Professor Eric Reeves of Smith College is indefatigable in his determination to try to stop the genocide in Sudan. The SudanReeves website is an outstanding source of information. His latest posts detail how the situation in Darfur has gotten even worse in recent months, and how the African Union "peacekeeping" force (which is only supposed to protect foreigners, not Darfuris) is an abysmal failure even in its limited mission. The Khartoum dictatorship has been perpetrating genocide since 1992--first in the Nuba Mountains, then in south Sudan, and now in Darfur. Reeves predicts that the next target will the oil-rich eastern Sudan.

In the book "Darfur: Genocide Before Our Eyes" (published by the Institute for the Study of Genocide), Reeves makes the case for military intervention by NATO to stop the genocide. Military intervention would be a wonderful idea, and, indeed, there is a good international law argument that every NATO country is legally bound to intervene, since every NATO country is a signatory to the Genocide Convention, which imposes an affirmitive duty to "prevent" genocide.

But the prospects of NATO intervention are, unfortunately, nil. Among NATO governments, only the United States has even used the word "genocide" about the genocide in Darfur. At StrategyPage noted long ago, even a NATO-imposed "No-Fly Zone" in Darfur would do tremendous good, since it would prevent the Sudanese Air Force from supporting the ground attacks of the Arab janjaweed. But there is no indication that NATO will do anything more than continue to provide airlifts to the incompetent African Union forces.

In a forthcoming article in the Notre Dame Law Review, Paul Gallant, Joanne Eisen and I examine the Darfur genocide, and other genocides, and conclude that under existing international law, the victims of an on-going genocide have an over-riding right to acquire and possess defensive arms, notwithstanding any contrary national or international laws on the subject.