Duck Dynasty and the World: Part 1

I was supposed to do a situation for prayer a week, but I failed.  Massively, publicly failed.  I blame my PhD, and a book chapter, and a book, and multiple workshops, and a slew of other things, but ultimately I failed. So, I’m sorry.  One of the nice things about being a Christian, though, is that I’m acutely aware of how frequently I fail but how much I live in grace and love even when I fail.  Still, I’m trying this again – and just in time for Christmas.

Unfortunately, though, a lot of other Christians failed this week as well so they’re stuck discussing whether a rich guy on a popular TV show should be suspended from the show for saying things that were hurtful and dismissive of two vulnerable groups in our society – homosexuals and black Americans, who are racial minorities. In this discussion, somehow it is Christians who are being persecuted rather than the two groups that are actually vulnerable in our society. 

And by vulnerable, I’m discussing power dynamics and discrimination; not anything else that people will want to misconstrue vulnerability as. Statistically, blacks have a smaller share of economic and political power than whites and have therefore been subject to systemic discrimination. Statistically, the LGBT community have less power and are subject to rampant discrimination in civil rights and economic opportunities. 

Christians on the other hand?  Puh-lease.  

I’ve been around significant parts of the world – every continent but Catholic-dominant South America and our-slightly-more-rednecky-cousins in Australia – and there are few places where Christians wield as much power, and as much freedom to do and say whatever they want to do and say, as the US.  Yet, somehow whenever people suffer social consequences for saying things that hurt others, Christians in America feel they are the most persecuted people in the world.

To those in the Church who think Duck Dynasty is what we should be discussing, I respond solely with this article and a long list of things the US Church should care about a lot more than Duck Dynasty and anything associated with it:

-        A South Sudanese town was just taken over by rebels. Three UN peacekeepers, along with a large, untold, number of civilians were killed.   South Sudan is a newly established Christian-majority state formed after decades of religious-based violence – where persecution actually meant persecution.  Christians had been killed for their faith, arrested, tortured, beaten, etc. Now, the new state faces another armed conflict – this time both sides dominated by Christians killing each other for power, with ethnic divisions used to justify the killing – that threatens the future of the country.  So, when we pray about persecution, let’s pray for those who have been persecuted for their faith and who are now really being persecuted for their ethnicity.  Let’s pray for, and speak out against, South Sudan.

-        40,000 Gazans have fled their homes from flooding.  You know those beautiful pictures of Jerusalem in snow that were playing around the world? Well, that same snowstorm left an area the UN has describedas "one of the most densely populated areas in the world: with 40,000 new homeless people.  1/3 of the 1.4-1.7 million people in Gaza are currently refugees." They have no place to go – Egypt has closed its borders and Israel does not let many from Gaza into Israel, even for humanitarian reasons. Israel also unilaterally decides how much aid – food, fuel, blankets, housing materials – can come into Gaza.  When we pray for God’s kingdom come on Earth, let’s pray that those in Gaza receive the humanitarian assistance they need. That they receive God’s blessings here, and that we as Christians work to serve them as Christ served others, that we look for avenues and opportunities to ensure greater security for food and housing and health care.  Let’s pray for, and speak out against, the crisis in Gaza.

-        When Kim Jong Un executed his uncle, it was an indication of a coming reign of terror for North Koreans worse than they’ve faced in the past, and on par with the very worst dictators in the world. Then he threatens South Korea (by fax mind you), and that threat means the US may need to go to war. We have a treaty with South Korea that requires us to go into war for their self-defense.  So, let’s pray for, and speak out for, peace. Let’s pray for a changed attitude in North Korea, and for an opening up of space on that.

So, when I hear Christians in the US talk about how we need to be vocal on the rights of the Ducky Dynasty thing, I just think… is this really what the Church needs to be focused on?  And the thing is that these aren’t even the situations that I find most troubling in my heart right now…

I initially did this as one long post, but it's too long. So, I'll continue in a separate post.

On Obamacare and the Shutdown

When I'm home in the US - as I just was - one question constantly comes up:  Do you think you'll ever move back?

The truth is, I would love to at some point move back. I don't think I'm at a place career-wise where that makes sense right now, but there's also one, very practical reason that right now, I'm fighting like hell to find a way to stay in Europe: health care.

When I left for the UK, I had catastrophic health insurance. I was self-employed and with an extensive, scary family history of cancer, I was afraid that I would get sick and would go bankrupt if I had anything less than catastrophic health care. So I paid $150/month premiums in order to be capped at a flat $1,000 deductible. After that, everything would be covered up to $1 million / year.

One year, a single ER trip followed a series of routine medical procedures - pap smear, mammogram, yearly check-up with the doctor. That one trip meant I met the yearly deductible and my insurance kicked it. I knew then that as long as I was independent, I would need catastrophic health insurance.

Of course, my premiums were immediately raised to $300/month, doubling because of a single hospital visit. For those wondering, that was almost the same cost as my rent at that time (I shared a house and if memory serves, we each paid approximately $350/month). Now, I know my insurance was not expensive compared to my US friends who have multiple kids. But I was a single 30 year old, non-smoking female in good health without a history of anything serious.

At this point, I feel the need to translate the concept of premiums and deductibles into a UK term for my European-based friends, but I've never had to buy health insurance here so I have to use my phone insurance experience and hope it works. A premium is your monthly payment just to have health insurance, while the deductible is both the amount the claim must exceed before it kicks in and the excess you pay.

For my first year in the UK, I retained my US-based private health care. Even after learning I was covered by the UK National Health Service, I was afraid to give it up. Thinking I would return to the US in an uncertain job market, I didn't want to go through the pain of finding a new insurer - or try to anticipate what that cost would look like after time without insurance. So I paid over $5,000 to cover me for 18 months just so I didn't lose the right to be healthy.

For my UK and European friends, the concept of anyone paying $5,500 in addition to taxes just for a right to be taken care of is an insane proposition. Some of my friends know of my first trip to use English health care. I had one of those things women get that we need to go get an official diagnoses even though we know what the problem is. I called the Nurse's hotline to ask if I really needed a diagnoses or could pick something up over the counter. I needed a diagnoses. I explained I was American and asked how to use my health insurance here, knowing it covered me overseas.  She said she wasn't sure of the procedures in my area, but I would probably have to pay $25 and then submit the claim for reimbursement.

I went, got my diagnoses, and picked up the drugs from the counter as I'd been told to do. "How much do I owe you?" I asked, flipping my wallet open and putting my hands on two £10 notes. "£7.10" the sweet nurse replied.  "Oh, um, I think I owe you more than that.  I'm an American."

I said more about US health care than I intended.  As these graphs, compiled by Ezra Klein, indicate, as an American, I'm used to paying almost double the average cost to industrialised states. And according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that increased cost didn't get me better health care. It got me "mediocre" healthcare.

The nurse behind the counter looked at my slightly indulgently and said, "You live here, though, don't you?" "Yes, but I'm a student."  "Right, but you live here, so you only have to pay for the prescription."  "But, I'm a student. I think I owe you more money." "No, love, you live here so you only have to pay for the prescription." "But, I'm just a student. From the US."  "Right."  I could tell she was starting to lose her patience with my inability to accept free-ish healthcare. She reassured me the lady on the phone probably didn't realise I was a student, but it really, truly was free. Except for the £7.10 for the prescription.  If I was poor, that could be waived, too.

I left, set aside £25 in an envelope and didn't touch it for 3 more months, waiting for the bill to come. It didn't.

Then, there was the time I broke my leg. I got laughing gas and morphine, an ambulance ride to the hospital, x-rays (multiple), a cast, crutches, pain killers, and follow up appointments for the grand total of $ 0.  For those from the US, let me reiterate: that's not a typo.  I paid zero dollars.

Technically, I paid for those X-rays, etc., before and after through the taxes I pay.  But it was so nice in that moment to not have to quickly calculate how much money I had in my bank account, minus rent and phone and food costs to determine how much I could offer as a first payment towards my treatment.  I just sat there, begging people to give me water and getting a recurring 'no' until a doctor could confirm I didn't need surgery.

I also thought about how I would get home, when I should bother my friends with the information that I'd broken my leg, and whether I should call my parents before I learned about that potential surgery.  I never once thought, "Can I afford this?"

When the laughing gas wasn't working, I didn't hesitate to tell the paramedic it wasn't working. Well, that's not quite true. I tried the gas for about 7 minutes; it regulated my breathing but did nothing for my pain.  The US-trained part of my brain briefly thought, "Shit - can I afford --" before the UK side of my brain said, "Don't worry! You won't need to pay for a switch in treatments!"  I looked him in the eye and said, "This isn't working. I need something stronger."  He offered morphine; I said yes.  Within 5 minutes, I was feeling a lot better.

Then there was the cancer scare. I haven't told very many people about the cancer scare.  It happened over the summer, and I got the news 2 days before I left for Turkey. They set up the follow-up for the day after I returned.  Two weeks later, a letter informed me I was cancer free, but would need to be seen again in six months.

The other health issues were minor and I never worried that they would actually affect my ability to get health insurance in the US.  What I was concerned about was how my use of a national, universal, and foreign health insurance system would be counted by US insurance companies, who, prior to Obamacare and if they accepted you, had to cover pre-existing conditions if your insurance had not lapsed by more than 6 months. If they accepted you. At least that was the rule in Ohio.

It was the cancer scare that made me realise I actually only knew the rules in Ohio.  And even then, I didn't know whether the UK national insurance system would count as being "insured." Surely it would, right?

I only cancelled my almost-as-expensive-as-my-rent health insurance when I was back in the UK starting my PhD.  I realised I was staying for at least 3-4 years and that I would hopefully get a job teaching here after. I decided the expense of US-based health care was too much.  I was paying $3600 / year not to be insured in the present, but to protect the potential need for health insurance five years down the road.

That cancer scare, though, made me wonder: what if my UK coverage doesn't count?  What if returning to the US suddenly meant I couldn't get health insurance that included coverage for cancer treatments?

The answer is clear: I literally cannot return to the US but for Obamacare.  I would have to do anything I could to find a job or way to stay in the UK or Europe.  I would seriously need to update my online dating profiles.  I would need to be willing to accept jobs below my qualifications and to do things like teach property or wills and trusts, not exactly my go-to for excited teachings.  But I would do it if it would secure me the necessary right to remain.  The right to have a future cancer diagnosis covered.

That's ultimately what Obamacare - actually, the Affordable Care Act - is about.  People want to make it into something big and bad: a tax; socialism; government intrusion; new welfare; Hitler-esque notions of government.  But Obamacare is actually about allowing people to get coverage that couldn't get coverage under the old system. It's about giving people an opportunity to be healthy.

Some will get that through government assistance, but I am unlikely to be one of those people.  I am one of those people who are not only willing but able to pay into the system for insurance but who under previous rules would be unlikely to get coverage if I returned to the US - or at least unlikely to get insurance that would cover the thing I fear the most and the thing I would most need coverage for (cancer).

Of course, this is the second time that cancer has dictated life and career choices in my family.  The last time was after my mother's treatment for breast cancer in the 1980s.  It was before HIPPA - the health care privacy act that ensures if you're diagnosed with something your employers or future employers don't get to know about it unless you tell them.  It's the law that helps tamper down health-related discrimination.  Before HIPPA, my mother was told she was too costly to employ as a teacher; her cancer negated her excellence in the classroom and she took a job selling real estate. It's a nice job, and she's good at it, but I've always thought she should've been back in the classroom.  By the time HIPPA was introduced, though, her teaching credentials had lapsed and it would've been costly for her to go back and pass the classes necessary to get re-licensed.

We passed HIPPA because of the absurdity of situations like my mother's; we passed the ACA because of the absurdity of situations like mine:  that someone can be denied health care not for anything within their control, but for the very reason they would need health care, because they got sick.

Now the GOP wants to stop it and they are willing to sacrifice the good faith and credit of the US to do so. For reasons they haven't ever been able to really articulate, much less prove - unless "it's evil" and "it's socialism" are legitimate accusations.  But they aren't.

The ACA is one of the most capitalism-loving forms of universal health care. It actually mirrors the systems in the Netherlands and Germany. It allows for insurance companies to be competitive, while requiring they also do part of the job of the medical profession: ensure people who get sick can get better to the extent science and God allow, not to the extent their wallets can afford.

Yes, the ACA requires people to buy something, but it requires them to buy something that we as a society would have to pay for if they didn't buy it. In that sense, it encourages individual responsibility.

If I had never left the US, I still could have found myself in the same position I'm in now - cancer scare, no private insurance. It's the reality for millions of Americans, sometimes through their own fault, often times through no fault of their own.  If that had been the situation, I would have found out about the potential cancer after more symptoms developed, meaning after it had developed into cancer and had progressed to a stage where it is harder to fight. My necessary or emergency care would be covered by the government, meaning the other taxpayers.  And I would probably die because I wouldn't be able to afford the medicine or treatment. So the government would be paying not to get me better but to make sure my pain wasn't excruciating while I died.

Instead, the ACA gives me an opportunity for early diagnosis, takes the burden off other taxpayers to pay for my care, and gives me an opportunity to live. It gives me assistance in finding healthcare if I've had problems finding it, or if I'm still too poor to actually afford it.  And it does so while remaining true to capitalism.

The GOP wants to make the ACA some big bad socialist plot to kill America.  It's not.  It's a program for people like me.  And it's the only hope I have of returning to the US full-time in the future.

Praying for Peace: Palestine-Israel

So, this is the first of my posts on praying for peace, and starting with the Israel-Palestinian conflict (or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) is an intimidating one to start with.

I have so many people I love on both sides of this conflict. Friends I hold near and dear to my heart, and friends I would never want to hurt or upset.  But at times I think you can't discuss this conflict honestly without upsetting someone. Just using the names "Israel" and "Palestine" can trigger emotions as one side denies the existence of the other (I cannot emphasize this enough, but this is true of people on both sides of the conflict).

It is for that very reason, though, that I need to start here, with this conflict, as my first "Praying for Peace."

The land is the land of my faith.  Jesus wept there, in the town of Bethany, which is now known as al-Eizariya ("The Place of Lazarus") in Palestine's West Bank. He pulled Lazarus from death and told Martha to put away her chores and listen to his teachings. It was there that he accepted the offering of a woman that others scorned. The land is the land of my faith, where Christ was willing to die.  Where he was buried.  Where he revealed himself again, resurrected. The land is the land of my faith.

And in my lifetime it has never known peace.

Some say it has not ever known peace.  I reject that assertion. The land was occupied prior to 1948 - a British and Ottoman exchange of rights and privileges over who could collect taxes and impose sanctions, use its water and its resources.  But the communities there knew peace within themselves. I have friends whose families farmed those lands, whose parents and grandparents sewed clothing for people living on that land regardless of their faith or ethnicity.  These friends are Christian, Muslim and Jewish, and their ancestors once lived much closer to each other than these friends live now.

I have other friends in this conflict. Friends whose families moved to Israel after 1948; friends who are moving to Israel now.  I have other friends who grew up in the Palestinian IDP camps, never able to know a true home. Both claim the same land as their own, their understanding of history as truth.

My friend Murad, who is one my newest friends but one I am certain will last a lifetime (assuming he doesn't disown me after this post), has written on the concept and nature of citizenship. To understand what he writes, you need to understand the meaning of three Arabic words: Watan, Mowatana, and Mowatin.  Watan is the "home you live in." But as Murad explains "The Watan is not just about the history or the geography, it also becomes a creator of the self, and an important source in creating the ego and the collective self.  It becomes the glasses we look through towards ourselves and the world, and forms a part of culture." Maybe it is best understood as our homeland, the place where we identify ourselves with, though I think the English word still lacks something.

Mowantana is also not clearly translatable, though it is often defined as citizenship. As Murad explains, though, Mowantana is broader, meaning Muslims who by virtue of their faith have a right to belong. Finally, Mowatin are citizens, or the members of the community who belong.

The complexity surrounding these words becomes important when you consider Murad's broader conclusions about Palestinian citizenship, which I'm going to quote at length because they are really beautiful and they tell us so much about this conflict:

"The Palestinians lose their Watan, but they still are attached to it even though they are living in it as Mowatin. The Palestinian generation creates the difference between the Watan and Mowatin and they can distinguish between them very well.
. . .
In the Palestinian context, the Watan is the imaginary part, because it is missing from the reality. So, the Palestinians draw the Watan in their imagination wishing and working to move it into their reality. Here we can notice the correlation between the lack of the Watan in reality and the imagination of each person and their will to make it real. This depends on each one's belonging and believing in these terms. 

Why do we feel that we have to be tied to one place? 

In an attempt to redefine these terms, these questions may help you to analyze your point of view: What does stability mean to you? Does stability change from one period to another in a humans' life? What does it mean to belong? Does belonging to something mean you feel responsibility towards it?   

Tell me what the Watan is for you, and I tell you who you are."

Now, I am afraid he will hate me for what I am about to write (though he's a very good man, and he should be super flattered with how much of him I quoted, so I'm hoping he'll forgive me... eventually), but....

While I have never heard this sentiment expressed as beautifully by my Jewish friends of Israel, I have heard it expressed all the same. That longing for the place you belong.  That desire to be reunited with your heritage, your ancestry, your family, your community; the desire to unite your past and your future.

It is not something I can relate to particularly well, and I think many in the US and Western Europe would have difficulty truly understanding this sentiment. I feel connected to Slovenia and Germany, where my mom's grandparents were born, but it's not that same grounding or gravitational force for my life.  There is, however, a piece of farmland in Western Ohio that my family has owned since Ohio was "settled" by Europeans.

We are the settlers to that land. And while I realise the long-standing claims the indigenous of Ohio have to that land, it is so dear to my family. It plays a strange role in the identity of my immediate family.  It's land shared between 3/4 of my great-grandparents' heirs, and it isn't even mine yet. My brother, sister and I will inherit our share at one of the worst moments of our lives: when both my parents have passed.  My father has already told us he will haunt us if we ever even think of selling that land. That land will be our connection when all else has left us but each other.  And it's a connection we'll share with our own children, probably with the very same promise of haunting them forever.

And yet, I know that my inheritance of that land is actually a source of pain for Native Americans. I don't usually rely on Wikipedia for facts (though the footnotes are sometimes awesome), but I was curious about who had been in this land before it became ours.  Reading the story, though, is hard for a human rights activist (perhaps particularly one who also has Cherokee Indian heritage). By 1750, the county where our land is was occupied by members of eleven Native American tribes. After the Native Americans were defeated in 1795, they were supposed to have the land my family now owns as their place to be.  In 1820, it was organized into a county with 12 townships. In one of those townships is my land. I hate how it became my land, but still... it is my land.  It is the inanimate object with which I have my deepest connection.

When I feel lost in the world - and I mean truly lost, unsure of where I belong in the world - I rely on the knowledge that my family loves me and that land represents them, strangely in many ways even more than the home I grew up in because the land is representative of my broader family: my aunt Peg, who whispers to me how happy she is with what I'm doing; and my Uncle Mike, who took me aside once to tell me he doesn't understand half of what I'm doing, disagrees with me on the half he does, but he's still proud of my for doing what I do; my great-aunt Jo, who came to my law school graduation because my own grandmother was too sick to remember it; my uncle Johnny who left us much too young but whose spirit I have felt quite clearly protecting me at times while I drive; and my great-grandma Kate, who my father tells me I'm just like. Quite honestly, I don't know that I could pick out the actual property without my dad or brother along, but still... that land is my land, my family, and the idea that I would ever have to give it up - even though I deplore how it came to be ours - it would be heartbreaking and I would absolutely fight tooth and nail for it (probably not with actual weapons but I'm a lawyer... in the US that might be better than a weapon!).

What I feel can only be a small portion of the feelings associated with land like Israel and Palestine, whose recent past is so deeply intertwined with conflict and displacement. Israel was born from the Holocaust, from the reality that the Jewish people had few safe havens in the world, and felt most secure with the notion of living in community on the land of their ancestors.  But taking that land required conflict and the expulsion of the Palestinians. Land ownership continues to be an issue. I was intending to link to this very specific article about property issues in Jerusalem, which I read when it was first published, but when I searched keywords associated with it, I just found story after story after story about the conflicts associated with land [the background to this one was the hardest for me to read]. Perhaps one of the more relevant ones was this, in which the then 80-year-old mayor of Jerusalem (an Israeli who immigrated to Palestine in 1934) blasted new settlements in the "Arab Quarter" of Jerusalem:

"Does anyone seriously think that there will not always be Muslims and Christians in Jerusalem, that we can ignore their rights and expect the world to respect our own?" the 80-year-old Mayor, in office since 1965, said in a statement.
An Israeli newspaper quoted him today as saying, "We are driving the Arabs crazy and forcing them to hate us." 

Israel has the power now, so it is often Jewish Israelis taking land previously belonging to Palestinians, but in another time that power dynamic could shift. I can only imagine how much fear and anxiety this causes the Jewish people living in Israel.  I know how much anxiety and anger the dispossession causes the Palestinians.  And fear. Fear that they will never see their homeland in their lifetime. Fear that they will always be the newest "people without a land."  Fear that they have lost themselves, their community, and their ancestry.  Fear that their life will always include outsiders who control so much more of their existence than they do themselves.

Fear drives anger, and anger hatred, and hatred violence, and violence conflict.  All from a desire for self; a desire to realize the connection with one's homeland, with one's Watan.

It is a common desire for the Palestinians and the Israelis. That very reality is what makes this conflict so tense, so personal, so seemingly without end.

But I believe it will have an end.  I am praying that the leaders will have wisdom and see a solution, and then be brave enough to pursue that solution.

I don't want to have simplified the conflict down to just land.  There are serious and grave human rights issues here. Palestinians are often shot seemingly without cause, their ability to get to medical care and their ability to get to school or work is often hampered.  Israelis fear incursions, particularly from Gaza but also from neighbouring Lebanon and Syria.  It is tense and with each new death, there is new anger, and perhaps also a deeper connection to one's ancestral struggle - something that again these two sides share.

I don't have a solution that I can propose. I am neither Palestinian nor Israeli and my connection to the conflict comes only from my faith and from my friends. The solution will need to be internal; a coming together of two peoples with the same desire and the same fear to alleviate the other's fear and realize both desires.  It seems impossible.  But everything seems impossible until someone does it.

It is not the impossibility that worries me - it is the lack of courage to make this happen that worries me. Courage to admit that one's own side has not always been right or good or fair or just in this conflict. Courage to develop a solution that may not meet the desire of everyone but will meet the needs of everyone.  Courage to see the other side as a full, real human being with their own truth and their own reality and their own human worth and value.  And courage to stand up to the interests of one's own side to develop a plan and to implement it.

Children know in a way adults sometimes forget that human beings are, at our heart, the same. Our languages and clothing and music and food preparation may differ, but our feelings are universal. Our fears our universal.  I am praying that courage will be too.

And that is what I'm asking from you as part of this first praying for peace.  I am asking that you pray for courage for individuals and leaders in this conflict in identifying, developing, and realising a solution. Pray for the individuals and the leaders on both sides, not just the side you normally favour.  Pray for the individuals whose lives will be affected by whatever decision is developed. Pray for Peace.


I know as a Christian, I am supposed to go into our closest and prayer, but how are you supposed to encourage people to pray about something if you don't talk about it and talk about praying?  That's the very issue I face here. But if you want to pray over this, and you're unsure how to do that, this is a short version of the prayer I will inevitably be reciting over and over this Saturday and you're welcome to use it:

Dear God, I ask you to bless the people and the leaders of Israel and Palestine. I ask you to help them find a solution.  Help them identify it, develop it, and realise it. Give them the courage and strength necessary to find communal peace, and through communal peace eventually individual acceptance and peace with one's life and surroundings. Help the people in Israel and Palestine to see each other as your children, and help them to value the human worth in one another. All these things I pray in your name, Amen.

Praying for Peace

This past Saturday, the Pope asked his followers to pray for peace in Syria. Catholics were joined by other Christians and people of other faiths. On Monday, a seemingly off-the-cuff response by John Kerry led to a breakthrough. Skeptics about God and faith will tell you it was a coincidence.

But I'm not a skeptic.

I believe God answers prayers.

This admittedly makes me a seeming anomaly among western human rights activists, though I know several others who feel the same way. My faith has always been the motivating factor in my life and in my decision to pursue human rights.

It's with that that I've decided to make a commitment towards my two great loves in life: God and human rights.  Every week, by Friday I'll pick a conflict or a human rights concern that I will highlight and write a small thing about and ask those of you who read my blog and have a faith orientation to pray about it on Saturday.  I won't ask you to pray for specific policies, but I'll ask you to pray for situations.

Now, I will try to make this as open to other faiths as I possibly can, but let me be clear... I'm a Christian.  That's all I am.  And all I have to offer the world is myself.  So I'll be writing in my own voice, from my own faith background and my blog posts will always end with a suggested prayer as I know some of my friends will want / need a little prompting at first on how to pray over situations, rather than people or things.

I'm posting this so if you want to join you can remember to check out my blog every Saturday morning.

This is admittedly going to be a challenge for me.  I love human rights and I love prayer, but I also am swamped in my PhD and so I don't like making commitments that will take some level of creativity on a weekly basis (you can see how rarely I update this blog now).  But, this is something I think is important and it's a small area I think I can make a contribution to.

So... look for my first prayer post before Saturday.  I already know it will be about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and peace process because it has been on my heart a lot today and in the past few weeks.

On the legality of stockpiling chemical weapons, again for the non-expert

This will actually be the second in a series of four blog posts about chemical weapons in international law.  I know this will be boring for some people, but I'm soooo freaking excited that my friends want to talk about international law!  Even if this will end within a week or so, I'm taking every opportunity I can to talk about my one true love in life.

The first blog post was about how Syria could be obliged to not use chemical weapons when it wasn't a party. This one is about the legality of stockpiling chemical weapons under international law. The next one will be about the use of chemical weapons by Israel during the last Gaza conflict.  There's a fourth subject I wanted to talk about but now that I'm typing this, I forgot.  So I'll update this post later to reflect that.  Also, at some point I'll put a little cheat sheet of international law terms somewhere.

A friend wrote to ask me about that first blog to ask how stockpiling chemical weapons could be justified when the Convention on Chemical Weapons bans it.  This is a great question that is slightly technical and relates to the relationship between treaty and customary law and I realised it was a big gap in my explanation.  Sorry about that, but stick with me for one more international law post.

Let's start with the first and most important part: Article 1 of the Convention does prohibit stockpiling, acquiring, retaining or transferring chemical weapons:

"1. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never under any circumstances:
(a) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone;"

Now, Some treaties can generate customary obligations. Perhaps the easiest treaties to point to on this are the Four Geneva Conventions relating to the treatment of people during war.  They have 195  parties. There's only 193 countries in the UN. This means if you're a newbie country,* you're more likely to agree to the Geneva Conventions than you are to the UN Charter.

And non-countries or wanna-be countries sometimes sign on to the Geneva Conventions because they find the protection offered there appropriate. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation agreed to adhere to the Geneva Conventions in 1989, more than 20 years before they would be recognised as a country (though not a member) by the United Nations General Assembly.

It would be really hard for a country to be recognized as independent and not sign onto the Geneva Conventions or abide by them even if they aren't a party.  They've also been incorporated into domestic laws and military manuals and are often recognized by countries as customary law. In that sense, the treaty obligations themselves have become customary international law. The exact extent of this obligation is still debated in the international law community (though the International Committee of the Red Cross** (ICRC) has a super nifty, pretty authoritative guide on customary international law in this area).

The Chemical Weapons treaty may be customary law on its own.  I'm just haven't previously been convinced that it is. The obligation to not use chemical weapons is clearly customary, but I haven't previously been convinced the obligations about stockpiling are yet. That said, this last debate on Syria may now convince me otherwise. Here's how:

States often used, relied upon and noted the Convention as a reason for not stockpiling. While this means they recognize an obligation not to stockpile, their reason for being legally bound appears to be just the treaty. They didn't seem to suggest there was an independent reason for not stockpiling these weapons, and other states didn't seem to suggest the mere stockpiling by these states was a danger.  When the US talked about Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction, it was accompanied by accusations that Iraq was likely to use them in the future because it has used them in the past (something we apparently didn't mind so much the first time but really feared happening again). There have been very few discussions about stockpiling weapons that weren't actually about the use of chemical weapons. On this, states often did note independent reasons for not  using chemical weapons, but the stockpiling wasn't really discussed as much.

With the Syria case, though, the US came out hard against the stockpiling by Syria, stating that for Syria to avoid US intervention, it needed to turn over and destroy its chemical weapons. Syria denied even stockpiling, suggesting it finds itself bound to not stockpile chemical weapons as well.  With both the US and Syria suggesting Syria was bound not to stockpile weapons, and most of the rest of the world agreeing or remaining silent, it would appear we're at the point where stockpiling weapons is itself an independent obligation.

But, in my opinion, that's a pretty recent development. Even the US's position on Syria's chemical weapons was initially solely about their use. We were going to invade not because they had chemical weapons, but because they used chemical weapons.  This discussion has evolved, though, this week and I think I would now say even having chemical weapons may be customary international law.

This brings me to one more important point about customary international law:  sometimes it's really hard to know what is and isn't customary international law.  We can sometimes know for sure what is customary international law, because a court with importance has said so (i.e., the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Triubnals for Rwanda or Yugoslavia), or because there's really clear evidence that is indisputable. A lot of times, though, international law scholars can make a case but it's not an air-tight case.  We have evidence, we think it's pretty sound, but maybe it's not.

Also, sometimes the idea of customary international law is massively overused.  International law is only binding if a state consents to it. Both customary law and treaty are ways in which states consent. People want things to be legally binding so in the absence of a treaty, they say it's customary international law. My old law professor used to call this the "Tinkerbell doctrine": If people - meaning activists and scholars - clapped their hands enough and said they believed, the law could live.

I'm a little more skeptical on this, and think we need to be protective about what constitutes customary international law because that protects the democratic process in our own states. If the state is going to agree to be bound by something, it is constraining its ability to respond to internal, democratic changes in the future. That should be treated very carefully.

So, I'm not one to necessarily jump on a customary international law bandwagon, no matter how much I want something to be customary international law. That's why I said countries (meaning not parties to the treaty) can justify stockpiling weapons, but not using them.  I should have been a little clearer on all of that in the last post. Sorry!


Either way, it looks like we have a breakthrough and Syria may be joining on to the obligation not to stockpile, which it denies doing, and all of that makes the customary international law on stockpiling a little more likely.

*I'm using country and not the technical term "state" because most of my audience is from the US and I don't want to have to explain that one right now.

**Fun Fact: While everyone things the Red Cross is a religious symbol, which is why the ICRC now also has Red Crescent societies, it wasn't intended as such. The Red Cross was actually intended to honour Switzerland. This may be simply because the founder of the ICRC, Jean-Henri Dunant, was a Swiss citizen, but it's also significant because Switzerland was a neutral country and the ICRC remains neutral in battle, serving both and working with both sides of conflicts with complete immunity (that's a treaty obligation, but it's probably customary law). Oh, and the Geneva Conventions were obviously signed in Geneva, which is in Switzerland (yes, it's also in Ohio, but that one didn't host the ICRC founding). the Ohio Geneva and inverting the colors of the US flag would just be very confusing).  So the Red Cross is just the Swiss flag with inverted colours. Or colors, depending on where you live.

Dear Parents

I don't know how you do it.  I'm a single woman in her mid-30s and society thinks I should therefore either live in perpetual jealousy or believe you've all wasted your lives by getting married too you and having bratty kids.  I don't do either. I mostly just sit in awe of you.

Five minutes ago, I put corn on the cob in pot on the stove (UK: hob). Sat down, and just now couldn't figure out what was making that boiling noise.  Then it hit me... shit...  Thankfully, the corn wasn't burnt. It's actually not even done yet.  Which gives me maybe another 2 minutes to sit here and tell you how amazing you are.

As I ran to the stove that in that moment I was very thankful no child could possibly be around, I thought about Krissy, one of my oldest friends who freaking makes butterfly costumes for her children's classes. She has triplets and she has time and energy and mental focus enough to make some 20 sets of wings before she goes into read to a kindergarten class.  Oh, and co-run an awesome non-profit to raise awareness about Juvenile Diabetes, and run her own business.

And I almost burnt corn on the cob without any help from kids crying in another room.

Then there's Jenny and Candi, who actually sew whole outfits for their children.  By hand.  I mean, I assume they also have sewing machines, but they design and create and do all these crazy things in addition to actually spending time with their children.

Truth be told, I'm not even sure how you know if corn on the cob is done or not.  Normally, I would just time it but my landlord is installing a new bathroom downstairs and they must have turned off the electricity today. The clock on my stove is just blinking and I can't even figure out how to set the timer. And if I was setting a timer, I'd just be making up numbers anyways.

It's not just because they sew and create butterfly wings that I'm in awe of them. They're all raising really cool kids and they're not alone. My friends Mandy, Heather, Julie and Kim are each ensuring their kids understand how loved and blessed they are. They're raising funny, sweet, irreverent and yet faithful and kind children.

This morning, I lost my keys. Twice.  And I thought I lost my buspass. Twice.  It literally takes me as long to get out of the house in the morning as it should take a parent with two kids.

[Seriously, though, does corn on the cob just change color?  Is it just done when it's a pretty golden color or is there another secret I'm missing?]

I also know that my friends Elizabeth, Vance, Rob, Pam, and Dan remain active presences in their babies' lives despite the fact they have busy (probably crazy) careers as lawyers.  They are somehow able to manage their case loads, their relationships, their children, and be active members in their communities.

And my brother and sister-in-law!  OMG, they are raising the cutest kid in the world.  Not that I'm biased or anything.  They read to him, and play with him, take him to football games, go to the lake, teach him how to swim, and are just raising one of the cutest, sweetest kids you could imagine. And they do all of this while my brother runs for city council and they both work full-time.

Today, I sat at my computer looking at the same three sentences for 15 minutes before I said "f--- it.  I'll deal with it at home."  That paper is sitting next to me now, waiting for me to love it and sped time with it like it's a child. But here's the thing - it's not actually a child, so if I forgot about it, I don't have to worry about it running up and touching the hot stove or finding its way into the cupboard in our bathroom that houses all the cleaning supplies. I don't have to worry that it'll break my computer when I turn away for two seconds or wander out into the street by itself.  It's safe and sound even if I don't touch it for the rest of the night.

So that is why I am in awe of you, dear parents.  I only hope that when / if I'm blessed with children of my own, I'll be half the parent you are.  Whether that's a parent that makes butterfly wings and costumes or helps their kid read or takes their kid to a football game every week.  You are engaged with who your babies are becoming, and that's pretty amazing.

I, on the other hand, am just glad my corn on the cob came out okay.

What Makes Chemical Weapons so Special (For the Non-Expert)

Let me start with noting the obvious: I have some seriously awesome, smart, amazing friends. And the more obvious: not all of them know about international humanitarian law, or more specifically the laws of armed conflict.

This is partly the product of where I grew up:  the discussion on international law in the US is a bit crazy. As one of my colleagues and I were taking the mick out of each other this morning, he said something I could really argue with:  "You can't go to an American on international law - they don't even think it exists!" (Okay, I realise no one will laugh at that unless they actually do international law; and in fairness, he went on to a much more personal and funny insult, but that was his set-up.).

This is partly the product of our history. We were isolationists.  When we stopped being isolationists, we were a world superpower, and then we were the world superpower.  So we tend to think we're not bound by anything other than whatever came out of the POTUS's mouth (or the SCOTUS's mouth, and sometimes Congress's maybe; and if you're Rick Perry, you think you're only bound by the latest thing to have come out of your own mouth).

But also, lots of other, non-US people just don't about the laws of armed conflict.  So the past few weeks, I've seen a lot of facebook posts / comments along these lines:

• "Assad's been bombing people for years. What makes chemical weapons so special?"
• "How can we hold him to a treaty Syria isn't a party to?"
• "Does this mean we can bomb anyone who messes up in war?  Because we should be careful about that..."

Now, morally, I kind of agree with the first comment, but legally, there's answers to all of these questions and the answers relate to the laws of armed conflict.  Now, I'm not going to suggest an answer to the problem of Syria but I think Syria presents a really good opportunity for people who don't pay attention to international law as part of their job to start to understand international law just for their own benefit.  So, here's my super brief answer on "what makes chemical weapons so special."  I could write a longer piece, but I can only justify about 20 minutes of procrastination on my PhD chapter.  Also, as I wrote, I could hear the voices of my friends who study this in my head, so I have a few notes for them in [brackets]. Just ignore those if you don't study this.

Let's start with some basics:

There are two types of international law: treaties and customary.  Customary international law develops when states act in a consistent manner and do so because they believe they are legally bound to do so even without a treaty.  To see the consistent state manner, you can look to both action and omissions, and can rely on public statements and declarations that accompany either the act or lack of action. Once something is customary international law, it's binding on all states except those that have consistently objected to the development of this rule.  This can develop slowly taking decades or it can be quite quick.

Understanding how customary international law works:
To give an example (which is really really really not real), let's imagine that tomorrow, the US decided that because of all the peanut allergies (which I know are really really real), it was going to ban the growing, selling, producing or importing of peanuts to protect human life.  Then it started telling other states they should do it too, that ultimately if they take the right to life seriously, they must do this. And a few other states - hippy-dippy liberals like Canada, NZ and France and Sweden - decided to ban peanuts out of respect for the right to life.  That would not be enough for customary international law.  But, if over the course of about 3 years, almost all the other states - say, 135 of the 193 UN members - all worked to ban and eradicate peanut use as a threat to human life and health, and they banned sales, and they came out with statements saying that the production of peanuts was illegal not just within their own states but across the world.  Then, with 135, you would see an emerging norm or an emerging custom.  No one is quite sure if it's really custom or not, but it sure looks like it's getting there.  And then by year 5, 155 countries have done this.  They're all doing the things to ban peanuts and stop their transport.  And of the less than 40 countries who haven't, 20 don't actually use or have peanuts in their countries anyhow.  So they haven't taken any steps because they're looking at the rest of the world going "But we've never even had peanuts, they've never been in our borders, why is everyone so obsessed with peanuts?" So this takes us down to 20 states that are relevant to the peanut discussion and who aren't banning their import. Ten of these states just don't care because they wish we would focus on something more important like world peace or the real eradication of polio. But the other 10 do care and every time it comes up they go, "No. This isn't a real rule. You're all anti-peanut imperialists and we will not be bound by this rule."  At that point, there's enough consensus that the rule becomes a rule for everyone - the 155 that agreed, the 20 that it was never relevant to and the 10 it was relevant to but didn't care - except for the 10 states that continue to say it's not a real rule.  Now, let's assume Thailand with all their yummy peanut sauce is one of the countries that consistently objected so they aren't bound.

So what happens with Canada suddenly starts trading Thailand minerals for peanuts?  The law isn't binding for Thailand but it is for Canada, who was actually one of the first to help make this a law. Canada is violating international law.  They haven't signed a treaty, but they also weren't consistent objectors when the customary rule was developing.  So they have to live by the rule that was established.  They can't come in later and go, "Oh, shoot, but we don't like that rule anymore, so we won't abide by it."  They can, on the other hand, try to create a new rule.  But they can't just ignore the old one.

How Chemical Weapons are Customary International Law.
So, those are the two types of law.  Now why this matters to chemical weapon use.  Syria isn't a party to the relevant treaties [note to IHL-nerds: yes, some could argue that the use of chemical weapons is torture and prohibited under Common Article 3 of the Four Geneva Conventions, but this post isn't for you, so stop trying to make it all complicated; yes, Dan and Sukrit, I'm talking to you.]. So, Syria can only be bound to not use chemical weapons on civilians if there's a relevant customary international law.

And there is. (Otherwise, this post would've ended a really long time ago.)  The laws of war have two relevant rules for this that are not customary for all wars. [note to IHL-nerds: yes, I know wars and armed conflicts are different, but again, this post isn't for you, so stop being nit-picky. Dan, Sukrit, and Catherine.]

Now, war is bad. Everyone knows that. The laws of war are intended to make war less bad, meaning less harmful to the innocent civilians and as humane as you can make war for the people fighting it.  It accepts that people will die.  The laws accept that people will die but it requires states to try to make sure people only die to the extent necessary, and if they do die it's from as humane an act as possible.  I know it's perverse, but countries are sometimes perverse: they don't want the effects of war, but they like blowing things up and conquering each other.  So to hit the right balance, they developed rules that limit the impact on civilians.

The two customary laws that are most relevant here are the obligations when targeting, and the use of weapons that are designed to cause superfluous harm.

When you're fighting a war, the country has to distinguish between military and civilian objects. Military objects are those that by their nature, use, purpose or location make an effective contribution to the military effort of the other side, and whose destruction in whole or in part in the circumstances ruling at the time will help your side militarily.  It's judged by the circumstances ruling at the time, so if you have a big building and last week, the military was housing all their artillery, last week was a military target and you could try to destroy it.  But if this week, it's now a flower garden, it's no longer a military target and you can't hit it.  You can make mistakes, but your mistakes should be in good faith, so you should try to confirm in advance of launching a strike that the building is still being used for military housing. This is judged by the standard of your best efforts to the extent that doesn't compromise your military objective and advantage.  So you know the building was military housing, you've asked some people, you've done some scouting, and you've seen 30 guys in military uniforms with big guns entering and leaving and no one tells you it's now a flower market.  You can target it.  When it turns out you're wrong because the guys in military uniforms with big guns were just going in to buy their girlfriends flowers, you're not liable for being wrong.

Now, in addition to the things you can target, you can also target the people who are fighting you.  In a conflict between countries, that's the military versus military, and in a conflict within a country or between the US and groups like al Qaeda, you can target the military or non-military people who fight.  They don't necessarily need to be fighting right at that exact moment, but they need to be the people who are fighting.  [IHL law nerds: no, I'm not going to discuss the complexities of DPH. Suck it up, Dan, Sukrit, Catherine, and Gilles-Phillippe.]

You can never target civilians or civilian objects.  It's prohibited.  It's so fundamentally prohibited it's the most prohibited you can get in international law.  It's Charles Manson-Jeffrey Dahmer-Ariel Castro prohibited.

Once you've targeted a military thing, you have to use weapons that can distinguish between the civilian object and the military. Again, this isn't a strict standard, but you need to work to your capabilities, and if you can't completely distinguish, then you need to make sure that the impact on civilians doesn't outweigh the advantage you gain. This is a fluid thing and it's not a 1:1 ratio. If you are targeting something really important - like the Department of Defense ("DOD") - if you might be able to justify killing 100 or 500 civilians, whereas if you're targeting a checkpoint on the road, you might be able to justify killing only 1 civilian. If you can, you should alter your plans to make sure the damage to civilians is as little as possible.  So if a market is operating across the street from the DOD and it only operates from 9-5 and you can just as easily attack at 6 as you can at 3pm, and you aren't sacrificing your only opportunity to to attack well, you should wait until 6.  [IHL-nerds: yes, I just discussed both distinction and proportionality and tried to pretend it was just distinction, but stop being so mean, Sukrit, Dan, Catherine, Gilles-Phillippe, Selbi, Hanneke and Laureen.]

• The short answer:  Chemical weapons can't distinguish usually. That's the thing about chemicals - you spray them out and they just go and go and go. They're not like a bomb or a bullet, they don't hit something and then stick.  So, they don't distinguish and they aren't proportionate.

Why Chemical Weapons are Extra Bad Compared to Other Weapons.

The other relevant customary international law is a prohibition on the use of weapons that cause superfluous harm. We want weapons that kill as humanely as possible. Yes, bombs and bullets and tanks can leave you paralyzed, but they aren't designed to leave you paralyzed. They're designed to make you die (or get you to surrender).  Again, we know war is hell and we know that people will die, but we just want it to be as limited of a hell as we can have. So if something is designed to leave you in pain rather than to kill you, it's not legal.

• The short answer:  Chemical weapons aren't designed to kill you, or to kill you quickly.  They are designed to make you suffer. Sarin gas is designed to kill your nerves, making you writhe in pain until your body shuts off.  Yes, it can sometimes work faster than other times, but it's purpose is an evil, awful one.  It's designed to bring out the worst hell war can offer.   

Even Beyond the General, there's Probably a Specific Customary International Law.

No one justifies using chemical weapons.  We can justify owning them and stockpiling them as a deterrent, but no one actually justifies using them. Not even Hussein or Assad prior to, well, when they didn't like that rule anymore.  When they are used, they're denied (as we've seen in Syria), or people blame one another (as in Syria), or they are prosecuted.

Chemical weapons use is, thankfully, very rare, and no one actually goes around saying, "Dude, love the ability to use chemical weapons on people" or even "Seriously, it's totally fine to use chemical weapons."  Everyone says they can't / won't / don't and when they do, they still say they can't / won't and don't.

You can compare this to bombs and bullets. No one ever goes around saying "bullets are illegal! So are tanks and bombs!"  And by "no one" I mean no one other than pacifists and no one speaking on behalf of their country.

So we have a pretty consistent state practice (not using chemical weapons) with a definite assertion that it's illegal (shown by denials when they are used).  So chemical weapons are also specifically prohibited, making them different than other weapons.

Who Enforces This?

Whoever is using the chemical weapons is definitely breaking a law that it is definitely bound to not break and that it definitely knows that it is breaking.  Oh, yeah - I forgot to mention. The rules above also apply to non-state actors, so even though the US thinks it's Assad and Russia says it's the other guys, it doesn't matter.  Someone - whoever used the chemical weapons - is breaking the law.

Now, as to who enforces this... ummmmmm.... so, yeah, kind of no one, and kind of the UN Security Council (UNSC).  Which is why Obama feels that someone should and since he can't get the UNSC to do it, he will. Or might. Maybe. Depending on Congress and France say.

But just because it's not enforced doesn't mean it's not a law.  Think about how many times you've sped on your local highway!