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oh i'm sorry you preferr this one

http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocus ID=97&Body=Oil-for-Food&Body1=inquiry

Just because you never heard of it does not make it so. Many people warned of many things and never get attention until it's to late

http://www.un.org/News/dh/iraq/mortimer-30apr.htm

What planet are you on? The oil for food programme was a UN sponsored attempt to relieve the suffering that ordinary Iraqis were experiencing as a result of the sanctions imposed by UN resolution 661 (which was drafted by Spain, UK and US).

First of all let's get one thing straight: The International Court of Justice does not try war crimes:

Contentious cases between States
The Parties
Only States may apply to and appear before the Court. The Member States of the United Nations (at present numbering 191) are so entitled.

Only cases between countries. And yes there is the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia" and they only prosecute war criminals from the former Yugoslavia.

And then again your arguments are shaky. You say that you and the people in the United States are the victims, but what about the citizens of Madrid or some other places in the world.

Also do you really think that OBL would get a fair trail in the US? You are talking about a judge, but what about the jury? I reckon that it would be impossible to find an impartial jury in the US.

Nope. There are several UN funded projects that have assisted FOSS. If a single desktop manual got MS all worked up, then they would have quit a long time ago when UNESCO sponsored the Free Software Directory or when UNCTAD released a favorable report that said OSS could boost IT sector in developing countries.

They could even have gotten upset when the IOSN released their FOSS primer (introducing FOSS to govt policy makers) or worse, their upcoming FOSS policy primer (guide on how to create national FOSS policies). They even held a meeting where policy-makers from over 20 Asia-Pacific countries all called for greater exploration of FOSS.

Instead, Microsoft announces a slew of partnerships with the UNDP and other UN agencies. Microsoft doesn't quit in a huff. They are far more mature than that.

Ob disclaimer: I don't speak for the UN, IOSN or Microsoft

It looks to me like France is violating human rights.

Almost any country is in violation of the universal declaration of human rights. E.g. the US of A violates at least articles 3 (death penalty) and 10 (Guantanamo Bay). In this case France is indeed in violation of article 19.

Hmm... Unfortunately, can't see the New Republic editorial since they locked it to subscribers only, but from here, Blix says:
"Inspections in Iraq resumed on 27 November 2002. In matters relating to process, notably prompt access to sites, we have faced relatively few difficulties and certainly much less than those that were faced by UNSCOM in the period 1991 to 1998.

"As I noted on 14 February, intelligence authorities have claimed that weapons of mass destruction are moved around Iraq by trucks and, in particular, that there are mobile production units for biological weapons. The Iraqi side states that such activities do not exist. Several inspections have taken place at declared and undeclared sites in relation to mobile production facilities. Food testing mobile laboratories and mobile workshops have been seen, as well as large containers with seed processing equipment. No evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found. Iraq is expected to assist in the development of credible ways to conduct random checks of ground transportation."

That was from his oral report a week and half after the written one.

-T

The USPTO is a fully fee-funded operation [emphasis mine] with an annual budget of around $900 million, and more than 6,000 employees all located in Crystal City, VA.

...Its two main components are the patent office and the trademark office, with the majority of staff in the patent office. Patent examiners tend to be scientists and engineers. Trademark examiners are predominately attorneys. Both have active unions.

UN Kashmir map is here (PDF format)
http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/dpko/unmo gip.pdf
More details
http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=126 8

• As a Californian it is in my Constitution
• As an American its in Amendments IV, IX and X of the Federal constitution. (no, just because "freedom of thought" isn't listed either doesn't mean IX and X don't cover it. And #I too: can you have freedom of association without privacy?).
• And as an American, I think the Constitution isn't just the law, its a Good Idea to be applied widely to all of life, not just narrowly to federal gov't actions.
• As a Human, I'm covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles 12 and 13 (including 13 because if you can't travel with privacy, you don't have true freedom of movement, and being able to bicycle across the country doesn't count. Article 20- freedom of association- applies too. Plenty of my associates aren't in driving distance.)
• from A Watched Populace Never Boils: "People often ask why a loss of privacy... is a restriction on freedom. ... Some welcome it, feeling that the extra surveillance will cut down on crime, and provide some increased level of safety or imagined safety. ...invasions of privacy invade our freedoms quite directly. This is true even if the surveillance isn't abused by the watchers, even though history shows that it always is. When we feel watched, we feel less free. We censor ourselves and our actions... Yet the mainstream will never fear monitoring that much, just as it is more comfortable with censorship. What civil rights protect is not the majority, but the fringe. "
• And there's the very important and unfortunately increasingly precient best essay ever on why privacy is a right , which includes a list of very specific harms from lost privacy [ for example the specific harms when mistakes are made (and they always are)]

From his essay- which is even more applicable to the US as we've been losing these rights already: "A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around... if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away...

"The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others... The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.

"The Government ... has absolutely no business creating a massive database of personal information about all law-abiding Canadians that is collected without our consent from third parties, not to provide us with any service but simply to have it available to use against us if it ever becomes expedient to do so...

"It is difficult to imagine a more flagrant disregard for the rights of Canadians. This database is legally wrong and morally wrong. If the Government can get away with systematically logging and analyzing all the foreign travel activities of every law-abiding citizen, then no other private activity will long be safe from being included in the same personal dossiers - our shopping, our banking, our communications, our movements within the country...

"[Bill C-55 would give the RCMP and CSIS unrestricted access to the personal information held by airlines] I have raised no objection to the primary purpose of this provision, section 4.82, which is to ena

Actually, you can leave your country, at least you're suppoed to be able to. Check out the UNUDHR, articles 13 and 15.

I appreciate your posts, however. IIRC, I have been impressed by some good posts of you before. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, you live in the same country as me, and we've emailed eachother before.

I already answered that one, really. The whole point that you make depends on what you consider to be basic human rights. What constitues a 'basic human right', how much basic one may make it, and how much I myself may agree with it or not, is ultimately only an opinion too

So, I say, since opinions can differ, at least when you DO take an opinion, you should be consistent in it. Thus, if you are of the opinion 'hate speech' should be forbidden because you deem it (contrary to) a perceived fundamental right, you should also acknowledge that another person might equally forbid anti-racism, if he deems it (to be contrary to) a perceived fundamental right.

Ah yes, well, that was why I said there is no dichotomy between the two, even if some may portray it as such. You make it sound if you can not have the one without the other.

I however, claim that you can protect society/economy, even when remaining consistent; the two are not mutually exclusive.

If there IS a contradiction between the two in some instance, it's indicative that the law is bad, not that it should be less consistent.

If it's at all possible, you'll probably end up with a lot more laws than we now have, each for their extremely limited field without exceptions, so that the system would probably become a lot more complex as it is now. And special cases you didn't think of will probably always pop up, so you'll almost endlessly keep refactoring your laws.

Just like in programing you should not refactor endlessly, you have to draw a line somewhere: now it's been simplified enough, what still doesn't fit will be handled by special cases.

The article you linked to is a perfect example of what Veridium talks about. Helena Ranta, chief of Finnish pathologist team which investigated Racak "massacre" admitted that it was a hoax.

• As a Californian it is in my Constitution
• As an American its in Amendments IV, IX and X of the Federal constitution. (no, just because "freedom of thought" isn't listed either doesn't mean IX and X don't cover it. And #I too: can you have freedom of association without privacy?).
• And as an American, I think the Constitution isn't just the law, its a Good Idea to be applied widely to all of life, not just narrowly to federal gov't actions.
• As a Human, I'm covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles 12 and 13 (including 13 because if you can't travel with privacy, you don't have true freedom of movement. 20- freedom of association- fits with this as well)
• from A Watched Populace Never Boils: "People often ask why a loss of privacy... is a restriction on freedom. ... Some welcome it, feeling that the extra surveillance will cut down on crime, and provide some increased level of safety or imagined safety. ...invasions of privacy invade our freedoms quite directly. This is true even if the surveillance isn't abused by the watchers, even though history shows that it always is. When we feel watched, we feel less free. We censor ourselves and our actions... Yet the mainstream will never fear monitoring that much, just as it is more comfortable with censorship. What civil rights protect is not the majority, but the fringe. "
• And there's the very important and unfortunately increasingly precient best essay ever on why privacy is a right, which includes a list of very specific harms from lost privacy [ for example the specific harms when mistakes are made (and they always are)]

From his essay: "A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear... the truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others... The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.

"If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy."

And continuing his argument:

"Now "September 11" is invoked as a kind of magic incantation to stifle debate, disparage critical analysis and persuade us that we live in a suddenly new world where the old rules cannot apply... If Parliament and the public at large have been slow to react, it is probably because for most people, most of the time, privacy is a pretty abstract concept. Like our health, it's something we tend not to think about until we lose it - and then discover that our lives have been very unpleasantly, and perhaps irretrievably, altered.

But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy - the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us - is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being...."

"When people are worried about their safety, when we have seen the horrors of which toda

Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

However:

Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

And:

Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

So, basically, you have freedom, for as long you don't interfere with other people's rights ;)

(From The Universal Declaration of Human Rights) Maybe, in USA, you have the right to contend this (by the first ammendent to The Constitution). I think that applies only if both contenders are american, but since the net is international, you have to use international law and conventions.

For me, you have to probe that, in a usenet or other net group, you've been the subject of one of such attacks, and not to waste other people's time with an arbitrary legal attack :) unfunaterly, thatis a very common thing in the States...

The US is good at ignoring their side of the bargian

As the AC said, bollocks. The rate of increase is decreasing . The absolute increase is also decreasing. The UN's latest projections have a majority of even the developing countries falling below the replacement level. And on their "low" projection, the absolute world population peaks at less than 8 billion in the 2030s and then starts declining. (The other projections will also peak, but beyond the UN's 2050 cutoff date.) Who knows? Maybe things will change again and we will end up with a population of 80 billion by 2500. But it's absurd to assert that it's inevitable. On current trends, it's not even likely.

I'm tired of all of these divisive things that separate us, instead of bring the world together. I'm tired of the metric system, different languages, and different currencies.

I hope the U.N finally ratifies Resolution 1325E so that the world all has one standardized language, measurement systems, currency and time zone.

I am tired of people who toss in fake links to add credibility to their moronic posts. I'm tired of moderators who don't think I am funny.

First, right to health care is hardcoded in many legal systems; I'll give you the example of the Italian constitution, article 32:

La Repubblica tutela la salute come fondamentale diritto dell'individuo e interesse della collettività, e garantisce cure gratuite agli indigenti.
Nessuno può essere obbligato a un determinato trattamento sanitario se non per disposizione di legge. La legge non può in nessun caso violare i limiti imposti dal rispetto della persona umana.

The Republic safeguards health as fundamental right of the individual and interest of the community, and guarantees free-of-charge care for those who cannot pay.
No one can be forced to a certain health treatment unless by law. The law cannot in any case violate the limits imposed by the respect of the human being.

How do I decide what is a right and what a privilege? Well, in this case, you probably think that health is a privilege because you never had any serious problems, nor did anyone close to you. Or if you did, you were insanely rich anyway. In both cases, good for you, and I hope you will eventually understand the point in a different way than the hard one.

Last, you might read article 25 of this document.

Well, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yes (see article 23).

But apart from this slight detail, your counter-argument is valid.

Spam aside: see UNAIDS - the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. As was said earlier: raising the issue of spam does not mean that other priorities within the UN system are put on hold. See current UN news. The ITU/WSIS meeting may not be a panacea, but rants alone will not move the issue of curbing spam.

From one of the ITU background papers: ....."Rather, the challenge rests with our
willingness to enforce the existing laws by engaging in aggressive anti-spam national
enforcement as well as cooperating with global anti-spam enforcement initiatives."

Well, by presenting documentation of locations of former weapons...documentation or other proof of destruction of said weapons. AND....unfettered inspection of any site in the country.....

Full and prompt access was given to any site the inspectors requested. Only once was access not prompt and that was because the only person with a key was away at the time. They were quickly given access after he returned. The inspectors were never blocked from a site. (They were during the inspections of the 1990s.)

The burden of proof was on him...

No, the burden of proof was on the countries claiming he was not complying and the countries that claimed he had weapons. The burden is especially on countries going to war over the issue.

the inspectors were there only to verify, not to play detective. He tried to block inspectors at every turn...and never tried to provide any proof of weapons destroyed or turn over old weapons.

I already showed the inspectors were not blocked. As for proof of destroying them, perhaps he didn't have them. He gave a good deal of requested information, so again you were lied to. The US actually spun that to "Saddam gives thousands of pages to try slowing down UN workers!", but it was actually not complete. There were some inconsistencies which Mr. Blix noted, and that is what the inspectors were there to resolve.

Hear hear!

And since nobody's mentioned it yet: spam has nothing whatsoever to do with the United Nations .

(I just linked to the U.N. charter. All you globalists on here ought to read it and memorize it.)

The only sentence in the charter that could even be stretched to allude to spam is "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom...." Of course, what they're talking about is freedom from tyrrany and oppression - like in Sudan and recently in Iraq.

I think I just heard the far-off sound of an overstretched elastic band snapping. Was that the U.N.?

Background history of the Israel/Palestine issue

.. take some time and know what you're talking about. Don't dismiss the United Nations because a bunch of right wing idiots on TV like to make it their whipping boy. The UN does a lot of good all around the world. And if anything, the US is more responsible for crippling the UN's effectiveness than anyone else.

Actually all member states of the UN are to follow the UN Charter.

Article 2.4:
All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations

Actually since you seem to be misinformed, you should read the whole of Article 2.

As for why the UN doesn't prosecute Bush? There are many reasons. 1) The US will immediately withdraw from the UN 2) The US is on the Security Council and can block most UN resolutions. 3) Nobody from the UN will risk invading the US in order to carry out the resolution indicting Bush.

I wish we had more holidays like Earth Day- where people are encouraged to participate. Modern life in the US has sort of lost the old idea of holidays- where you'd interact with a community, at the very least building relationships.
How helpful are the UN's "Special Days"?

See here

For reference, Article 19 is:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

As far as I'm concerned, I"P" law is plain evil (well, I'm a bit vague about Trademarks, but certainly Copyright and Patent), but Article 27 (which I have doubts about) also says:


(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or
artistic production of which he is the author.

So the problems arise at the collision between 19+27(1) and 27(2), mostly. (18, "Freedom of Thought" might also become important in the near future, particularly for those of us who consider our computers extensions of our minds).

Personally, I would hold Article 19 and 27(1) as obviously trumping any "protection" under Article 27(2) if the "protection" causes a violation of Article 19 or Article 27(1). But maybe other people care less about freedom and more about profit - if so, then fuck them if they think they'll restrict my freedom, I have a masters in mechanical engineering and I'm not afraid to use it...

And "Protection" is not defined - perhaps sufficient protection would be protection from fraud/plagiarism - i.e. while I should be able to freely copy information or implement devices as I see fit, I should probably not be able to claim that I wrote or designed them if I didn't. Then:

(1) Re "copyright": you can't censor me, but people know it's a better bet to pay you, not me, to produce further cool new information-patterns, and

(2) Re "patent": I can share in scientific advancements without interference, but people know it's a better bet to pay you, not me, to make further ones.

The courts have found (twice, I think, but don't quote me on that point) that Macrovision is not an effective access control mechanism, and therefore is not covered by the relevant parts of Title 17.

Again, no references. Learn to use Google, pal.

That's not the case. Go read the statue. There is a clear definition in there for "access control mechanism."

Yes, and it does not require the technology to be waterproof, just like I said:

a technological measure ''effectively controls access to a work'' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

Because I do not like the idea of individual citizens deciding for themselves which laws they'll obey and which they won't.

Granted, but I did not say that I break the law or encourage anyone else to do it. Still, I hold that it's a bad law all in all, and should be repealed.

To call them "rights" implies that they have some basis in natural law, which you seem to believe is true but actually is not.

They have - freedom of speech and article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And for very good reasons, reasons which you refuse to acknowledge.

No, for completely bogus reasons since all those copy-protected songs are found to the dozen in any file sharing network of your preference and since professional plagiarists have no problem at all circumventing those measures. The only one who's really restricted in his possibilities is the law-abiding customer.

Because you are free to make other kinds of copies, fair use doesn't even come into it.

You mean there are still legal ways to do it, although they are working hard on banning those, too. Ever heard of TCPA? They hope to base unbreakable DRM schemes on it. There goes your fair use, and this does affect your freedom of speech dramatically. Just imagine that a rights holder or law enforcement agency could "undo" a song which is somehow found to be politically dangerous, simply by revoking everyone's right to make use of it (of course, people would get their money back...). Sure, they need to make all copying of copyrighted music impossible for this to be effective, but that's exactly what some of the corporations are up to. The most difficult part for now is to close the "analog hole" and particularily the transportation of audio and video signals through air in the form of visual light rsp. sound waves. They're working on watermark recognition software to prevent this form of copying, and as soon as this works reliably, the next phase of what NET Act started and DMCA continued will be to prohibit manufacture and sale of devices that do not obey this type of "access control mechanism". It's a technical problem now, not one of legal implementation, which will most definitely go almost unopposed because hardly anybody of influence in the US seems to care. Your repress^Hentatives certainly don't. And hell, it's for the artists. And even the children. Who wouldn't agree that it's worthwhile to protect the artists, and the children? Your problem is exactly that the plot is too 1984esque to acknowledge, because you still think the US was the land of the free. I'm not trying to imply that this will turn the USA into a sort of Oceania, but still, civil rights will suffer a lot just to give rights holders (i.e. not artists, but corporations) more control, more profit, and less competition. It's something worth to be fought.

They are, in fact, illegal, aren't they?

Learn to read, fool. That's exactly what I complained about.

All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and

privacy.

That's California. I also have Amendments IV, IX and X of the Federal constitution. (And just because "freedom of thought" isn't listed either doesn't mean IX and X don't cover it.)

Plus the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Articles 12 and 13:

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

I include 13 because if you have to give up your privacy entirely to travel, you don't have freedom of movement. And no, the ability to bicycle cross-country as a substitute for flying doesn't count.

In other person's words:

From A Watched Populace Never Boils:

"People often ask why a loss of privacy... is a restriction on freedom. ... Some welcome it, feeling that the extra surveillance will cut down on crime, and provide some increased level of safety or imagined safety.

But the truth is that invasions of privacy invade our freedoms quite directly. This is true even if the surveillance isn't abused by the watchers, even though history shows that it always is.

When we feel watched, we feel less free. We censor ourselves and our actions...

Yet the mainstream will never fear monitoring that much, just as it is more comfortable with censorship. What civil rights protect is not the majority, but the fringe. The fringe is usually feared by the majority, and most subject to its oppression. Yet the fringe is the lifeblood of a society's future. When I say a watched populace never boils, I refer to the ability to bubble with change and novelty. Yes, it also means unrest, for there are both positive and negative elements to the fringe. Yet the fringe today becomes the mainstream in the future. That is how a healthy, dynamic society works. That is how our society works...

And as I just commented there's the best essay on privacy post 911:

"Now "September 11" is invoked as a kind of magic incantation to stifle debate, disparage critical analysis and persuade us that we live in a suddenly new world where the old rules cannot apply.

If Parliament and the public at large have been slow to react, it is probably because for most people, most of the time, privacy is a pretty abstract concept. Like our health, it's something we tend not to think about until we lose it - and then discover that our lives have been very unpleasantly, and perhaps irretrievably, altered.

But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy - the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us - is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being...."

"When people are worried about their safety, when we have seen the horrors of which today's breed of terrorists are capable - and there may be more - it's easy to lose perspective. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that security is all that mat

No, no, no. The UN resolutions against Iraq were not a big game of hide and seek. The goal was to disarm him of the weapons that we knew he had (he even admitted to having these). You can't do that by simply not finding those weapons. Sure some stuff gets lots in paperwork, but UNMOVIC was not asking Saddam for anything unreasonable (in fact, you can see exactly what information Hans Blix wanted in his Jan 27, 2003 update to the Security Council).

Saddam had been caught in his lies about WMD too many times over the past 12 years to do it any other way.

Didn't the US help create the UN?

Without investment capital, many ideas cannot get off the ground; VC firms lose money all the time as they invest in new ideas.

And people like you forget that the economy is a myth- a shared myth, but still a myth. If we actually WANTED to advance as a race instead of just make money, we wouldn't put mythological obstacles in people's way trying to get new ideas off the ground in the first place. There SHOULD be no risk in new ideas at all; and if we had an economic system more like the one demanded by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Robotic Nation then we wouldn't need the venture capitalists or investors at all. Just survive on wellfare until your idea gets off the ground.

But no- redesigning the economic system for maximum efficiency would be stupid, wouldn't it?

Here you go.

I wondered a few years ago wy the US is against the International Criminal Court, and "trying to ensure that US nationals are exempt from ICC jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes". This is the court that Saddam Husein should stand trial at. But it could also be the court that American Officers guilty of crimes against humanity may also be guilty of.
Maybe the US is against the ICC because their soldiers might be called in front of it for such actions they are responsible for, as are currently happening in Iraq, and they know that such actions may lead to facing the ICC.

Check out what happened to Brazil when they tried to manufacture generic AZT without paying license fees to Glaxo. Here's a snippet from this doc:

'In 1996, Brazil passed a law authorizing the local production of five key anti-retroviral drugs used in the US. Some of the medications, such as AZT, an anti-retroviral drug that prevents the transmission of HIV from mother to child, were patented prior to 1995 when the WTO provisions first applied. These medicines fall outside the scope of TRIPS. Through its patent law, Brazil allows the drugs to be produced legally, without paying royalties. As a result, Brazil is able to provide free drugs to people living with HIV/AIDS. Recently, Brazil managed to persuade the US company Merck to lower the prices of two of its drugs, Crixivan and Stocrin, used to treat people with AIDS, by threatening to permit compulsory licensing if Merck did not cut prices by 50 per cent.

In the US government's view, a section of Brazil's law discriminated against foreign owners of patents. Under the law, designed to help build a national pharmaceutical industry and reduce the price of medicines, Brazil will honour a patent only if the drug is produced locally. Therefore, foreign companies must establish a presence in Brazil in order to enjoy protection. According to the US, TRIPS prohibited this kind of discrimination. The US government maintained steady diplomatic pressure on Brazil to get it to change its patent regime and medicines policy, backing up the pressure with a threat of unilateral trade sanctions.'

For a developing country, sanctions are no small deal. Hell, even for the US, they're no small deal ;) I'd say the local software industry would quickly find out that TRIPS was back on the menu....

We can influence that by requiring that countries with which we trade comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Simple.

In a more obvious example, if you hired someone to kill a german in germany... That isn't a dual criminality issue.

What are you smoking? Can I have some?
It doesn't matter if the intended victim is on the MOON, conspiring to commit murder is criminal.

It's not like there's some rampant problem of law enforcement covering up murderers. Real crimes are dual-criminal and there is no problem persuing them.

You seem to have a problem with the concept on a non-dual-criminality. Actually its pretty simple. If something is NOT dual criminal then the law in one of the two countries is probably badly fuxored. Since most countries do not like genuine criminals running around locally, it is most likely the country claiming is a crime that's fuxord. It probably shouldn't be considered a crime at all. Either way, as far as the supposed "perpetrator" is concerned he is a law abiding citizen of his country. He obeyed local law, the law he was obligated to obey.

You cannot expect someone to know, much less obey, the laws of some 191 different countries. If I post a perfectly legal website on a local server, my local police should not be harrassing me because Bhutan has some dumb-ass law against my website.

if you would read the treaty... It is an agreement to share evidence. That's pretty much it.

Read it yourself. It's a lot more than that. It imposes sweeping evidence collection proceedures on demand (by fax or e-mail no less) and in the absence of dual-criminality. The only refference to dual-criminality is article 24 paragraph 1 a, the extradition clause. Oh joy, they can't extradite innocent people but they can turn their lives upside down and imprison them for withholding passwords.

Why the hell should domestic police set up wiretaps and engage in searches, and compel self-incrimination, against their own citizen WHO HAS NOT COMMITED A CRIME!

Article 19 paragraph 4 revokes your right to remain silent:

4. Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to empower its competent authorities to order any person who has knowledge about the functioning of the computer system or measures applied to protect the computer data therein to provide, as is reasonable, the necessary information, to enable the undertaking of the measures referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2.

To put it simply, if you do not tell them the password to single file on your computer - or if you forgot the password to that file - then you get thrown in prison. Again, as an added bonus, it does so even in the absence of even an allegation of dual criminality.

The treaty also requires that non-commercial copyright infringment must be a criminal matter, and requires DMCA-type criminalization. Not that either of these is an issue for the US, but I'm really getting sick of the US ram-rodding obscene copyright and DMCA provisions into every treaty we can get our hands on. The only provision missing is the one requiring countries to "clarify" that their laws prohibiting patents on math don't actually prohibit patents on pure programing (which is a feild of math).

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I am a Christian. Personally, I think Jesus would fight oppression, tyranny, and injustice in any form wherever he found it. That's what he did in his own life, not by violence, but by inspired words which opened people's eyes to the tyranny being imposed upon them by the leaders of their day. I think he would tell the government to start thinking about the log in their own eye, and not worry so much about the mote in their brother's eye. But I take a fairly unusual view of Christianity, which is that it's mostly about the life and teachings of a carpenter named Yeshua.

love and blessings,
freejung

Er, what about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? "Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy..."

Rights are given to you by the governing body

Not according to the Declaration of Independence. "...they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." It says that governments only exist "to secure these rights," not to bestow them, implying that the rights themselves exist outside the framework of any governing body.

But oh, yeah, I forgot, it's about time we stopped basing our society on these outdated ideas and moldy old documents and converted to pure, unadulterated Social Darwinism, right?

• 31.6% male aged 15+
• 54.6% female aged 15+

• 20.3% male aged 15-24
• 35.2% female aged 15-24

and literacy rates determined by the department of education are 62% in the 1997 data set.

n.b. both literacy and illiteracy rates vary widely between states.

What I understand, freedom of expression is guaranteed in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression ; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of fronteirs."
[emphasis added]. So if there is any nation that is not a part of the United Nations, sure, imposing these restrictions on the freedom of the government of these nations would be imposing their own beliefs on these other cultures. This does not sound like what these people are doing, however. There is no excuse whatsoever for government censorship by any government who is a member of the United Nations(this means you, China, United States of America, and Canada).

Sure, one may argue that the United Nations may be unnecessary, outdated, completely irrelevent or otherwise, but as it stands today, we are obligated to fufil our part of the bargain, despite how sometimes we may disagree with it, or alternatively, decline membership to the United Nations and become a Rogue State, with none of the protections to you that The Declaration provides.

These guys sound down-right nuts, though. If a dictator is willing to kill thousands of his own people, what makes you think they won't assasinate you, if you actively mess with them? Kudos to their efforts.

"Read your history, you dolt..."

The UN says this, but you probably imagine the UN is some sort of conspiracy.

Idiot.

the State is seeking levels of control over our lives that would allow it to eliminate many hard-won liberties, such as the right to travel freely.

No such thing that I ever heard of. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says this:

Article 13.

• Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
• Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

These measures do not prevent anyone from doing that. They merely allow the government to take note when he does. I don't mean to say I like it, but your implication that people aren't allowed to watch you move around is not, in my reading, supported by the document.

Well, given that Israel has been in violation of UN resolutions for at least three times that and the US has never lifted a finger against them.

Article 42
Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Article 36, paragraph 1
The Security Council may, at any stage of a dispute of the nature referred to in Article 33 or of a situation of like nature, recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment.

Well, given that Israel has been in violation of UN resolutions for at least three times that and the US has never lifted a finger against them.

Article 42
Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Article 36, paragraph 1
The Security Council may, at any stage of a dispute of the nature referred to in Article 33 or of a situation of like nature, recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment.

Most of the output of any municipal water system goes to industrial uses. So if you want to rattle your little libertarian saber, rattle it at the corporate types who are using your subsidized water supply, and who will threaten to move their business if you increase rates.

Industrial usage is 782 m^3 per capita per year in North America. Contrast that with the next highest region, Europe with 385, or about half. Anyone think Europe is not a developed region that is competitive with NA? Still think its all about controlling people?

Domestic water usage is a fraction of industrial and agricultural usage. According to this study, in North America domestic water consumption is 167 m^3/year per capita. Industrial is 782 and agricultural is a whopping 912. Conservation programs are important for all sectors, but agricultural and industrial more so.

Note the disparity in industrial and agricultural water consumption between NA and even other developed parts of the world like Europe.

It's rather depressing to see Slashdot care so much about the 35th anniversary of an obscure technical document, and apparently not at all about the 10-year anniversary of the beginning of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

This may not be news for nerds, but it is stuff that matters.

I can't blame /. too much, because I didn't submit an article. But I can feel depressed now by the utter lack of mention of it.

But no matter. Let's forget those dark troubling thoughts, and celebrate the 40th birthday of the IBM/360!

Clinton: 10 trillion dollar surplus (over 10 years)
Bush: 5 trillion dollar deficit (over 10 years)

I think you ment to say a $10 trillion dollar budget surplus, which most certainly did not translate into a real surplus. Why else would the national debt go up from $4.4 Trillion to $5.8 Trillion during the Clinton years, and never go down from year to year?

Clinton: War in Bosnia/Serbia WITH UN backing
Bush: War in Iraq with NO international support

Um, the Bosnia/Serbia conflict never had UN backing, and the war with Iraq had 17 UN resolutions authorizing it (in fact, requiring it from the UN Charter).

Clinton: Longest growth/expansion in US history
Bush: Most job losses since great depression

Just like the fabled Clinton Budget Surplus, the so-called economic growth and expansion of the late '90s was FAKE. If you will recall, we had company after company finally admit that they actually had not been making money during the late '90s. Economic growth and expansion isn't measured by astronomically high PE ratios on stocks, you know.

Also, Here is the national employment summary for March 2004. Compare to the national emploment summary of Jan. 2001, when Bush took office. Current civilian employment is 138,298,000, which is 2,200,000 more than Jan 2001 (135,999,000). How is this the biggest job loss since the depression when we have 2.2 million more jobs now than we did when he took office?

No that's incorrect. According to the UN, the US pumped 5.8 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2000. Volcanism is a huge contribution to CO2 production, but the human race produces more. The US in the above report increased its CO2 production rate by roughly 15% from 1990 to 2000. Alternate sources peg the CO2 release in the same neighborhood (estimates 5.5 billion tons of the carbon portion of CO2 released into the atmosphere - that's roughly 20 billion tons of CO2 released globally per year. In comparison, natural volcanic activity releases around 130-230 million tons of CO2 per year on average.