Student funding

The UK Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills want to end funding for students who have an existing qualification at or below the level they wish to study (equivalent or lower qualifications = ELQs) in order to give the money saved - in excess of 100m to other priorities. They have not said what these are, but have stated that on the grounds of "fairness" first time students should come first in a tight spending round. A consultation is taking place, and the government is intending to phase in the cut over three years with various mechanisms of mitigation for institutions proposed. They are also intending to exempt some categories of student, and some strategic subject areas - predominantly languages and sciences. It is likely that students receiving employer support will also be exempted. The new policy, which was announced without any consultation with relevant players in the sector, will have a number of unintended consequences - not the least that one potential mechanism for delivering learning to hard to reach first time students - lifelong learning departments - will face closure, and institutions specializing in mature student and part-time study, such as the OU and Birkbeck severely damaged. Yet, John Denham (the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills) recently urged universities to increase the number of adult students and expand the number of evening classes and part-time degrees to play a greater role in enhancing the skills of the workforce and further widening participation. Of possible concern to members of this list is that it is likely that some subjects will be damaged more than others. Thus subjects which learners are more likely to study later in life, when they are already qualified in some other subject, and which are unlikely to attract support from employers, will be differentially affected. It is not yet proven but seems very likely that philosophy, which is not amongst the exempted subjects deemed to be "strategically important and vulnerable," will be among the subjects affected in this way. Though some departments may be only marginally affected, historically philosophy has been a popular choice for those returning to learning later in life, especially through part-time routes. The principle of the 'strategically important and vulnerable subject' is also one that should worry many academics. In this exercise, it is being imported as a criterion for denying funding to one group of ELQs, whilst giving it to another. Some may suspect that, if accepted now, this will later become a principle to be applied in rationing the core funding of Humanities, Arts and Social Science subjects. The Master of Birkbeck college had this to say: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/news-releases/birkbecks-response-to-proposed-funding-changes His statement neatly encapsulates what many see as the contradictions in the government policy. May I respectfully urge UK members of this list to watch this issue closely. The consultation with further background is at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2007/07_27/ Members of the list may also wish to know of the online petition, relevant to the lifelong implications of the issue, set up by students at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/HE-GRANT-CUTS/#detail

JUSTICE STUDENT HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK

Those of you with an interest in international human rights law and/or migration law, might like to know of a forthcoming conference on Article 3 ECHR.

The main details are:

Title: 'Migrants and involuntary return: Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights'
Organisers: Immigration Law Practitioners' Association and LSE Migration Studies Unit

Conference:
Date: Friday 14 December 2007, London School of Economics, 9.15am to 5.15pm
The cost to students is £30.

The programme and booking form are here: http://www.ilpa.org.uk/DT1022conference.pdf

JUSTICE STUDENT HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK

We are pleased to confirm the details of two JUSTICE Student Human Rights Network seminars to be held in November.

The first seminar, on Saturday 10 November 2007, is aimed at undergraduate students, particularly those who have not been to one of our seminars before. The programme contains talks by Suzanne Lambert, One Crown Office Row Chambers, on our current system of human rights, and by Jessica Simor, Matrix Chambers, on the specific issue under the current system of the definition of public authority under the Human Rights Act 1998. In the afternoon JUSTICE’s director, Roger Smith, will lead a session on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the prohibition of torture.

The second seminar, on Saturday 24 November 2007, is aimed at final year law students, postgraduate, LCP and BVC students, pupils and trainees. The programme for this day includes a talk and discussion on terrorism and control orders with Tom Hickman, Blackstone Chambers, and Eric Metcalfe, director of human rights policy at JUSTICE, with an afternoon session on the Human Rights Act 1998, bills of rights and the constitution with Roger Smith, director of JUSTICE.

The seminars will take place at the Guardian Newsroom, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA. The day is free to attend but you must be able to make your own travel arrangements. As before, places are limited and booking is essential.

To book please complete and return the booking form below by email, post or fax. An email will be sent confirming your place. Places are limited and bookings will be on a first come first served basis. A reserve list will be run if necessary.

Click to download the programme and an email version of the booking form for Saturday 10 November

Click to download programme and email version of the booking form for Saturday 24 November

Please forward this email to your friends, colleagues and contacts who may be interested in these seminars. Any questions or comments please email jshrn@justice.org.uk.

For more information on the JUSTICE Student Human Rights Network visit our website.

Alien Torts Statute USA Victory

Khulumani International Lawsuit Appeal Victory Removes an Obstacle to Justice for Victims and to the Advance of Corporate Accountability

Khulumani Support Group welcomes the long-awaited decision of the New York circuit court of Appeal to reverse the finding of the district court on its Alien Tort Statute claim (Khulumani et al v. Barclays et al). The court held that liability of corporations for aiding and abetting the perpetration of gross human rights abuses does exist and that it can be pled under the statute. The Alien Tort Statute (ATCA) allows for people anywhere in the world to make claims against United States-based corporations that have caused damage to those people. It must be noted that the businesses listed in the lawsuit chose not to appear before the TRC.

The decision is a victory in a long struggle for justice for victims of corporate complicity with the illegitimate apartheid government. All the defendant companies listed in the Khulumani et al v. Barclays et al lawsuit can be shown, not only to have profited from apartheid, but also to have propped up the illegitimate regime long beyond the declaration of apartheid as a crime against humanity by the United Nations. The case is now being sent back to the district court where Judge Sprizzo who originally dismissed it as being, amongst other descriptions, “frivolous”, is now required to reconsider his decision. The success of this appeal comes in the light of a campaign that has been supported by an overwhelming majority of Truth and Reconciliation Commissioners as well as by numbers of South African and international civil society organisations and individuals.

The decision of the circuit court contrasts with the position of the South African government that requested the dismissal of the claims on the basis that they interfered with the sovereignty of the South African government to deal with the matter of reparations and that the claims might possibly deter foreign investment. (ex partedeclaration submitted by former Minster of Justice Mr Penuell Maduna, dated July 11, 2003, in which former Minister Maduna refers to President Mbeki's announcement of April 15, 2003 that final reparations would be “combined with community reparations and assistance through opportunities and services”. ) The opposition of the South African government to the Khulumani claim was unexpected given that it had initially declared that "(it) recognises the right of citizens to institute legal action”. However, government went even further when Khulumani tabled its appeal in January 2006, and submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Circuit Court in support of 'big business' and against those victims who had sacrificed so much for freedom.

While we note that there is a dissenting opinion in the court decision, it seems to relate more to the two other cases than specifically to the Khulumani case and seems to be particularly influenced by the 'unfortunate' Maduna affidavit, in which claims are made that government is in the process of implementing community reparations. This is untrue. What Minister Maduna was referring to were general measures for social reconstruction and development, rather than targeted reparations measures for affected communities.

At this stage, South Africa's present government has to date not made public the community reparations programme referred to by Mr Maduna in his ex parte declaration, based on President's Mbeki's announcement of April 2003. Khulumani calls on the South African government to make their proposals on community reparations public without any further delay, noting that Khulumani submitted its suggested proposals for community reparations to the Office of the President on October 29, 2003, and that to date, government has still not responded to these. Khulumani notes, moreover, that more than R600 million remains in the President's Fund and is not being used in a transparent manner, given that these funds are derived from the public fiscus and that organised victim groups continue to struggle to get access to resources to implement their plans for sustainable livelihoods. Khulumani also notes that the TRC Unit in the Department of Justice, established at the end of 2005, continues to function in an opaque fashion and has not yet involved Khulumani in discussions to plan how to comprehensively deal with the “unfinished business of the TRC”. The Ministry of Justice has, moreover, remained unresponsive to recent requests for urgent meetings to share information on the procedures available to victims for submitting applications to have their urgent needs addressed. The South African government, having failed to wholeheartedly embrace the full scope of reparations, is thereby promoting a model of transitional justice that incorporates “unfinished business”.

Khulumani believes that the circuit court decision in New York is an important step forward in a fight for reparations, not only for survivors of gross human rights abuses in South Africa, but for victims affected by unethical corporate behaviour everywhere in the world. Provided there is no challenge to this latest decision, the role of big business in aiding and abetting the apartheid government, and in profiting from apartheid, can at last begin to be interrogated.

Issued by Khulumani Support Group's National Contact and Support Centre (www.khulumani.net)

For comment, please contact:
Khulumani's Acting Director, Dr Marjorie Jobson +27 82 268 0223 or (046) 636 2715
Khulumani’s Advocacy Coordinator, Mr Tshepo Madlingozi-+27 82 496 9914
Khulumani's Contact Centre Liaison Officer, Mr Zweli Mkhize +27 73 704 6414 or (011) 403 4098
Please note that the court decision can be accessed at
http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov:8080/isysnative/RDpcT3BpbnNcT1BOXDA1LTIxNDEtY3Zfb3BuLnBkZg==/05-2141-cv_opn.pdf
List of defendants:
Barclay National Bank Ltd., British Petroleum, PLC, Chevrontexaco Corporation, Chevrontexaco Global Energy, Inc., Citigroup, Inc., Commerzbank, Credit Suisse Group, Daimlerchrysler AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Dresdner Bank AG, Exxonmobil Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Fujitsu, Ltd., General Motors Corporations, International Business Machines Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase, Shell Oil Company, UBS AG, AEG Daimler-Benz Industrie, Fluor Corporation, Rheinmetall Group AG, Rio Tinto Group and Total-Fina-Elf

US court claims jurisdiction over Guantanamo

US judge blocks Guantanamo move

There are still about 340 detainees at GuantanamoA US federal judge has blocked the US military from sending a Guantanamo Bay detainee to Tunisia because of allegations he would be tortured.

It would be a "profound miscarriage of justice" to transfer Mohammed Abdul Rahman ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on detainee rights, the judge said.

Human rights groups say the ruling is unprecedented, and the first direct intervention by a judge in such a case.

Tunisia has denied Mr Abdul Rahman's claims that it practises torture.

However, a report by the US state department published earlier this year said the Tunisian government continued "to commit serious human rights abuses".

Citing human rights groups, the report said the Tunisian security forces used sleep deprivation, electric shocks, submersion of the head in water, beatings and cigarette burns.

'Irreparable harm'
In her ruling made earlier this month but only just unsealed, Washington DC District Judge Gladys Kessler said that Mr Abdul Rahman could not be transferred because he might suffer "devastating and irreparable harm". "In view of the grave harm Rahman has alleged he will face if transferred, it would be a profound miscarriage of justice if this court denied the motion," the judge said. Mr Abdul Rahman has a heart condition and he argued that the 20-year prison sentence awaiting him in Tunisia could amount to a death sentence. His lawyer praised the ruling, which he said was the first time the courts had acted to control the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. "The executive has now been told it cannot bury its Guantanamo mistakes in third world prisons," Joshua Denbeaux told the Associated Press.

Mr Abdul Rahman was captured in Pakistan and allegedly handed over for a bounty. He was cleared for transfer after a military panel heard his case in 2005.

Repatriation

A US justice department spokesman, Erik Ablin, said the government had argued that the district court did not have jurisdiction over the case.

Quick guide: Guantanamo
The government was now considering its options, he said. The US Supreme Court is due to rule on whether inmates can mount challenge in civilian courts. There are about 340 detainees still being held at Guantanamo, according to the Pentagon. It has transferred or released approximately 445 detainees to other countries. A Pentagon spokeswoman said it tried to ensure detainees were not abused when they were returned to their home states. "Detainees are not repatriated to countries where it is more likely than not that they will be tortured," spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said.

Bush’s torturers follow where the Nazis led

From The Sunday Times October 7, 2007

By Andrew Sullivan

I remember that my first response to the reports of abuse and torture at Guantanamo Bay was to accuse the accusers of exaggeration or deliberate deception. I didn’t believe America would ever do those things. I’d also supported George W Bush in 2000, believed it necessary to give the president the benefit of the doubt in wartime, and knew Donald Rumsfeld as a friend. It struck me as a no-brainer that this stuff was being invented by the far left or was part of Al-Qaeda propaganda. After all, they train captives to lie about this stuff, don’t they? Bottom line: I trusted the president in a time of war to obey the rule of law that we were and are defending. And then I was forced to confront the evidence. From almost the beginning of the war, it is now indisputable, the Bush administration made a strong and formative decision: in the absence of good intelligence on the Islamist terror threat after 9/11, it would do what no American administration had done before. It would torture detainees to get information. This decision was and is illegal, and violates America’s treaty obligations, the military code of justice, the United Nations convention against torture, and US law. Although America has allied itself over the decades with some unsavoury regimes around the world and has come close to acquiescing to torture, it has never itself tortured. It has also, in liberating the world from the evils of Nazism and communism, and in crafting the Geneva conventions, done more than any other nation to banish torture from the world. George Washington himself vowed that it would be a defining mark of the new nation that such tactics, used by the British in his day, would be anathema to Americans. Related LinksBush smooths path for Hillary But Bush decided that 9/11 changed all that. Islamists were apparently more dangerous than the Nazis or the Soviets, whom Americans fought and defeated without resorting to torture. The decision to enter what Dick Cheney called “the dark side” was made, moreover, in secret; interrogators who had no idea how to do these things were asked to replicate some of the methods US soldiers had been trained to resist if captured by the Soviets or Vietcong. Classic torture techniques, such as waterboarding, hypothermia, beatings, excruciating stress positions, days and days of sleep deprivation, and threats to family members (even the children of terror suspects), were approved by Bush and inflicted on an unknown number of terror suspects by American officials, CIA agents and, in the chaos of Iraq, incompetents and sadists at Abu Ghraib. And when the horror came to light, they denied all of it and prosecuted a few grunts at the lowest level. The official reports were barred from investigating fully up the chain of command. Legally, the White House knew from the start that it was on extremely shaky ground. And so officials told pliant in-house lawyers to concoct memos to make what was illegal legal. Their irritation with the rule of law, and their belief that the president had the constitutional authority to waive it, became a hallmark of their work. They redefined torture solely as something that would be equivalent to the loss of major organs or leading to imminent death. Everything else was what was first called “coercive interrogation”, subsequently amended to “enhanced interrogation”. These terms were deployed in order for the president to be able to say that he didn’t support “torture”. We were through the looking glass. After Abu Ghraib, some progress was made in restraining these torture policies. The memo defining torture out of existence was rescinded. The Military Commissions Act was crafted to prevent the military itself from being forced to violate its own code of justice. But the administration clung to its torture policies, and tried every legal manoeuvre to keep it going and keep it secret. Much of this stemmed from the vice-president’s office. Last week The New York Times revealed more. We now know that long after Abu Ghraib was exposed, the administration issued internal legal memos that asserted the legality of many of the techniques exposed there. The memos not only gave legal cover to waterboarding, hypothermia and beating but allowed them in combination to intensify the effect. The argument was that stripping a chained detainee naked, pouring water over him while keeping room temperatures cold enough to induce repeated episodes of dangerous hypothermia, was not “cruel, inhuman or degrading”. We have a log of such a technique being used at Guantanamo. The victim had to be rushed to hospital, brought back from death, then submitted once again to “enhanced interrogation”. George Orwell would have been impressed by the phrase “enhanced interrogation technique”. By relying on it, the White House spokesman last week was able to say with a straight face that the administration strongly opposed torture and that “any procedures they use are tough, safe, necessary and lawful”. So is “enhanced interrogation” torture? One way to answer this question is to examine history. The phrase has a lineage. Verschärfte Verneh-mung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the “third degree”. It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation. The United States prosecuted it as a war crime in Norway in 1948. The victims were not in uniform – they were part of the Norwegian insurgency against the German occupation – and the Nazis argued, just as Cheney has done, that this put them outside base-line protections (subsequently formalised by the Geneva conventions). The Nazis even argued that “the acts of torture in no case resulted in death. Most of the injuries inflicted were slight and did not result in permanent disablement”. This argument is almost verbatim that made by John Yoo, the Bush administration’s house lawyer, who now sits comfortably at the Washington think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. The US-run court at the time clearly rejected Cheney’s arguments. Base-line protections against torture applied, the court argued, to all detainees, including those out of uniform. They didn’t qualify for full PoW status, but they couldn’t be abused either. The court also relied on the plain meaning of torture as defined under US and international law: “The court found it decisive that the defendants had inflicted serious physical and mental suffering on their victims, and did not find sufficient reason for a mitigation of the punishment . . .” The definition of torture remains the infliction of “severe mental or physical pain or suffering” with the intent of procuring intelligence. In 1948, in other words, America rejected the semantics of the current president and his aides. The penalty for those who were found guilty was death. This is how far we’ve come. And this fateful, profound decision to change what America stands for was made in secret. The president kept it from Congress and from many parts of his own administration. Ever since, the United States has been struggling to figure out what to do about this, if anything. So far Congress has been extremely passive, although last week’s leaks about the secret pro-torture memos after Abu Ghraib forced Arlen Specter, a Republican senator, to proclaim that the memos “are more than surprising. I think they are shocking”. Yet the public, by and large, remains indifferent; and all the Republican candidates, bar John McCain and Ron Paul, endorse continuing the use of torture. One day America will come back– the America that defends human rights, the America that would never torture detainees, the America that leads the world in barring the inhuman and barbaric. But not until this president leaves office. And maybe not even then.

Stop the War coalition newsletter

1) URGENT - ATTEMPT TO BAN STOP THE WAR MARCHOn Monday 8 October the Stop the War Coalition will be marchingfrom Trafalgar Square to Parliament calling for all troops inIraq to be brought home immediately.After a series of relatively co-operative meetings, the policenow say they have been instructed not to allow the march to takeplace and that all demonstrations are banned within a mile ofParliament whilst in session.This is a new development which threatens our democratic rights.When Gordon Brown became prime minister he promised to liberalisethe laws on protest, saying that one of his principles would be,"civil liberties safeguarded and enhanced". Government ministers,including Gordon Brown, have lined up to support the right toprotest in Burma. It is important that these same ministers alsodefend the rights of people in this country to protestpeacefully.We are determined to march to make our views known to parliamenton 8 October, when Gordon Brown will make his long awaitedstatement on Iraq. We urge everyone who opposes the war policiesof our government to join the call for all British troops to comehome immediately and to help defend our civil liberties now underattack. We have produced a petition calling on the authorities toreview the decision to ban the march.SIGN THE PETITION ONLINE aimed at defending our right to protestpeacefully. You can do this here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/DOWNLOAD AND PRINT THE PETITIONCollect as many signatures as you can and send filled petitionsheets to Stop the War Coalition, 27 Britannia Street, WC1X 9JPDownload for printing here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/Please spread the word as widely as you can about thedemonstration on Monday 8 October (full details below).

2) DEMONSTRATE: PARLIAMENT MONDAY 8 OCTOBERNOT ONE MORE DEATH - BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOWASSEMBLE FOR RALLY 1.0 PM TRAFALGAR SQUARESpeakers include:TONY BENNMARK STEEL, comedian and writer BEN GRIFFIN, ex-soldier who served in IraqBOB WAREING MPGEMMA TUMELTY, president, National Union of StudentsLINDSEY GERMAN, national convenor, Stop the WarBILLY HAYES general secretary, Communication Workers UnionFor more details, see: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

3) NOT ONE MORE DEATH POSTCARDThe Stop the War Not One More Death postcard, designed by eminentartist David Gentleman, is now available from the Stop the Waroffice. The postcard is being used in a write-in campaign toGordon Brown, calling for a change in government policy, to breakBritain's subservience to George Bush's warmongering. Stop theWar local groups plan to distribute the postcard at every tubestation, bus terminal, train station, in workplaces and communitycentres, churches and mosques.Contact the Stop the War Office to order postcards in bulk. Ifyou would like to distribute the postcards in your localcommunity, college, school or workplace or among friends andrelatives, please contact us.Phone: 020 7278 6694Email: office@stopwar.org.ukSEE THE POSTCARD DESIGN HERE:http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

4) GORDON BROWN OPEN LETTER PUBLISHED 3 OCTOBERStop the War's open letter to Gordon Brown calling for thewithdrawal of all British troops from Iraq will be published in afull page advert, funded by supporters of Stop the War, in TheGuardian on Wednesday 3 October (See http://tinyurl.com/3xafku).Among the hundreds of signatories are:Tariq Ali, Iain Banks, Tony Benn, Ian Brown, Caryl Churchill,Harry Cohen MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Bob Crow (Gen Sec RMT) BrianEno, George Galloway MP, Rose Gentle (MFAW) David Gentleman,Lindsey German, (Convenor STWC), Bill Greenshields (National VP,NUT), Ben Griffin (ex SAS soldier), Kelvin Hopkins MP, KateHudson (Chair CND), Jean Lambert MEP, Dr Caroline Lucas MEP,Alice Mahon, Prof Kamil Majid, Miriam Margolyes, John McDonnellMP, Adrian Mitchell, Greg Mulholland MP, Andrew Murray (ChairSTWC), Michael Nyman, Adam Price MP, Sami Ramadani, John Rees(Sec Respect Coalition), Yvonne Ridley, Paul Rowen MP, MarkRylance, Prof David Seddon, Alan Simpson MP, Linda Smith, ChairRespect Coalition, Prof Andrew Spencer, Hans von Sponeck, ProfPhil Taylor, Mark Thomas, UNISON (London Fire Authority), WalterWolfgang, Tony Woodley (Joint Gen Sec UNITE), Cllr Salma Yaqoob,Susannah York, Haifa Zangana, Benjamin Zephaniah