UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations

IGCC Funding Opportunities for 2012-2013!

Tue, 7 Feb 2012 14:45:43 PDT

The UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation will award funds to graduate students, post-docs and faculty.

IGCC will award funds to graduate students, post-docs, and faculty in several categories. The deadline is March 9, 2012, 5 p.m. PST. Click here to begin or complete an application.

To receive the most up-to-date information about IGCC funding opportunities, sign up for the IGCC Campus Email Alert .

For Students

Applicants may apply for one of the fellowships, not both. Additional restrictions apply to the NSSC fellowship. The review committee reserves the right to change fellowship categories for applicants if they are deemed more suitable for consideration in the other competition.

1. IGCC Dissertation Fellowship

This fellowship offers up to $18,000 in stipend, research, and travel support. These fellowships consist of a nine-month stipend of $15,000 (October to June) to defray living expenses and an additional award of up to $3,000 in justified research and travel support. Doctoral students enrolled in the University of California, including J.D./Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D., and M.D. with thesis, are eligible to apply for the IGCC dissertation fellowship.

Applicants must advance to candidacy by June 30, 2012, to receive funding. U.S. citizenship is not required.

2. International Nuclear Security Dissertation Fellowship

An international nuclear security dissertation fellowship offers up to $20,000 in stipend. These fellowships are funded by the National Nuclear Security Association (NNSA) via the National Science and Security Consortium (NSSC) and consist of a nine-month stipend of $20,000 (October to June) to defray living expenses. Doctoral candidates enrolled in the University of California or at a consortium university (Michigan State University, Washington University, and University of Nevada Las Vegas) including J.D./Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D., and M.D. with thesis, are eligible to apply for the international security dissertation fellowship.

Applicants must be U.S. citizens and must advance to candidacy by June 30, 2012, to receive funding. Additional restrictions apply to this category. Please see the RFP for details.

Download the Dissertation Fellowship RFP and budget examples for Standard Fellowship or NSSC Fellowship

More information about the IGCC 2012–13 Dissertation Fellowship competition

For Faculty and Post Docs

3. IGCC Project Development Grants (5 grants at $25,000 available)

UC faculty is eligible to apply for our Project Development Grants. IGCC seeks to award five grants at $25,000 each for intra-campus or multi-campus long-term project development in areas of interest to IGCC. See research themes in the RFP. These grants can serve as seed money for larger, catalytic research programs or foci that could tie in to IGCC’s long-term institutional interest. They can also be used to fund small conferences, policy briefings or other programmatic activities.

4. NSSC Nuclear Collaborative Research Grants (Pool of $25,000 available)

UC and consortium university faculty and postdoctoral fellows are eligible to apply for our Nuclear Collaborative Research Grants. These grants are funded by the National Nuclear Security Association (NNSA) via the National Science and Security Consortium (NSSC) and are intended to support cross-campus, social science research collaboration on nuclear security. Interdisciplinary science – social science projects are also eligible. These grants can serve as seed money for larger, future research programs. They can also be used to fund research trips or assist in covering other research costs, such as graduate student research support, publication costs, etc.

Applicants must be U.S. Citizens. Consortium universities include Michigan State University, Washington University, and University of Nevada Las Vegas. Additional restrictions apply to this category. Please see the RFP for details.

5. NSSC Nuclear Campus Programming and Educational Project Grants (4 grants at $10,000 each available)

UC and consortium university faculty and postdoctoral fellows are eligible to apply for our Nuclear Campus Programming and Educational Project Grants. These grants are funded by the National Nuclear Security Association (NNSA) via the National Science and Security Consortium (NSSC). Applicants for these grants must apply under theme three only. Examples of such programming include nuclear security public lectures, symposia, or workshops. We encourage applications for programs that are geared toward undergraduates in order to help broaden the pipeline of students preparing for graduate work in nuclear sciences and social sciences.

Applicants must be U.S. Citizens. Consortium universities include Michigan State University, Washington University, and University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Download the Faculty Grant RFP

For more information go to http://igcc.ucsd.edu/support/201213-funding-competition/.

The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West

Tue, 7 Feb 2012 16:13:12 PDT

A talk by Mitchell Silber from the New York City Police Department Intelligence Division about his new book, "The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West." This talk was co-sponsored by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The horrific and devastating events of September 11, 2001 changed the world's perception of Al Qaeda. What had been considered a small band of revolutionary terrorists capable only of attacking Western targets in the Middle East and Africa suddenly had a global resonance, demonstrating an ability to strike with enormous impact. Subsequent plots perpetuated the impression of Al Qaeda as a highly organized and rigidly controlled organization with recruiters, operatives, and sleeper cells in the West who could be activated on command.

Specializing in terrorism at the NYPD, Mitch Silber synthesizes his own expertise in the field and argues that to comprehend the threat posed by the transnational jihad movement, the world must have a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics behind the Al Qaeda plots. Silber closely examines sixteen Al Qaeda associated plots and attacks, ranging from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the present day. Sifting through primary sources and case studies, Silber examines the specifics of Al Qaeda’s role in the inspiration, formation, membership, and organization of terrorist groups. He further identifies potential points of vulnerability, which may potentially expose the West to future terrorist attacks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mitchell Silber serves as the Director of both the NYPD Intelligence Division’s Analytic and Cyber Units. As part of his responsibilities, he supervises the analysis of the portfolio of terrorism related investigations within the Intelligence Division. He has been a member of NYPD for seven years.

Silber is the co-author of the 2007 NYPD report Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat. He has presented on behalf of the NYPD at the White House, National Security Council, CIA, FBI, National Counterterrorism Center and testified before the U.S. Senate. He is a visiting lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) where he teaches a course on Modern Urban Counterterrorism. Silber serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board at SIPA and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of the forthcoming book, the Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West, due for release in December 2011.

Prior to joining the NYPD, Silber completed Columbia University's Masters Program in International Affairs where he specialized in Middle East studies, with a concentration on Saudi Arabia. Before earning his Masters Degree at Columbia, he spent nine years in corporate finance as a partner at The Carson Group and as a principal at Evolution Capital, LLC.

IGCC Public Policy and Nuclear Threats Training Program now accepting applications

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 12:19:44 PDT

The three-week summer workshop in residence at UC San Diego, colloquially known as the PPNT boot camp, aims to give participants the knowledge and analytic tools to contribute to the debate on future U.S. nuclear policy.

The 2012 IGCC Summer "Boot Camp"

August 5–25, 2012

2012 Brochure

Applications DEADLINE MARCH 15, 2012

Graduate Student and Post-Doc Application (.pdf)

Graduate Student and Post-Doc Application (.docx)

Professional and Faculty Application (.pdf)

Professional and Faculty Application (.docx)

The boot camp features lectures, discussions, debates, policy simulations, and on-site visits to nuclear facilities. Participants attend talks by distinguished researchers, academics, policy officials, and operational specialists from the University of California system and other leading universities, the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and federal government agencies dealing with nuclear policy, threat, detection, and safeguard issues.

Topics addressed typically include:

Past and future of civilian nuclear power
Attribution science and nuclear forensics
Deterrence theory
Counterproliferation strategies
U.S. nuclear policy
Nuclear terrorism
Technical and policy issues in the U.S. nuclear stockpile
Safeguards systems, technologies and issues
Nuclear weapon design and delivery systems
Major power nuclear strategies and doctrines
The demand for nuclear proliferation
U.S. National Nuclear Strategy
The international nonproliferation regime
Nuclear proliferation concerns on the Korean Peninsula, Iran, and the Middle East
U.S. deterrence policy

For more information about the program, please contact Laura Martin, or click here to visit the IGCC website.

2012 Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture

Wed, 1 Feb 2012 14:07:32 PDT

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, discusses Daniel Pearl's legacy and freedom of expression in journalism

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker since July 1998, began his reporting career at The Washington Post in 1982. He is the author of several books, including The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, King of the World, Resurrection, and Lenin’s Tomb, for which he received both the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and a George Polk Award for excellence in journalism. He became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1992 and has since written over a hundred pieces for the magazine. Since Remnick became editor, The New Yorker has won thirty National Magazine Awards.

ABOUT THE DANIEL PEARL MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES

In sponsoring the Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture Series, the Burkle Center for International Relations celebrates the memory of Daniel Pearl as a prominent journalist who dedicated his life to bringing joy and understanding to the world. Past presenters have included Christopher Hitchens, CNN's Anderson Cooper, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, Daniel Schorr of NPR, and CNN's Larry King.

"Danny Pearl was everything we wanted to be," David Remnick tells UCLA audience

Wed, 1 Feb 2012 15:40:58 PDT

Free press under fire around the globe 10 years after reporter's death

UCLA Today

Just days before the 10th anniversary of the tragic murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, noted journalist and editor David Remnick spoke at UCLA about the need to protect freedom of expression around the globe and the role this principle played in Pearl's life and death.

Remnick, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and editor of the New Yorker magazine, was on campus Jan. 30 to deliver the 10th annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture (listen to podcast.). Pearl, who served as the Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was kidnapped by terrorists while on assignment in Pakistan and was executed on Feb. 1, 2002.

Pearl's father, Judea Pearl, a UCLA professor emeritus and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which helped organize the lecture with the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and Hillel at UCLA, was on hand at the event and recalled the horrible days, a decade ago, that followed Daniel's Jan. 23 abduction.

"Deep inside, we were fairly confident that Daniel would eventually be released," he told the audience of more than 400 at Korn Convocation Hall. "It was physically impossibly, we thought, that anyone, however cruel, could harm as gentle a soul as he was — a storyteller, a musician, a lover of humanity. On Jan. 30 of that year, he was already facing the unthinkable, and the equations of physics broke down in shame."

The highly publicized murder of Pearl rocked the global community and left a lasting impression on journalists around the world, including Remnick.

"I've rarely in my life felt as honored as I do to be with you here today at the invitation of the Pearls," said Remnick, who began his reporting career in 1982 and has been the New Yorker's editor since 1998. "It's a special and serious moment."

Remnick spoke about the recent 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and about the victims of terror, including Daniel Pearl. He recalled Pearl's talent as a journalist, his tenacity, his curiosity, and the impact his life and death had on his profession.

"As a journalist and as a man, Danny Pearl was everything we wanted to be," Remnick said. But he pointed out that Pearl's death was not an isolated tragedy and that journalists around the world who are dedicated to tackling tough stories, many of which make extremists and governments squirm, face increasing violence and intimidation.

Last year alone, Remnick said, 66 journalists were killed, more than 1,000 were arrested, nearly 2,000 were attacked, 71 were kidnapped, 73 were forcibly exiled from their home countries, and hundreds of bloggers were arrested or imprisoned. Of the 892 journalist that have been killed since 1992, 560 of them were killed by governments that never faced charges or punishment.

The situation is particular problematic in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia, he said.

"Anyone who goes on about the great miracle of contemporary China and fails to mention that freedom of expression is under constant assault should be ashamed," Remnick said. "There's boundless value to unleashing the nation's economic energies and raising the poor to the middle classes — there's no doubt about that — but life without liberty, without expression, without access to truth, without access to fact, is a famished life.

"The machinery of Chinese oppression, the codes of restriction, thousands of technocratic censors sitting in front of computer screens monitoring the Internet and blocking it, the double-speak of the official press — all of it is a landscape familiar to readers of '1984' and 'Animal Farm.' "

Remnick also spoke of the Arab Spring and the voices that have emerged from that phenomenon. But he cautioned that that the power of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which now dominates the Egyptian legislature, far outweighs that of the youth movement seen in Tahrir Square and that arrests, detentions and intimidation are a reality. The current threat of suppression of information is not unlike that experienced under former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, he said.

"As ever, the press picture is reflective of the whole," Remnick said. "In Egypt today, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has ruled the country since Mubarak's ouster, has issued a directive to television stations and all publications that they must receive permission before broadcasting or writing anything about the armed forces."

Despite this, he said, an independent Egyptian media center is beginning to take shape, and its founders are enjoying some early success. From their office in downtown Cairo, the group advocates for citizen journalism and "seeks legal reform to redraw the lines of journalism and media in an effort to build a democratic society and social and religious freedoms," said Remnick.

Remnick shared further examples of threats to freedom of expression, in Turkey; Russia, where he spent the earlier part of his journalistic career; and India, where he recently attended the Jaipur Literary Festival, an event that welcomed writers from the U.S., Britain and Southeast Asia but which had once banned India's most famous writer, Salman Rushdie. Rushdie's controversial book "The Satanic Verses," which is still banned in India, sparked outrage among some Muslims and led to death threats against the author from Muslim extremists following its release in 1988.

Remnick also expressed concern over what he said appears to be declining public support for free speech in Israel. A recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank, indicates that one in three Israelis believe there is currently too much free speech in the country. The poll also suggests that anti-democratic tendencies and intolerance against those who criticize Israel's government are also rising. These trends may in time affect the survival of media sources whose politics and policies run counter to general public opinion, he said.

Although much of Remnick's speech focused on regions far from America, he did say that the U.S. record on free expression also deserves a critical look, especially in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the war on terror.

"Bush, Cheney and the rest of his administration practiced ... the most anti-press, anti-fact, anti-truth government since the days of Richard Nixon," he said. "Its disdain for the proper channels of intelligence and information, its disdain for dissent, its constant attacks on the editors of the New York Times, on [Seymour] 'Sy' Hersh of the New Yorker, on any number of reporters and editors honestly trying to portray excruciating conflict between security and personal liberty, went on and on."

He did say, however, that the relationship between the Obama administration and the press is "less fraught."

In closing, Remnick said: "What a newspaper must do in print, in pixels, is exert pressure on power: pressure on the president, pressure on the CIA and the Pentagon, pressure on the school board and on political candidates, and on the military, pressure on all of us and all public institutions ... Without that pressure, a newspaper or a website or a magazine or television station is merely the sum total of its entertainment and its day-to-day usefulness, and it's nothing at all."

New Yorker editor to deliver memorial lecture at UCLA for journalist Daniel Pearl

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:28:29 PDT

By Sonali Kohli for the Daily Bruin

Saying “no” wasn’t an option for David Remnick.

To Remnick, editor of the New Yorker magazine, Daniel Pearl is a hero in the world of journalism and free speech.

So when Pearl’s father, UCLA computer scientist Judea Pearl, asked Remnick to speak at the Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA, Remnick accepted without hesitation.

For 10 years now, journalists like New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper have commemorated Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped, killed and beheaded by terrorists while reporting in Pakistan in 2002, by speaking on the nexus of international relations and journalism.

This year’s lecture will take place today at 5 p.m. in Korn Convocation Hall at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. The Daniel Pearl Foundation, headed by Judea Pearl, partners with Hillel at UCLA and the Burkle Center for International Relations to put on the annual event.

Registration for the event is currently closed, but any remaining seats will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

Remnick was this year’s choice for a keynote speaker for a few reasons, Judea Pearl said. He has covered topics from Russia to Obama’s presidency, and he is successful in a time when journalism nationwide is struggling – Remnick wrote for the Washington Post before starting at the New Yorker. In his tenure as editor, circulation has increased, while other newspapers and magazines around the country face newsroom cuts and bankruptcy.

While he didn’t know Pearl personally, they belong to the same generation of reporters, Remnick said.

“There’s a distinct feeling … (of) real kinship with him and solidarity,” Remnick said. “And even to this day, terrible grief.”

His lecture today will discuss the Middle East and honor Daniel Pearl’s dedication to journalism and freedom of expression, Remnick said.

“The way he insisted on himself and who he was to the very horrible end is something that will never leave my consciousness or that of millions and millions of other people,” Remnick said.

The lecture series is a way to continue Daniel Pearl’s legacy as someone who devoted his life to providing the world with knowledge, Judea Pearl said.

It’s a shift from Daniel Pearl’s undergraduate years at Stanford University, when Judea Pearl didn’t want his son to become a journalist.

“I told him that it’s a useless profession because you’re not creating any new knowledge, you’re just transferring knowledge from one place to another,” said Pearl, a UCLA computer science professor emeritus. “I tried to get him to be a scientist.”

But as Pearl read his son’s work for the Wall Street Journal, telling international stories and coloring them with his on-the-ground perspective, he began to appreciate journalism – his son presented a human face behind the news.

“Now I understand how important it is to transfer knowledge from a place where it is known and useless to a place where it is badly needed,” Pearl said.

The lecture series also exposes students and the public to experiences that complement the academic perspective of international affairs, said Alexandra Lieben, the deputy director for the Burkle Center.

Fifth-year history student Daniel Melling said he is sometimes surprised by how candid the speakers are in their lectures.

He was caught off guard by Anderson Cooper’s 2009 talk, when the CNN journalist spoke about his brother’s suicide, and his reporting on genocide in Rwanda as a recent college graduate, said Melling, who now interns for the Burkle Center and will be working at this year’s event.

“Something about that talk really struck me,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting this dark, personal side of the journalist to come out.”

Although reservations for today’s lecture are full, Lieben encouraged students to come to the standby line if they want to attend the event. She’s never turned anyone away, she said.

Journalists are always willing to share their stories for this lecture because of the ideal Daniel Pearl represents, Judea Pearl said.

“They feel it’s almost their duty to give this lecture,” Judea Pearl said. “(Daniel) symbolizes the nobleness of the profession.”

American Avatar: The United States in the Global Imagination

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:43:41 PDT

A talk by Prof. Barry Sanders from the UCLA Dept. of Communication Studies, about his new book, "American Avatar: The United States in the Global Imagination."

ABOUT THE BOOK

Since September 11, 2001, the extensive literature on the United States’ image abroad, by popular pundits and academics alike, leaves the reader with a false impression that foreigners’ views of America are normally negative and impervious to change. In fact they are complex, emotional, frequently internally contradictory, and often change quickly.

Barry A. Sanders corrects this misimpression with a rigorous and insightful textual analysis of the roots of people’s views of the United States and what can be done to alter them. According to Sanders, the attitudes a person expresses about the United States consist of two separate components: the person’s memory bank of images (informed by American geography, people, philosophy, history, and foreign policy) and a predisposition or bias that influences which images are called forth from memory. Opinion surveys, such as the Pew Global Attitude Survey, only record the spoken result of this two-step process in their tabulation of “favorable” or “unfavorable” comments. They necessarily fail to see the underlying complexity.

Examining the biases or predispositions that guide people in selecting among the myriad stored images to express an opinion on a given day, Sanders analyzes both anti-American and pro-American biases but focuses on the former, explaining which criticisms should be heeded when crafting foreign policy and communicating national objectives to friends and foes alike.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Barry A. Sanders, is an adjunct professor of Communications Studies at UCLA. He is deeply involved in the foreign affairs community as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He honed his international credentials in a career of extensive travel and cross-border negotiations as a well-known international business lawyer for the global law firm Latham & Watkins. He chaired both the State of California and Los Angeles County Bar Associations' International Law Sections. Sanders was the principal lawyer for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, and remains deeply involved in the Olympic movement as Chair of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games. He lectures and writes often on topics of international law and civic affairs.

In Los Angeles, Sanders is a civic leader. He is President of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, and the Board of Commissioners of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles Opera. He has served as chairman of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Public Library Foundation, and Rebuild LA--the public-private organization created after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, as well as several other charitable organizations. Sanders has a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

LA Times Op-Ed by Burkle Center Director Kal Raustiala: Another Guantanamo taint

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:50:22 PDT

A draft order likely violates the right to counsel and threatens to jeopardize the progress made in reversing Gitmo's legacy as a 'legal black hole,' argues Burkle Center Director Kal Raustiala.

By Kal Raustiala

January 18, 2012

Of all the hangovers from the George W. Bush years, the thorniest may be what to do about the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There are still 171 detainees at Guantanamo and little consensus on what to do with them. Last spring, President Obama announced the resumption of military trials for some of those charged with participating in the 9/11 attacks. These trials, known as military commissions, have been stalled for years by legal challenges. Recently, the official in charge of the Guantanamo prison, Rear Adm. David Woods, issued a draft order that compounds these challenges. The order requires all correspondence between the accused and their appointed military lawyers to be reviewed by federal officials.

The proposed order is a mistake, one that threatens to jeopardize the progress made in reversing Guantanamo's tainted legacy as a legal black hole. It likely violates the 6th Amendment's guarantee of the right to counsel, which has long been understood to permit lawyers to communicate confidentially with their clients.

The order is not just bad law. It is also bad policy that could tarnish the most high-profile military trials held by our nation since World War II.

What legal rights the Guantanamo detainees possess is hotly contested. The Bush administration long argued that Guantanamo was Cuban, not American, territory and therefore the detainees had no constitutional rights. That view was repudiated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 in Boumediene vs. Bush. In deciding that at least some constitutional rights extended to those held at Guantanamo, the court recognized the highly unusual nature of the base.

Guantanamo has been under American control since U.S. troops prevailed in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Cuba has no effective control over the base, which is governed by a lease that cannot be changed without U.S. consent and that accords the U.S. "complete jurisdiction and control." This history led the Supreme Court to declare that whatever the legal formalities, it is an "obvious and uncontested fact" that the United States is the de facto sovereign there.

In short, Guantanamo Bay is technically Cuba. But as a practical matter, it is just as much a part of the United States as Tampa Bay.

Boumediene did not involve the 6th Amendment. And the Supreme Court has never expressly declared that the 6th Amendment applies to foreigners tried abroad. In the closest case on point — involving Nazi saboteurs captured during World War II on the beaches of Long Island and Florida and tried in the U.S. — the court held that they lacked a 6th Amendment right to trial by jury because the laws of war did not require one for unlawful combatants. But the 1942 decision pointedly said nothing about the other aspects of the amendment, including the right to counsel.

In light of these precedents, it is not at all implausible that the right to counsel extends to those at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court made it clear in Boumediene that it was deeply troubled by the idea that the federal government could evade constitutional restraints simply by moving prisons offshore. That reasoning applies no less readily to offshore trials.

Woods' order does not simply raise legal concerns, however. By violating the sanctity of attorney-client privilege, it jeopardizes the perception of American military commissions as fair and just, a perception that is crucial if these trials are to succeed.

To see why, consider the fundamental purpose of such trials. Why not simply imprison the suspected terrorists in perpetuity without trial? The chief reason, dating to the landmark Nuremberg tribunal, is the belief that a just and fair trial of even our worst enemies is the best vindication of our nation's values, and the best way to ensure that cycles of revenge are tamped down, individuals are held accountable and the truth emerges.

War-crimes trials have long been tarred by cries of "victor's justice." It is only through scrupulous adherence to fair, neutral and time-honored procedures that we can forcefully refute such criticism.

To some critics, of course, no amount of due process can save the military commissions. They see the results as foreordained and the legal process as so much window-dressing. But the commissions, though rarely employed in our history, grow out of a long and honorable tradition of military justice. They can and ought to be fair proceedings. If they are perceived as unfair, they will jeopardize the entire point of war-crimes trials — which is, in the famous words of Justice Robert Jackson, the American prosecutor at Nuremberg, to "stay the hand of vengeance" and submit "captive enemies to the judgment of the law."

That is why the defense lawyers appointed to represent the detainees — American service members who proudly wear our uniform — have vigorously protested the effort to intrude on attorney-client privilege. They recognize an important truth. The U.S., and our long struggle against terrorist violence, will be the loser if the deck is stacked against the Guantanamo defendants.

Click here to view the original article

Foreign Policy Op-Ed by Burkle Center Visiting Fellow Dalia Dassa Kaye: Do Israelis Really Want to Bomb Iran?

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:00:32 PDT

Do Israelis Really Want to Bomb Iran?

by Dalia Dassa Kaye

January 12, 2012

Facing an unprecedented array of sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe, Iran's leaders opened 2012 by announcing that a new uranium enrichment site in the mountains near Qom would soon become operational. The recent assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist -- believed by many to be another strike by Israel in a covert campaign to slow Iran's nuclear program -- has only further raised tensions between Iran, the West, and Israel. The assassination and related sabotage efforts may not ultimately halt Iran's program, and may in fact provoke an Iranian response that would increase the odds of escalation leading to a conventional conflict. Thus begins the latest round in the perennial international guessing game: will this be the year that Israel uses military force to try to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions?

To hear it from U.S. politicians, the Iranian nuclear program is a threat to Israel's very existence. Some urge the Obama administration to publicly support Israel's position by leaving "all options on the table" -- diplomatic speak for a military strike. But before heading down the road of military action, those concerned for Israeli security should understand not only the risks of using force against Iran. They should also take heed of the complexity of Israeli views toward Iran.

The Israeli security establishment and public see Iran as one of Israel's gravest strategic challenges today. This was not always the case. For decades Israel and Iran perceived common threats, such as Iraq, pan-Arab nationalism, and communism, leading to extensive if tacit cooperation during the Shah's rule and even after the 1979 Iranian revolution. These common fears no longer exist. Instead, what Israelis see, through Iran's financial and military links to groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, is an aggressive, bellicose Iran on its borders, making the continued expansion of its missile and nuclear programs all the more threatening.

Israeli leaders also take seriously Iran's vitriolic rhetoric and anti-Zionist ideology, even if many Israeli analysts question the likelihood of Iran committing suicide in the future by using nuclear weapons against what is widely believed to be an extensive Israeli nuclear capability. Yet even Israelis who believe Iran is ultimately a rational actor most interested in survival still worry about the leverage and cover nuclear weapons would give Iran, limiting Israeli flexibility and leading to an unstable and dangerous relationship that would not resemble the relative stability of Cold War deterrence.

Nonetheless, important divisions are emerging within the Israeli strategic community over how to deal with the Iranian nuclear challenge. U.S. politicians may feel comfortable with framing Iran as an existential threat to Israel, but not all Israeli leaders do. An increasing number are concerned that overplaying the "existential threat" card may erode Israel's own ability to deter a future Iranian bomb, suggesting that Israel could not protect itself from a nuclear Iran. Many have stopped using this term in public. Other leaders prefer to talk about Iran as a global problem rather than focus on Iran as Israel's problem in order to enhance the international coalition that has emerged to pressure and isolate the Islamic Republic.

Perhaps the most interesting debate in Israel today is over the question of a military strike. Last year, former Mossad head Meir Dagan publicly argued that a military attack would be a "dumb idea," that would trigger region-wide conflict. But well before Dagan's statements, Israeli leaders and analysts had been quietly debating the merits and feasibility of a military strike. For some, a military strike would be worth the costs even if the nuclear program were only delayed (very few believe it could be destroyed); they think that the risks of Iranian retaliation against Israeli and U.S. targets may be exaggerated. Others believe that a delay in the program could be more effectively achieved through other measures, including sabotage and continued diplomatic and economic isolation, with far fewer costs and risks of wider regional military escalation.

It is difficult to know who has the upper hand in Israel at the moment. Reports suggest that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sympathetic to striking Iran if the alternative is an Iranian breakout capability under his watch. But it is not clear that the Israeli military and certainly Israeli intelligence analysts share this view; many may in fact hold positions closer to U.S. assessments that are less alarmist about the timeline of the Iranian program and more cautious about the utility of a military option. Much has been made over differences between the U.S. and Israeli threat perceptions of Iran, but in fact these internal Israeli divisions suggest that the gap may not be as great as some suggest.

U.S. policymakers have every reason to be concerned about the threat Iran poses to Israeli security, not to mention U.S. and international security. Private assurances to Israeli leaders make sense at a time of escalating regional tensions. But public statements focusing on Iran as a threat to Israel's existence and openly discussing military options that neither U.S. nor Israeli leaders may believe are prudent may only weaken Israel's position.

Click here to view the original article

Visiting Fellow Dalia Dassa Kaye: Israel and Iran: A Dangerous Rivalry

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:19:14 PDT

Burkle Center Visiting Fellow Dalia Dassa Kaye co-authors a RAND report regarding the increasingly hostile relationship between Israel and Iran, and the U.S.'s role in managing this rivalry.

Israel and Iran: A Dangerous Rivalry

by Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader and Parisa Roshan

2011

ABSTRACT

Israel and Iran have come to view each other as direct regional rivals over the past decade, with Iran viewing Israel as being bent on undermining Iran's revolutionary system and Israel viewing Iran as posing grave strategic and ideological challenges to the Jewish state. But the two countries have not always been rivals. Both before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution, shared geopolitical interests led to years of pragmatic policies and, at times, extensive cooperation. But the growing rivalry between them has intensified in recent years, particularly with the rise of principlist (fundamentalist) leaders in Iran and the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. Israeli leaders now view every regional threat through the prism of Iran, even if their strategic community is divided about how to address this challenge and particularly the utility of a military strike option. Iran, which currently views Israel in more ideological and less pragmatic terms, may be emboldened to further challenge Israel if it has a nuclear weapons capability. The United States can help manage this rivalry by focusing on policies aimed at prevention and preparation. This means discouraging an Israeli military strike while bolstering Israeli capabilities in preparation for a future where Iran has managed to acquire nuclear weapons. For Iran, this means dissuading that regime from weaponizing its nuclear program and, if that fails, making preparations to deter it from brandishing or using its weapons.

To read the entire monograph, click here.

Huffington Post Op-Ed by Burkle Center Director Kal Raustiala: In the Land of Blood and Honey: Bosnia, 20 Years Later

Tue, 3 Jan 2012 17:30:31 PDT

Burkle Center Director Kal Raustiala discusses Angelina Jolie's directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, and the advances in international human rights prosecutions since the Bosnian war.

In the Land of Blood and Honey: Bosnia, 20 Years Later

By Kal Raustiala

Posted: 12/22/11

War and genocide in the former Yugoslavia will be thrust back into the spotlight this month with the release of In the Land of Blood and Honey, a film written and directed by Angelina Jolie. In often harrowing detail, the film depicts a complex, gripping story of love and deception set against a backdrop of mass murder, rape, and ethnic cleansing.

For many Americans the wars in the Balkans are a distant memory. Yet almost 20 years after the start of that conflict peace may be fracturing. Last month, the UN envoy in Kosovo called the situation "extremely volatile" and warned of the need for greater international attention.

The prospect of further violence in the Balkans is a serious matter. Much has changed in the world, however, since war began there in 1992 -- and for the better. Atrocities still happen with alarming consequences, as recent events in Syria and elsewhere have shown. Yet as we head into 2012, it is important to recognize how far the global framework to prevent genocide and protect civilians has advanced.

Much more can and ought to be done. As Ms. Jolie's film illustrates, the world was far too slow to react to the terrible crimes taking place in the Balkans (and elsewhere). But recognizing the successes that have been achieved in the years since will help advance that goal, by making it clear that progress can happen and that protecting civilians and reining in the excesses of war is not a hopeless enterprise.

What has changed over the last 20 years? Two key innovations stand out: one an idea, the other institution. The institution is the International Criminal Court, and its predecessors, the international tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. The idea is the "Responsibility to Protect." Together, they mark critical steps on humanity's long road toward a more just and peaceful world.

In 1992, when war erupted in the Balkans, no international war crimes trials had been held since the aftermath of the Second World War. The Nuremburg trials are rightly heralded as a milestone in the road from impunity to punishment for those who commit terrible acts in war. But their legacy was long left unrealized. Only after the Balkan wars, and later the horrifying genocide in Rwanda, shocked the conscience of the world did the international community respond with new tribunals to try the perpetrators of grave crimes.

Then came the birth of the International Criminal Court in 2002. Unlike the Rwanda and Yugoslav tribunals, the ICC is a standing court with a broad jurisdiction. It is still a fledging institution, however, and major powers like the US lie beyond its reach. But like Nuremburg before it, the ICC is a milestone: the first-ever permanent international criminal court, and consequently the first that can, at least in principle, deter mass atrocities from occurring. To date, it has indicted some two dozen individuals and held several trials.

International criminal courts are primarily reactive: they are designed to try and sentence those who have already committed bad acts. Preventing bad acts from occurring is always better than punishing perpetrators. And that is where the second key innovation comes in: the idea of a "Responsibility to Protect" those who are threatened with mass atrocities.

The Responsibility to Protect is a standard or norm of behavior for governments, not rule of international law. It is, in other words, an idea about what a responsible state in the 21st century must do. But it is not just an ideal; it marks a change in the meaning of sovereignty, one that was endorsed by the member states of the UN in 2005.

The Responsibility to Protect has three components. A state has a responsibility to protect its population from grave crimes; the international community has a responsibility to assist a state in doing so; and, most controversially, if a state manifestly fails to protect its citizens, the international community has a responsibility to intervene. The central notion is that states exist to serve and protect their citizens. If they cannot do so, others will protect their citizens for them -- coercively if necessary.

The NATO-led intervention this year in Libya combined elements of both the ICC and the Responsibility to Protect. In Resolution 1970, the UN Security Council referred the situation in Libya to the ICC, empowering it to investigate crimes committed during the violence there. The Security Council also expressly invoked the Libya's responsibility to protect its citizens. And a few weeks later the Security Council authorized military action to protect civilians, which successfully ousted the Gaddafi regime in October.

Whether Libya is the augur of a new era or a controversial overreach by NATO is hotly debated. But what cannot be denied is that today, unlike two decades ago, there is a system in place to combat mass atrocities that is both multilateral and permanent.

This system will not always be deployed, of course: Syria, brutally cracking down on rebellion within its borders, has not been treated as Libya was. Yet the Assad regime is increasingly isolated, facing sanctions even from the Arab League and censure around the world. The standards of state behavior -- and the expectations of the responsibility of neighbors--are changing.

If war breaks out again in the Balkans in 2012, it will sadden all who strive for a better, more peaceful world. No idea or institution can stop violence when a party is determined to engage in it.

Yet as bleak as this may seem, the world has taken important steps forward from 1992. This is not cause for celebration; there is still much work to be done, as In the Land of Blood and Honey powerfully reminds viewers. But especially now, in an election year in which many political leaders will counsel an American retreat from the world stage, we must preserve and build on these essential elements in the long struggle to protect civilians from brutality.

To view the original article click here

Burkle Center Director Kal Raustiala quoted in article on Iran

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:34:12 PDT

With Obama administration's approval, 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel upholds judgment against US defense contractor in favor of Iran.

Daily Journal

by John Roemer, Staff Writer

Despite tense U.S. relations with Iran, a San Diego defense contractor owes about $3 million to Iran's defense ministry, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel held Thursday. The panel voted 3-0 to confirm an international arbitration award in Iran's favor on its breach of contract claims against Cubic Defense Systems Inc., a maker of high-tech combat training gear.

After seeking - and getting - a green light from the Obama administration, the court ruled the award is not "contrary to the public policy" of the U.S. Ministry of Defense of Iran v. Cubic Defense Systems Inc., 2011 DJDAR 17921. For a court to OK funds for a nation seen as an enemy could provoke a public backlash, but legal experts praised the opinion as a valid judicial excursion into foreign affairs. The decision returns the case to U.S. District Judge Rudi M. Brewster of of the Southern District with orders to consider Iran's motion for interest on the award.

The matter arose in 1977, when Cubic contracted with Iran's then-Ministry of War to sell and service air combat maneuvering equipment to train Iran's military. The Iranian Revolution ended the deal as militants hostile to the U.S. took over; Iran's new government sued Cubic in 1982. In 1997 the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, sitting in Switzerland, awarded Iran $2.8 million plus $60,000 for arbitration costs. Litigation over enforcement of the award and interest on the judgment has proceeded ever since.

Thursday's decision in a case that began more than 30 years ago when the U.S. had close ties to Iran's then-monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, could strike an explosive note in the post-shah era. Today, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran routinely denounces America; Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has called for his ouster and warned that an Iranian nuclear weapon is a potential second holocaust. "I'm sure someone will accuse liberal judges in California and liberal Obama lawyers of selling out to the enemy," said Cesare P.R. Romano, an authority on law, political science and international relations at Loyola Law School. "But a careful reading of the opinion doesn't support that at all. I'm happy to see the reasoning of cool heads not giving in to the hysteria surrounding the Iran situation."

Romano pointed out that the decision doesn't transfer any money to Iran. Indeed, the panel noted that Cubic would need a license from the U.S. Treasury to accomplish that. Romano suggested Cubic's funds, placed in an escrow account, could be considered a small carrot to be used in bilateral talks with Iran to further U.S. interests. Cubic's lawyers at Luce Forward Hamilton Scripps LLP argued that confirmation of the arbitration award "is contrary to a fundamental public policy of the United States against trade and financial transactions with the Islamic Republic of Iran." Their briefs pointed to a series of U.S. sanctions on Iranian assets including the Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators Sanctions.

In response, the circuit panel invited the Obama administration to address the issue. Government lawyers filed a friend of the court brief in Iran's favor, explaining that the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, known as the New York Convention, should be observed. Signaling the issue's importance, the brief was signed by lawyers for the Department of the Treasury, the State Department and the attorney general. "The United States has an interest in the proper confirmation of the particular arbitration award at issue in this litigation, since the award may be relevant to ongoing proceedings involving Iran and the United States in the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal," they wrote. Concluded Circuit Judge Raymond C. Fisher for colleagues Alex Kozinski and Michael Daly Hawkins, "given Cubic's invocation of our country's fraught relationship with Iran as expressed through various trade sanctions, the government's confirmation that the [arbitration] award comports with the national and foreign policy of the United States is entitled to great weight."

Another expert in law and international relations, Kal Raustiala of UCLA School of Law, said that it will be difficult for critics of the opinion to get around the fact that Kozinski signed off on it. "Kozinski is a well known libertarian/conservative appointed by Ronald Reagan and a refugee himself from tyranny in Romania," Raustiala wrote in an email. "So Newt Gingrich can't tar this easily as just another liberal decision by the 9th circuit and evidence that Democrats are soft on Iran." Raustiala pointed out that diplomacy and trade often operate independently. "To put this in context, even after the Cuban Revolution - and the Missile Crisis - the Cuban government argued a similar case before the Supreme Court in 1964 and won," he wrote. "The bottom line is that national security and economic relations sometimes run on separate tracks, and we have a long tradition in our courts of permitting economic and legal disputes to move forward even when the other party is Public Enemy No. 1 - and even if the result is that they prevail against an American."

Cubic's lead counsel at Luce Forward, Charles A. Bird, said the opinion accurately described the case. "I'm not saying I agree with the outcome or how they balanced the interests," he said. He said his client had not decided yet whether to appeal. Iran's lawyer, sole practitioner Steven W. Kerekes, did not return a call for comment.

Daily Journal Newswire Article http://www.dailyjournal.com

UCLA comes out to support Angelina Jolie’s new film

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:38:47 PDT

The UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and UCLA Center for the Study of Women came together to sponsor the premiere of the famed actress's much-anticipated screenwriting and directorial debut.

UCLA Today

It’s uncommon to see close to 50 UCLA faculty and staff from across disciplines hitting a red carpet event, but that was the scene on Dec. 8 in Hollywood at the Los Angeles premiere of Angelina Jolie’s new film In the Land of Blood and Honey.

However, the excitement of the red carpet and the flurry of photographers and fans was heavily overshadowed by the story that unfolded on the silver screen and the issues it brought to light; namely the atrocities that occurred during the four year war in Bosnia that pitted neighbors against one another and resulted in a sharp ethnic divide and the horrific genocide of Bosnia’s Muslim population. It depicts the harsh realities of the Bosnian war, which resulted in the deaths of 100,000 people and some 2 million people forced from their homes. In addition, the film highlights the extreme brutality and humiliation experienced by Bosnian-Muslim women at the hands of Serbian forces.

The film, which was written, directed and produced by Jolie, chronicles the story of Danijel, a Bosnian Serb police officer, and Ajla, a Bosnian Muslim artist. The pair, who are romantically linked prior to the war and separated following a nightclub fire-bombing, is reunited by chance when Ajla is taken by soldiers from the home she shares with her sister and infant nephew and brought to a war camp that is under Danijel’s military command.

“This film is very much concerned with humanitarian issues in Bosnia related to the plight of Bosnian-Muslim women, and the systematic rape and sexual assault that were practiced upon many of them,” said Kathleen McHugh, a film scholar who teaches courses on media and trauma and directs the UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW), which co-sponsored the screening along with UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Relations and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “This film was made so that this human rights crisis won’t be forgotten and to remind the world that the situation there is still very fragile. Women are frequently the most vulnerable in civil wars and they are the recipients of some of the worst outcomes of ethnic strife and violence. We were proud to sponsor this film because this war happened less than 20 years ago, and it happened very quickly. The situation disintegrated so rapidly that people went from living lives that were tense, but ok, to experiencing unspeakable conditions. It went on for a very long time before there was an intervention, and women were the particular victims of that.”

It is estimated that 20,000 to 50,000 women were raped while in captivity during the Bosnian war.

When the two campus departments were approached and asked to participate in the event, both eagerly accepted. In addition to faculty and staff associated with the CSW and the Burkle Center, there are a number of other UCLA scholars with research interests related to women’s issues, conflict resolution and Eastern Europe.

For the past decade, Jolie has been widely regarded for her humanitarian work. As a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, she has traveled to more than 40 countries to bear witness to and actively support solutions for refugees, vulnerable children and aid in the advancement of international law efforts. The Academy Award and three-time Golden Globe winner was the first recipient of the Citizen of the World Award from the United Nations Correspondents Association and the Global Humanitarian Action Award. In 2007, she was selected by the Council on Foreign Relations for a special five-year term designed to nurture the next generation of foreign policy-makers.

“Angelina Jolie has the star-power needed to attract attention to important issues,” says Alexandra Lieben,” deputy director of the Burkle Center. “She has taken that role seriously and garnered respect for her thoughtful approach and personal sense of responsibility. She didn’t simplify the topic, as you might expect from a first time writer. Instead, she brought life to the human element of war and the complexity of such a devastating situation. It’s a tough film – but an incredibly valuable one - to watch.”

Lieben was impressed with the lengths that Jolie took to research the lives and experiences of the victims of the Bosnian War. This included consulting with war victims, foreign war correspondents, military experts, representatives from the United Nations and the local actors — all of whom bear the scars of this conflict — that brought Jolie’s characters to life on the big screen.

One such consultant was Wesley Clark, a retired American army general who has been a senior fellow at the Burkle Center since 2006. Clark was a key participant in the U.S. delegation that worked toward peace in Bosnia. Over the course of his 34 year military career, Clark rose to the rank of four-star general as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe. During the Bosnian War, he was sent to the conflict-ridden nation to serve as the military advisor to a diplomatic negotiating team headed by Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke. Extensive negotiations ultimately resulted in the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which finally brought peace in 1995.

As part of her effort to get as much feedback as possible, Jolie sent Clark a portion of the script and asked for his reaction. Clark, who had previously met Jolie while working at the Council for Foreign Relations, provided his comments, warned her that it would be controversial and suggested some other people who could provide further perspectives and details.

“The film is powerful,” Clark wrote in an email prior to the L.A. screening. “It brought back memories of terribly difficult times - of war, violence, lost friends, political manipulation and deceit, senseless prejudices and all the hatreds inherent in old, unsettled conflicts. The war was a key experience in learning the post-Cold War lesson that wars within states are highly destructive, regionally dangerous and potentially destabilizing. And above all, we saw the tragic human toll of such conflicts. Such conflicts must be resolved and — better yet — prevented.”

The day after the screening, Jolie, along with the film’s producer, Graham King; its two female leads, Zana Marjanović and Vanesa Glodjo; and two male leads, Goran Kostić and Rade Šerbedžija met with small groups of reporters at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills to further discuss the film. It was an opportunity to delve deeper into the graphic depiction of war that had been witnessed the night before and to learn more about the actors who brought Jolie’s characters to life.

When asked about Clark’s involvement in the project, Jolie said she was pleased with the feedback he had provided and that she was impressed that he didn’t pressure her to change the focus to make it more about America’s role in the peace process.

“It’s complicated for everybody, and there wasn’t a push on his side to say ‘well, we should be seen as heroes or we should be seen as this, or you should be clear that we’ve gotten all the bad guys,” said Jolie. “There was none of that. It was ‘this is a very sensitive region’ and ‘approach it carefully and thoughtfully from all sides’ and ‘there are great people on all sides and it will be very complex’ and ‘be very patient’ and to understand that he has an obviously deep connection to the area.”

She added: “It’s not a film about America and American intervention. It’s one of the first films, the cast was saying, from an outsider that’s not about outsiders. It’s about the people from inside.”

For Oscar-winning producer Graham King, the film is about telling the story of genocide and how the world ignored what was going on. King, who is English born, remembers hearing his grandfather’s war stories as he was growing up. He said that when Jolie sent him the script she was already well on her way to making it, having scouted locations and selected actors.

“I’m as guilty as anyone to turning a blind eye to what happened in the Balkans at that time, and when Angie sent me the script I said how can we not tell this story,” he said. “There’s parts of this movie where you see a Sarajevo sign and it just knocks you straight in the face, or it should, and then you see the mountains and you realize that Italy is just past those mountains and no one did anything about it. They just turned their back on it all, and how can that happen?

That’s a question that all of the actors had during that dark time. Each survived the battle — some from within, others from beyond the borders of the conflict — and were adamant that this story of war — their story of war — not to be forgotten.

“I think maybe it’s too late for us because we’ve been scarred by the conflict, but there are those kids, those younger generations, who have come and been born pure and innocent,” said Kostić, who, like his character, Danijel, came from a family with a long history of military service and spent the duration of the war living in London, England. “We have a duty to provide an environment and education. We should try at least to give them a great understanding of the place they have been born and the conflict of the past and make sure harder than we did so it doesn’t happen again. As Angelina says ‘we cannot make great leaps forward, but we can do it little by little by little until we get there.’”

Zana Marjanović, who played Ajla, was just 8 years old when the war started and she and her mother fled to Slovenia. Her father chose to remain in Sarajevo. They later moved to New York and Marjanović returned to live in Sarajevo as an adult. “[Returning to Sarajevo] was this search for identity and learning my language, and getting to know the country and the city I was born in, but also it was a bit of spite,” she explained. “It was about going back and saying ‘ok, I’m going to go back now and I’m going to be able to decide whether I want to leave or not, and it’s not for you to tell me.’”

She said that she - like all of the cast- felt an incredible responsibility to dig deep as actors and give voice to the victims who survived the war and to those who didn’t. She relied heavily on the stories of family and older female friends, while the older actors relied on their personal experiences and memories of that time.

“It’s a great responsibility you feel as an actor, and as a person, to play such a role because it did happen,” said Marjanović. “It’s recent history and it’s my personal history. It’s about my country, so you can’t fail. You can’t make a mistake. You’re not allowed to because you’re representing people whose true story is somewhere in that film.”

Jolie said she had no ambitions to ever be a film director, and had initially never planned to show this script to anyone. For her, it was a way to express the frustrations she’d felt after more than a decade of traveling into post-conflict regions, working with refugees and hearing stories from those who had suffered inexplicable situations. She wanted to understand the psychology behind these actions, and had been interested in learning more about what had happened in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995.

“It was kind of a private meditation,” she said. “I wanted to write a story and think about what happens to people, and how can these people that are decent people who would be considered just like us, normal people, be transformed. What happens? What takes this toll where they lose their humanity and begin to behave in a way that just seems impossible to understand. This conflict in particular, how neighbors could turn against neighbors. How is that possible?”

She hopes her film will inspire people from around the world to learn more about what happened in Bosnia. She wants to use it as a catalyst for dialogue, and a way for people to start to ask tough and probing questions.

“Maybe they’ll want to see what’s still going on there and see how they can help because there are so many people still in need there… I hope people are just inspired to learn more and everybody will have their own path in how they do that.”

She said that teaching her six children about the realities of war and encouraging them to ask questions is something that she and her long-time partner, Brad Pitt, have always been open about. “My children are from countries that were in war, and their birth parents probably suffered from war, so it is a very open discussion in our house and we want them to know the ugly side of war.” (The couple’s three adopted children, Maddox, Zahara and Pax, were born in Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam, respectively.) “We don’t want them to think it’s fun or just a video game, so we make them aware of it. When I go to these different countries we tell them why, so they’re quite educated on it.”

Jolie added that the moral support she received from the UCLA community was critical because the people who attended the screening are experts who research many of the complexities that were addressed in the film. She said that she respects their work and their opinions and that it was “very, very important” that they be in attendance and share their reactions to the film.

In the Land of Blood and Honey opens Dec. 23 in a small number of selected theaters.

Visiting Fellow Dalia Dassa Kaye discusses Egypt's parliamentary elections with the Pasadena Star News

Fri, 2 Dec 2011 15:52:13 PDT

As Egypt launches their parliamentary elections, Dalia Dassa Kaye comments on the uncertainty over the Egyptian parliament's authority in the post-Mubarak era.

Congressman Dreier leads international delegation to observe Egypt's parliamentary elections

The Pasadena Star-News

by Brenda Gazzar, Staff Writer

Rep. David Dreier, R-San Dimas, is leading an international delegation that includes bipartisan members of Congress to observe the launch of Egypt's first parliamentary elections since dictator Hosni Mubarak's ouster nine months ago.

Dreier is a board member of the International Republican Institute, which was founded by Ronald Reagan in 1983 to push democratization efforts in the former Soviet Union.

"I've been to about a dozen polling stations today to observe the election and I will tell you it's a great day for the people of Egypt and for the cause of freedom," Dreier said Monday by phone from Cairo.

The first phase of parliamentary elections that began Monday is the culmination of an 18-day popular uprising that put a dramatic end to Mubarak's three decades of authoritarian rule.

Despite some reforms under Mubarak, Egyptians have long endured government corruption at the highest levels, rigged parliamentary and presidential elections and physical intimidation at the polls.

Joining Dreier in Egypt are Congressmen Donald Payne, a New Jersey Democrat, and Ed Whitfield, a Republican from Kentucky, as well as lawmakers from Somalia, Germany, Macedonia and other countries.

While some of the polling stations in the crowded metropolis of Cairo arrived later than they should have, and people waited for hours in long lines to vote, most people didn't seem to mind, Dreier said. With few exceptions, people were very happy to wait," he said. "People were very happy to do whatever it took to exercise the franchise to vote."

Predictions of low voter turnout and violence in the wake of protests that left dozens dead last week did not materialize Monday, but uncertainty about Egypt's future still prevailed.

"The most immediate concern is whether the military will really transfer control to civilian leadership, which is supposed to happen by June 2012," said Dalia Dassa Kaye, a visiting fellow at UCLA's Burkle Center for International Relations and a senior political scientist with the RAND Corp.

"This will be the real test, not the first parliamentary elections from the U.S. perspective."

It's not yet clear what authority the Egyptian parliament in the post-Mubarak era will even have, she said.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, said the U.S. government should be very encouraged by Monday's voter participation. The U.S. also should continue to use its influence with the Egyptian military to provide a smooth transition to civilian rule, he said.

How the reform effort will ultimately fare, however, will be a function of two factors, he said.

It's "how willing the military is to let go of the extraordinary power it has on Egyptian society and how quickly the Egyptian economy can come back (because) the economy alone can cause the revolution to fail," Schiff said.

The last few months have not been very encouraging, Schiff said, with Egypt's military rulers trying to insulate themselves from civilian oversight and control while retaining emergency powers exercised under Mubarak.

However, Schiff said he was still optimistic since the Egyptian public has shown its ability to mobilize and demand the military cede control.

While the highly organized Muslim Brotherhood movement is expected to do well in these elections, it's not clear how it would govern should it ever gain a majority, Schiff said.

"One of the key issues will be whether they respect the peace treaty with Israel, which has been an anchor of stability in the region for decades," he said.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been talking in moderate terms and there are Islamist groups of far greater concern than the Brotherhood, Schiff said.

Should Egypt ever take a hard turn toward an extreme Islamist state like Iran, that would "be devastating to U.S. interests," Schiff said.

Dreier, however, was optimistic that the parliamentary elections would ultimately work to diminish the threat of radical extremism.

"This is an election focused on job-creation, economic growth and security," Dreier said. "For that reason, even though the Muslim Brotherhood will certainly do well in this election, the imperative to focus on economic growth will diminish a lot of the rhetoric in the past which is virulently anti-Western."

The election will be held in stages and is divided by provinces. After voting for the 498-seat People's Assembly ends in January, elections for the 390-member upper house will last until March.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Rape - A Crime Against Humanity and a War Crime: Accountability and the International Criminal Court

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:19:02 PDT

A discussion regarding the use of rape as a war crime with Nobel Laureate Jody Williams; Ana Deutsch, Program for Torture Victims; and Shirin Ershadi, International Criminal Court Alliance. This panel was moderated by Prof. Lara Stemple from the UCLA School of Law.

JODY WILLIAMS received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year. At that time, she became the 10th woman in its almost 100-year history to receive the Prize.

Like others who’ve seen the ravages of war, she’s an outspoken peace activist who struggles to reclaim the real meaning of peace—a concept which goes far beyond the absence of armed conflict and is defined by human security, not national security. Williams believes that working for peace is not for the faint of heart. It requires dogged persistence and a commitment to sustainable peace, built on environmental justice and meeting the basic needs of the majority of people on our planet.

Since January of 2006, Jody Williams has worked to achieve her peace work through the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which she chairs. Along with sister Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi of Iran, she took the lead in establishing the Nobel Women’s Initiative, and was joined by sister Laureates Wangari Maathai (Kenya), Rigoberta Menchu Tum (Guatemala) and Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire (Northern Ireland). The Initiative uses the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize to magnify the power of women working around the world for peace, justice and equality.

In 2007, Williams lead a contentious High Level Mission on Darfur for the UN’s Human Rights Council. She presented the Mission’s hard-hitting report to the Council in March of that year and continues to be actively involved in work related to stopping the war in Darfur.

Since 1998, Williams has also served as a Campaign Ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Beginning in early 1992 with two non-governmental organizations and a staff of one – Jody Williams, she oversaw the Campaign’s growth to over 1,300 organizations in 95 countries working to eliminate antipersonnel landmines. In an unprecedented cooperative effort with governments, UN bodies and the International Committee of the Red Cross, she served as a chief strategist and spokesperson for the ICBL as it dramatically achieved its goal of an international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines during a diplomatic conference held in Oslo in September 1997.

Williams continues to be recognized for her contributions to human rights and global security. She is the recipient of fifteen honorary degrees, among other recognitions. In 2004, Williams was named by Forbes Magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world.

ANA DEUTSCH is a co-founder and clinical director of the Program for Torture Victims. She escaped from Argentina, along with her family, after threats of arrest to those involved in opposition activities were made by the military government. They made their way to Los Angeles with help from the local Jewish community.

Arriving in Los Angeles as a political asylee, Deutsch understood the difficulties of dealing with trauma, and simultaneously having to rebuilding her support system of friends, family and employment. In 1980, she and Dr. Jose Quiroga founded Program for Torture Victims. Their personal experiences led them to use a ‘bio-psycho-social’ approach that was pioneered with clients at PTV. As more and more people were referred to them, Deutsch and Quiroga set up offices at the Venice Family Clinic in 1985. Currently, Deutsch is a consultant to the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights based in Costa Rica, and is an expert witness to the Intra-American Human Rights Court. In 2004 First Lady Maria Shriver awarded her the first Minerva Award, honoring women who have made significant contributions to California's women and families.

SHIRIN ERSHADI is the Co-Chair and Co-President of the International Criminal Court Alliance, an organization that advocates for a permanent International Criminal Court and U.S. participation in the Court. Ershadi received her MA in Women's Studies at UCLA. She is a retired attorney and is a registered court interpreter of Persian/English in California.

LARA STEMPLE is the Director of Graduate Studies at UCLA School of Law, where she oversees the law school’s LL.M. (masters) and S.J.D. (doctoral) degree programs. Stemple teaches and writes in the areas of human rights, global health, gender, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, and incarceration.

Before joining UCLA, Stemple was the Executive Director of the human rights organization Just Detention International. In 2004 Stemple was a Rockefeller Post Doctoral Fellow at Columbia University’s Program on Sexuality, Gender, Health and Human Rights. She also served as the Senior Advocacy Officer at the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health. Before that, Stemple worked for the domestic and international programs at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York. In 1998 she was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University.

Stemple currently serves on the Advisory Board of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women, and she is the Deputy co-Director of the new UC Global Health Institute’s Center of Expertise on Women’s Health and Empowerment.

As an advocate, Stemple has drafted legislation that was signed into law, lobbied members of Congress and United Nations delegates, and testified before legislative bodies. Media commentary has included CNN, National Public Radio, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle.