So President Assad has apparently attacked civilians with chemical weapons, killing hundreds and injuring more. The Egyptian government has slaughtered hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, who in turn have been engaging in pogroms against Egyptian Christians. Just for the heck of it, I decided to see which of these stories Human Rights Watch featured most […]
Archive | Human Rights Watch
HRW’s Kenneth Roth Fails Reading Comprehension
Via NY Times “The Lede” Blog: In November 2012, Amnesty International tweeted, “Feel enraged by the violence in #Gaza & #Israel? Demand that @netanyahu & @AlqassamBrigade stop attacks on civilians.” Egyptian activist Mona Seif responded in a tweet, “@amnesty you don’t ask an occupied nation to stop their ‘Resistance’ to end violence!!! SHAME ON YOU!” […]
The Debate About to Heat Up Over HRW’s Call to Ban “Killer Robots,” AKA Autonomous Weapon Systems
By Kenneth Anderson on April 13, 2013 7:13 pm in Human Rights Watch, International Law, National Security, Robotics, War and Armed Conflict
(And: thanks to Instapundit for linking to the new policy essay by Matthew Waxman and me from the Hoover Institution, referenced at the end of this post, Law and Ethics for Autonomous Weapon Systems – thanks Glenn!) Last November, two documents appeared within a few days of each other, each addressing the emerging legal and […]
Human Rights Watch Can’t Wait to Accuse Israel
By Eugene Kontorovich on February 14, 2013 3:05 pm in Human Rights Watch, International Law, Israel, Military, National Security, War on Terror
Human Rights Watch has just released a report on Israel’s recent “Pillar of Defense” operation to suppress rocket fire from Gaza. The report concludes that 18 airstrikes violated international law by not being properly targeted. I do not know if 18 is a little or a lot for an operation of this scale, as there […]
Human Rights Watch and “Prisoner X”
Media in Australia and Israel are abuzz with news about a detainee in an Israeli prison, a dual Australian and Israeli citizen named Ben Zygier working for the Mossad who committed suicide in late 2010 after being held in solitary confinement for unknown security offenses. I don’t have anything to add to the basics of […]
Law and Robots Conference Call for Papers, and a Link to a Video From HRW’s Tom Malinowski Which, Though I am Not Persuaded, Will Always Treasure
The “Law and Robotics Conference” will take place on April 8-9, 2013, at Stanford Law School (it follows on the highly successful law and robotics conference that took place at University of Miami last year). Conference organizers are seeking proposals to present conference papers – I should have posted this a while ago – and […]
Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch and the Arab Spring
It’s fascinating to listen again to this talk by HRW Middle East and North Africa director Sarah Leah Whitson (starting at 16:53) from the Summer of 2009. The topic was “Human Rights in the Middle East.” Syria and Libya get barely a mention. Yemen isn’t mentioned at all. Israel gets by far the most negative […]