If Corporations Have Rights Like People, Shouldn’t Animals?

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Comments Posted on Jan 04, 2012 Last Updated Jan 03, 2012 Posted by editor

by Sue Russell

In a nation where corporations are people and others want fetuses to be, a core of philosophers and attorneys are trying develop laws to declare animals “legal persons.”

On December 19, 1994, animal protection lawyer Steven Wise — a deeply patient man — was frustrated. A decade into his 25-year plan to upend the fundamental legal principle that animals are property or “things” with no more rights than a table or bicycle, he was barely making a dent.

Wise’s passion for animal rights dates to 1979 when reading philosopher Peter Singer’s landmark book Animal Liberation proved both revelation and rude awakening. “I really felt that I could not really un-ring that bell,” he says. “There was more injustice there to be fought than any I could think of anywhere in the universe.”

War and Drugs in Afghanistan

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Comments Posted on Nov 18, 2011 Last Updated Nov 14, 2011 Posted by editor

by Vanda Felbab-Brown

Since 2001, Afghanistan has become synonymous with the term “narcostate” and the associated spread of crime and illegality. Though the Afghan drug economy peaked in 2007 and 2008, cultivation this year still amounted to 325,000 acres, and the potential production of opium reached 6,400 tons (.pdf). Narcotics production and counternarcotics policies in Afghanistan are of critical importance not only for drug control there and worldwide, but also for the security, reconstruction and rule of law efforts in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, many of the counternarcotics policies adopted during most of the past decade not only failed to reduce the size and scope of the illicit economy in Afghanistan, but also had serious counterproductive effects on the other objectives of peace, state-building and economic reconstruction.

The Price of 9/11

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Comment Posted on Sep 09, 2011 Last Updated Sep 08, 2011 Posted by editor

By Joseph Stiglitz

The September 11, 2001, terror attacks by Al Qaeda were meant to harm the United States, and they did, but in ways that Osama bin Laden probably never imagined. President George W. Bush’s response to the attacks compromised America’s basic principles, undermined its economy, and weakened its security.

The attack on Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks was understandable, but the subsequent invasion of Iraq was entirely unconnected to Al Qaeda – as much as Bush tried to establish a link. That war of choice quickly became very expensive – orders of magnitude beyond the $60 billion claimed at the beginning – as colossal incompetence met dishonest misrepresentation.

Financing terrorists and terrorism post 9/11

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Comments Posted on Sep 01, 2011 Last Updated Sep 02, 2011 Posted by editor

As the 10^th anniversary approaches of the ‘9/11’ terror attacks on the United States in 2001, a law enforcement academic at Charles Sturt University (CSU) says terrorists have shown adaptability and opportunism in meeting their funding needs.

Dr Hugh McDermott, senior lecturer in law enforcement at the CSU Australian Graduate School of Policing in Manly, says that while the direct costs of mounting individual attacks have been low relative to the damage they can yield, financing is required not just to fund specific terrorist operations, but to meet the broader organisational costs of developing and maintaining a terrorist organisation, and to create an enabling environment – infrastructure – necessary to sustain their goals and activities over time.

Category: The Courts

War and Drugs in Afghanistan

Financing terrorists and terrorism post 9/11

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Category: The Courts

If Corporations Have Rights Like People, Shouldn’t Animals?

Independent body needed to investigate miscarriages of justice

War and Drugs in Afghanistan

The Price of 9/11

By Joseph Stiglitz

Financing terrorists and terrorism post 9/11

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