Once upon a time, Kenya is a land of the bewildered, stories of legendary fables and myths engulfed the peoples with tales of spirituality and the divine. Most often, tales of heroes triumphant in battles riddled Kenyan kids’ bedtime stories.
The heroes of old served as role model for the many warrior tribes in Kenya. But as the modern age emerge, and as the tribes of Kenya lead the modern living, the mystic tales of heroes of old and their adventures were quietly forgotten. But the heroes of Kenya lives on, their stories now told humbly still radiate inspiration and admiration, and this is their story. This is the side of Kenya which needs to be shared with the world.
The world was shocked when a rural Kenyan teacher won the Global Teacher Prize, beating all odds. The shockwave hit Kenyan newspapers like wildfire. In the streets, his name was the talk of town. Remarkably, Peter Tabichi came from a humble beginning, leading a very humble life in the countryside of Kenya. As he puts his heart out towards his passion for teaching, he puts duty over self, as he imparts knowledge in a difficult environment. And believe me, the trials he went through to be Kenya’s modern hero is indeed impressive.
Teaching in a rural school in Kenya is a feat not meant for the weak heart. His duty as a teacher transcends teaching at school, as he also reached out to the local community, who were plagued with continuous famine and drought, and ultimately assisted in solving tribal violence afflicting the society. His story is worthy to be told like heroes of old, as a modern hero of Kenya.
Nur Hani Laily
Women have always been the backbone of development in Kenya. Always at the forefront of entrepreneurship, Kenyan women lead their communities in private enterprises with the one aim to earn a living. Most of the time, single mothers work informal jobs to make ends meet, as living standards are at the bare minimum in Kenya.
At times of hardships, creative solutions turn the very best mothers into business owners, turning raw materials into beautiful crafts which adds value not only to the business, but personally as well. The women heroes of Kenya set up small and medium enterprises, and in turn help other ladies in the community who share the same fate. There have been plenty of success stories in Kenya, and Kazuri Beads Factory in Nairobi is just one of them. Women in Kenya are indeed the deserved heroes the country needs.
Ergo, these stories are two tiny illustrations in a sea of heroic stories in modern Kenya. Apropos the stories of heroes of old, these modern heroic stories needs to be told in repeat, so as the next generation knows that heroes are born, they are made, through hardships, through perseverance, and through sacrifices. Heroism is a state of mind, as everyone can be a hero.
HM King Mohammed VI of Morocco – Picture by Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India
Friday, 15 January 2020, Washington D.C., USA: outgoing US President Donald Trump awarded His Majesty King Mohammed VI of Morocco the ‘Legion of Merit’ in the degree of Chief Commander for his “positive influence” on the political scene in the Middle East, referring in particular to the normalization of relations with Israel.
Trump, who sees the normalization of a number of Arab countries to their relations with Israel as a major achievement in presidential foreign policy. President Trump broke decades of diplomacy in December2020 by recognizing the full sovereignty of Morocco over the disputed Western Sahara, while Morocco pledged to normalize relations with the State of Israel.
The White House presented King Mohammed VI with the Order of Merit at a private ceremony in the Oval Office attended by the Moroccan ambassador to the USA, HH Sharifa Lalla Joumala Al Alaoui. The bestowal is a reciprocity after Sharifa Lalla Joumala presented President Donald Trump with the ‘Order of Mohammed’, also known as the Order of Sovereignty, which is the Sharifian kingdom’s highest award, normally reserved for heads of state and high ranking members of royal and ruling houses.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East Envoy Avi Berkowitz received other awards for their work on the Israel-Morocco deal, which was reached in December. The Legion of Merit is a military award created to honour the Allied leaders in World War II, and was dormant until Trump revived it. Trump awarded the medal last month to the prime ministers of Australia, India and Japan as well, and earlier in September 2020 to the late Emir of Kuwait, Sabah IV.
President-elect Joe Biden has not promised to retain Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in Western Sahara, an erstwhile Spanish colony, which has been in tension since the 1970s as the Front for the Liberation of Sakia El Hamra and the Valley of Gold (Polisario) demand the territory’s independence. Morocco controls most of Western Sahara, but the United Nations does not recognise its sovereignty over it.
Today, I announce the conclusion of the preliminary examination into the situation in Iraq/United Kingdom (UK) following a thorough process. I have decided, as set out in my Office’s detailed report to close the preliminary examination and not to open an investigation.
In 2014, my Office re-opened the preliminary examination into the situation in Iraq/UK on the bases of new information received. Since then, my Office has been rigorously examining allegations of crimes committed by UK nationals in Iraq during the course of the UK’s military involvement in Iraq. In particular, the Office has focussed on a sub-set of allegations related to the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in UK custody.
The Office has previously found, and today confirmed, that there is a reasonable basis to believe that members of the British armed forces committed the war crimes of wilful killing, torture, inhuman/cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and/or other forms of sexual violence. The Office has identified a confined number of incidents to reach this determination which, while not exhaustive, appear to correspond to the most serious allegations of violence against persons in UK custody.
The Office further found that several levels of institutional civilian supervisory and military command failures contributed to the commission of crimes against detainees by UK soldiers in Iraq. In this respect, a key aspect that warranted scrutiny was whether the evidence available supported referring criminal charges against commanders and other superiors for such conduct.
The Office has found that the initial response of the British army in theatre at the time of the alleged offences was inadequate and vitiated by a lack of a genuine effort to carry out relevant investigations independently or impartially. The institution of public inquiries and the subsequent creation of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) in the UK were a response to the admitted failures of the British army at the time to conduct effective investigations.
The question for my Office was whether the subsequent investigations carried out by the UK authorities were genuine, or if there was evidence that potential perpetrators had been shielded from criminal justice.
The Office acknowledges the efforts made by the UK authorities, even if at a later stage, in setting specific mechanisms to address these allegations, and the relevant resources placed into investigating the allegations. Nevertheless, the outcome of the more than ten year long domestic process, involving the examination of thousands of allegations, has resulted in not one single case being submitted for prosecution to date: a result that has deprived the victims of justice. Although a handful of cases have been referred for prosecution, in each instance, prosecution was declined on evidentiary and/or public/service interest grounds.
This outcome has triggered apprehension among observers that either the underlying claims were vexatious, or, conversely, that the UK process was not genuine. Unpacking these issues has proven complex and accounted for the length and scope of the Office’s examination and the resulting report.
On the question of vexatious claims, the fact that the allegations investigated by the UK authorities did not result in prosecutions does not mean that these claims were vexatious. At most, it means that the domestic investigative bodies could not sustain sufficient evidence to refer the cases for prosecution, or on cases referred, there was not a realistic prospect of conviction in a criminal trial.
As the UK authorities have admitted, a significant and recurrent weakness in the cases investigated was the dearth of forensic evidence and inconsistencies in witness testimony given the historical nature of the investigations, years after the events. While some of those factors are a common feature in the investigation of crimes of this nature, these results were also in large part due to the inadequacies of the initial investigations conducted by the British military in theatre.
At the same time, the fate of criminal inquiries contrasts with the large number of civil claims resolved either before the High Court, where the evidence was challenged and tested, or through out of court settlements. These have involved claims with respect to hundreds of victims alleged to have suffered conditions of detention and mistreatment amounting to inhuman or degrading treatment.
Other public inquiries, commissioned reviews and policy mechanisms have concluded that practices which occurred during the early rotations of UK military deployments in Iraq fell below the required standards of conduct. In this context, the Office has found untenable the proposition that these various processes all arose from vexatious claims.
To assess genuineness, the preliminary examination has engaged in a detailed and complex assessment of numerous stages in the investigative and prosecutorial process leading to cases being filtered out or discontinued.
The Office also examined the extent to which the UK authorities looked at systemic issues and related questions of command and supervisory responsibility. It also conducted its own separate inquiry into reported allegations made by a number of former UK investigators concerning intentional disregarding, falsification, and/or destruction of evidence during the course of domestic investigations, as well as the impeding or prevention of certain investigative inquiries and the premature termination of cases.
The Office’s report has identified numerous concerns with respect to how specific decisions on certain matters were arrived at. The ICC, however, is not a human rights body called upon to decide whether in domestic proceedings, the requirements of human rights law or domestic law have been violated. Instead, it is tasked with determining whether it should exercise its own competence in a criminal case, in place of a State.
To do so, the ICC must be satisfied that no relevant proceedings have been undertaken, or if they have, that those proceedings were not genuine, either because the State is unable to undertake genuine proceedings, or because the State is unwilling to do so in the sense that it has taken steps to shield perpetrators from criminal justice. Given the range and scope of the allegations examined by IHAT and its successor, the Service Police Legacy Investigations, the Office assessed that it could not conclude that the UK authorities had remained inactive. Instead, the more relevant question was their genuineness.
If shielding had been made out, an investigation by my Office would have been warranted. Following a detailed inquiry, and despite the concerns expressed in its report, the Office could not substantiate allegations that the UK investigative and prosecutorial bodies had engaged in shielding, based on a careful scrutiny of the information before it. Having exhausted reasonable lines of enquiry arising from the information available, I therefore determined that the only professionally appropriate decision at this stage is to close the preliminary examination and to inform the senders of communications. My decision is without prejudice to a reconsideration based on new facts or evidence.
While this decision might be met with dismay and disappointment by some stakeholders or perceived as an endorsement of the UK’s approach by others, the technical reasons set out in the accompanying report should temper both impressions.
As a prosecuting office, our aim is to bring a measure of justice to the victims of atrocity crimes in strict conformity with our mandate, without fear or favour. That commitment and duty are always subject to the possibilities and limits set by the Court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, and a rigorous objective assessment of the applicable legal criteria.
On 9 December 2020, the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) won the 8th Edition of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Moot Court Competition, Spanish version. The Alberto Hurtado University (Chile) and the UNAM ACATLAN (México) won, respectively, second and third places. Members of the winning team are Fátima López Verde, Tatiana Chelli, Delfina Lladó and Laura Gabriela Hinojosa.
Nineteen teams from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Perú, Spain and Venezuela participated in this year’s simulation exercise on the applicable law and jurisprudence of the ICC. The teams competed on a fictitious case, presenting oral arguments in the roles of the Office of the Prosecutor, Defence and Legal Representatives of Victims.
Due to Covid-19 pandemic, the 8th ICC Moot Court Competition, Spanish version, had only a written phase. The memorials of the three teams with the highest scores were provided to an International Jury composed of former ICC Judge Sylvia H. Steiner, presiding, ICC Legal Officer Juan Pablo Calderón Meza and Coalition for the ICC Legal Officer Ricardo Izquierdo. On the basis of the memorials, the International Jury decided which teams came in first, second and third places.
The eighth edition of the Spanish version of the ICC Moot Court Competition has been organised by the Ibero-American Institute for Peace, Human Rights and International Justice (IIH), with the institutional support of the International Criminal Court.
In the context of its Academic Programme, the ICC supports the organisation of ICC Moot Court Competitions in Chinese, English, Russian and Spanish, with a view to also support Arabic and French versions in the future. These initiatives play a critical role in galvanising interest in the Court’s work with academic communities as well as in enhancing promotion and respect for international criminal law.
The IV Polyphonic Day of International Justice (with speakers from Bulgaria, China, Egypt, Gambia, Iran, Russia, Togo and Uruguay), has been rescheduled for November 25th, 2021 at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands).
Nevertheless, a final decision on the new date will take place in June 2020 in light of the evolution of the covid-19 pandemic.
By H.E Phoukhong Sisoulath, Ambassador of Laos to Belgium, the Netherlands and the EU.
The book ‘Lockdown Journeys’ written by Dr Pick Keobandith is really interesting and will be handily available for all those who would love to try, and to cook, different foods famously unique for the cuisines and cultures of some 60 countries in different parts of the world.
The full lockdowns during the first wave of Covid-19 created so many difficulties and challenging times for most, if not all countries, but the author has creatively tried to turn the darkness into light and has truly succeeded by taking all of us, readers under lockdown, “out to different parts of the world” to enjoy the local cultures and unique cuisines.
It is with pride also that the author, Dr Pick Keobandith, who is originally from Laos, has put her tremendous effort and time in creating this book, where Laos, Lao cuisine and Lao culture are also well presented and represented. This unique book is truly an asset for cultural diplomacy from the perspective of sharing the recipes and local traditions of cooking of many peoples, many nations.
‘Lockdown Journeys’ is useful and helpful in the exchange of different cultures and traditions, fostering international, people-to-people solidarity, mutual understanding and support in overcoming the difficulties facing different countries and people around the world. The pandemic of Covid-19 is unfortunately still around and posing serious threats, forcing many countries to be in partial or full lockdown. This book continues to be relevant and useful to all during these difficult times and even afterwards when the pandemic will, hopefully, be fully defeated.
Let’s see New Year 2021 as the year of hope!
My best wishes to all, particularly the readers of ‘the Lockdown Journeys’, for a very happy, safe and prosperous New Year! Enjoy the taste of the world’s different cuisines, and please do try to cook and taste the Lao food!
My congratulations and sincere appreciation to Dr Pick Keobandith and best wishes for happiness and the greatest success to her in the New Year 2021!
Dr. David M. Malone, United Nations University Rector and Undersecretary General of the UN.
By Guido Lanfranchi.
As part of the Geneva Lecture Series concepted and conducted by prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic, United Nations University Rector and Undersecretary General of the UN, Dr. David M. Malone gave a highly mesmerizing and content intensive lecture for the faculty members and Geneva-based diplomats.* Excellency Malone outlined his view on international development, focusing on how the theory and (especially) the practice of such concept has evolved over the past decades. While international development has done much to improve the socio-economic situation in developing countries, much remains to be done, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic – Dr. Malone said.
Talks about international development permeate current debates in academic and policy circles around the world. Yet, decades after its endorsement as one of the international community’s top priorities, the term continues to elude clear and univocal definitions, and it remains a contested concept. Dr. David M. Malone – an expert in international development, currently serving as UNU’s Rector in Tokyo, Japan – talked about his own take on the historical evolution of international development in an exchange with the students of Swiss UMEF University.
In a brief but comprehensive account, Dr. Malone noted that the concept of international development has emerged only fairly recently as a major issue on the world stage. The League of Nations, for instance, was not concerned with development, and even the United Nations did not initially devote much attention to this concept. Similarly, development was not on the agenda of the economic institutions established at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference – notably the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose aim was to ensure monetary stability, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, the World Bank’s predecessor), whose focus was on the post-war reconstruction effort.
How did it happen, then, that these institutions gradually took the lead in promoting and sustaining development worldwide? The key factor underpinning this shift – according to Dr. Malone – is the process of decolonization, which started in the late 1940s with the independence of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Having freed themselves from the exploitative rule of colonial powers, these countries first sought to launch their first development programs, which often had a focus on agricultural development and famine prevention. At the time, international support to such efforts was very limited, consisting only of some experimental activities on specific technical issues, but with extremely tight budgets.
Yet, things started to change as a “huge decolonization wave” took off in the late 1950s, creating almost 80 new countries in the span of little more than 15 years. As these countries entered the UN en masse, they soon gained a majority in the organization. Questioning the UN’s single-handed focus on political and security issues, these countries – which were then labeled as “developing countries” – started to advocate for their own interest: the promotion of development throughout the developing world, with support from the international community.
These calls were rather successful. Entities such as the IBRD/World Bank, on a good track to completing their post-war reconstruction mission, soon started to shift their attention towards the developing world, ramping up the scale of their previously meager technical endeavors. Even more importantly, international support for developmental efforts started to materialize, both through bilateral agreements between countries and in the form of borrowed funds.
While the calls for international support were successful in raising the attention and the funds devoted to the topic of development, the early developmental endeavors were not always as successful. In a number of instances, the lack of adequate infrastructure prevented these endeavors from yielding the expected results, leading leaders to re-think their focus on what Dr. Malone termed “wildcat industrialization”. In addition, in their effort to finance development (and, at times, to amass personal wealth in the pockets of national elites), developing countries piled up an increasingly serious amount of debt, resulting in the debt crisis of the early 1980s.
The reaction of the industrialized world was mixed. Initially, shock and surprise prevailed, coupled with calls for developing countries to repay their debt at any cost. International institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF asked indebted countries to tighten their belt to free up funds for debt repayment. Lacking alternatives, many countries did so; yet, this came at a serious price over the medium to long term. Over time, however, a more realistic outlook on the issue emerged. Creditors organized in two groups – the “Paris Club” for official donors, and the “London Club” for private creditors – and discussed their response. Eventually, the strategy was two-fold: part of the debt was rescheduled, while another part was outright canceled.
Over the following decades, this major debt-management operation did yield important results – Dr. Malone stressed. By 1995, developing countries were fully out of the debt crisis, and government officials in industrialized countries were less worried about the overall situation. Still, tensions between developed and developing countries persisted, including at the UN. The latter asked the former to contribute to their development as a reparation of past damages under colonialism, while the former accused the latter of mismanagement and claimed full control over the use of their own funds. As of the mid-1990s, this debate had not led anywhere: everyone wanted to move on, and so they did.
The game changer emerged around the turn of the new millennium, when the UN – under the lead of Secretary General Kofi Annan – heavily invested in the creation and promotion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The goals were narrow but ambitious; and yet, despite this ambition, most (although not all) of them were met by 2015. According to Dr. Malone, this success was made possible by the high growth rates enjoyed by developing countries through the first 15 years of the new millennium – a growth that, among other factors, was enabled by the previous debt-management strategy and by the increasing flow of international capital to the developing world.
The success in achieving the MDGs thus triggered a new process at the UN, which raised the bar and set for the world even more ambitious goals – the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These objectives were underpinned by an assumption that the high rates of growth that had characterized the first decade of the new millennium would continue. As it became clear, however, this assumption was overly optimistic. The 2008 global financial crisis significantly slowed down growth, both in the industrialized world and (albeit to a lesser extent) in developing countries. As a result, international development efforts faced – and still face – increasing challenges. To respond to these challenges, the 2015 Addis Ababa Action plan sought to adopt a more sophisticated strategy to ensure funding for international development efforts. Moving away from a single-handed focus on official development assistance, the plan stressed the importance of multiple funding streams, including remittances and lending instruments. Yet, significant challenges remain as of today, and the path of international development remains uphill.
This is the context in which we can place the advent of COVID-19, which has been sweeping through the world since early 2020. So far, in direct terms, the virus has not affected developing countries significantly harder than developed ones, Dr. Malone noted. However, in a post-COVID world, the needs of developing countries will likely be much more compelling that those of their industrialized counterparts. In short, international cooperation and developmental efforts have achieved a lot over the past 70 years, but much more has yet to be achieved. As we enter the post-COVID era, the world should be aware of that.
* Rector of the unique, Tokyo-based United Nations University and Undersecretary General of the UN, Dr. David M. Malone answered the call of the Swiss UMEF University in Geneva on November 05th 2020, and gave this lecture under the auspices of so-called Geneva Lecture Series – Contemporary World of Geo-economics. Lecture series so far hosted former President of Austria, former Secretary-General of the Paris-based OECD and prominent scholars such as prof. Ioannis Varoufakis. Some of the following guests are presidents and prime ministers of western countries, notable scholars as well as the Nobel prize laureates.
About the author:
Guido Lanfranchi
Guido Lanfranchi is an international affairs specialist based in Den Haag. He studied at the Dutch Leiden University and Sciences Po Paris, and is attached to the Council of the European Union in Brussels. His research focuses on the EU, Euro-MED and Africa.
To the right, Kris Peeters – Picture by Bedelicious.be
Tuesday, 12 January 2020, Kirchberg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg: Belgian national Kris Peeters, a former Flemish Premier and a federal minister in the government of Charles Michel (today President of the European Council), took office as Vice President at the European Investment Bank representing the Benelux countries. He thus joined the Management Committee of the EIB, its executive body. Peeters shall no longer be an active politician; hence his seat as a Member of the European Parliament will taken over by fellow Christian-democrat Tom Vandenkendelaere.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is a publicly owned international financial institution whose shareholders are the EU member states. It was established in 1958 under the Treaty of Rome as a “policy-driven bank” using financing operations to further EU policy goals such as European integration and social cohesion. It is the world’s largest international public lending institution, founded in 1958.
