Articles by Richard Falk
We found 839 results.
The International Criminal Court Plays Politics? The Qaddafi Arrest Warrants
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2011
This politicized use of the ICC in the course of the Libyan War offers an opportunity for those dedicated to global justice, especially in the Arab world, to insist that international law should no longer serve as a plaything for those who intervene with hard power in their region from the comfort zone of NATO headquarters.
→ read full articleA Few Notes on WHAT IS LEFT (or Toward a Manifesto for Revolutionary Emancipation)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2011
These notes are meant as tentative and conversational expressions of an emergent political point of view, and will be revised in response to commentary by others. Obviously, also, there is no pretension on my part of comprehensiveness, or else many other issues would have been addressed.
→ read full articleTurkey, the Region, and the West after the Elections
Richard Falk & Hilal Elver – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2011
What emerges overall is this American led reluctance to accept Turkey as an independent regional force in the Middle East that has achieved enormous influence in recent years by relying on its own brand of soft power diplomacy. A dramatic indicator of this influence is the great popularity of Erdogan throughout the region, including among the youth who brought about the uprisings against authoritarian rule throughout the Arab world. It is an encouraging sign of the times that these new Arab champions of democracy are coming to Ankara and Istanbul, not Washington, Tel Aviv, or Paris, for guidance and inspiration.
→ read full articleIs the State a Monster? Pro and Contra Nietzsche
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2011
In Part One of Friederich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra there is a particularly provocative section entitled ‘Of the New Idol.’ Remembering that this pivotal writing of the great German thinker/philosopher, so often misinterpreted, was written in 1881, it is surprising how relevant and invigorating its strong language remains in 2011.
→ read full articleInterpreting the AKP Victory in Turkey
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2011
The following post was written jointly with Hilal Elver, who is a Turkish scholar and public intellectual. It offers commentary on the recent AKP victory, which is viewed as a significant and hopeful development in Turkish, and regional, politics.
→ read full articleA Shameless Secretary General versus Freedom Flotilla 2
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2011
In light of these surrounding circumstances, including the failure of Israel to live up to its announced promise after the attack in 2010 to lift the blockade, it shocks our moral and legal sensibilities that the UN Secretary General should be using the authority of his office to urge member governments to prevent ships from joining Freedom Flotilla 2.
→ read full articleObama’s AIPAC Speech: A Further Betrayal of the Palestinian People
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 May 2011
After such a speech the only responsible response by the Palestinian leadership is to conclude once and for all, however belatedly, that it is no longer possible to look to Washington for guidance in reaching a peaceful, just, and sustainable resolution of the conflict.
→ read full articleGlobal Leadership: American Retreat, BRIC Ambivalence, and Turkey’s Rise
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2011
As the American president, Barack Obama, sets forth his views on the future of the Middle East it seems a good time to take stock of the leadership vacuum in world affairs, and whether there are alternatives to the role the United States has played ever since World War II.
→ read full articleObama’s Flawed Approach to the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2011
In many respects, Obama’s speech, aside from the soaring rhetoric, might have been crafted in Tel Aviv rather than the White House. It is a tribute to Israel’s extraordinary influence upon the American media that has been able to shift the focus of assessment to the supposed Israeli anger about affirming Palestinian statehood within 1967 borders.
→ read full articleObserving the 63rd Nakba
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
The Nakba is of course a day of grievance and resolve for all Palestinians including the several million living in refugee camps for decades in the countries surrounding Palestine and other millions in exile throughout the region and the world. A sustainable peace must realize the rights of all Palestinians, and must be broader and deeper than ending the occupation or establishing a Palestinian state. Palestinian representation to be legitimate and effective must keep faith with this wider Palestinian reality, and not confine its political program to a territorial imaginary.
→ read full articlePress Release-UN High Commission for Human Rights: Palestinian Nakba
Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
On May 15 2011 the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Mr. Richard Falk, marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophic beginning of the Palestinian tragedy of dispossession and occupation, with the following statement.
→ read full articleHazards and Hopes of Limitless Freedom of Expression
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2011
One of the glories of the Western Enlightenment, especially as embodied in the lifeblood of political democracies is freedom of expression, the right to give voice in public spaces to unpopular, tasteless, provocative, and even outrageous ideas, and especially those critical of the prevailing political order without fear of retaliation.
→ read full articleIs the Arab Spring a Black Swan?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2011
Having just visited Egypt for a week I came away with this dual sense that the revolutionary dynamics have produced remarkable results that form a glorious chapter of Egyptian history, but also that there are a variety of dark forces that are working under the radar to contain if not reverse this exhilirating democratizing momentum.
→ read full articleWhat Future for the Goldstone Report? Beyond the Name
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2011
Only half satirically, I would think that the Goldstone Report might be time to rename the Goldstone Report as the Chinkin Report or blandly let it be henceforth be known as the ‘Report on Israeli and Hamas War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity during Operation Cast Lead.’ Whatever the name, the main allegations have been confirmed over and over again, and it is now up to the governments making up the UN General Assembly and Security Council to show the world whether international criminal accountability and the International Criminal Court is exclusively reserved for sub-Saharan African wrongdoing!
→ read full articleRethinking Germany
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2011
For Germany to stand alone among its Western allies while being in solidarity with the BRIC countries should be a moment of national pride, not a time for solemn soul searching as the German mainstream media has been encouraging.
→ read full articleObama’s Libyan Folly: To be or not to be…
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2011
The outcome in Libya remains uncertain, but what seems clear beyond reasonable doubt is that military intervention has not saved the day for either the shadowy opposition known as ‘the rebels,’ and certainly not for the people of the country.
→ read full articleQaddafi, Moral Interventionism, Libya, and the Arab Revolutionary Moment
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Mar 2011
Recently [Qaddafi] confirmed this assessment, referring to his own people as ‘rats and dogs’ or ‘cockroaches,’ and employing the bloodthirsty and vengeful language of a demented tyrant. Such a tragic imposition of political abuse on the Libyan experience is a painful reality that exists beyond any reasonable doubt, but does it validate a UN authorized military intervention carried out by a revived partnership of those old colonial partners, France and Britain, and their post-colonial American imperial overseer? I think not.
→ read full articleLearning from Disaster? After Sendai
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2011
Let us fervently hope that this Sendai disaster will not take further turns for the worse, but that the warnings already embedded in such happenings, will awaken enough people to the dangers on this path of hyper-modernity so that a politics of limits can arise to challenge the prevailing politics of limitless growth. Such a challenge must include the repudiation of a neoliberal worldview, insisting without compromise on an economics based on needs and people rather than on profit margins and capital efficiency.
→ read full articleWill We Ever Learn? Kicking the Intervention Habit
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Mar 2011
It should be obvious that a no-fly zone in Libyan airspace is an act of war, as would be, of course, contemplated air strikes on fortifications of the Qadaffi forces. The core legal obligation of the UN Charter requires member states to refrain from any use of force unless it can be justified as self-defense after a cross-border armed attack or mandated by a decision of the UN Security Council. Neither of these conditions authorizing a legal use of force is remotely present,…
→ read full articleCommentary on Recent Developments: Interview Responses
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2011
The following Q & A interview consists of my responses to questions put to me by the outstanding Greek journalist, C. J. Polychroniou, and is being published in a Greek newspaper.
→ read full articleThe United States Stands Alone with Israel in the UN Security Council (or How Honest is the Honest Broker)?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Feb 2011
In what appears to be as close to a consensus as the world community can ever hope to achieve, the United States reluctantly stood its ground on behalf of Israel and on February 18, 2011 vetoed a resolution on the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that was supported by all 14 of the other members of the UN Security Council. The resolution was also sponsored by 130 member countries before being presented to the Council.
→ read full articleReport of Special Rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council on Occupied Palestinian Territories
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Feb 2011
14 Feb 2011 – I am posting the official text of my most recent report to the UN Human Rights Council on Israeli human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The period covered ends in December 2010, and the report will be formally presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 21, 2011. Of course, the impact of recent events, especially in Egypt, is not considered. Of primary interest will be the approach taken by the new Egyptian leadership to the Rafah Crossing, especially whether humanitarian goods will be permitted to enter freely and whether Gazans will be allowed to leave and return without difficulty.
→ read full articleRevolutionary Prospects after Mubarak
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Feb 2011
The bravery, discipline, and creativity of the Egyptian revolutionary movement is nothing short of a political miracle, deserving to be regarded as one of the seven political wonders of the modern world! To have achieved these results without violence, despite a series of bloody provocations, and persisting without an iconic leader, without even the clarifying benefit of a revolutionary manifesto, epitomizes the originality and grandeur of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.
→ read full articleThe Toxic Residue of Colonialism: Protecting Interests, Disregarding Rights
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Feb 2011
Here is the crux of the ethical irony. Washington is respectful of the logic of self-determination so long as it converges with American grand strategy, and oblivious to the will of the people whenever its expression is seen as posing a threat to the neoliberal overlords of the globalized world economy or to strategic alignments that seem so dear to State Department or Pentagon planners.
→ read full articleEgypt’s Transformative Moment: Revolution, Counterrevolution, or Reform
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Feb 2011
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 there have been two further transformative events that have reshaped in enduring ways the global setting. When the Soviet empire collapsed two years later, the way was opened for the triumphalist pursuit of the American Imperial Project, seizing the opportunity for geopolitical expansion provided by its self-anointed global leadership as ‘the sole surviving superpower.’ This first rupture in the character of world order…. The second rupture came with the 9/11 attacks, however those events are construed. The impact of the attacks transferred the locus of policymaking authority back to the United States, as state actor, under the rubrics of ‘the war on terror,’ ‘global security,’ and ‘the long war.’
→ read full articleWelcoming the Tunisian Revolution: Hopes and Fears
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jan 2011
Turning back to North Africa, in 1992 when the FIS in Algeria won hotly contested elections for legislative representation, the military intervened to impose its will, Washington was silent, and remained so during the ‘dark decade’ of strife followed in which at least 60,000 Algerians lost their lives. It is part of the reality in the region that American strategic and ideological goals point one way and the popular will of the people point in the opposite direction. It is thus either hypocritical or a sign of deep confusion for American leadership to advocate democracy in the Middle East without being willing to alter its grand strategy.
→ read full articleOn Jewish Identity
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jan 2011
As someone who is both Jewish and supportive of the Palestinian struggle for a just and sustainable peace, I am often asked about my identity. The harshest critics of my understanding of the Israel/Palestine conflict contend that I am a self-hating Jew, which implies that sharp criticism of Israel and Zionism are somehow incompatible with affirming a Jewish identity. Of course, I deny this.
→ read full articleHopes of Gaza Cast in Lead
Richard Falk – Al Jazeera,
10 Jan 2011
Israel is gearing up for another major offensive into Gaza, yet the world community still remains bafflingly silent. The influential Israeli journalist, Ron Ren-Yishai, writes on December 29, 2010, of the likely prospect of a new major IDF attack, quoting senior Israeli military officers as saying “It’s not a question of if, but rather of when,” a view that that is shared, according to Ren-Yishai, by “government ministers, Knesset members and municipal heads in the Gaza region”.
→ read full articleThe Palestinian ‘Legitimacy War’
Prof. Richard Falk – Al Jazeera,
27 Dec 2010
These ideas [Nuremberg Principles] underlie the recent prosecution of geopolitical pariahs such as Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic, and several African tyrannical figures. But when it comes to the lead political actors, as understood by the American-led hegemonic hierarchy, the leadership of the rest of the world enjoys impunity, in effect, an exemption from accountability to international criminal law.
→ read full articleThe Delusions of the Peace Process
Richard Falk – Al Jazeera,
20 Dec 2010
In effect, a habitual armed robber was being asked to stop robbing a few banks for three months in exchange for a huge financial payoff. Such an arrangement qualifies as a transparently shameless embrace of Israeli lawlessness on behalf of a peace process that has no prospect of producing peace, much less justice.
→ read full articleNuclear Dangers and Opportunities in the Middle East
Richard Falk and David Krieger – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,
27 Sep 2010
Hardly a week goes by without an Israeli top official threatening to attack Iran so as to disrupt or destroy its nuclear program, which is suspected of moving in the direction of acquiring nuclear weapons. Shamelessly, as well, the extreme right think tanks in the Washington Beltway and many faithful followers of Israel echo these dangerous sentiments. They send Tel Aviv a signal that it has a green light to launch an attack on Iran at the time of its choosing, along with the reassuring message that the United States Government will step forward in support, whatever the adverse economic and diplomatic consequences for the region.
→ read full articleThe Brazilian/Turkish Initiative: Rebalancing the World
Prof. Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 May 2010
Instead of welcoming this notable effort to reduce regional tensions, the Brazilian/Turkish initiative was immediately branded as an amateurish irrelevance by the American Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. She insisted that the concerns about Iranian nuclear enrichment be left exclusively in the hands of the ‘major powers,’ and immediately rallied China and Russia (in addition to France and the United Kingdom) to support a fourth round of punitive sanctions that were to be presented to the UN Security Council in the near future.
→ read full articleThe Palestinians Are Winning the Legitimacy War: Will It Matter?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Apr 2010
A Palestinian victory in the legitimacy war with Israel would not necessarily produce the desired political results. It is vital that the Palestinians exercise “patience, resolve, leadership and vision, as well as sufficient pressure” if they are to win their just rights.
→ read full articleHUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES
Richard Falk – Member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace and Development,
25 Mar 2009
United Nations General Assembly – Human Rights Council 18 February 2009 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.PLEASE CONTINUE READING IN THE ORIGINAL
→ read full articleISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES
Richard Falk,
22 Mar 2009
Israel blamed its earlier wars on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel account for its war crimes? For the first time since the establishment of […]
→ read full articleISRAEL VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW
Prof. Richard Falk - United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories,
4 Jan 2009
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war. Those violations include: Collective punishment – the entire 1.5 million people who live […]
→ read full articleISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES
Richard Falk,
1 Jan 2009
Editor’s Note: This statement was issued December 27 in response to Israel’s attack in Gaza by Professor Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories and a longtime member of The Nation’s editorial board. The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law […]
→ read full articleMY EXPULSION FROM ISRAEL
Richard Falk,
21 Dec 2008
When I arrived in Israel as a UN representative I knew there might be problems at the airport. And there were. On December 14, I arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel to carry out my UN role as special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. I was leading a mission that had intended […]
→ read full articleHORIZONS OF A GRAND THEORY OF PEACE
Richard Falk,
12 Oct 2008
Presented at a conference at ICU-International Christian University, Tokyo, earlier this year. I. Introduction My approach to such a daunting challenge seeks to be attentive to the urgings of Professor Shin Chiba that “..our quest for a grand theory of peace should be made in response to the crisis of the present age as it […]
→ read full article