Letter to Frank McDonald following his feature on Dubai

Letter on the subject of the exploitation of migrant workers in the Arabian Gulf to Frank McDonald, Environment Editor Irish Times following his feature piece on Dubai, Bling City.

Dear Frank,

I thoroughly enjoyed your recent article on Dubai, as I did too yourself and James Nix's Chaos at the Crossroads, which I winced my way through some months back. Whatever about the subjective merits of Dubai's aesthetic qualities, you are to be congratulated for highlighting, to your readers in Ireland, the miserly wages handed out to the expatriate labourers who put its buildings in place. While the average salary figures of 150-200 Euro a month you give are obviously quite low, those at the lower end of the scale are obviously earning quite a bit less.

I get the impression that the plight of the legions of underpaid workers in the petroleum-rich Gulf States is a sorry state of affairs that goes unreported in the Western media. This, I reckon, is for a number of reasons: the lack of civil institutions in the GCC countries who compile statistics on the expatriate workers; the apparent unwillingness of the Gulf countries themselves to divulge the conditions of said workers; the fact that there are so many other horrors in the Middle Eastern region at large that merit journalistic attention, be they in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the Levant, that the difficulties of workers lucky enough to have a job pales in comparison to the lot of people an hour and a half flight to the north who are subject to the horrors of increasingly brutal armed conflict (not to speak of the jobless multitudes the army of expat workers leave behind in the Subcontinent and South-East Asia); and finally but not in isolation from the third reason speculated, the fact that the six GCC countries are key allies in the US's War on Terror, that the Western media is unwilling to rock those particular diplomatic relations boats lest they upset a few airbase aplenty Sheikhs. I accept I might be being too cynical in my last reason given.

Evidence abounds, both hearsay and documented, of foreign labour abuse and exploitation. A Sri Lankan taxi-driver told a colleague of mine (I have been working as a teacher in Qatar since last August) about one such incident of degradation. The driver's previous employment had been as a labourer with a construction firm. One day at work, after an eight-hour stretch on the job, himself and a co-worker went on their lunch break. Unluckily for them, their hard-earned break coincided with a site visit from an Egyptian engineer of the Qatari construction business. Apparently, such construction firms like their projects to finish way ahead of schedule, and the engineer was eager to do his employer's bidding. He confronted the two Sri Lankans about their slackness, and when they protested that they had been working since 4.00am, daring to suggest perhaps that even blue-overalled Gulf-based South Asians should be entitled to a lunch break, what did our Egyptian do, but hock back and spit in the lunches of the two men. Naturally enough, in my view anyway, the provoked labourer reacted by grabbing the nearest rod of metal and striking his overseer across the shoulder with it. Following this incident, the engineer went to his Qatari sponsor, claiming that he had been the victim of an unprovoked attack by one of the workers. The Sri Lankan had the initiative to approach the same sponsor off his own back before they came for him and gave his own version of events. Fortunately for him, the sponsor was horrified when he heard of his mistreatment, and had him transferred to work for another construction company. No compensation was forthcoming, and I didn't hear if the Egyptian got to keep his job or not.

The local newspapers do sometimes shed light on the injustices heaped upon the foreign guest workers. A few weeks ago I read in the Gulf Times of an Indian construction worker who had arrived in Doha about five months' ago, where he has been working in heights of 30 metres, in temperatures about as hot as the hob of hell you encountered in Dubai a few days ago, constructing one of the many glass towers that are sprouting up in the West Bay area of the city. I can't remember the details of his case, nor how he had made his way into the paper, but one detail I can remember was that one of his complaints against his employers was that in his five months' work he had only been paid 150 Qatari Riyals, in other words, about 30 Euro! When I arrived here last autumn I read the case of a group of Nepali nationals, who were protesting outside their embassy, because they had been promised jobs, by an unscrupulous employment agency, in a multinational supermarket here in Doha, only to be brought on their first day of work to a building site instead, where they would earn a fraction of what they had been promised as shelf-stackers.

Globalization and the Gulf, by John W. Fox, Nada Mourtada-Sabbah and Mohammed al-Mutawa, contains an insightful chapter on labour rights problems in the Gulf states by John Willoughby, in which he explains an all too frequent feature of migrant workers being "cheated" by agents in their home countries, often with the connivance of or a blind eye being turned by a Gulf citizen who must act as a sponsor for any expatriate labour under the region's inflexible labour laws. On a side note, the same book also contains an interesting essay on an area a good deal closer to your own area of expertise, entitled "The evolution of the Gulf city type, oil, and globalization" by Sulayman Khalaf.

Another source of the injustices suffered by the army of Third World workers in my own country of residence is the website Qatar Sucks. Don't be put off by its disingenuous name though. It is a forum where people copy and paste media stories of mistreatment of employees here in Qatar, and contains some fairly shocking, usually saddening, cases. Incidentally, when I tried to comment on one of the stories posted, a message from QTel, Qatar's state-run telecoms monopoly, blocked me from doing so. One more information source of foreign worker hardship, and the local governments' inaction in combating it, is Human Rights Watch's report on the subject, focusing on the UAE, entitled " Building Towers, Cheating Workers."

Finally, and I think you alluded to this in your own article, something must be said about the cities of the region's apparent 'fakeness' for want of a better word, a land where image is absolutely everything, substance nothing. While Dubai opts for architectural behemoths, skiing in the desert and highly luxurious if a bit gimmicky and a tad environmentally-damaging island resorts, Qatar seems to style itself as the sporting capital of the region, a Limerick of the Arabian Gulf you might say. It hosted the Asian Games last year, a regional Olympic-like tournament; its soccer league attracts big name ageing superstars – Batistuta, Romario and Jay-Jay Okocha have all graced its fine, near-empty stadiums; while top-class golf, tennis and motorsport events come here on an annual basis. Due to the fact that many of these events come to Qatar not because of the Qataris insatiable appetite for live sports but rather as a means of marketing the name "Qatar" to the outside world, tickets are often very cheap, if they carry any price at all. In keeping with its identity as the sporting hub of the region, Doha hosted a top-class athletics meeting last Friday night, which I attended. Attending alongside me were scores of blue-collared labourers bussed in from their corrugated-iron-roofed labour camps on the outskirts of the city for a night off. A benevolent gesture on their employers' behalf perhaps? Or, more likely it seems, a stunt pulled by the authorities for fear that international television audiences may witness an almost empty stadium. Image is everything in this corner of the Gulf it would seem.

Again I would like to applaud you for your mention of the immigrant labour hardship you encountered on your Dubai visit. Hopefully with more and more media attention, Western media attention in particular, something can be done to improve the conditions of the Gulf's toiling masses. Perhaps you could have a word with a colleague of yours who writes about labour/human rights issues to maybe do a more in-depth piece on this issue.

Yours sincerely,

James Gaffney,

Old Airport Road,

Doha,

Qatar (via Limerick).

Photos: Richard Messenger (workers), Ahmad Almansoor (skyline)

Time will tell

Let's see if I ever use this thing.

Complaining about Complaining

An Focal

James Gaffney rallies against the ingrained culture of complaining in UL by, eh,

complaining about it.

In a recent issue of An Focal, a number of students were surveyed to see if they thought there is a good atmosphere here on the UL Campus. Most of the respondents agreed to greater or lesser degrees that there was. While I would generally share their sentiments, none of them mentioned an issue that I feel greatly deteriorates from the feel-good ambiance that permeates the very air we breathe out here in Plassey – none of them mentioned the level of complaining that one encounters here.

Moaning, bitching, sulking, generally giving out – call it what you like, this is a phenomenon that is firmly entrenched among students of UL. It manifests itself when people make derogatory statements about a situation, but aren’t prepared to alleviate the problem themselves. I think the gentleman who in the survey who replied ‘No, it’s crap’ did far better than I could to illustrate this negative viewpoint. I feel it would have been far more beneficial to all concerned if he had offered reasons why he thought the atmosphere was crap, so then these reasons could be addressed.

Sure everyone complains, don’t they? The weather’s too hot, the weather’s too cold, they’re bored, then they’re too busy, the government are a crowd of chancers, the electorate are shower of chancers – it’s just part of human nature, right? Just because everyone does it, doesn’t make it a good thing, and in actual fact, it can be fairly disheartening for those around the complainer.

I am a UL student. These days what this amounts to is that every morning I’m blessed with waking up to about 7 million of those unwanted ‘EVERYSTUDENT@ul.ie’ forwarded emails in my inbox. While most people grumble about this nuisance and simply delete the offending messages, some take practical steps to end this scourge by asking ITD if they can address the problem. Others feel they have to let the whole college know their anger, so they curse the forwarder in messages laden with bile – but offer no solutions to stopping the problem. For me, anyway, this latest plague our mailboxes has been ravaged by has had at least one silver lining in the form of the actions of one recipient of an e-petition, who instead of simply binning the email and whining about it later on, he replied to all and directed everyone to read a well-argued internet article addressing the question of why signing and circulating online petitions is a useless way of remedying important issues. The same article introduced me to a new term – ‘slacktivism.’ According to the author, e-petitions are the latest manifestation of slacktivism, in other words the search for the ultimate feel-good that derives from having come to society's rescue without having had to actually get one's hands dirty or open one's wallet. For me, constant complaining without offering concrete solutions is the second-cousin once removed of this mongrel term.

In my opinion nearly every everyday complaint you here from Mr/Ms ULStudent has a simple practical solution. Prices too high for you in the restaurant? Get a few friends together and get a sandwich-drive going, whereby you make your sandwiches at home and eat them in the canteen instead of paying through the nose for lunch. Feeling too tired? Go to bed earlier. Hungover? Shoulda thought of that of that when you were buying your dirty cans of Dutch early yesterday evening. Study workload getting on top of you? You’re joking! Well guess what, sunshine, you’re in college, you’re here to get a degree, so to get around that particular hurdle, why not try to stop complaining, and start studying!

Acting to resolve your problems rather than moaning about them unleashes some fantastic benefits. For instance, if you feel you’re being ripped off, I know it is clichéd to the death, but simply shop around. Do a bit of research on the product or service’s competitors, you might be lucky. I did the same recently with my mobile phone provider and not only are my new network cheaper, they also send me a nice thank you message whenever I top up. Ah, the simple pleasures. I’d never be getting messages like that if I had spent all my time cribbing.

Not only can complaining rather than taking positive measures damage your pocket, it can also damage you’re health. If you’re constantly giving out about not feeling well, it is highly advisable that you seek medical advice – there are times when complaining and complaining alone can prove detrimental to the health of the complainer, and in the worst cases fatal.

In addition to the numerous benefits that cutting down on the bitching can have, a 2000 study by the Mayo Clinic found that optimists live, on average, 19% longer than pessimists. Although, on the other hand, if you always viewed the glass as half-empty you might not really care about foregoing the extra 19%, but that’s an argument for another day.

You may point out that it is quite ironic that the writer of an article is expressing his gripe with people complaining too much by complaining about people complaining. I would say to you that, yes, you’re spot-on, it is incredibly ironic – not quite like rain on your wedding day, but the other ironic. As I’ve made clear, I am of the view that complaining can serve useful purposes – but only if the complaint in question is coupled with suggested practical solutions to the complaint in question. If you’ve got any complaints about that, or anything at all raised in this article, such as the overuse of one particular verb, well, at least by now you should know what not to do.

Can the International Criminal Court be an effective forum in promoting international justice?

On the 18^th of July 1998, the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court was signed. The conference at Rome completed the creation of a court with jurisdiction over the most heinous crimes; namely genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression.[1] The purpose of this essay is firstly to analyse the workings of this novel institution, and secondly determine whether it can be an effective forum in promoting international justice. Some of the obstacles that might prevent the Court achieving this goal will be scrutinized, as will some of its advantages in achieving such a praiseworthy objective. In analysing the workings of the Court, particular regard will be given to examining whether its use as a deterrent and the Statute’s feature of complementarity can act as means of promoting international justice.

The establishment of an International Criminal Court to deal with gross violators of human rights can be seen as part of the trend that the historian Eric Hobsbawm identified as ‘the Imperialism of Human Rights.’ It has been suggested that the ICC is evidence of a spreading consensus that extreme human rights violations are a matter for the international community as a whole to take punitive measures on the perpetrators of the violations. Chris Brown makes the case that the international human rights regime has grown up in the decades following from the horrors of the Shoah[2] - it is almost as if a great shadow was cast over the world with the ascendancy of totalitarian regimes in Europe, and the international community later sought to prevent the world from regressing into comparable darkness through the promotion of an international human rights regime in the form of various institutions and documents such as the United Nations, or the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. While the aims of these associations may be laudable, it is apparent that they have rarely been achieved – a cursory glance through the bloodstained history of the latter half of the 20^th Century from the time when Auschwitz, Birkenau and Dachau shut their gates right through to our own era with its own atrocities such as the terrible crimes of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda[3] or civilians being deliberately targeted during the conflict in Chechnya, will show that international justice has often remained an elusive goal of such bodies. It is to be hoped that the ICC, through its pursuit and punishment of wrongdoers, can curtail these sorts of injustices.

In a 1997 article in which he called for the setting up of an international criminal court, M. Cherif Bassiouni (who in 1998 served as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Diplomatic Conference on the establishment of an International Criminal Court) observed that with the absence of such a court, not only have many atrocities gone unpunished, but each of the ad hoc tribunals and investigations that have been created has suffered from the competing interests of politics or the influence of a changed geopolitical situation.[4] Of course until we see the results of some of the cases brought before the ICC any assessment of whether or not atrocities will still go unpunished or whether it will be subject to political and geopolitical influences is purely speculative.

An international criminal court was repeatedly proposed throughout the 20^th Century but calls for its founding came to nothing thanks to the bipolar world order of the era. With the ending of the Cold War stalemate there also came about the ending of the systematic usage of the veto by either of the superpowers in the UN Security Council. The way was now open for the establishment of such a court.[5]

The first time in the modern era that individuals were held to be responsible for crimes committed in the name of the state was before the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. The world had to wait until almost fifty years for the same legal principle to be resurrected again, with the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 827 (1993) which applied Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which created the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which is based at The Hague in The Netherlands. This tribunal was created to judge precise facts and appeals, and is transient in nature, scheduled to disappear at the end of its mission. It has material competences to judge on crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. A similar tribunal was established by the Security Council Resolution 995 (1994) to try those responsible for the same categories of crimes committed in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, which sits at Arusha in Tanzania.

Undoubtedly the workings of the two ad hoc tribunals influenced the Statute of Rome. The International Criminal Court has competences for the same crimes as the ad hoc courts, which are defined in Articles 6 to 8 of the Statute, while it may also try individuals for the crime of aggression, but only once the States party to the Statute have reached an agreement on its definition. Its structures are broadly similar to the ICTY and the ICTR. In accordance with the legal principle of non-retroactivity[6], the Court can only judge on crimes committed after the 1^st of July 2002 when it came into force thanks to the ratification of it by at least 60 States Parties. Cases are initiated by the Security Council, Prosecutor or a State Party, while there are also limits on who can actually stand accused before the court – firstly, the court can only judge natural persons – it cannot judge legal persons such as corporations. Secondly, the accused must either have the nationality of, or the crimes must have been perpetrated in, a State Party to the Statute of Rome.[7] One point worth noting about this feature of the Court is that it means that certain crimes, which may be of equal magnitude to those that come before it, can totally escape the legal competences of the Court.

One criticism of the workings of the Court focuses on the role of the prosecutor – it is claimed that the ICC will lead to political prosecution. It is this fear of selective prosecution that has led the United States’ government to be so steadfastly opposed to it. This fear is justified, its proponents say, because any State has the power to refer an issue for investigation to the Prosecutor and also the Prosecutor has the power to commence an investigation ex proprio motu. They also lament the lack of a UN Security Council veto over the discretion of the Prosecutor.[8] Said in another way, due to the fact that the ICC is an instrument that Washington can’t control sufficiently to keep it from prosecuting American government and military officials, this is the reason for their aversion to the new court.[9]

In a 2001 article in which he argues against the universal jurisdiction, Henry Kissinger raises the concern about politically motivated prosecutions in claiming that when discretion on what crimes are subject to universal jurisdiction and whom to prosecute is left to national prosecutors, the scope for arbitrariness is wide indeed. He gloomily notes, in reference to the 1998 British detention of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet as the result of an extradition request by a Spanish judge seeking to try Pinochet for crimes committed against Spaniards on Chilean soil, that while

“So far, universal jurisdiction has involved the prosecution of one fashionably reviled man of the right while scores of East European communist leaders - not to speak of Caribbean, Middle Eastern, or African leaders who inflicted their own full measures of torture and suffering -- have not had to face similar prosecutions.”[10]

While Kissinger and others of the same view feel that politically-motivated prosecutions would hinder the goal of international justice, there is another strand of opinion that holds that there are enough safeguards in the Statute of Rome to prevent such political prosecutions. As Vesselin Popovski writes,[11]

“The experience of the ad hoc tribunals indicates that states are reluctant to exercise political influence over the court. There is no evidence to suggest that the ICC will be more vulnerable to political pressure than the ICTY or domestic courts; on the contrary, the mere fact that the ICC prosecution office and judges will consist of lawyers from dozens of different countries is an additional guarantee of independence. The risk that any malign political interference

will be exposed will be much higher when the prosecutors and judges are highly professional and independent representatives from all over the world.”

Antonio Cassese writes ‘the Prosecutor may bar any initiative of states which may prove politically motivated and contrary to the interests of justice’.[12] To further combat the risk of politically-motivated prosecutions, the Statute provides that the approval of three judges sitting in a pre-trial chamber be obtained before an arrest warrant can be issued or proceedings initiated.[13]

Evidently there are enough safeguards in place to prevent political prosecutions taking place. Thus far the presence of such safeguards has not been enough to convince the Court’s detractors (who include China, Russia, Israel and India – not just the United States) to ratify the Statute – perhaps if they see that the protections are effective in the future workings of the Court they may be convinced to sign up to the Statute, thereby giving the court more universal acceptance and thus more legitimacy.

One of the main arguments in favour of establishing the Court was that it could deter the commission of war crimes or genocide.[14] However, there is a counterview that the decision to commit those crimes punishable by the ICC is not a rational one to begin with, so the existence of a Court will do nothing to prevent the actions of irrational actors. On the other hand, the commission of genocide does involve mass government planning, so there is some degree of rationality involved however odious that rationality may be. Former Justice of the South African Constitutional Court, Justice Richard Goldstone believes that the Court would without doubt act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators:

“If some would-be war criminals believe that they are likely to be arrested and brought

before the ICC they might well think twice before becoming outlaws. Already it has

become more difficult for war criminals to travel abroad. International arrest warrants

await them at some international airports. I cannot believe that, at least in some cases,

this does not act as a deterrent.”[15]

While Cassesse believes that some of the elements of the substantive law of the Rome Statute are retrograde (i.e. the maintaining of a distinction between crimes committed in external and internal conflicts and also no prohibitions on modern weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or are inherently indiscriminate), he believes its triumphs lie in the advances it has made in procedural international law, most notably by adopting the principle of ‘complementarity,’ whereby the ICC won’t intervene unless the national courts have showed that they are either unwilling or unable to prosecute. He praises this for three reasons: firstly, national courts are often the ones best suited to trying issues in the places where both the evidence and the culprit can be found. Secondly, national courts will often have a duty under international law to prosecute these crimes anyway thanks to their convention obligations. Thirdly, were the principle of complementarity to be absent, there would be a danger that the ICC would be flooded with a barrage of minor criminal cases which would create backlogs and halt its work on the more serious crimes.[16] Having the feature of complementarity also shields the Court somewhat from accusations that it is a further encroachment on state sovereignty – by its nature, it will only encroach sovereignty should the sovereign nation show that it cannot or will not fulfil its international law obligations.

It is to be hoped that the ICC will be able to prevent future atrocities and thereby spread international justice more effectively than other institutions that have gone before it. Its permanent nature gives it an obvious advantage over the Nuremberg, Tokyo and ad hoc tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, in that it has a far wider jurisdiction. Thanks to its universal jurisdiction, it doesn’t stand to be accused of meting out “victor’s justice” as was the case at Nuremberg and Tokyo. Writing in The Irish Times about what is in his opinion the woeful record of the United Nations has in preventing atrocities, David Adams writes:

“Having two of the principal signatories of the UN Charter as China and the Soviet Union seems perverse now - it was a bit like inviting Dr Harold Shipman to help draw up a code of practice for care of the elderly.”[17]

At least the International Criminal Court Statute doesn’t face the same legitimacy problems as the UN might, in that it was established in a context of widespread consensus, with 120 States voting to adopt the Rome Statute on 17^th July 1998 in a display of “profound and in some ways mysterious enthusiasm”[18] for a Court sharing the philosophy of the international human rights movement.

In his appeal for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, M. Cherif Bassiouni noted that

“The weak processes of international criminal justice following World War I not only failed to deter the military leaders who initiated World War II, but enhanced their cynicism. During a 1939 speech, Hitler reportedly stated in connection with his plans to "cleanse" (his early euphemism for exterminate) Jews, Gypsies, and others from the Third Reich: "Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?"”[19]

Bassiouni opined that Hitler’s words reflect a view that is still held by many today – that in international relations, the rule of might overshadows the rule of law. He goes on to paraphrase the dictator, when he asks

“Who now remembers Biafra, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Uganda, Burundi, Liberia, and other genocides and mass murder?”[20]

A true measure of the ICC’s success would be if such a viewpoint could be reversed – in other words if it becomes clear to all potential perpetrators of crimes within the ICC’s remit that the rule of law overshadows the rule of might, that their crimes will not be forgotten – rather they are liable to answer for them and be punished if necessary.

---

[1] Weakes, R. (2005) International Debate Education Association - International Criminal Court http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topic ID=146 [accessed 29 Nov 2005]

[2] Chris Brown (2001) ‘Human Rights’ in Baylis J. and Smith S, eds., The Globalization of World Politics, 2^nd ed, Oxford: OUP, 599.

[3] The Economist newspaper reports that the Ugandan Civil War provides a test case for the International Criminal Court.

(2005) ‘Hunting Uganda’s child-killers’, The Economist, 7 May 2005, Vol. 375, Issue 8425

[4]Cherif Bassiouni, M. (1997) ‘From Versailles to Rwanda in Seventy-Five Years: The Need to Establish a Permanent International Criminal Court’, Harvard Human Rights Journal [online], 10(11). Available: http://web.lexis-nexis.com/professional/ [accessed 29 Nov 2005]

[5] Roche, C. (2003) L’essentiel du Droit International Public et du Droit des Relations Internationales, 2^nd ed. Paris: Gualino Editeur. 114.

[6] There is a presumption that statutes are not intended to penalize conduct that was lawful when it occurred, that legislation should only operate on matters taking place after its enactment.

Oxford Dictionary of Law (2002), 5^th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[7] Roche, 82.

[8] Weakes, ibid.

[9] Blum, W. (2002) Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, 2^nd ed., London: Zed Books. 77.

[10] Kissinger, H. (2001) ‘The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction: Risking Judicial Tyranny’, Foreign Affairs [online], July / August 2001. Available: http:www.icai-online.org [accessed 27 Nov 2005] 5.

[11] Popovski, V. (2000) International Criminal Court: A necessary step towards global justice, Security Dialogue [online edition] 31, 4, 411 Available: http://www.swetwise.com [accessed: 25 Nov 2005]

[12] Cassese, A. ‘Statute of the International Criminal Court: Some Preliminary Reflections’,

European Journal of International Law, vol. 10, no. 1, 1999, pp. 144–171, on

p. 162.

[13] Weakes, R. (2005)

[14] See, for instance, Letter from The Association of The Bar of the City of New York to President George W. Bush calling for an end to US Opposition to the ICC, available: http://www.iccnow.org/documents/statements/others/NYCBarLetterofsprt10Apr02.pdf

[15] Goldstone, R. lecture was delivered in Abuja, Nigeria on February 14, 2005 and jointly sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Justice, and Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission. Available: http://www.iccnow.org/documents/statements/others/GoldstoneAbuja_14Feb05.pdf [accessed: 30 Nov 2005]

[16] Ibid, Cassesse, A. (1999)

[17] Adams, D. (2005) ‘Woeful record of the UN’, The Irish Times [online], 10 June 2005, available: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2005/0610/3429860429OP10ADAMS.html [accessed: 29 Nov 2005].

[18] Schabas, W.A. (2004) An Introduction to the International Criminal Court, 2^nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. X.

[19] Cherif Bassiouni, M. (1997) ‘From Versailles to Rwanda in Seventy-Five Years: The Need to Establish a Permanent International Criminal Court’, Harvard Human Rights Journal [online], 10(11). Available: http://web.lexis-nexis.com/professional/ [accessed 29 Nov 2005]

[20] Ibid, Cherif Bassiouni, M. (1997).

Photo: Akbar Simonse
Map: Narek781

Suggested Solutions to Limerick's Bus Problems

Limerick Post

In my opinion the Limerick City Bus Service has problems.  In the following

 paragraphs I will outline what I believe some of these problems are, and I will give

 my suggestions on how to overcome them and improve the service.  I see no reason

 (apart from the obvious one, lack of funds) why Limerick can't improve it's bus

 service to the extent that it is a model of good public transport for other towns and

 cities in this country to copy.

From my experience the only people that take the bus in Limerick are those that have

 to, i.e. the elderly, students, people that can't drive and people that can't afford cars.

 Given the choice between taking the bus and driving, most people in this city opt for

 the former it seems. If taking the bus means half-hour waits only for a dangerously

 overcrowded bus to pull up and reasonably refuse to take on any more passengers,

 coupled with really long walks from the bus stop to wherever it is you wanted to go

 (There is some statistic that everywhere in Paris is within 500m of a metro station. 

I doubt the same could be said for Limerick regarding bus stops - if people

have really long walks after their bus journey, often in the wind, the wet, the rain, they

 will be discouraged from using the bus)....Bus Eireann have to get their act together

 so that people will choose the bus rather than the car. If they can convince more

 people that they are offering a good service, they will increase their revenue and then

 be able to invest in improving their service even further. I've a couple of suggestions

 of how they could improve their service:

1. Schedule the busses for every 10 minutes on the busiest routes, every 20 minutes

 on all other routes. People willl only choose the bus over the car if they know their

 bus will be at their stop when they want it, or at least if they know they won't have to

 wait all that long. This would involve buying more buses and hiring more drivers –

 good for employment then.

2. Establish a night service. Sure the taxi-drivers will be up in arms, but isn't

 competition good for the consumer? This could be run to some of the areas most in

 demand at night time but maybe only every 40 minutes.

3. If they feel that double-decker buses are too awkward what with bridges and that,

 why not invest in those single-storey buses twice as long as normal buses with the

 accordion type thing in the middle?

4. Give the public more incentives to use the bus. For example, in the town in France I

 lived in for a while, Besançon, nearly everyone that used the buses had weekly,

 monthly or yearly bus passes. This was made by making the bus passes much cheaper

 than buying single tickets - for instance my student monthly bus pass there was €21

 whereas if I bought single tickets (each one costing a euro) I would have spent well

 over €50 on the bus per month. The bus passes were available in every newsagent,

 and also in the universities and schools. The bus company also had a shop in the

 centre of town to buy

them. Encouraging the majority of people to have travelpasses is also good because it

 speeds up the time it takes to get onto the bus - there is no waiting for change, all you

 have to do is flash your ID.

5. The town also had a great idea to show car-users what life on public transport is

 like. If you brought your car into a mechanic in Besançon, the bus company allows

 you to travel for free on the bus for the duration of your car being out of action.

6. Perhaps put park and ride facilities on the outskirts of the city, i.e. at Coonagh,

 Patrickswell, Annacotty etc. Make the use of these facilities much cheaper than city

 centre parking. Hopefully this would free up traffic so buses would run on time and

 make restore the public's faith that the bus would be on schedule.

7. The design of the current buses needs to be changed. There's too much seating on

 them for a start - it's fine when there are hardly any passengers on them but positively

 dangerous at 5 o'clock in the evening when passengers are squashed up against the

 front windshield. Remove some of the seating and replace it with areas to lean, bars

 to hold onto, and fold up seats.

8. Put 2 doors in the buses - one for going in at the front, one for going out towards

 the back/middle. Much time is wasted when everyone that wants to get off the bus

 has to be let off the door before the people waiting can get on.

9. At every bus stop put maps of Limerick showing all the routes highlighted in

 different colours. Don't have every route necessarily going through town - have more

 routes using orbital roads along the lines of the UL-Raheen via Childers Road route.

10. Widen the Childers Road.

11. Publicity campaigns informing the people of great changes made and the ease of

 taking the bus.

12. More bus shelters.

13. Get property developers of ever expanding suburbs in places like

Annacotty and Raheen contribute towards the extension of bus routes into their

 estates. We can't have everyone relying on the car, the roads just can't accommodate

 them all for a start.

14. Many of the less-used bus routes stop at 6 o'clock. I believe they should stop at 7

 or 8 at the earliest, as this will give people who work until then to catch a bus home.

 Perhaps one of the reasons why some bus routes are so underused is because they are

 so infrequent.

15. It would be good if city buses left from outside the bus and train station too.
Perhaps they could leave from where the taxi rank is, and the existing taxi rank could

 be moved to within the train station car park. At the moment there aren't even signs

 in the train station directing visitors about where the city bus stops are located.

16. Run loads of extra buses on big match days in Thomond Park and the Gaelic

 Grounds, especially from park and ride facilities. Perhaps include free use of public

 transport for the day of the match in the price of the match ticket.

To conclude, I believe that the solution of Limerick's bus problems (and, indeed,

 traffic problems) is to convince people that have the choice about whether to drive or

 not that the bus is a better option. I believe this could be achieved through

 implementing the measures I have outlined above.

Photo: Wendy

Law Soc sends delegation to Brussels. Well to Louvain-la-Neuve, actually.

An Focal

On Sunday 14th of March two members of the Debating Union, James

Gaffney and Judith Lynch arrived in the purpose-built, windswept and 

fairly deserted university town of Louvain-la-Neuve to participate in 

that college’s European Society’s inaugural European Week.  

Thankfully the town was only empty because it was a Sunday, and it 

seems that all Belgian students go home for the weekend – it had 

livened up by Monday.  However, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed we 

weren’t, having attended the UL Debating Intervarsity party until 

some ungodly hour the night before.

The town itself is a surreal place – some people commented that it 

looked like something straight out of Star Wars.  It’s only twenty 

years old, full of modern architecture and built entirely over a 

three-story car park.  The entire town centre is pedestrianised and 

is full of narrow streets, little squares and staircases.  Its 

website states that no one remains indifferent to the new town, and I 

would have to agree with them.

About 90 participants took part in the week’s activities, with people 

coming from as far as Turkey, Mexico, Burundi and Dublin to take 

part.  Romania, Poland and Ireland (There were 8 others from TCD) 

were the best-represented nationalities there.  It seemed as if most 

of those that partook in the week were either from the accession 

states or from the periphery of the EU, like ourselves.

First thing on Monday morning we went on a trip to the European 

Parliament in Brussels, a chance in a lifetime to come face-to-face 

with those faceless Eurocrats we had heard so much about.  We 

listened to a talk on the workings of the Parliament from a Belgian 

MEP, we were also addressed by a lobbyist about the work they do, and 

the final talk was by a 24-year-old Polish elected representative, 

who aired the Polish fears that when they join and restrictions on 

freedom of movement are lifted, the country will experience an exodus 

of its bright young educated workers.  I thought it was interesting 

to hear about enlargement from the other side of the fence – it made 

a refreshing contrast with the Sun’s scare mongering about the flood 

of benefit tourists only too ready to bleed our welfare system dry.

On Monday afternoon we went on a guided tour of Brussels.  I must 

admit that it was more or less how I expected it to look – full of 

grey office blocks and important looking suited people walking around 

with important looking documents and wearing important looking 

expressions.  That evening on returning to Louvain we attended a 

debate in a pub about The Bologna Process.  As exhilarating as that 

sounds, the disco afterwards was probably better – accompanied as it 

was with plentiful quantities of what our hosts referred to as “good, 

very good, Berrshian beer.”  They kind of roll their ‘l’s like that 

you see.

On Tuesday morning some of the delegation dragged themselves out of 

be for a European Table Quiz.  The prize was more good Belgian beer 

and good Belgian chocolate.  That afternoon it was down to the 

serious business of taking part in the model European Parliament.

On Monday night everyone had to choose which political group to be a 

part of and also which committee meeting they would attend.  I 

attended the foreign policy and defence committee, where we had to 

debate a motion that the EU would condemn Israel for building the 

defence wall.  To say it was a fiery affair would be a bit of an 

understatement.  The committee had to decide what amendments it would 

make and then vote on them one by one – simple in theory I suppose.  

It was a really good insight into why everything in the political 

process takes so long to get done.  On Wednesday morning we reported 

back to our political group the results reached in our committees the 

previous day and we decided what stance the party would take when the 

matter was discussed at the Plenary Session of the Louvain-la-Neuve 

European Parliament that afternoon.  Again, this was a great 

experience in terms of experiencing the workings of a parliament from 

the inside.  Without further ado, we retired to a public house for a 

bit of craic agus ceoil to celebrate Paddy’s Day, and explain to 

confused Eastern Europeans the link between a Welshman that rid 

Ireland of snakes forever and our fondness for celebrating this very 

fact every year since.

On Thursday we went to Brussels again, this time for a talk on the 

historical development of the EU, given in the Commission.  We had 

the whole afternoon free to buy chocolates and European Merchandise, 

because that’s what tourists buy in Brussels apparently.  Some people 

would have preferred, nay needed desperately, to have been in bed, 

but then we can’t have it all our way now can we?  That evening the 

organisers arranged an International Buffet.  Everybody had to cook a 

dish from their own country and bring it to the hall were they could 

then go and sample all sorts of exotic culinary delights, ranging 

from Turkish Delight to Polish potatoes cooked in a slightly 

different way to Irish potatoes to Romanian 40% proof moonshine that 

came in a bottle with no label but was apparently 14 years old.  Our 

Irish Coffees went down a treat.

I would definitely recommend participation in this week next year to 

anyone with an interest in the future of Europe, and if you would 

like to meet people from loads of different cultures.  It is open to 

all students across Europe and beyond, and participation is free.

Anyone interested in participating in AEUL’s European Week next year 

can from the Université of Louvain-la-Neuve’s European Society’s 

website, or you can email the organisers at auel_ucl@yahoo.com.


Photos: Cyril Plapied, Serge Bibauw, Acutius, Trent Strohm