Parting with Illusions: Developing a Realistic Approach to Relations with Russia

A review of America's post-Soviet strategy toward Russia is long overdue. The illusions that once guided policy are now at an end. What is needed is a dispassionate approach to Russia, wherein Americans would neither magnify nor excuse the virtues and vices of the Russian Federation but would accept the following realities: Russia is unlikely to become integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community and is unwilling to adjust its foreign policy priorities accordingly; There is broad-based support within Russia for the direction in which Vladimir Putin has taken the country;Russia has undergone a genuine -- if limited -- recovery from the collapse of the 1990s; Washington lacks sufficient leverage to compel Russian acquiescence to its policy preferences; and On a number of critical foreign policy issues, there is no clear community of interests that allows for concepts of "selective partnership" to be effective. Any approach to Russia must be based on realistic expectations about the choices confronting Washington. The United States has two options. It can forgo the possibility of Russian assistance in achieving its key foreign policy priorities in an effort to retain complete freedom of action vis-a-vis Moscow. Or it can prioritize its objectives and negotiate a series of quid pro quos with Russia. The latter choice, however, cannot be indefinitely postponed. Seeking an accommodation with Russia is more likely to guarantee American success in promoting its core national interests while minimizing costs -- but will require U.S. policymakers to accept limits on what can be demanded of Russia

Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: \u3cem\u3eKiyemba v. Obama\u3c/em\u3e and the Meaning of Freedom, Separation of Powers, and the Rule of Law Ten Years After 9/11

This article is about the rise and fall of continued adherence to the rule of law, proper application of the separation of powers doctrine, and the meaning of freedom for a group of seventeen Uighurs—a Turkic Muslim ethnic minority whose members reside in the Xinjiang province of China—who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base since 2002. Most scholars regard the trilogy of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and Boumediene v. Bush as demonstrating the Supreme Court’s willingness to uphold the rule of law during the war on terror. The recent experience of the Uighurs suggest that this commitment is either waning or was never as strong as scholars thought. About a year and a half before the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States Supreme Court was primed to hear oral arguments in the Uighurs’ case known as Kiyemba v. Obama. The issue in this case was whether the Uighurs, who were concededly being detained illegally, would be released from Guantanamo Bay. As a result of the government’s latest delay tactics, the Court never heard the merits of the case. Had it done so, the Court, arguably, would have established the contours of a constitutionally required habeas remedy for foreign nationals whose indefinite detention had been judicially declared illegal and no other option but release into the continental interior of the United States is possible. The Court’s dismissal of the Uighurs previously granted cert petition thus signaled the beginning of the end of the Court’s landmark “war-on–terror” line of precedential cases culminating in the evisceration of its 2008 seminal case of Boumediene v. Bush. With the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision now reinstated in which the court had held in 2009 that habeas courts had no jurisdiction to order the release of foreign nationals under such circumstances because it was an immigration case triggering the political branches’ plenary power over which such matters are largely immune from judicial intervention. But Kiyemba v. Obama is not an immigration case. The Uighurs were brought here involuntarily as a result of the government’s counterterrorism policies, the implementation of which the Court had declared unlawful over the course of a four year period beginning with Rasul v. Bush in 2004. The D.C. Circuit Court holding, which still stands, was erroneous because the Uighurs never sought to immigrate to this country; their filing of writs of habeas corpus placed the matter solidly in the area of granting constitutionally required habeas relief which a habeas court has jurisdiction to decide. Through political machinations and influences at all levels of government, however, the Supreme Court has more recently decided to end its role of protecting the individual rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees with a series of denials of cert.-petitions without a single dissent authored to voice concerns about the beginning of the end of the Republic Benjamin Franklin once said we had but only if we could keep it. And although most of the original group of Uighurs has subsequently been relocated to other countries, the two still remaining have now entered their second decade of unlawful detention

The Ties that Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century

The creation of a country in which every one of its citizens feels secure, engaged and fulfilled must be a primary objective of a successful modern democratic nation. This would be a country in which everyone feels that they belong, and to which everyone feels they can contribute. Individuals do not learn about governmental and judicial institutions of the United Kingdom through osmosis. The values which underpin our society, which have been tested in recent years by a variety of economic and societal developments, are not self-evident. They need to be learned and understood. Another important step is to understand that the demand for individual rights cannot be divorced from the need for individual responsibility. Finally, whether older or younger, disabled or non-disabled, long established or recently arrived,marginalised or secure, every one of us who together make up the tangled skein of British society has a story to tell and a contribution to make. To try and untangle this complex and sensitive web we have looked at the issue of citizenship and civic engagement through the prism of the civic journey each one of us who lives in Britain will undertake. We have found much that is encouraging, showing British society engaged harmoniously together despite the waves of change that are inexorably rolling over us. But inevitably there are areas where we are less successful. We have tried to identify the barriers which are preventing people from feeling part of our society or contributing to it, together with the steps which must be taken to remove those barriers. So we argue for focusing resources, for reinforcing success rather than reinventing the wheel, and for adopting and seeing through long term strategies. This then is our story. Our first conclusion is that, while a variety of faiths, beliefs and customs can enrich our society, and respect for the values of others is a high priority, respect for the law must come first. There is no place for rules or customs whose effect is to demean or marginalise people or groups—equality before the law is a cornerstone of our society. This is why the rule of law, together with a commitment to democracy, individual liberty and respect for the inherent worth and autonomy of all people, are the shared values of British citizenship from which everything else proceeds. These are “red lines” which have to be defended. As cornerstones these values need to be promoted in their own right rather than simply as an adjunct of counter-extremism policy. We argue that the process we have called the “civic journey” should be a smooth transition in which central and local government provide individuals with a framework for benefiting from and contributing to society, and assist them in overcoming the barriers to engagement. Instead we have found that citizenship education, which should be the first great opportunity for instilling and developing our values, encouraging social cohesion, and creating active citizens has been neglected. Often it is subsumed into individual development which, whilst undoubtedly important, is not the same as learning about the political and social structure of the country, how it is governed, how laws are made and how they are enforced by an independent judiciary. Nor does it offer an opportunity of practising civic engagement in schools, local communities and beyond. The decline in citizenship education has a number of causes: the revision of the national curriculum in 2013, the fact that academies are in any case not required to follow it, the low esteem in which the subject appears to be held, the decrease in the numbers of trained teachers and the corresponding fall in the numbers taking Citizenship GCSE. The Government must re-prioritise the subject, creating a statutory entitlement to citizenship education from primary to the end of secondary education, and set a target which will allow every secondary school to have at least one trained teacher. Chronologically, the next stage of the journey must be to allow children in their late teens further to develop the skills needed to be active and responsible citizens, to mix with people from different backgrounds and to get more involved in their communities. It was with this in mind that the Government announced the National Citizen Service (NCS) in 2010. Its ambition is laudable and its achievements considerable, but it sometimes fails to reach excluded communities in deprived areas. It would be more effective if it reached out to alumni so that it could continue to support them over time; this is the strength of the many longestablished youth organisations. We make recommendations for how this might be achieved, how the NCS should promote active citizenship and how the NCS might do more to work in partnership with schools and colleges. Volunteering is a strength of the UK, but would be helped by more facilities being made available for civic activity. The unemployed should be encouraged to volunteer by having their social security status clarified. More must be done to recognise and reward outstanding contributions made by volunteering. The other distinct limb of civic engagement is democratic involvement and participation. While there has been a dramatic increase in the level of volunteering among the young, democratic engagement remains stagnant. The turnout in general elections, though improving, is still much too low, especially among the socially disadvantaged and the young. We make recommendations for improving the voter registration process, in particular by adopting the scheme which allows voter registration to take place at the same time as registration at universities, further education colleges and, ultimately, perhaps schools. Communication between citizens and government at all levels is often poor, and was a subject frequently raised not just in formal evidence but by those we spoke to on our visits. When seeking people’s views, communication tends to be with the ‘gatekeepers’—those who hold themselves out, not always accurately, as representing their communities. People, especially in deprived areas, must be made to feel that government is speaking directly to them, working with them and for them, and paying attention to their needs and wishes. Contact between the Government and women’s groups is especially important. Communities must also be prepared to open up and bring more voices into the conversation. Forming a single society from different generations, sexes, social and ethnic groups, and those of different faiths requires integration—a word which itself can carry threatening overtones of a requirement to surrender aspects of their way of life. The first requirement must be the ability to speak, read and write in fluent English: an alarming proportion of residents cannot speak English at all, and so cannot communicate outside their communities. This problem is not limited to new arrivals; too many people whose first and only language is English are still functionally illiterate. For them the civic journey barely starts. This huge barrier affects not just them but society as a whole. Extra funds devoted to teaching English would rapidly bring rewards, but we also suggest ways in which the access to such teaching might be made easier. For those already living here who wish to become British citizens by naturalisation,the barriers are particularly steep. They include a “good character” requirement which is undefined, a knowledge test based on materials which are absurd, and a cost which is steeper than it should or need be. We suggest improvements to the whole process. Near the end of our inquiry the Government launched its long-awaited response to the review carried out by Dame Louise Casey. As its title Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper suggests, this only is a further consultation exercise. Our inquiry into citizenship and civic engagement goes much wider than this; conversely the Green Paper covers areas outside our remit. Nevertheless there is significant overlap. We explain this in our introductory chapter, and in the course of the report we give our views on the relevant parts of the Green Paper. We hope that the evidence we have received, our analysis of that evidence, the conclusions we have drawn and the recommendations we make, some of which are quite hard-edged, will be of value in this consultation exercise. This report should therefore be treated as the response of this Committee to the questions in the Green Paper. But consultation cannot be a substitute for action, either on integration alone or on citizenship as a whole. Moreover for such action to be effective, particularly where it has cross-departmental elements, will require consistent long-term application with defined lines of authority and responsibility. Our evidence suggested that historically there has been no clear co-ordination across Government, no real evaluation to find what works, and no long-term commitment to initiatives—many of which appear not to outlive the minister who initiated them. It is not immediately apparent from the Green Paper that these lessons have been learned in respect of this new Strategy. Austerity is not an excuse for doing nothing. As Dame Louise Casey told us: “You can always do things, and not everything costs money.” We believe that our recommendations, once implemented, will mark a significant step towards a more coherent, confident and inclusive society whose members are encouraged and enabled to participate as active citizens

RECONSTRUCTION TERROR: ORIGINS, APPLICATIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS

This thesis contends that the recent electoral violence that arose around election cycles, voting rights, and democratic participation by non-White citizens is a familiar extremism. It is a historic terror, rooted in Reconstruction. After the Civil War, America underwent a period of fundamental change that many considered revolutionary to their existing identities, and so that looming change was met with counter-revolutionary force and terror. But while historic, it is not anachronistic. A similar violence arose during America’s “Second Reconstruction,” the Civil Rights movement, which featured many of the same issues of equality and increased access to democratic processes by non-White communities. Accordingly, this thesis deconstructs the electoral terror of Reconstruction into a set of common drivers that can then be used as a framework for understanding what motivates episodic, electoral violence in the United States. Put together, these drivers contextualize a particular extremism that is common to the 1860s, the 1960s, and the early 21st century.Outstanding ThesisCivilian, Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy CommissionApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Aspects of Qur'anic exegetical concept of self and human nature past and present

This thesis explores paradigms of the Qur'anic concept of 'self and 'human nature' in the ontological and hermeneutic works of selected contemporary and medieval writers and in the Islamic thought. Among the main themes of the thesis are: (i) the contrast between the humanitarian values projected in the Qur'an and the enigmatic interpretation of the Qur'an which tends to vitiate these values; (ii) the contrast between the respect for human life and human dignity, commensurate with human disposition recognised by Islam, and the radicalised ideology; (iii) the contrast between the code of living devised by Islam at the individual and social levels and the parochial juristic–political outlook. The thesis investigates the distortions concerning the Islamic concepts of Jihad, democracy and tolerance of other faiths. It traces the historic roots of the insurgent groups, evolving into violent extremism, which threatens in modem world the global security through indiscriminate bloodshed and terrorism in the name of Jihad. The treatment of women in Muslim societies has attracted in recent years a barrage of criticism against Islam. This is examined from the exegetical and extra-exegetical sources. The thesis probes into the conflict between the Muslim rationalists and the traditionalists and between the philosophers and the traditionalists on the controversy over emanation and responsibility for human actions. This research is topical in the wake of the 9/11 and 7/7 catastrophes and in the light of the dilemma facing the Muslims in the West. The juristic dictum over the qualification of religio-political leadership of the community and the implementation of the Shari'ah are investigated; and the attitude in the West in fomenting extremism among Muslims is explored. This research, for the first time in a Western University, examines two major Qur'anic exegeses, and correlates these writings to the exceptional, contemporary, burning issues of the day

U.S. policy towards the Islamist movements in the Middle East : with special reference to the cases of Egypt and Jordan.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN014107 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

From Contract to Legislation: The Logic of Modern International Lawmaking

The future of international lawmaking is in peril. Both trade and climate negotiations have failed to produce a multilateral agreement since the mid-1990s, while the U.N. Security Council has been unable to comprehensively respond to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. In response to multilateralism’s retreat, many prominent commentators have called for international institutions to be given the power to bind holdout states — often rising or reluctant powers such as China and the United States — without their consent. In short, these proposals envision international law traveling the road taken by federal systems such as the United States and the European Union: from contractual lawmaking, in which states are free to make commitments to each other and free to decline commitments to which they object, to legislative lawmaking, in which states — through international institutions — make collective decisions about what legal obligations to undertake. In this Article, I argue that international legislatures — institutions such as the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that make collective decisions about the legal obligations that members may make to each other — are already numerous. But international legislatures of the kind envisioned by global government’s proponents are unlikely to emerge because the rise of international legislatures is not driven by the desire to reduce the role of holdouts. To the contrary, I contend that legislatures exist to magnify the ability of holdouts to stall and even paralyze lawmaking. Further, I argue that the increased importance of holdouts is, within limits, beneficial for international lawmaking. In contractual lawmaking, states are free to expel holdouts from negotiations and make commitments among a smaller group of the willing. Moving from contract to legislation removes this freedom. In the U.S. Congress, the minority’s holdup power is created through procedures such as the filibuster in the Senate and the committee system, under which a proposal with majority support can nevertheless fail to obtain a floor vote due to the opposition of a few key committee members. In international legislatures, this holdup power is created chiefly through a process known as “adoption,” which requires that an institution as a whole, usually by consensus, approve an agreement before any individual member state can sign and ratify it. Adoption does not imply that member states will ratify or be bound by the agreement; as with agreements like the Kyoto Protocol, some states that vote for adoption will not ratify the agreement. Instead, one of the adoption procedure’s main effects is to empower states with no intention of joining a treaty to nevertheless veto its enactment by cooperation-minded states. The increased holdup power created by legislatures is a feature, not a bug. This holdup power is beneficial because it allows states to enforce legislative bargains: deals in which a state makes concessions in one negotiation in exchange for another state’s concessions in a later related negotiation. Such iterative negotiations — found in free trade talks, environmental regimes, and efforts to establish a robust international criminal law — are a hallmark of modern international lawmaking. Absent some enforcement mechanism, though, states would be unwilling to “trade votes” across negotiations out of fear that other parties would not uphold their end of the bargain. International legislatures thus do not lubricate international lawmaking by allowing states to be bound against their will. Quite the opposite, international legislatures facilitate lawmaking by allowing states to stall lawmaking in the event that a legislative bargain is violated. This rationale for holdup power explains a number of puzzles in international law. In particular, it explains why international legislatures have not adopted robust majoritarian voting and further clarifies how international institutions enforce international law, which critics often claim is unenforceable