UNITED
NATIONS, April
8 -- At the UN
Monday they
debated how to
measure the
rule of law.
What they
couldn't
measure was
time.
The
session left
less than ten
minutes for
questions
before a
closed
meeting of the
North Korea
sanctions
committee was
to start in
the
same airless
room.
This
allowed for
only three
questions or
“interventions,”
and even
that caused
protocol
kerfuffles.
A man with a
statement from
the
Inter-Parliamentary
Union was
called on
before an
ambassador
from
Togo.
The
UK's Deputy
Permanent
Representative
Philip Parham
whispered that
the
Togolese
Ambassador
should be
given the
floor. He was,
and asked
three detailed
question which
the moderator
said had to be
answered
in three
minutes. Photo
here.
By
then, Irene
Khan had left,
after the
Deputy
Secretary
General, as
had
an African
Permanent
Representative.
No questions
were allowed
from
the media.
Inner City
Press wonders,
how can the UN
measure
anyone's
rule of law when
it so tersely
dismissed
legal claims
for bringing
cholera for
Haiti?
When
it has no
whistleblower
protections
for
peacekeepers?
When
it raids,
without notice
or consent,
the office of
critical
media,
takes pictures
which are then
leaked to
BuzzFeed.com
as soon as
they
ask the UN
about the
raid? This is
the rule of
law?
An
outside
speaker, a
professor,
told a story
about a
scientist
trying
to measure the
weight of the
soul, bodies
before and
just after
death. There
was laughter.
Remember: who
brought
cholera to
Haiti?
Rule of law
indeed. Watch
this site.
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