shalzed taliban

Cracking Down on the Taliban — or Fueling Their Fire?

by with No Comment question

Cracking Down on the Taliban — or Fueling Their Fire?

Are ICC arrest warrants against Taliban leaders the right idea?

shalzed taliban

On July 8th a panel of judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) approved arrest warrants for two leaders of the Taliban. They are accused of persecuting women and girls by making laws that violate their rights to education, family life, expression, religion, and more.

The facts here are hardly in question. The Taliban, invoking their fundamentalist religious values, have denied women access to education, the right to work and move freely outside the home, the right to hold public office, and have imposed a strict dress code. All this seems to be a direct affront to the principle of equality which is at the core of human rights.

However, there is still reason to question whether these arrest warrants are a good move. In a typical ICC case, the party under investigation does not deny that whatever atrocity they are accused of is a crime. Instead, they either claim the accusations against them are factually untrue or give some extenuating circumstance that they say makes their actions acceptable.

But the situation in Afghanistan is totally different. The Taliban are open about what they’re doing. In fact, the Taliban even claim that “All fundamental rights afforded to Afghan women have been safeguarded in strict accordance with Islamic Sharia law, as well as the cultural and traditional frameworks of Afghan society.”

In other words, what we have here is a conflict about culture and religion. The Taliban maintain that what the ICC calls persecution of women is really just them following their religious law. They say it’s beneficial to women and shouldn’t be regarded as a crime at all.

In this case, is criminal justice the best way forward? Will criminalizing the Taliban’s religious beliefs, offensive to human rights as they may be, prompt those beliefs to change? Or will this only harden the Taliban’s attitude, as they see themselves holding fast and clinging to their traditions as they are attacked by foreign, Western values? Wouldn’t real change have to come from the inside, perhaps led by Afghan women themselves, rather than an outside force such as the ICC?

Of course, there also must be some limit on what the world should accept in the name of religion. What if some group announced that racial discrimination was a religious belief? Would we then tolerate racial discrimination? In fact, some argue that what the Taliban are doing is similar to Apartheid, and therefore absolutely must be stopped. Some human rights activists even go so far as to label the Taliban’s policies gender Apartheid, and claim that gender Apartheid should be recognized as a new category of international crime.

The Taliban’s policies seem to meet the legal criteria to justify these ICC warrants. But does pursuing this case against the Taliban serve the purpose for which the ICC was created? Would the ICC be better off sticking to traditional war crimes and crimes against humanity, recognizing that changing religious and cultural values is beyond its reach? Or do we need the ICC to issue these indictments to take a stand that such restrictive, gender based policies are beyond the pale of what can be tolerated in the 21st century? I’m anxious to hear your comments.

Read more of Shalzed's Questions

Palestinian Rights vs. Israeli Fears: When Self-determination For One Threatens the Other

by with No Comment question

Palestinian Rights vs. Israeli Fears: When Self-determination For One Threatens the Other

The principle of self-determination is enshrined at the heart of international law. Article I of the UN Charter states, for example, that a purpose of the United Nations is, “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”

The most fundamental meaning of Self-determination is that no group should be ruled over by another. An obvious application is with regard to colonialism- for a far-away power to rule over a less developed territory violates that territory’s right to self-determination.

The rationale behind this right is clear. When one group is ruled by another, they are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and having their rights violated. Self-determination enables people to both defend their rights and live according to their own values.

The United Nations has long recognized that Palestinians are ‘a people,’ and therefore entitled to self-determination. And in this context there are clear reasons why this should be implemented. By becoming a state, Palestinians would enjoy the full political and legal rights that are unavailable to them while they are under the control of Israel.

But there is an objection sometimes raised. Some subset of Palestinians seems devoted to Israel’s destruction and would see a state in Gaza and the West Bank as merely a stepping stone towards those ends. A Palestinian state could easily be used to launch more rockets and repeat terrorist attacks such as the massacre of Oct. 7th.

The reason peoples are entitled to self-determination is because self-determination is a powerful tool to help safeguard their rights. So if a group may reasonably be expected to exploit the right of self-determination in pursuit of aggression or other crimes, should the right of self-determination should be denied?

Of course, in spite of the ugly rhetoric from some Palestinian leaders, it’s possible that a Palestinian state would in fact live in peace with Israel. We can’t know in advance what a future Palestinian State would do.

One might also suggest that these fears do not justify denying Palestinians the right of self-determination, but instead should be addressed by other means. These could include demilitarisation, security guarantees, or other arrangements that would enable Israel to defend itself from threats a potential Palestinian State might present.

It should also be pointed out that no existing state fully upholds human rights, and well-established countries commit atrocities and threaten world peace and security all the time. Even as they do so, they do not lose their right to exist. That’s the case even when they commit flagrant breaches of international law. So for that reason, the possibility that a future state of Palestine might commit acts of aggression hardly seems a reason why Palestinians should lose their right to a state in the first place.

The question becomes, how do reasonably well-founded fears that a right may be abused impact entitlement to exercise that right? What do we do when in order to help fulfill one group’s rights we may simultaneously be creating conditions that will facilitate the violation of the rights of others?

See more Questions