Oxford University Press's Blog, page 912

Gender politics and the United Nations Security Council

By Gina Heathcote

On 25 June 2013, the United Nations Security Council issued its sixth resolution on women, peace, and security: Resolution 2106. In line with three of the preceding resolutions on women, peace, and security (Resolutions 1820, 1889, and 1960), the Council focused on the issue of sexual violence in armed conflict. Resolution 2106 was passed despite criticism from feminist actors, including those involved in the drafting of the first Resolution on women peace and security (Resolution 1325). The continued, disproportionate focus on the sexual violence in armed conflict denies the spectrum of gendered experiences that occur both during conflict and in post-conflict spaces.

A week prior to the new resolution, the World Health Organisation, in conjunction with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, released a report that found violence against women to be a “global public health problem that affects approximately one third of women globally.” The research also found that the vast proportion of this violence against women was perpetrated by their intimate partners. In all regions of the world, the report found the prevalence of intimate partner violence against women was higher than the prevalence of non-partner sexual violence. The consequence is long-term global health costs that the report describes of “epidemic proportions.”

It is important to think through the Security Council’s current approach to women, peace, and security through the lens of these global health statistics. Sexual violence in armed conflict is brutal, traumatic, and prevalent across the spectrum of armed conflicts. Yet in terms of global understandings of threats to women’s peace and security, sexual violence during armed conflict is dwarfed by the global figures on intimate partner violence. This is not to diminish the importance of finding the means to prevent sexual violence during armed conflict, but we need to acknowledge that the two sites of violence are inter-related.

The United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York. Photo by Patrick Gruban, 2006. Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons.

Tolerance of violence as a means to relate to others and resolve conflict, especially in gendered situations, is taught in intimate spaces across generations. The use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, for opportunistic advantage or as a display of warrior excess, is made possible by the level of violence against women that our communities tolerate everyday. This is particularly evident in military communities. Survivors of sexual violence and survivors of intimate partner violence are unlikely to report crimes, during times of both peace and conflict, if adequate health services do not exist. We must begin to address the responsibility of states to provide adequate care and prevention strategies, as well as education, to halt and respond to the spectrum of violence against women.

The UK government has chosen to focus specifically on sexual violence in armed conflict under its presidency of both the UN Security Council and the G8 forum during 2013. In doing so, it neglects the crossover between violence against women within our communities and the brutal sexual violence witnessed in conflict states. The focus on naming and shaming perpetrators of sexual violence in armed conflict via international organizations, while inadequately funding domestic violence services at home and failing to challenge everyday sexism, permits a construction of sexual violence as something “other” — away from the UK and everyday life.

It is time to move women’s security out of the remit of the Security Council and onto the agenda of all states, international institutions, and governments so that the global health epidemic resulting from violence against women is spoken against in all spaces and places, rather than as a violation that only happens in times of chaos and violence.

Gina Heathcote is the author of The Law on the Use of Force: a Feminist Analysis and a contributor to the forthcoming The Oxford Handbook of the Use of Force in International Law. She lectures in Gender Studies and Public International Law at SOAS, University of London.

Oxford University Press is a leading publisher in Public International Law, including the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, latest titles from thought leaders in the field, and a wide range of law journals and online products. We publish original works across key areas of study, from humanitarian to international economic to environmental law, developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners worldwide.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only law articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Gender politics and the United Nations Security Council appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesLessons from Iraq 10 years onThe Detroit bankruptcy and the US ConstitutionCross-border suspicions and law enforcement at US-Mexico border 

Who were the Carlisle Commissioners? Part one

By Dr. Robert V. McNamee

In July, Electronic Enlightenment (EE) updated with materials taken from the Virginia Historical Society and the correspondence of Adam Ferguson, amongst others. These apparently disparate historical correspondences (and others already published in EE) are brought together within this unique digital framework so that students, scholars and the public can read, in this instance, “across the Atlantic.” A good example can be found in the case of the “Carlisle Commission” of 1778, an attempt to reach a negotiated peace three years into the American Revolutionary War — a war, it is worth reminding ourselves, that lasted for nearly eight and a half years!

In April 1778, British Prime Minister, Lord North, sent a commission to arrange a negotiated peace settlement with the US Continental Congress. Headed by the Fifth Earl of Carlisle, the commission included George Johnstone who had previously served as Governor of West Florida. The voyage was not a success; the commissioners tried to stir public opinion with warnings of widespread destruction if the American colonists continued to resist. Commissioner Johnstone was accused of trying to bribe Congressmen, while the Marquis de Lafayette challenged Carlisle to a duel over his anti-French remarks.

Newly digital correspondence contributes personal and formal insight into the events of 1778. First, from the newly added correspondence of Adam Ferguson (1723–1816), Scottish philosopher, historian and father of modern sociology, we hear his “armchair” opinion of the American troubles. At the time of writing, Ferguson doesn’t yet know that within months he will be on his way across the Atlantic as a Carlisle commissioner. On Thursday, 15 January 1778, he writes to Sir John Macpherson:

I imagine that no less than three or at least two Powerful bodys will be wanted to retrieve the Affairs of Government in America. One to make War on the Coast of New England Another from Canada on the Back settlements & a third perhaps to mantain this Ground we have chosen to take in Pensilvania if Peradventure we have it in the beginning of next Summer. And the Object of the Campaign shoud be to have the exclusive possession of Hudsons River with the Lakes. Places of Arms at New York and Albany & an open Route for the War from Canada on the North as well as from the Coast of the South. In our Way to this Object the Rebels may be induced to prefer accommodation to the Continuance of Such A War. But Lord have mercy on those who expect any Good in this bussiness without Sufficient Instruments of Terror in one hand & of Moderation and justice in the Other. And so much for the opinion of us here who Govern the world at our own fire Sides.

Three months later (Monday, 27 April 1778), we find Edmund Pendleton (1721–1803), revolutionary politician and US judge, writing to General George Washington (1732–1799):

Caroline, Virginia, April 27, 1778

Dear Sir

It gave me infinite pleasure to hear by my worthy friend Woodford that you was in fine health, a circumstance the more pleasing, as it could scarcely have been expected, after such uncommon and unremitted toil for near three years. I am not superstitious, nor disposed to offend you by what I know you abhor, yet it is firmly my creed that Heaven has raised and will preserve you for the sake of the Milions whom you are now engaged in rescuing from Slavery … I think however the Martial Spirit is somewhat recovering and am not without hopes that the Militia will with tolerable alacrity obey your call for them, if you find it necessary. I will not trouble you with news, General Woodford, will better retail any little we may have — but what do you think of the Commissioners from London to treat with Congress, acknowledging independence? I suppose it another Verse of the old Syren’s Song which has preluded each Campaign, composed at first to take you off your guard, but that hope abandoned, is continued to make the people of England and timid Americans believe that the want of Peace is the fault of Congress. I thank you for your kind remembrance of me by my friend, and beg leave to assure you I have the Honor to be, with the warmest zeal, Your Excellency’s devoted friend and Obedient Servant,

Edmd Pendleton

The same day Pendleton repeats his assessment of the newly arrived Commissioners’ intentions. Writing to then Lieutenant William Campbell, Pendleton reports:

They know, tho they conceal it from their nation, that we are ready to make a friendly and equal alliance with them at any time, but this is not their purpose, unconditional submission, in plain English our absolute slavery is their aim, out of which you must drive them by bullet and bayonet reasoning, therefore give it them home and their masters will treat properly.

General George Washington

Finally, in a remarkable letter from Commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary forces and future first President of the United States of America, General George Washington, to Adam Ferguson, 9 June 1778, we hear of the failure of Ferguson’s attempts to gain passage through rebel territory:

Sir,

The Letter which accompanies this will inform Sir Henry Clinton, that I can not grant the Passport requested by his Favor of this date, without the previous instructions of Congress upon the Subject. This I have thought proper to advise you to prevent you the inconvenience of proceeding, should this find you on the way.

I have the Honor to be Sir Your most Obedient Servant

G. Washington

Head Quarter June 9: 1778

While we hear the other side of this exchange in a letter written ten days later by Ferguson to his friend Sir John Macpherson:

From on board The Trident Delaware River June 19th 1778

My Dear Friend

. . . I set out from Philadelphia with a Flag and a Trumpet for Washingtons Camp in my way to the Congress: but was met at one of the out Posts of their Army with a Very Civil Letter intimating that he [General Washington] coud not grant a Passport without previous instructions from Congress. The Dispatches went but there is yet no return & we expect none till after we are settled at New York. Proposals are made which the Congress will scarcely be able to reject without losing The Support of their Constituents. . . . Pray Make up my Wifes letters in bundles & send them by The Packet to New York or Otherwise. Say nothing of My Conjectures when they happen to be dissagreeable. Write me what you may expose to be miscarryed inspected or lost. I am most

Affectionately

Your Adam Ferguson

These letters from across both sides of the Atlantic illustrate the failure of the Carlisle Commissioners to negotiate peace three years into the American Revolutionary War. The Commissioners clearly tried to stir anti-Congressional feelings in the colonists, while General George Washington and Edmund Pendleton saw through the Commissioners’ transparent plan and rejected their safe passage through rebel territory. Electronic Enlightenment makes historic discoveries like this possible, and with each update to the database, continues to recreate the world’s first, great social network.

Dr. Robert V. McNamee is the Director of the Electronic Enlightenment Project, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

Electronic Enlightenment is a scholarly research project of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, and is available exclusively from Oxford University Press. It is the most wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas, and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century — reconstructing one of the world’s great historical “conversations”.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Image credit: Gilbert Stuart Williamstown Portrait of George Washington via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Who were the Carlisle Commissioners? Part one appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesThe black quest for justice and innocenceSophie Elisabeth, not an anachronism 

The black quest for justice and innocence

By Brenda Stevenson

Those who followed the Trayvon Martin case this summer did so not just because of the conflicting details of the shooting deaths of these two unarmed black youth, but because these cases, like too many others, have played out in our public consciousness as markers of American justice. Does “liberty and justice for all” actually exist; or are these words from our Pledge of Allegiance just part of the grand American narrative that is more myth than reality?

Justice was the first ideal put forth in the Preamble to our Constitution as one that would lead to a “more perfect nation” and was later codified in the 14th amendment. Thomas Jefferson was clear about the essential nature of “justice” in the new nation, writing in 1807 that “An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental,” and in 1816 that “The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.” George Washington agreed that the administration of justice is the “firmest pillar of government.” Although the implementation of justice has had a worrisome history in this nation, the people’s belief that justice is a fundamental right of everyone on American soil is rock solid. Within the African American community as well as other communities of color and varied ethnicities, however, the reality of justice as applied by local, state, and even federal courts can prove elusive.

It should not have come as any surprise then that a significant fear voiced in the black community over the many months since Trayvon Martin died is that George Zimmerman trial would demonstrate, once again, that African Americans are not equal before the law. Even more alarming, it demonstrates that black children—the heart of every family and community—are not exempt from a legacy of injustice that has plagued African Americans across the generations. The names of so many wrongfully killed and denied justice fill the communal memory, undermining black confidence in the criminal justice system. Seventeen-year-old Eugene Williams drowned on 27 July 1919 in Chicago after whites assaulted him with rocks and police charged an innocent black man. Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was tortured, murdered, and mutilated in Mississippi in 1955. Double jeopardy protected his confessed murderers. An NYPD lieutenant shot and killed 15-year-old James Powell in 1964, allegedly for lunging at him with a knife that was never found. A white policeman mistook 16-year-old Matthew Johnson for a car thief and killed him in 1966 in San Francisco. A Korean shopkeeper shot 15-year-old Latasha Harlins in the back of the head in South Central Los Angeles in 1991, and was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter but released with no jail time by the judge. The list could go on and on. 

Street rally in New York City, October 11, 1955, under joint sponsorship of NAACP and District 65, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers Union in protest of slaying of Emmett Till (Library of Congress). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Couple this historical narrative, one that reaches back to the slave era, with past and current statistics — extremely high black juvenile incarceration rates (five times that of whites); sentencing differentials across color and class lines; the disproportionate number of black children tried and sentenced as adults (more than 50% of affected juveniles); the lop-sided school suspension rates for blacks (3.5 times that of whites); the larger proportion of black defendants who have to rely on public defenders; the extremely small number of black judges (about 6% on federal and state benches) — and it is clear why African Americans found it hard to believe that the truth would be found and justice rendered in Florida v. Zimmerman.

Africans Americans realize that that their children rarely carry the mantle of “innocence” or vulnerability that the public willingly bestows on other youth. They are more likely to be considered the criminal not the victim, even when they are left lying in a pool of blood and the other person is able to walk away. Black male and female teens are particularly bundled together in the myth of the urban black thug or gang banger. What black teen is ever deemed an innocent victim? When Soon Ja Du was found guilty of murdering Latasha Harlins, for example, the judge made it clear in her sentencing statement that it was Du, and not Latasha, who had been the vulnerable victim, and that Latasha — if she had lived — probably would be before the court on an assault charge. Likewise, George Zimmerman was found not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin because the jury believed that Zimmerman reasonably feared that an unarmed Trayvon would kill him.

Given the outcome of the Zimmerman case and countless others, many black parents are convinced that the criminal justice system is stacked against their children. The history of legal neglect and outright abuse is too long and deep. The image of black boys and girls as violent, rather than sweet, smart, and brimming with promise too palpable. Indeed, given this centuries-old cruel legacy, it is difficult to even imagine that a conviction of Zimmerman, or other similar acts of “justice” could recreate the public’s image of a black girl or boy as an innocent, vulnerable child — or ignite the black community’s trust in the nation’s law enforcement and court systems.

Brenda Stevenson is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her books include The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and the Origins of the LA Riots; The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke; and Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South, selected as an Outstanding Book by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only American history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post The black quest for justice and innocence appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesFamily values and immigration reformCross-border suspicions and law enforcement at US-Mexico borderWalter Scott’s anachronisms 

Antarctica in the imagination

Long before it was first spotted in 1820, Antarctica has captured imaginations, and the many quests undertaken to explore it never fail to be dramatic adventures. Although Antarctica has been and continues to be studied, many do not know the continent’s past and the challenges it will face in the coming decades. In the three videos below, historian David Day explores three reasons the continent continues to fascinate — its discovery, colonization, and future.

The discovery

Click here to view the embedded video.

The man behind colonization

Click here to view the embedded video.

The future

Click here to view the embedded video.

David Day has been a research fellow at Clare College in Cambridge and a Visiting Professor at University College Dublin, the University of Aberdeen, and the Center for Pacific and American Studies at the University of Tokyo. He is currently a research associate at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He is the author of many books, including Antarctica: A Biography, Conquest: How Societies Overwhelm Others, and the award-winning Claiming a Continent: A History of Australia.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Antarctica in the imagination appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesWhat were the Red Sea Wars?Walter Scott’s anachronismsWhose Odyssey is it anyway? 

The Detroit bankruptcy and the US Constitution

By Susan P. Fino

Bankruptcies of state governmental entities are relatively rare. Until the Detroit bankruptcy the largest example was a county. In the 1970s, two cities came close to the edge—New York and Cleveland—but both managed to find a way back from the precipice. There are myriad reasons why Detroit is in Chapter 9 bankruptcy now.

The US Constitution grants Congress the power to make uniform rules for bankruptcies, and Congress has used this power to create and modify such laws throughout the nation’s history. Before the Great Depression bankruptcy laws addressed the insolvency of private persons both real and corporate. The depth and scope of the Great Depression placed state and local governments in the same position as private parties. Certainly states possess the power to tax to raise revenue, but when financial resources are scarce everywhere raising taxes would be the equivalent of squeezing blood from a stone. Congress responded in 1934 with a new law, Chapter 10 (now Chapter 9) of the bankruptcy code to afford state governments the same relief as private parties. Here it is important to note that the Constitution contains another provision that is relevant to Chapter 9 bankruptcies, the 10th Amendment.

This initial attempt to provide for bankruptcies of state governments met a hostile response from the Supreme Court when the Court, over the solo dissent of Justice Cardozo, nullified Chapter 10 as unconstitutional. The Court acknowledged that the Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to create laws related to bankruptcy. The problem arose from another part of the Constitution. The 10th Amendment reserves powers not granted to the national government to the states. The Court took the position that the Amendment protects state governmental autonomy from federal intrusion even in the instance of voluntary petitions for bankruptcy. Congress tried again two years later and passed another version of Chapter 10 that did not differ significantly from the nullified version. This time in 1937 the Supreme Court sustained the law not because of changes to the law, but the membership of the Court had changed to one much more sympathetic to congressional use of its constitutional powers. For a long time Court observers assumed that the 10th Amendment had been practically ruled out of the Constitution. However in the past two decades the 10th Amendment has undergone a revival through the efforts of conservative justices committed to greater protection of state autonomy. This resurrection will be important to the discussion of the powers of the bankruptcy judge in Detroit’s case.

Another provision of the national Constitution that is relevant to the Detroit case is the “supremacy clause.” Article VI, section 2 of the Constitution states that: “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” There’s a simple way of thinking about the supremacy clause: generally anything federal trumps anything state.

As bankruptcy proceeds in Detroit, retirees who worked for years for the city are confronted with the specter of seeing their pensions evaporate as the city “emergency manager” in conjunction with the bankruptcy proceedings attempt to satisfy the demands of creditors. The Michigan constitution does indeed speak to the state government’s obligation to retirees. Article IX, section 24 states “The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and retirement system of the state and its political subdivisions shall be a contractual obligation thereof which shall not be diminished or impaired thereby.” Can this section of the Michigan constitution save the hard-earned pensions of Detroit’s municipal retirees? The unhappy answer is “no,” and the reason is the supremacy clause.

Putting everything together, does the bankruptcy proceeding reduce the City of Detroit to the status of hostage? The happier answer here is “no.” Here we must revisit the 10th Amendment and the limitations it places on the exercise of national power. Despite the bankruptcy proceedings Detroit is and remains part of the structure of government in Michigan. A city cannot be treated like a private party in bankruptcy proceedings in which assets are liquidated to satisfy creditors. For example, the Detroit cannot be compelled to sell city hall or its parks to developers to satisfy creditors. As the Judicial Conference of the United States puts it: “Although similar to other chapters in some respects, chapter 9 is significantly different in that there is no provision in the law for liquidation of the assets of the municipality and distribution of the proceeds to creditors. Such a liquidation or dissolution would undoubtedly violate the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution and the reservation to the states of sovereignty over their internal affairs (emphasis added).” The city’s “emergency manager” has engaged a New York auction house to appraise the collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a city-owned museum of national prominence. Citizens of Michigan have been overwhelmed with the fear that the great works of art owned by the DIA will be auctioned off in a kind of everything-must-go fire sale. Thanks to the 10th Amendment this is not a likely scenario.

Susan P. Fino is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Wayne State University. She is the author of The Michigan State Constitution, part of the Oxford Commentaries on the State Constitutions of the US series.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only law article on the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Image credit: Details from the “million dollar courthouse,” the Theodore Levin United States Courthouse, Detroit Federal Building, Detroit, Michigan. Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Public domain.

The post The Detroit bankruptcy and the US Constitution appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesCross-border suspicions and law enforcement at US-Mexico borderFamily values and immigration reformSpain’s unemployment conundrum 

What were the Red Sea Wars?

An inscribed marble throne at the Ethiopian port of Adulis offers us a rare window into the fateful events comprising what has come to be known as the Red Sea Wars. Tirelessly examined by scholars of Arab historiography but woefully overlooked by the world at large, the sixth century international conflict was waged between Christian Ethiopians and Jewish Arabs, creating a context for the ultimate implosion of the Persian Empire and the swift rise of Islam. Here, G.W. Bowersock, author of The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam, offers an invaluable account of this tumultuous epoch in pre-Islamic Arabian history, piecing together a seamless narrative from a host of historical fragments.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On Cosmas Indicopleustes, the sixth century Christian merchant who discovered the throne of Adulis, and his contribution to our understanding of the Red Sea Wars.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, and its enduring significance to Ethiopian Christianity.

Click here to view the embedded video.

G. W. Bowersock is Professor Emeritus of Ancient History at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, and author of The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam. Among his many previous books are Augustus and the Greek World, From Gibbon to Auden: Essays on the Classical Tradition, Mosaics as History: The Near East from Late Antiquity to Islam, and Roman Arabia.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post What were the Red Sea Wars? appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesWhose Odyssey is it anyway?Natural wonder or national symbol? A history of the Victoria RegiaWalter Scott’s anachronisms 

Cross-border suspicions and law enforcement at US-Mexico border

By Jay Albanese

We’ve divided our planet into nearly 200 countries with sovereign borders and laws designed to preserve mutual self-interest. It is not surprising, therefore, that many countries are suspicious of their cross-border neighbors and sometimes outwardly hostile to them. Simply put, the adage “good fences make good neighbors” applies on the international scene as well.

Our increasingly globalized world has made traditional close-minded suspicions of neighboring countries less tenable. Neighbors have become more important everywhere as the buyers and sellers of products and services. Sometimes they provide labor and competition as well. In any case, neighbors can no longer be ignored successfully.

The same holds true in the market for illegal products and services, such as drugs, stolen property, sex trafficking, and money laundering. In every case, borders are crossed to link supply with demand and increase illicit profits, all while evading law enforcement.

The history of United States-Mexico border has been a troubled one. A long land border dividing a developed (demand-driven) country with a developing (supply-driven) country always results in cross-border problems, and the US-Mexico border is not an exception to this rule.

The crackdown on drug cartels within Mexico during the last few years has been a positive sign in that the Mexican government is taking on entrenched and powerful drug gangs. On the other hand, the drug gangs are not sitting idly by as this occurs, and they are fighting back with violence and renewed efforts to threaten and corrupt government officials from police to politicians. Positive results, such the capturing of Mexican drug gang leaders through US-Mexico cooperation, are featured simultaneously with news footage of violence in the streets of US-Mexican border towns.

A new television series, The Bridge, dramatizes the interactions of an American and a Mexican detective as they hunt a serial killer across the border, while dealing with the existing border issues of corruption, drug cartels, and crime. It is too early to tell whether the series will exploit these problems or make an effort to portray their more complicated context.

But as often occurs in contemporary criminal justice, it is not always clear whether life is imitating art, or the reverse. The same month that The Bridge premiered, the US Drug Enforcement Administration publicly congratulated the government of Mexico on the arrest of Miguel Trevino Morales, the head of the notorious Los Zetas drug cartel. Morales had been wanted by police for years. Two months earlier, Armando Villareal Heredia, aka Gordo Villareal, was successfully extradited from Mexico to the United States to face federal racketeering and drug charges. Villareal is the principal defendant in the prosecution of the Fernando Sanchez-Arellano drug trafficking organization.

Last month, the US Treasury Department designated 18 individuals and 15 businesses linked to Rafael Caro Quintero, a Mexican drug trafficker and founder of the Guadalajara drug cartel. Pursuant to the US Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, US citizens are prohibited from conducting any financial or commercial transactions with these designees, and it freezes any assets they may have in the United States. This action occurred because family members and front persons were used to invest drug money into legitimate companies and real estate projects, and this designation makes such laundering and concealing of funds much more difficult. The DEA acknowledged the assistance of the government of Mexico in targeting these individuals. These cases demonstrate that some progress being made in the real world of drug gangs and related border corruption.

In the same way that the United States struggled against organized crime a century ago against the likes of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, Mexico is engaging in the same struggle now on the US-Mexican border. As the United States learned from its own experience, the fight against organized crime will only progress when the rule of law can be practically enforced: through professionalized law enforcement, prosecution, and adjudication; where police, prosecutors, and judges are well-trained, fairly paid, and then develop loyalty to their professions. Only then can consistent progress resistant to corruption be made against organized crime.

We live in an interesting time in which we are witnessing a developing government trying to enforce the rule of law over the rule of organized crime drug gangs. This is no easy task, but with the assistance of the more developed rule of law capacity in the United States, Mexico-US relations might become less a case of mutual suspicion and more a case of mutual support in a common cause.

Jay Albanese, PhD, is a Professor and Criminologist at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government & Public Affairs. He is the author of Transnational Crime and the 21st Century.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only current affairs articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Image credit: Promotional photo of FX series The Bridge. Used for purposes of illustration. All rights reserved. 

The post Cross-border suspicions and law enforcement at US-Mexico border appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesFamily values and immigration reformAssembling a coherent picture in the Daniel Pelka caseWhose Odyssey is it anyway? 

Whose Odyssey is it anyway?

By Justine McConnell

The death of Martin Bernal in June attracted less media attention than one might have hoped for the man who brought an unprecedented attention to the contemporary study of classics. His 1987 work, Black Athena, was not the first to argue for a strong, pervasive African influence on the culture of ancient Greece, but it was the first to receive widespread notice. The fact that similar theories put forward by black scholars had been neglected, coupled with some rather whimsical scholarship on Bernal’s part, makes the work contentious and in some respects problematic. But there is no doubt that it achieved something crucial in highlighting the truth that ancient Greece was not as ethnically or culturally homogenous as nineteenth- and early twentieth-century classicists would have had us believe.

Outside of academia, too, classics has been a highly contested subject. Inextricably embroiled in the apparatus of European colonialism, classical literature was adopted as part of the educational and cultural machinery that European empire-builders foisted on the lands they colonized. Aristotle’s theory of ‘natural slavery’ was even adduced by some as justification for their actions. One reaction to this has been the anti-colonial appropriation of works such as Homer’s Odyssey, which stands at the forefront of the ‘Western’ canon. The Martiniquan writer, Aimé Césaire, was the first to recast the Odyssey, back in 1939. The brutish Cyclops, for example, looks rather different once we see his single eye as, primarily, a signifier of his difference (in Homer, a single eye; in Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, the blackness of a man’s skin). After all, it was Odysseus who invaded the Cyclops’ land, who entered his home without asking and occupied it without permission. As the proto-colonial tendencies of the “hero” Odysseus become clear, our sympathies shift: might the Cyclops not have been legitimately defending his home and his land from an intruder intent on robbing him and scorning his way of life?

More than this, what Césaire asserted (employing his impeccable classical training — another side-effect of colonialism) was that classical literature belongs as much to the Caribbean as to Europe, as much to the once-colonized as to the colonizers. This wholehearted appropriation and refiguring of classical literature is part of what Salman Rushdie memorably described as ‘the empire writes back’, and it has loomed large in much postcolonial literature, in diverse and multiple ways.

Two young, contemporary writers are continuing this trend: Junot Díaz and Dinaw Mengestu. They were the only novelists to be awarded MacArthur “Genius” Grants last year, which recognize creative work in any field. Both are diasporic writers who engage not only with ancient Greek literature but also with later anti-colonial and postcolonial responses to antiquity. And both do so from the perspective of the next generation: it is the tale of Telemachus, the son, that is told here, not Odysseus. Neither makes this explicit, but Díaz’s short story collection, Drown (1996) seemed so strikingly Homeric to me that I wrote and asked him about it. He confirmed the influence, even referring to the work as a ‘reverse Odyssey’ and explaining that he had cut out references to the Cyclops and to the cattle of the Sun-god because they were ‘so obvious’. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) continues in this vein. It is more than just a response to Homer, of course, but it does persistently engage with ancient Greek literature and postcolonial responses to it: Césaire, Ralph Ellison, and Derek Walcott, who have each appropriated the literature of ancient Greece, are evoked.

Likewise Dinaw Mengestu’s 2010 novel, How to Read the Air, is not simply a rewriting of Telemachus’ story, but it does model itself on that ancient precedent in a number of respects, as well as responding to — as did Díaz — Ralph Ellison’s seminal 1952 novel, Invisible Man. These writers, along with a handful of other contemporary novelists, are then a kind of ‘Generation Telemachus’, the metaphorical children of postcolonial artists, and the literal children of migratory parents. (Both Díaz and Mengestu have lived in the United States since childhood, but were born in the Dominican Republic and Ethiopia respectively.) If asked “Whose Odyssey is it anyway?”, they demonstrate that the only possible response can be that it is no one’s and everyone’s. Which, fortunately, should help ensure that classical literature is never again used as a pernicious tool of oppression.

Justine McConnell is Leverhulme Postdoctoral Research Associate at Oxford University’s Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, where she is working on the ‘Performing Epic’ project. She is the author of Black Odysseys: The Homeric Odyssey in the African Diaspora since 1939 and co-editor of Ancient Slavery and Abolition: from Hobbes to Hollywood. You can follow her on Twitter @drjmcc.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only classics and archaeology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only literature articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Image credit: (1) Odysseus and his men blinding Polyphemus, Laconian black-figure cup, 565–560 BC. Rider Painter. Luynes Collection. Donation 1852. Photo by Bibi Saint-Pol. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. (2) Odysseus in the Cave of Polyphemus, Jacob Jordaens, 17th c. The Yorck Project. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

The post Whose Odyssey is it anyway? appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesWalter Scott’s anachronismsBuddhism beyond the nation state10 questions for Wayne Koestenbaum 

Challenges of the social life of language

By John Edwards

When we consider two obvious facts — that virtually everyone becomes a fluent speaker of at least one language, and that language is central to social life — we can see that most of us are quite sociolinguistically talented. Whether we’re consciously aware of it or not, we know quite a lot about many of the intricacies of “the social life of language.” This doesn’t mean, however, that our knowledge is complete or wholly accurate. Here are ten illustrations of the point.

(1) Languages and dialects are not the same thing: the former are generally considered as mutually unintelligible – if you speak English, you won’t expect to understand German – while the latter, as varieties within a language, should be mutually comprehensible. So, if you are a native English speaker from Boston, Massachusetts you will have little or no trouble understanding someone from Boston, Ontario. Perhaps, however, some difficulty will arise when you speak with yet another Bostonian – from Lincolnshire. Mutual intelligibility can falter, then, as distance increases, and dialects begin to look more like languages. Where to draw the line often becomes a moot point.

(2) There are no “incorrect” or “illogical” dialects. Every dialectal variety of a language is a rule-governed system adequate for the requirements of its speakers. Grammars may vary across dialects, but the differences are simply that: differences. And, while many of us find some dialects (and languages, for that matter) more pleasant to the ear than others, studies have revealed that no variety is intrinsically more mellifluous. Judgements, whether of grammatical accuracy or of phonetic attractiveness, are largely dependent upon our perceptions of the social standing of the speakers.

(3) Everyone is (at least) bilingual. I say this by way of emphasizing that there are no easy measures by which to differentiate bilingual (or multilingual) speakers from their monolingual counterparts. Someone who seems as fluent and comfortable in French as in English certainly appears more bilingual than someone who only knows a few stock phrases (“je ne sais quoi,” perhaps, or “savoir-faire”). But just how much competence should we require before bestowing the bilingual accolade? The difficulty increases when we consider that someone might (for example) be a fluent reader in a second language without being a fluent speaker, or that someone may understand virtually everything but speak only haltingly.

Together, the eight countries in red contain more than 50% of the world’s languages. The areas in blue are the most linguistically diverse in the world, and the locations of most of the world’s endangered languages.

(4) (A related point) It is possible to be a very fluent speaker and/or reader of a second (or subsequent) language and yet remain ignorant of subtleties available to native speakers. Interestingly enough, the difficulties here arise at what we might think of as opposite ends of the linguistic spectrum. On the one hand, there is the language of the streets – slang, profanity, idiom, and colloquialism – as well as ironic or comedic usage; on the other, the often dense, allusive and emotionally nuanced language of poetry. You have to be very well immersed in a language to fully interpret usage at either end of the scale. And this illustrates a more general point: aside from the most mundane of instances, every successful act of communication – even within the same language – involves interpretation.

(5) Most languages are related to others, in linguistic “families.” Many have heard of the Indo-European family, know that both English and German belong to it, and may also be aware that this same grouping includes the Romance varieties (French, Spanish, Portuguese, and so on). Fewer, however, realize that some languages are orphans — or “isolates” — and cannot be related to others. Basque, spoken in the Pyrenees between France and Spain, is a contemporary example. It is not an Indo-European variety. As well, its speakers are genetically a little different from others in the region. The combination of linguistic and genetic variation has of course raised interesting questions about the provenance of the Basque people.

(6) Since some language varieties are obviously less prestigious than others, and since their speakers risk becoming the recipients of negative or unfavorable perceptions — reactions that can of course have important social consequences — we might ask why such varieties persist. One reason is that speakers of low social status may be “marked” by characteristics other than language alone. They might, for instance, look physically different from others. Another, however, is that all dialects reflect and reinforce group identity. My way of speaking may not be socially esteemed, but it remains the language of my family and my community; like all varieties, then, it is a vehicle of culture and social solidarity. You don’t sever such a tie lightly.

(7) English is the current lingua franca for much of the world and many would argue that it will remain the most important linguistic currency for some time to come. Nonetheless, there is nothing about the language itself that has elevated it to its present position of power: it is in no intrinsic way a “better” medium than any other. A moment’s thought is sufficient to recall the earlier contenders for world language dominance: Greek, Latin, and so on. English is the leading language of our time because of the power possessed by its speakers — that’s all. To put it another way: as with other sorts of avenues, all linguistic roads have always led to Rome.

(8) Linguistic prescriptivism and purism arise from the belief that corrections, improvements, or protections are needed to safeguard languages. The work of national language academies was historically central here. Once Latin waned as the European lingua franca and local languages emerged into prominence, it became necessary to make choices among dialect variants, to standardize, to “fix” languages for purposes of printing. Even then, however, there was the sense that linguistic “standards” tend to emanate upwards, as it were, from the usage of ordinary speakers. Today most linguistic scholars feel it inappropriate to try and counter this: prescriptivist impulses are now most commonly found among “ordinary” speakers and others who have strong views about questions of language “decay,” about the terrible language of the younger generation, about the rising tide of slang and profanity, and so on. Yet every maker of a dictionary must be a prescriptivist, and every act of “language planning” — modernizing a language, for example, or creating an orthography, or intervening on behalf of a “small” or endangered language — is also necessarily prescriptive. The tensions here are more or less permanent.

(9) Language is our prime means of communication, but it is also an important symbol of “groupness,” a marker of belonging, and a vehicle of history, culture, and tradition. The powerful linkage between language and nationalism is the obvious case in point, and there are many examples of people willing to go to the barricades to protect the linguistic symbol of their identity. If language were only a means of communication, we would still expect people to be upset when language shift is forced upon them by social circumstance, but it would not be so easy to understand the intense linguistic zeal of the Québécois, of Celtic revivalists, or of speakers of beleaguered aboriginal languages.

(10) Translators have often been looked upon with suspicion, and the point just made, about the linkage between language and group solidarity, is the explanation. Translators are necessary links between communities, but the very ability to straddle linguistic borders may provide access to information that is of mythic, secret, or religious importance. How can we be sure that they are telling others those things — and only those things — that we ask them to? What, after all, are their own cultural allegiances?

John Edwards is Professor of Psychology at St. Francis Xavier University, in Nova Scotia. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and editor of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. His recent books include Sociolinguistics: A Very Short Introduction, Challenges in the Social Life of Language, and Multilingualism: Understanding Linguistic Diversity.

The Very Short Introductions (VSI) series combines a small format with authoritative analysis and big ideas for hundreds of topic areas. Written by our expert authors, these books can change the way you think about the things that interest you and are the perfect introduction to subjects you previously knew nothing about. Grow your knowledge with OUPblog and the VSI series every Friday and like Very Short Introductions on Facebook.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only VSI articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only environmental and life sciences articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Image credit: Linguistic diversity in the world. Via Davius. [public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

The post Challenges of the social life of language appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesThree recent theories of “kibosh”Alphabet soup, part 2: H and Y 

Ideal pregnancy length: an unsolved mystery

By Anne Marie Z. Jukic, Donna Baird, Clarice Weinberg, and Allen Wilcox

Pregnancy begins with conception — an event that is practically invisible. Since we can’t measure the beginning of pregnancy, it’s hard to know how far along a woman is in her pregnancy. We guess the beginning of pregnancy either from the woman’s report of her last menstrual period or from fetal size on ultrasound, both of which have errors. Everyone knows that it’s hard to predict when women will deliver, but we haven’t known how much of that uncertainty was due to errors in measurement of gestational age. If somehow we had a precise measure of pregnancy onset, wouldn’t pregnancy length be much less variable? No one had been able to look at the variability of pregnancy length using a precise measure of conception. Our study, which used daily hormone measures to detect ovulation, provides that precise measure because the egg only survives a matter of hours after ovulation if it is not fertilized. What we found, to our surprise, was that the true length of pregnancy is still quite variable, ranging over five weeks in a group of healthy women (from 35.3 to 40.6 weeks from ovulation).

While our study was small (125 women with no fertility problems who conceived naturally), the implications are intriguing. If healthy pregnancies can vary in length by five weeks, then an “ideal” gestation for one woman might be 38 weeks, while for another woman it might be 42 weeks. How can we distinguish the woman who would ideally deliver at 40 weeks, but has gone to 42, from the woman who would ideally deliver at 42 weeks? These fundamental questions currently have no answer. We do have one small clue: we found that the average length of pregnancy in a woman’s other births was correlated with the length of her study pregnancy. Thus, variability in pregnancy length was not just random; women tended to follow their own individualized clock for pregnancy length. This is not, however, a perfect measure of the “healthy pregnancy length” for a given woman since pathological conditions could be affecting the lengths of all her pregnancies. Thus, the elusive “ideal” duration of a given pregnancy remains obscure.


As research progresses, we may be better able to partition the variability in pregnancy length into its component parts. For example, predicting a woman’s “due date” might be improved by incorporating additional information (mother’s age and body weight, previous pregnancy lengths, and so on). But to do this, we need data from larger studies that develop predictive models for due dates.

Finally, early pregnancy events may provide useful information about the health of a developing fetus. While early pregnancy is difficult to observe in natural conceptions, it can be done in a research setting. For example, the timing of implantation can be defined by the first appearance of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in the maternal urine. Early hCG is a signal to the corpus luteum on the mother’s ovary to continue producing progesterone in support of the developing pregnancy. This process of embryonic communication with the mother is referred to as “corpus luteum rescue”. Further research on timing of implantation and on corpus luteum rescue may help us understand the biological pathways that influence both the baby’s development and pregnancy length. Given how little is known about early pregnancy biology, further investigation may yield a host of insights into pregnancy development. A better understanding of early pregnancy biology may lead to better estimates of the right time for delivery, and perhaps, the early detection of pregnancy complications.

Dr Anne Marie Z. Jukic is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Reproductive Epidemiology Group at the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Dr Donna D. Baird is Principal Investigator, Epidemiology, in the Women’s Health Group at the NIEHS. Dr Clarice R. Weinberg is Chief of the Biostatistics Branch of the NIEHS. Dr Allen J. Wilcox is the Principal Investigator of Environmental Toxins and Human Reproduction at the NIEHS. They are the authors of the paper ‘Length of human pregnancy and contributors to its natural variation’, which was recently published in the journal Human Reproduction.

Human Reproduction features full-length, peer-reviewed papers reporting original research, clinical case histories, as well as opinions and debates on topical issues.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Subscribe to only health and medicine articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.


Image credit: Pregnancy women. By Chepko, via iStockphoto.

The post Ideal pregnancy length: an unsolved mystery appeared first on OUPblog.

                Related StoriesWhere’s Mrs Y? The effects of unnecessary ward movesCrossbow competitions and civic communitiesBetween self-murder and suicide: the etymology of a modern stigma