Blogoir: July

It is not obvious to me what is wrong with the argument that says, “The criminals already have guns; gun control disarms the rest of us.” I don’t know how many times I have heard that view sneered at, or laughed at, or pointed to as an infallible marker of stupidity. But I haven’t ever heard it seriously confronted, let alone refuted.

An open-minded Brit visits a US gun show and comes away ... changed?

But of course there is a political dimension. Aside from other motivations–sport, self-defence – the gun-show universe is about pride, self-reliance, and resentment at being bossed around. Distinctively American traits, wouldn’t you say? Best in moderation, no doubt – but still, where would the country be without those attitudes? I may get thrown out of Georgetown for this, but I say, good for them.

"Here in the UK we need more pride, more self-reliance and much more resistance to being bossed around."

Discuss.

John Redwood aims to correct in brisk fashion some 'Continental Misunderstandings' about a future Conservative Government's policy on further EU integration (and indeed the EU integration we already have).

Eg on the Lisbon Treaty:

“We assume the Conservatives will go along with the European project and with the Lisbon settlement – the UK has always in the past joined in, albeit reluctantly and late.”

It would be unwise to make such an assumption this time. When Margaret Thatcher came to power she did want to complete the Single market, and when Tony Blair came to power he did want to give the EU more powers over social and employment policy. The modern Conservatives have no wish to grant any more power to the EU. Moreover, we have voted against Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon because we disagree fundamentally with them, and expect powers back. As William Hague has said, we cannot leave matters as they are if Lisbon has been ratified by all countries.

“What can the UK do if Lisbon has not been ratified by all countries?”

An incoming government can keep its pledge to give the people a referendum. If they vote No to Lisbon the government will repeal the legislation and the Treaty is dead.

A UK referendum of this sort would be a cracker of an event. Some Continentals must be wondering nervously what happens if the Irish problem remains 'open' and the Labour Party's agonies here prompt an early UK election.

Otherwise the key point is the proposition that if Lisbon has been ratified (somehow) by the time the Conservatives take over (if they do), "matters cannot be left as they are".

Fine. But what exactly to do?

There is always the famous Lisbon Treaty Article 50 which for the first time makes explicit the option of a member state actually leaving the EU, even if the last word zanily looks to be left with the European Council once the European Parliament has given its 'consent':

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

Heading into that maelstrom is maybe too dramatic a UK move, for the time being.

But as there is no prospect of our EU partners agreeing to 're-open' the Treaty to row back some of it for the UK's benefit, what else is available?

The next best lever for Change We Brits Can Believe In is ... British Money. Not agreeing to pay it into the central pot without radical reforms.

That means the next Financial Perspective negotiations which come round again in 2012 or thereabouts.

180 weeks or so.

Not too long.

Radovan Karadzic appears before the Hague Tribunal today.

Kurir (a Belgrade newspaper with pronounced populist tendencies) quotes his lawyer as saying that Karadzic will not accept the start of ICTY proceedings until his laptop and 50 disks are returned to him. These items containing all the elements of his defence and evidence of his innocence of all charges were (says his lawyer) seized by the Serbian internal security police when they arrested him and he was not given the proper receipt.

50 disks of poetry and psychic healing remedies to plough through.

Should not take the Serb authorities and MI6/CIA too long?

The words "modern management techniques" and "whelk stall" come to mind:

Labour was plunged into open warfare as Gordon Brown's allies launched a series of highly personal attacks on leadership rival David Miliband.

Did 'sources at Number 10' and 'Brown's allies' and 'an MP close to Brown' really say stuff like this:

• "If he has not got enough work to do then maybe he needs to be given another job," ... "He [Miliband] needs to calm down and shut up. He also needs to grow up,"  
• Mr Miliband has "one more chance" to "clarify" his position when he appears on radio today. after refusing to rule out challenging Mr Brown four times
• "He [Miliband] has behaved disgracefully and disloyally. People will be surprised that he has chosen to write an article like that at a time when the Prime Minister is under attack after last week's loss.
• "There have never been any real warmth towards David in the Labour party, but people did respect his ability. However, I think he has overreached himself here in a major way."
• "David had the opportunity to close this story down and he didn't take it. I am afraid his ego has clouded his judgement.

Seems they did!

Should they be sacked? Yes!

The dysfunctional operation in Number 10 only adds to the distracting din ... That is not exactly the way of calming a story down. The former minister, Denis MacShane, told me that the briefings were far more damaging than Miliband's article and that whoever made them should be sacked. He is not alone in his concern at the Downing Street operation.

Have I got this straight?

Number 10 are putting it about that the British Foreign Secretary whom the Prime Minister appointed is an immature egoist, lacking in judgement?

That will help the British arguments dominate the room next time Mr Miliband has to meet eg his US or Russian or Chinese opposite numbers to tackle something serious.

This report as picked up by Iain Dale and others asserts that:

Internet users will be protected from abusive bloggers and malicious Facebook postings under proposals to set up an independent internet watchdog, The Daily Telegraph has learnt. The body, made up of industry representatives, would be responsible for drawing up guidelines that social networking sites, the blogosphere, website owners and search engines would be expected to follow.

The recommendation is one of several that the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee is expected to make in its long-awaited report on harmful content on the internet and in video games.

The Report itself is here. Its overwhelming focus is "the use of social networking sites and chatrooms for grooming and sexual predation."

I have gone through the document. There is only one single reference to blogs/blogging:

The FT attempts to describe how this morass of trade rules complexity has hit the rocks (Note: deliberate mixed metaphor). See also this.

When one has worked in Diplomacy for as long as I have, one realises just how little one knows.

So on this subject I have primitive instincts/prejudices in favour of 'free trade' as opposed to eg 'fair trade'. But if asked to write a succinct and sensible two-page essay on how world trade talks work, I could not do so.

Obviously some of it is about what actually happens, and some of it is about what might happen, and how different 'safety nets' can be used in case of things going 'wrong' (NB not easily defined what that means) on a local level.

Plus a lot depends on the individual power of specific national and international lobbies, with US elections and no doubt many others round the world looming.

And predicting what any deal will mean in practice with oil and food prices in such a state of flux round the world is next to impossible

Thus from the FT:

The US created some momentum last Tuesday by proposing to reduce its allowable ceiling for farm subsidies to $15bn (€9.6bn, £7.5bn). The figure was a couple of billion dollars below Washington’s previous offer and much less than existing limits of $48bn, though – as Brazil and India promptly pointed out – about twice its current actual spending.

It appears from this that the US slashed its farm subsidy safety net in this area from a potential $48bn to a measly $15bn. Pretty generous, huh? But Brazil/India pointed out that in fact the US was spending only some $7bn, so keeping the safety net at double that was suspicious.

See also this:

The US, with covering fire from some developing world agricultural exporters such as Uruguay, insisted that India and China open their rice and cotton markets; India and China, backed by other heavy hitters such as Indonesia, said that the US was asking them to sacrifice too much.

It does not sound from this as if the USA is going to be noisily blamed for this trade round failing. China and India as fast developing economies want to have their rice cakes and eat them - they want maximum freedom to export and maximum options to protect their domestic base. Nothing surprising there, but other developing countries might think that with the success they currently are enjoying they might take a few more 'risks'.

It is all horribly complicated. Business Standard:

The battle to conclude negotiations for Doha in agriculture and market-opening for industrial products broke down due to unbridgeable differences between India and the United States over the trigger and remedy for using the Special Safeguards Mechanism (SSM) by developing countries to check sudden surges in imports of vulnerable farm products.

After 12 days of intense negotiations, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath and his US counterpart US Trade Representative Susan Schwab failed to agree on a figure for using the SSM.

India proposed that if imports cross 115 per cent over a base period, it should be allowed to impose safeguard duties that are 25 to 30 per cent over its bound duties on products taking zero cut.

Uuurgh. How far in all that are they talking about things likely to happen in real life, as opposed to mere potentially destabilising possibilities? How many special interests stand to benefit corruptly round the world from the jungle of local rules needed to make such detailed provisions work?

Finally, the human factor. These articles bring out that the personalities of individual negotiators count for a lot, as does the guile or otherwise of the person leading the process, here WTO DG Pascal Lamy. He gambled that he could close some well known large gaps, and (says the FT) lost.

What next?

All being well that the main players will go off and lick their wounds for a few months without rocking the global trade boat too much in the meantime.

Then try again.

And hope that in the meantime those who lose out from rather less globalisation (ie the very poor) don't perish on a scale and in a way which allows anyone involved in these talks to be blamed.

Craig Murray has commented on my earlier post about EU policy towards Uzbekistan:

You make the somewhat childish debating error of asserting that because I have said that US republicans do something, I am claiming that only US republicans do that thing.  I have in fact published numerous pieces, both on my blog and elsewhere, attacking Germany's policy in Uzbekistan. Not sure if this link will show, but this one entitled "Uzbekistan and German Disgrace" is just one example: http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/05/uzbekistan_and.html

Well, childishly or unwisely or otherwise I was basing myself on p.37 of his book, which singles out 'conservative politicians in the USA' and 'short-sighted US Republicans' for confusing Uzbekistan leader Karimov with true democrats elsewhere in the former communist world.

Later on p.60 is a fullish description of the mighty 'K2' US airbase in Uzbekistan which is mentioned elsewhere in the book at different points. But it takes us until p.330 to discover that our benign EU partner Germans too have a significant military airbase in Uzbekistan.

And it takes us until p.378 tucked away in Note 73(!) to find out the name of "the most frequent and obsequious" Western Minister to visit Uzbekistan, namely "Joschka Fischer, the trendy Green German Foreign Minister". 

Craig likes to express his views in a blunt, provocative way. See eg his recent remarkable two-for-the-price-of-one sexist swipe on his website aimed at the Labour candidate who lost in the Glasgow East byelection:

... the graceless vituperation of the defeated New Labour candidate, the shrew-faced bitch Margaret Curran ...

It is fair to take his book about Western policy in Uzbekistan as his considered view on that subject. And that book hits far harder at US/UK perfidy than at eg German perfidy. Hence my childish simplification.

Maybe a book dwelling in greater length and in a balanced way on contradictions in EU as well as US policy towards Uzbekistan would have been more accurate, subtle - and persuasive? And for all those reasons less likely to sell?

Next. On to analyse Chapter Four of Craig's book, where he meets President Karimov and the German and US Ambassadors...

Oliver Miles picks up on my reference to the possible indictment by the ICC of the President of Sudan and commends to me to an article by Palestinian author and editor Rami Khouri: Whose Crimes? Against Whose Humanity?

This is a good article of a certain Arab liberal genre - well worth a read for Big Picture thoughts on international justice from a 'non-Western' point of view.

Khouri notes that the ICC charges have to be taken seriously:

The critics of the ICC should not be dismissed as hopeless despots, nor should the court’s potential indictment of President Bashir be dismissed as neo-colonialism administered through the UN Security Council that asked for the investigation in the first place.

And the facts are tough:

The chilling details in the prosecutor’s summary of the case revolve around charges that include acts of murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, rape, attacks on civilians, and pillaging towns and villages. They state that Bashir “masterminded and implemented” a plan to destroy three of the largest ethnic groups in Darfur (the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa) by using the armed forces, the Janjaweed militias, and the entire government apparatus, to specifically and purposefully target civilians.

The charges state that over 35,000 were killed and 2.7 million displaced, and refugee and displaced persons camps were also attacked and harassed, in a policy aimed at destroying these people as distinct groups or tribes.

However:

[T]hese criminal charges against Arabs in Sudan have to be weighed against three other realities: massive crimes committed against Arabs by their own leaders in other Arab countries; crimes committed by Israel; and, the mass suffering, death, destitution, refugee flows, and other consequences of invading foreign forces -- especially the American-led troops in Iraq.

Will any of the crimes by Arab, Israeli or American leaders be equally investigated in due course? ... Criminal acts must be investigated and punished wherever they occur; and, the same standard of culpability and morality should be applied to all situations around the world.

The moral force and political validity of the rule of law emanate from its universality above all other attributes. Investigating and indicting Sudanese leaders while ignoring the crimes of Arab, Israeli, American and other officials are seen as a sickening example of double standards that reek of colonialism and tinged with racism. Yet we cannot ignore crimes by Sudanese in Sudan by arguing that other criminals and killers in the region are not prosecuted.

Sickening double standards? Racism?!

This issue deserves more than a blog posting, as it is at the heart of a lot of diplomatic work.

It goes to the deep legitimacy of what we all do - the legitimacy each government thinks it has, and the legitimacy others ascribe to those actions and their own. And Legitimacy is one important aspect of Effectiveness.

Still, a quick thought or two.

I happen to think that the world is becoming more democratic, albeit in an unruly and maybe ultimately danerously anarchic way. It is just harder to push people around at the local, national or international level. Authority is challenged head-on. People armed with hi-tech devices can quote back the law and organise to thwart attempts by ostensibly more powerful forces to control them.

Thus charges of 'double standards' resonate and circulate fast. They point up operational inconsistency and/or some sort of hypocrisy - why are you being tougher on X than on Y?

Yet in my experience the claim of 'double standards' almost always comes from leaders or commentators defending policies/practices based on no standards at all.

In Western democracies such as our own, leaders have to defend themselves in great detail. Papers leak. The media are free in any normal sense of the word. Elections come round - voters can throw out those they dislike.

So if those leaders are pursuing some sort of inconsistent/hypocritical or unwise/unjust policy, they are not going to do so quietly. There is real-time pressure at home and overseas - accountability - to correct mistakes or change course.

Contrast this with the 'Arab world'. Almost no leader is freely elected. The media are not free - they tend to be crude propaganda outlets. There is no comparable way to apply criticism and force change. Human rights abuses are far greater across that region than in 'the West'. No meaningful accountability.

These deficiencies are home-grown. The overwhelming mass of the millions of Muslims who have died in recent decades have been killed not by Western military action but by other Muslims, killing under one or other banner of political/religious fanaticism.

US-led intervention in Iraq has led to deaths. It also has saved many deaths which the Saddam regime would have inflicted, as it had inflicted in the past. Do saved lives not count too?

Is Israel to blame for this?

How are we to have 'universality' in international justice? What is the point of including on international tribunals or UN human rights fora representatives from countries/regions rotten with injustice and oppression?

Here's my solution.

Tha Arab world calls a Summit. It admits that it is in a historical and moral cul-de-sac, and underperforming accordingly. It calls for a transformation in human rights (above all for women). It opens the way to UN-supervised free and fair elections in every state within a year. It calls for full religious tolerance. It calls for top-end open dealings in public money, and an end to corruption. Those states which fail to sustain democratic pluralism are to be excluded from taking part in any international fora pronouncing on justice or human rights.

A couple of decades pass to allow the new governments to bring in these momentous changes and be replaced democratically and peacefully. Then the Arab world proclaims itself ready to take on the responsibilities of applying universal reasonable standards in a reasonable way. Indeed it is ready.

As its standards are now close to if not surpassing those of Israel, that dynamic changes for the better too.

Until all that happens, the Arab world accepts that even if others exhibit 'double standards', those standards are higher than the standards the Arab world itself is now able to deliver. So in a spirit of purposeful humility but also hard-headed ambition, work is needed to catch up.

Bosnia's President Izetbegovic made many political mistakes. But he was a brave and insightful man.

I understand that he got up at a meeting of the Islamic world in Saudi Arabia and told the assembled Islamic leaders that they had to learn from the West, where democratic principles and practices were simply better. Indeed.

The true pernicious racism in all this lies not in the likes of Bush and Blair bullying brown-skinned people.

It lies rather in the zeal of Western chattering classes to explain away brown-skinned people's dismal treatment of each other. In the idea that 'democracy can never work in the Middle East'.

Can't we all do better than this?

Peter Preston gives a rather overwritten analysis of Serbia and its prospects for joining the EU - see eg the obscure Paul Anka reference.

Why, he asks, is the EU mumbling about bringing the former Yugoslavia space (plus Albania) into its ranks?

Partly because the EU mumbles about everything.

Partly because countries like France plan to hold EU Widening hostage to get more EU Deepening (but on French terms, bien sur)

Also because there must be a school of thought out there that the former Yugoslavia should have joined nicely in the 1990s and had one vote - is this all an insane plot by the Balkanites to get themselves six or seven votes?

The arrest of Karadzic prompts another thought.

What if Tadic's Serbia has had a Clever Idea? To hand over all those war criminals, dash for EU standards and join the EU as a polite, penitent, respectable modern country. Even now Serbia is probably better run than some new EU member states one can think of. 

Serbia will believe with good reason there is no prospect of Kosovo joining the EU at that speed - its insititutional base is too weak.

And the point is this.

Once Serbia joins the EU it will be able to Define Terms for Kosovo, just as tiny Cyprus defines terms for Turkey.

Discuss.

One of the things British diplomats do in foreign parts is study the local media, to keep up with the obvious news but also to follow in a deeper way what makes those societies tick.

Armed with good basic background understanding, they then fan out to talk to the editors and pundits and politicians to ask the Big Questions.

Then they send (or at least they should send) terse, insightful reports to London with recommendations on what HMG should be doing.

Meanwhile foreign diplomats in London are studying our press too, to see what makes us tick.

And what do they make of - and report home about - pieces like this?

This article is fascinating for its Manifest Badness, on so many levels simultaneously.

It's all about:

the latest example of a noticeable social trend, one that we shall call, obviously, “dolliness”, after the woman who embodies its spirit. Think of the Spice Girls tour and the Sex and the City film ...  a new form of female camaraderie that, while clearly not new, is suddenly out, proud and quite deafeningly loud.

I try not to think about such things. But note the writing: four weary adverbs already, bulging the text like cotton wool stuffed in to expand an unstrained M&S bra.

What about this:

A group of grown-up women out on the razz is rarely cool — or sexy, in the traditional sense. But so what? When the rest of life is a performance, a game of pretending to be a grown-up, a complete cool-void can be a relief.

Ha.Grown-up women are all about pretending to be grown-up! I knew it.

But they're for sure brainy:

And it’s a nonsense that conversations at girl-only nights are just “women’s talk” ... What started out as a few women — among them June Sarpong and the writer Kathy Lette — gathering at the home of Ronnie Ancona became a monthly fixture for 30 or more. Sometimes the conversation was about about the burqa; sometimes nail varnish. Usually both.

Doesn't vampy black nail varnish avoid an unseemly and impious clash?

You can love men, live for them, but what a relief it is sometimes to be around people you don’t need to be anything with.

Women together, and vacuous articles in the Times about women together. A load of nothing?

A familar argument heard against the the 1996 Dayton Peace Accords in Sarajevo is that in setting up a two Entity structure for post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina they 'legitimized genocide', namely by accepting Republika Srpska as one of the two Entities (the other being called, somewhat confusingly, the 'Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina').

Hence the arrest and expected conviction of Karadzic are being presented by some Bosniak leaders as a handy step towards ending the results of his actions, namely terminating Republika Srpska itself:

"Justice is not complete until we erase the genocide project that is still alive today. Radovan Karadzic has been arrested, Slobodan Milosevic is dead, but their project Republika Srpska still exists,” said Haris Silajdzic, the Bosniac member of the state’s rotating presidency.

The basic problem with this argument is that the Bosniac leadership themselves played a large part in setting up RS.

In 1994 the Americans were fed up with the spectacle of Muslims/Bosniacs fighting Croats rather than uniting to fight Serbs, so they leant hard on the Muslim/Bosniac and Croat leaderships to join forces. This took the form of the strangely named 'Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina', covering territory the two sides' forces controlled.

This formation was given constitutional status at the Dayton Peace talks, but it took almost a year to set it up formally thereafter.

The very basic point is that this was a sort of unique diplomatic Category Mistake.

Why?

Simple. Because by setting up the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina on what was effectively an ethnic basis (ie a space controlled by and for Muslims/Bosniacs and Croats), the Americans (egged on by the Germans) basically gave the Serbs the core of what they wanted, ie something not that.

In other words, if the whole point of Bosnian Serb nationalism and Karadzicism was for the Serbs to be 'separate', the clumsy creation of the 'Muslim/Croat Federation' to solve a short-term military problem achieved precisely that political goal for them!

This 'ethnic' nomenclature lives on years later, despite heroic attempts in Bosnia to proclaim each Entity substantively multi-ethnic and to hack away at 'divisive' symbols and institutions.

Is it surprising that the Bosnian Serbs in fact quite like this deal imposed on them by the International Community and cling tenaciously to it?

Update: Here is Haris Silajdzic pressing these arguments . He feebly tries to get round the point made above by saying that the Bosniacs were forced to sign Dayton "at gunpoint". This is just not good enough.

Haris has a point when he advocates a 'Bosnia of the economic regions', each region defined non-ethnically. The trouble with that is that it of course suits the largest ethnic community, viz the Bosniacs, as they will tend to do best from it. And the Serbs/Croats do not trust them.

This story shows what is wrong with 'EU Foreign Policy'.

As previously posted, in dealing with difficult problems a thematic, sustained and firm approach can bring positive results. Especially if it is thematic, sustained and firm.

In this case the EU responds reasonably firmly to terrible killings by the Uzbekistan authorities in May 2005. But then is neither thematic or sustained.

Craig Murray would have us believe that it is 'short-sighted US Republicans' who turn the biggest blind eye to Uzbekistan abuses, because the USA has a huge airbase there.

Yet lo, it turns out that Germany has a goodly airbase there too, and in a generous gesture of humanitarianism issued a visa to the cancerous Uzbekistan Minister responsible for the massacre to help him be kept alive in a German hospital. Germany is said to be leading the push to drop EU measures.

Good news: US troops can use the German base now, the offending US base having been closed in 2005 after the short-sighted Republican Bush team spoke out against the Uzbeks' massacre.

So EU pressure on Uzbekistan looks to be dwindling a mere 170 weeks after the massacre, although various restrictions remain in place.

Why?

Basically because it is all Just Too Difficult.

The key argument in favour of an 'EU Foreign Policy' we hear in the UK is that it acts as a multiplier for British positions.

What tends not to be mentioned is that it acts as a multiplier for other EU Member States' positions too, not least when they disagree with us.

Result?

Junk Diplomacy. 

Iain Dale urges his vast army of fans to read Total Politics Issue 2 - and one article in particular.

Indeed.

Anglican Bishops have been marching against world poverty - then tucking in to a worthy feast.

Hypocrites!

When Pope Benedict XVI visited Krakow in 2006 the Polish authorities were determined to prevent any unseemly scenes of drunkenness among the vast crowds thronging to see him.

So alcohol sales were banned in Krakow and for miles around.

In Krakow for the Pope's Mass I went for dinner at the Hotel Stary, where as it happened the main restaurant had been booked for a mass of Catholic Archbishops and others from the Church hierarchy. There they were, finely berobed.

Imagine my suprise to see the long bar groaning with bottles of champagne and wine, laid out in long rows beautifully for their benefit. They did not hold back.

Research needed? 

Responding to my earlier posting about Craig Murray flying the flag on his car before presenting his credentials, a reader helpfully points us to some detailed guidance on the issue: http://flagspot.net/flags/xf-dipl.html.

Thus:

The only still-relevant mention of flag usage by diplomats is Article 20 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. In it, it is affirmed that diplomatic missions and their heads, (ie., most often Ambassadors or High Commissioners), have the right to use their nation's flag and emblem on the premises of the diplomatic mission, (ie., the Chancery), as well as at the Head of Mission's official residence. It also affirms the Head of Mission's right to display his flag on his/her means of transport, (note: NOT just cars).

That's all there is as far as the letter-of-the-law is concerned. With regard to generally accepted practice, (i.e., unwritten conventions), the following may be asserted.

The Head of Mission's right to fly a flag on his/her means of transport, is generally inherited by the Acting Head of Mission, (ie., "Charge d'affaires"), in the former's absence, only when the Charge is making an official visit, (but the Head of Mission always flies the flag on his/her car, even when conducting unofficial -- indeed, even mundane -- business, such as shopping).

Fine. But until a new Ambassador has presented his/her credentials he/she in fact is not (yet) Head of Mission, and therefore not covered by this point?

Practice may vary from country to country. But Sweden is clear on one point:

Although this does not exactly cover the case when the new Ambassador is at unofficial functions, or indeed like Craig Murray driving to the Residence after first arriving in the country.

Does anyone out there have the right answer (a) in principle, and (b) for Uzbekistan if the practice there differs?

I suspect that few readers of this Blog have ever heard of Jovan Divjak.

Here he is.

The point being that while we think about Karadzic and Mladic and all the horrors they helped create, let's remember one true Bosnian, born as a Serb in Belgrade, who fought against them in favour of a truly democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Divjak's case is all the more striking as he was a senior officer in the Yugoslav Army - for him to abandon the 'Belgrade' cause and join the Bosnia cause as a soldier was all the more remarkable.

In fact he was so remarkable in being an honest man that the Izetbegovic Bosniak-Muslim elite of course did not trust him, and sidelined him after the conflict ended.

Had they been truly interested in creating a modern pluralist Bosnia he would have been a central iconic figure. Instead they opted for a policy of No Ethnic Disarmament for 50 Years.

Once everything is defined primarily in such strategic immutable 'ethnic' terms, someone honest and independent who does not fit (or choose to fit) tidly into one or other Category has few chances to make a difference.

And these people tend to be just what is needed to build a reasonable shared future in a bitterly divided society.

Zdravo, Jovane

EU Referendum do a number on a judgement by the European Court of Justice which sets a precedent

for thousands of other couples residing in Ireland and, more widely [and] better defines the rights of EU states to manage their own immigration policies.

Under the EU directive on free movement of citizens, all citizens may reside in another member state as workers or students if they have sickness insurance and sufficient funds that they do not become a burden on the social welfare system.

Family members of a citizen of the European Union also have the right to move and reside in the member states with that citizen.

The ECJ ruled today that application of the directive is "not conditional on their having previously resided in a member state".

"The directive applies to all union citizens who move to or reside in a member state other than that of which they are a national, and to their family members who accompany them or join them in that member state. The definition of family members in the directive does not distinguish according to whether or not they have already resided lawfully in another member state," the ruling stated.

The court also held that a "non-community" spouse of an EU citizen who accompanies or joins that citizen in the host country can benefit from the directive "irrespective of when and where their marriage took place and of how that spouse entered the host member state".

EU Referendum:

So, what we have here is an open door for illegal immigrants. As long as they can get themselves over here – or to any other member state - and evade the authorities long enough to find themselves wives who are EU citizens (who themselves may have been recent immigrants, as was Metock's spouse), EU law gives them an absolute right to stay here or anywhere else in the EU.

Whatver happened to Ex turpi causa non oritur actio ?

Are international tribunals for war crimes suspects a Good Idea?

And if so, are they being Done Well?

If not, does that mean that the Idea is in fact not so Good?

Two excellent pieces on these themes: one by John Lloyd, the other by Bill Montgomery.

It goes without saying that there are going to be shortcomings in any process of this sort, especially if the accused is bent on turning the whole affair into a circus as the best way of confusing the issues and trying to 'relativise' his/her guilt.

To this end Vojislav Seselj is putting in a powerful performance (NB a rare example of courtroom transcripts being Not Suitable for Work?).

Likewise any such Tribunal needs to rely on certain cooperative countries' police/military forces to arrest and hand over suspects, and to provide hard evidence perhaps from Top Secret sources.

This means that those countries inevitably start to have some influence over the timing of arrests and even the issue of indictments. Political and other calculations creep in. "You help us - we help you."

So if Milosevic had to be indicted, surely Croatia's President Tudjman who also played his part in some ghastly events should be too? Indeed. 

Yet somehow the indictment with his name on it was never quite issued. 

Did some governments not want that to happen and suggest that ICTY delay matters as Tudjman was ill? Tudjman generously solved the problem by dying. Unindicted - his reputation undeservedly intact to that extent at least.

Similarly Bosnia President Izetbegovic was under ICTY investigation when he died in 2003, when investigations were dropped. Was it really not clear by 2003 (ie almost a decade after the Bosnia conflict) that Izetbegovic too should face some war crimes indictments? Why was it all dragging on in this way?

Lloyd's article includes the following quote from a senior disillusioned British observer of ICTY:

And I saw that the UN, which is supposed to supervise, has no moral compass. It enjoins even-handedness, on ethnic grounds, not on grounds of justice.

Maybe in the circumstances of what happened in former Yugoslavia, which most people would see as some sort of ethnic civil war, this sort of thing is not only inevitable but desirable? If justice is to be seen to be done - most importantly among the communities involved in the fighting - all the issues need a fair objective airing?

NB All of which is not - of course - to say that each leader was "equally guilty".

One thing is for sure. If ICTY and other such Tribunals can not find a way to deal with intimidation of witnesses as happened in the case of indicted Kosovo leader Haradinaj, the process might as well not continue.

To carry on and reach unsatisfactory verdicts when this is going on simply shows weakness, and tells ICTY indictees and their supporters that the worse they behave, the better the outcome - for them.

Exactly the opposite of the message ICTY was set up to send?    

In Sudan too the authority of UN-led international processes is now being directly challenged.

Will ICC keep its nerve and follow through by indicting President al-Bashir?

One version is here.

Some speeches are good for what they say. Others for how they make people feel.

This speech said more or less nothing, but reads nicely now and no doubt sounded good on the day. Or maybe not?

This paragraph caught my eye:

This is the moment when every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday. In this century, we need a strong European Union that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad. In this century - in this city of all cities - we must reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.

Hmm: every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday.

Feeble drafting. But what might it mean?

Some sort of dig at Russia, telling it to stop messing in the former Soviet Union? A plug for Chechnya?

A clarion-call to those who want to leave the EU, so that those who stay in it can forge a stronger/closer Union?

Support for the break-up of the UK (or Belgium, or Spain, or Bosnia)?

Even Bland Nothing sends a signal of sorts.