along with any comments on possible alternatives.
Mairead, I think her ICC comments are basically a “nice” version of how the ICC is viewed in America – that of a flawed system that rarely, if ever, brings justice to victims of atrocities in any kind of timely fashion.
KIND sounds incredible, but I think the comment “over 8,000 children a year escape to the US from other countries without parents or guardians” is an oversimplification. Some children “escape” – and some are brought here (“forced”) through child trafficking for sexual slavery and 21st century indentured servitude.
I daresay you’re right Kaiser.I just think that if you’re introducing someone you’re introducing them and leave personal comments to either after they speak or a separate part of the conference.
To me, it would be like say, Jenny McCarthy at a autism symposium, introducing an organisation for using ABA as a treatment in autism and saying during her introduction “I don’t know whether ABA is the most effective way of treating autism”. I would think it’s undermining the speaker and would be more appropriate at some other point in the conference.
Again, I’m just confused as to when she made those comments; if they were not said as part of the introduction, then mea culpa, I stand corrected.
As for the numbers of 8000 unaccompanied children seeking asylum per annum. To be honest, if you take anyone under the ages of 16-18 as being children, I think the number is about right – especially if over 2000 are in the system.
Obviously there could be much more, but by being conservative in their estimates they could be trying to manage public hysteria about waves of illegal immigrant children who have absolutely no way of supporting themselves and will require state assistance?
From the ICC website: “The ICC is a court of last resort. It will not act if a case is investigated or prosecuted by a national judicial system unless the national proceedings are not genuine, for example if formal proceedings were undertaken solely to shield a person from criminal responsibility. In addition, the ICC only tries those accused of the gravest crimes.”
Does this essentially mean the ICC only steps in if the person of interest flees and they are not able to be apprehended and tried by the clown courts of the land where the crimes occurred? The very same courts of the governments that allow the crimes to take place to begin with? What are the ‘gravest’ crimes? Is there a sliding scale of cause and effect human brutality and misery I am unaware of?
The leaders of these so-called governments of these nations need to be hauled before international justice, which won’t happen because the UN and the ICC are running on nothing but fumes. At the end of the day, the First World doesn’t give one sh*t about what happens in Africa unless the gold, diamonds, coffee and chocolate stop coming – which it will because the entire continent is in collapse. South Africa has always been the barometer of African economic and political health and stability and it’s disintegrating.
The West, and China, are waiting for Africa to literally implode and then swoop in to gather the spoils. The engineered starvation and tribal warfare has collusion of broader agendas written all over it. Resistance is futile. God help the African people.
Just one more thing I’d like to add on this. Unless you’re creationist, you know that Africa is the cradle of humankind and the mother of us all. What happens to Africa should be of major concern to us all. You will find the greatest *edit: human* genetic diversity on that one continent than anywhere else in the world. It’s astounding when one stops to consider that…
I’m very passionate about Africa. I just don’t know what the hell I can do and it breaks my heart.
Kaiser, agree, AJ is perfectly entitled to say what she did about the ICC. Ineffective and impotent. That’s the trouble, too many people too afraid to tell it like it is so nothing changes.
@Baholicious – very well said. And I agree that it’s beyond tragic.
It’s high profile people speaking out for the disenfranchised, and the victims, probably 10 million more people were exposed to what is happening in Africa today because it will be carried by a thousand sources just because it is Angelina Jolie, so she does genuinely help get the message out to millions of people who would never read the transcript of the ICC meetings. So good for her, using her fame in a positive way.
Thanks Geronimo, and I agree when you said, “That’s the trouble, too many people too afraid to tell it like it is so nothing changes” because two words I hate most in the world are ‘status quo’. Because you know by those two words, somebody is sitting down to a steak and someone else is getting a rifle butt in the face.
I appreciate what Angelina is doing, I do because I know she’s right and she’s coming from the heart. I like her for precisely that fact. However, she’s far away and speaking from a position of safety. That being said, she does need to be careful because she’d be a prime kidnap target because of her high profile and her willingness to go into the middle of crisis. Is no-one (particularly her) thinking from this perspective? Who does she think these people are? This is not a movie set, I know she knows that but still, her willingness to put herself out there is frightening. And ultimately useless. Surely she must know that but the woman has found her calling. I’m by no means being facetious, we’ll be hearing from her as long as God lets her draw breath but I’m waiting for her to get her hands dirty. She’s saying some truthful things, but she is in no way sticking her neck out. I’d be interested to hear her perspective on what’s going on in Israel…same thing with Tibet, ‘ooh, don’t piss off China, Wal-Mart is expanding there’ (which it is). What about Brazil where homeless children are shot down as street vermin because that’s exactly how they are seen? I’m hearing crickets from her on these points.
If we’re fighting a battle for our fellow members in humanity then the lines on maps should be the first thing we ignore as humanists.
The few too many who do stick their neck out and speak up pay a heavy price. Look into a man named Ken Saro-Wiwa who paid the ultimate price:
http://www.remembersarowiwa.com/aboutus.htm
She really is an amzing humanitarian. Brava Angie.
Hi guys, Happy Monday to all. I listened to the video over the weekend, and it is just tragic all around how these refuges are treated. You would think in the 21 st century, atrocities like these would not be happening, and if they did, they would be handled speedily. Angie always seem moved and frustrated by what she sees in her travels.
Isn’t it surprising that there are only 5 comments on an Angie thread, that discusses the good work she is doing? Speaks volumes doesn’t it?
But I am not complaining, as it will give rational people a chance to discuss this event in a civil and intelligent manner.
Baholicious – that’s one of the best comments I’ve read on this or any other site. You’ve absolutely hit the nail on the head.
TBH I think time is running out for Africa if even the best-case scenario for global warming plays out. Much of it will become uninhabitable, through drought or flooding of coastal areas. This could lead to an epidemic of migrants and environmental refugees from here and other vulnerable places like Bangladesh.
Again, I’m not saying AJ shouldn’t have said anything negative about the ICC, which, from what has been said here today, seems to be hamstrung by bureaucracy. I’m just questioning the timing IF she had said it when introducing a speaker.
The ICC has had 5 full years to act and it would seem that it’s time for an interim review. Perhaps widening its remit. It’s difficult to see how that could happen without impacting on the sovereignty of individual states. It’s easy enough to do in the EU, as the member states sign into agreement on things like the European Court of Justice and can impose fines and sanctions on its members. But the individual sovereignty of the member states must be respected.
I don’t know how reform could be achieved – perhaps broadening the scope and forming an international Court of Appeal? Or regional prosecution offices, answerable only to ICC. These could hear cases which have not been tried or where there’s tangible proof of miscarriage of justice has taken place and some sort of levy being placed on the government until agreed sentences have been imposed? (it’d be fun trying Guantanamo and rendition flights under that one, I must say 😉 )
Thanks-you Mairead, I appreciate that tremendous compliment. I do have to say though when one is considering sovereignty of other state, the “I” word comes to mind…and that was allowed to happen.
These things are never beyond control. They are simply allowed to occur.
These are farcical governments we are dealing with. I think rather than kicking along the dead dog that is the ICC we need to rethink and rework the United Nations. It’s not just an organization, it’s a philosophy that’s been hamstrung because it is in direct conflict with the materialist agendas of many governments. It’s now the ultimate puppet organization.
If I could clarify, by the UN I don’t mean the A-holes in that building in NYC, with the flags outside, who sat on their hands when the first faxes of genocide started coming in from Rwanda and the reply for requesting support and permission to open fire was to tell Dallaire ‘No’. By UN I mean the peacekeeping forces there on the ground who did their best with nothing. I’m talking about what the Blue Helmet represents, to people all over the world. They see it as rescue and help which just ends up being helpless. There’s something wrong there.
I think folks, the place to start in lobbying for change is to start with the United Nations. Forget the ICC.
Hold the United Nations accountable and make them do their job. As citizens of member nations we have that right and, indeed, that obligation.
Baholicious,
Hear, Hear.
I remember when I watched the movie “Hotel Rwanda”, I experienced a gamut of emotions, from sadness, to horror and outrage.
That this was allowed to happen, and that the UN was only interested in rescuing a selected few, made me realise that these people who are being persecuted, have stopped being humans in most of the world’s eyes, and are reduced to being just numbers.
Holding the UN accountable is the wise choice, but the majority of people in the world are not interested in Human Rights, and just tune out the many accounts of atrocities. I dont think it is because they are unfeeling, but more likely because there are so many, its kind of “mental fatigue”. Which is why I continue to admire Angie, and the numerous others who continually speak out. Probably, Human Rights violations will strike a cord with the new generation coming up. Unfortunately, it will be too late for millions.
This is a wonderful article about Angie.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-19/shes-actually-smart/
omg – do you all even know what the council on foreign relations (CFR) is??? do a search on youtube of CFR…
ZKGB – what are we explecting the Oracle of YouTube to reveal to us?
That the CFR controls North America’s media or that it’s a Secret Government?Sorry, I threw my tinfoil hat out with me soothers (pacifiers). (I might watch the Art Bell CNN clip though)
EDIT:
Actually, I might be being a bit hard on the non-ovine person. If the CMF is really a tool of the New World Order and Angie is getting involved, perhaps the reign of Princess Z is beginning? 😯
omg – do you all even know what the council on foreign relations (CFR) is???
The latest in a long line of conspiratorial drivel created by stupid people to explain why the world hasn’t stopped to shower them with sunshine, cash, fame and eternal happiness and how they aren’t responsible for the misery and emptiness of their own lives in any fashion ?
Am I close? 😈
Anyone who wants to know what the Council on Foreign Relations is and what they do can go here: http://www.cfr.org.
The CFR is not in any way connected to the U.N.
One of the things I think AJ does well is NOT speak about areas where she has little experience. It is why she speaks about Africa and very few other places.
She is also very cognizant of the arena she is in and checks with others if she has questions about how to proceed. She would not be making the speech she made if it were inappropriate for the location and the circumstances.
http://www.undispatch.com/archives/2008/10/the_case_for_ce.php