Be the Change You Wish to See in the World

This last weekend (Sept. 17th - 19th) I was privileged enough to attend the the Millennium Campus Conference.

Hundreds of undergrad and graduate students gathered together at Columbia University to discuss the progress we are making to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 

This was one of the greatest experiences of my life; like at least top 15. :) For two days we just sat and listened to speakers discuss development and social entrepreneurship. I think I might have finally found what I want to do after college. That in its self is a miracle.

Plus the soundtrack for the whole conference consisted entirely of The Beatles and John Lennon! :D

Charity: Water
Scott Harrision, the founder of Charity: Water was the first person to speak to us on Sat. He was a super compelling speaker and he has a great story. Seriously, check out the website! His organization has brought clean water to over a million people since 2004 and he isn't planning on stopping anytime soon!



Invisible Children
I'm sure most of you have heard of Invisible Children. It is their mission to end the war in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and free the child solders that have been used to fight these bloody civil wars. We heard from a women named Brenda. She was caught in the middle of the Ugandan Civil War, a war that killed her father and doomed her to a life of poverty. Invisible Children was able to give her a scholarship and she was able to go back to school and now she is in her final semester of college and applying to law school.

Engineers w/out Borders
The founder of Engineers Without Borders-USA, Bernard Amadei, spoke about how we need to change our view of poverty reduction.It is no longer enough to give a man a fish or even to teach a man to fish. We need to begin to build fishing industries. He had two main points on which he believes we should focus our efforts: 1)create stable and secure communities through participatory efforts and 2) provide appropriate and sustainable technologies. He then explained about another type of poverty that is even more crippling than what we usual consider. This is what he calls internal poverty; when some one is poor in spirit and lacks the will to participate in real change. He challenged us all not only to stand up to poverty but to walk until it doesn't exist.

Jeffery Sachs
Jeff Sachs in one of the world's leading development economics and is currently the UN Secretary Generals Special Advisor on the MDGs. This man is a fantastic speaker. I didn't take as many notes as I wished I had because I was so enthralled at what he was saying and applauding him every two seconds. He basically talked about how there is a massive deficit of political will in the world today to reach the MDGs. He explained that development is all about peace yet the US government spends $800 billion a year on defense (military, weapons, secret ops, surveillance). The government is willing to spend a trillion dollars to invade a country but when they have to spend a million to send children ARV drugs (a type of HIV medicine) all the sudden they get all nervous about spending their money. He explained that it would take a massive social movement, on par with civil rights, to move the government to action.

 

Bill McKibbin
This guy started 350.org; the organization that is pushing to to reduced carbon in the atmosphere back to 350 ppm in an effort to slowing climate change. He has been a personal hero of mine since I saw him on the Colbert Report last year. He was a really funny guy and really passionate. Check out 350.org and see how you can get involved in the movement toward alternative energy.

 
Ahmed Djoghlaf
He is the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. "We are undermining the capacity of the world to sustain life." Never has anyone been so blunt.

Adam Braun/Pencils of Promise
Just one thing I want to share from his talk. He gave us 7 lessons that he had learned through his life that I really connected with. Yes, they are sappy and motivational but powerful nonetheless.
1) Get out of you comfort zone.
2) Speak the language of the individual you want to become. Not "I want to do it" but "I will do it"
3) Embrace those late, sleepless nights
4) To achieve the unreasonable you have to become an unreasonable person.
5) Just go. Find a way to achieve your dreams.
6) Find your cause and live it.
7) The impossible can be made possible. "Live not in dreams, but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future".

(The dude with the mic is Bobby Bailey (founder of Invisible Children). Adam is the guy with the sling.)

The Global Poverty Project
Check it out!!! I would tell you more about it but I really don't feel like writing anymore. :p

And finally, don't forget the special video message from Justin Bieber. I'm not even joking.

This almost ruined it for me...I will not leave you with the Bieber. You can thank me later.

Is Kenya Ready to Prosecute its Own War Criminals?

The controversy in Kenya over the International Criminal Court has reached a new high this week. After the outrage of the international community over Kenya’s failure to arrest Bashier last month, recent comments by the Kenyan Justice Minister have sparked a new round of discussion. Last Sunday (Sept. 18th), Mutula Kilonzo , claimed that Kenya’s new constitution gives the country the necessary tools it needs to prosecute the leadership behind the 2007/8 post-election violence. In an interview with the Sunday Nation Mr. Kilonzo claimed that "when these (appointments) are in place, we can say that Kenyan judges meet the best international standards. After that, I can even tell them not to admit the ICC case”.

He continued: “I advocate a local tribunal partly because I’m a Kenyan, and I cannot entertain the idea of a foreign court having to investigate a fellow citizen on offences committed against fellow citizens…My challenge to Kenya is this: You gave yourselves a beautiful gift on August 27. Give yourselves another one by telling the world through the institutions that we created to keep off”.

Regardless of the Justice Minister’s reservations on the need for the ICC, Prsident Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga have both held strong in their support for the investigations. Mr Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, has expressed that “it is [the Courts] hope that the Kenyan justice system will ultimately deal with the many perpetrators that the ICC will not prosecute” but at this time the ICC must carry out its investigation and bring those responsible to justice.

Many others echo the same sentiment that the Kenyan system is just not ready to handle to strain of these prosecutions yet. Mr Hassan Omar, former chairman and current commissioner of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, explained that the ICC can only defer the investigations if the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) is totally convinced that Kenya is capable of handling the trials. He has continued to emphasize that reforms of necessary magnitude to please the PTC will still take a long time and the opportunity to try these criminals will be lost.

So at this time it looks as if Kenya is not yet ready to handle investigations and prosecutions of major war criminals. The ICC will continue with its case and will hopefully gather the unanimous support of Kenya in its journey to bring justice to the country.

What's the Problem With the ICC

I have been doing lots of research about US policy toward the ICC and I just had a few thoughts that I needed to share.

The main issue I have with the Administration’s ICC policy is the fact that there is actually no official policy.

When there is no formal policy there can be no formal action. Despite what the Administration would have you believe most of the statements they make about the ICC are pure rhetoric. The disconnect between our public statements and private action (e.g. calling for increased engagement with the court but not repealing the American Servicemen Protection Act which limits our ability to engage) is causing confusion with in our own country and the international community. We can not continue to say one thing and do another.

The 2010 National Security Strategy emphasized that the United States "moral leadership is grounded principally in the power of our example” and if we appear hypocritical to the international community we will never be able to provide the leadership that the ICC (or any international organization) needs.

Check it out!

So that last post I wrote...after editing and changing the content completely like 7 different times I finally made it good enough to go on the AMICC blog. Yay!

Sierra's freaking cool article about international legal obligation that you know you want to read!

And then after some more edits (made mostly by the editor) the same post got published in a real-live Internet magazine. Sort of also yay!

This is pretty much the same article just in a different format and with some stuff deleted...

So like the title of this post so eloquently put it...check it out!