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	China: who will defend the law"s defenders? by Catherine Baber The Guardian & agencies   Among the 204,000 lawyers in China, only a brave few hundred risk taking on cases that deal with human rights. The pressure, intimidation and persecution faced by human rights lawyers have ensured that few dare to represent clients persecuted by the state.   In the past 18 months, the Chinese government has unleashed an uncompromising series of measures intended to suppress those lawyers who take on human rights cases. An Amnesty International report published this week outlines China"s efforts to control legal representatives and the ways in which the clampdown has intensified over the last months.   On 7 April 2011 a Beijing lawyer, Ni Yulan, and her husband, Dong Jiqin, were detained by Beijing police on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble". They have since been formally charged with the offence. The couple are reportedly being held at a detention centre in Beijing – and not for the first time. Ni has been arrested and tortured several times since defending people forcibly evicted from their homes in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. For engaging in her legitimate professional advocacy, Ni has been permanently disbarred and frequently detained. While in custody in 2002, she was beaten so badly that she now uses a wheelchair.   Lawyers are just one of the groups who have suffered the backlash against perceived dissent. Scores of government critics, activists, and "netizens" (activists who take to the web) have been arrested, amid government fears of a "jasmine revolution" inspired by the Arab spring. Human rights lawyers who take up cases in this atmosphere do so well aware of the threat of repercussion. Every year lawyers have to undergo an annual assessment by supposedly independent lawyers associations that are, in fact, subordinate to the state. Lawyers daring to take up "sensitive", rights-oriented, cases are threatened with failure of assessment, which could lead to their licence being revoked.   The assessment is only the start of a series of regulations and other measures designed to dissuade, and prevent lawyers from acting against the wishes of the state. In 2009-2010 the government introduced myriad regulations prohibiting lawyers from defending certain clients, and expending the bases for charging them with crimes of "inciting subversion". Lawyers fear the regulations will prevent them from commenting on their work to the media, challenging court malpractice.   However, when all other methods fail in their pursuit of silencing lawyers, the Chinese authorities are increasingly turning to means that are clearly unlawful – even under China"s own laws. Lawyers who challenge the authorities are at serious risk of being picked up and vanishing into legal limbo. With enforced disappearance or arbitrary detention on the increase, lawyers are also at greater risk of torture and ill-treatment. Who remains to defend the defenders?   The repression of human rights lawyers leaves the most vulnerable clients even more liable to persecution and robs them of recourse. When lawyers fear taking on "sensitive cases", especially those involving state misconduct, the Chinese people cannot rely on the law for redress and officials have carte blanche to act with impunity. This type of repression can ultimately only undermine public faith in leaders. Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese government to restore licences to practise to lawyers suspended or disbarred for defending human rights cases, and for the governance of lawyers to be left to genuinely independent lawyers associations.   Lawyers themselves must be protected. Only then will they be able to exercise their full role in the protection of human rights and the rule of law – necessary not just for good governance, but also for the stability and predictability crucial for maintaining China"s extraordinary economic growth. Crippling human rights lawyers and bending the law to the whim of the government makes a mockery of the entire legal system. Visit the related web page
	New measures raise hope of stronger response to Atrocities by UN News / Human Rights Watch   August 2011   “If the responsibility to protect is to become fully operational, the solemn commitments undertaken by Member States at the United Nations will have to be matched by sustained measures at the national level,” said Ban ki Moon, responding to steps announced by President Barack Obama of the United States to strengthen his Government’s capacity to help prevent genocide and other mass atrocities.   “In that regard, the establishment of an inter-agency Atrocities Prevention Board, the measures to end impunity, and the review of US policies and capacities are promising initiatives,” he added.   Agreed at a summit of world leaders in 2005 and sometimes known as ‘R2P’, the principle of the responsibility to protect holds States responsible for shielding their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and related crimes against humanity and requires the international community to step in if this obligation is not met. At a UN General Assembly meeting held last month, the Secretary-General called for a concerted international effort to develop a mechanism for applying the principle to ensure that this century becomes the first one whose history is not “written in the blood of innocents.”   Mr. Ban has been encouraged by other important initiatives in addition to those announced by the US leader on 4 August.   Under a responsibility to protect framework, Costa Rica, Denmark and Ghana have established a network of focal points in Member State capitals for the prevention and halting of mass atrocities. Argentina, Switzerland and Tanzania have convened a series of regional conferences on the prevention of genocide.   The UN Secretary-General said he looked forward to working with all Member States, regional and sub-regional arrangements, and civil society on early and coordinated action to prevent mass atrocities”.   Measures bring hope of stronger response to Atrocities. (Human Rights Watch)   US President Barack Obama has issued two directives that will, if vigorously implemented, strengthen the US government’s commitment and capacity to prevent mass atrocities and other grave human rights violations around the world, Human Rights Watch said today.   The presidential directives, issued on August 4, 2011, create a high-level Atrocities Prevention Board within the US government to provide early warning of impending atrocities and human rights crises abroad and to recommend early action to prevent such crimes. They also call for a “dissent mechanism” so that officials who believe needed action is being blocked can take their concerns directly to the president.   “Streamlining the system won’t resolve the difficult question of whether and how the US should respond when a Rwanda-type genocide happens,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “But these directives should help to overcome the bureaucratic resistance and indifference that often delays steps that might prevent such catastrophes in the first place.”   Obama also directed the US State Department to deny US visas to those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of human rights. This order broadens the category of human rights violators barred from entry to the United States, since current US law specifically excludes from the country only those responsible for torture and extrajudicial executions. Significantly, the order would deny visas to government officials who exercised “command responsibility” over subordinates who committed serious human rights abuses – in other words, to senior political or military leaders who knew or should have known that such abuses were occurring and did not stop them or punish those responsible.   These measures are a helpful example of the concrete steps governments can take to carry out the “responsibility to protect,” Human Rights Watch said. As the United Nations General Assembly recognized in 2005, each country has a responsibility to prevent war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and genocide within its borders. When it fails in that duty, other countries, through the UN, have the responsibility to use necessary and appropriate measures to protect civilian populations from such crimes. Such steps include targeted sanctions, diplomatic intervention, dispatch of human rights monitors and war crimes investigators, timely release of intelligence information, and intervention when other approaches fail.   Over the next 100 days, the US National Security Council will lead a review to determine how the US government can better organize itself and deploy its resources to prevent mass atrocities. Human Rights Watch expressed hope that this effort will elevate the prevention of serious international crimes to a higher plane among the United States’ many competing international priorities, and create permanent structures that will speed needed action in this and future US administrations.   Human Rights Watch also called on the Obama administration to carry out the new policy for denying visas consistently, including with respect to political officials responsible for serious human rights abuses in countries with which the United States maintains close relationships. 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