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Guatemala joins the ICC and puts former dictator under house arrest
Posted by Mariana Rodriguez-Pareja & Salvador Herencia-Carrasco on 27th January 2012
By Mariana Rodriguez-Pareja and Salvador Herencia-Carrasco*
There are currently 120 States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC but this number will increase to 121 in a few months. This Thursday, January 26, Guatemalan Parliament approved the ratification of the treaty. With this decision, Guatemala will join 15 other Latin American countries to be part of the ICC, pending similar efforts by Cuba, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
This vote was welcomed by the civil society, which has been working towards the signature and ratification of the Rome …
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Are Arab Monarchies more Resistant to Change?
Posted by Nadine Mansour on 20th January 2012
Revolutions have been sweeping the Middle East and North Africa for a year now, in what has been commonly referred to as the Arab Spring. When looking back and examining which Arab countries have not yet experienced large-scale protests or anything commonly considered a revolution, one realizes that these countries govern through traditional versus legal forms of domination, i.e., they are hereditary monarchies. The Kingdoms of Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, as well as those of Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the U.A.E. and Qatar, have been left relatively unscathed by the regional revolutionary …
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Bahrain’s Protestors Face Opposition from ‘All the King’s Men’
Posted by Nadine Mansour on 13th January 2012
History of Political Discontent
Within the context of political upheavals in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, the revolution in Bahrain is certainly not an isolated event. Dissatisfaction with the ruling family has been cyclical, and over the years there have been small steps taken toward political reform. But amidst the regional effort for overthrowing authoritarian regimes, the current uprising for reform in Bahrain has persisted since February, ultimately becoming a call for regime change, in the hope that the country will embark on its own democratic transition. The current regime …
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The US and the ICC, Part 3: Pursuing National Interests
Posted by Eric K. Leonard, Ph.D on 10th January 2012
So far this blog series has investigated the US-ICC relationship from a historical perspective. It has become evident that this relationship has waxed and waned from one of initial engagement, but not acceptance, under the Clinton administration, to belligerency under the first several years of the Bush administration, to a more engaging, almost accepting approach under the latter years of Bush and the early years of the Obama administration. With these previous historical perspectives as our foundation, we may now ask what policy towards the ICC is most beneficial for the …
