Richard Falk gives a speech at the opening of the World Tribunal on Iraq in Istanbul in 2005.
GENEVA — Seventy years ago, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt coined a term for the global alliance against Hitlerism, which resonated at once with Churchill: United Nations.
Endorsed by 26 states on Jan. 1, 1942, the Declaration by United Nations made history by elevating human rights and religious freedom as international principles, and pledged a common struggle against “savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world.”
By 1945, as war-making gave way to peace-preserving, the alliance developed into the colossal world instrument we know today.
Seven decades later, how does the UN live up to the vision and resolve of its founders?
An event this week at Stanford University was a sobering reminder that some of what is said and done today in the name of the UN would cause Roosevelt and Churchill to roll in their graves.
The human rights clinic of the law faculty, headed by Professor James Cavallaro, a former Human Rights Watch activist, decided to give its platform, in the form of a public lecture and reception, to Richard Falk, a UN expert and former Princeton academic.
[More]
O/T: I just found Sarah Palin’s full speech last night at the CPAC convention and have replaced my video choice for today in the sidebar with it. It’s 37 minutes and well worth watching. I viewed it all and “for sure” the lady does not disappoint as she brought her overflow audience to their feet time and again with good reason. Her attack on Obama and the “good old boys” inside the beltway was devastating.
I will leave it in place for the next 24 hours. I have also placed the link on my video page in order not to lose an amazing speech by a very bright woman.
I encourage everyone to tune in and compare what the GOP has on offer now with what might have been. I’m not so sure that is true as I listened. Sarah may well be drafted in the end by the American people whether she wants it or not.
If so I think that a good thing.