© Kapok Tree Diplomacy. Feb 2013. All rights reserved. Jeff Dwiggins. FREE CONTENT
Ecuador and China: BFFs and Champions of the 21st Century Socialist Agenda
Ecuador is a beautiful country with a rich and diverse culture, geography and history. My wife is from Ecuador, and I can’t say enough about the friendliness and generosity of her family and many others that I’ve met from Ecuador. My hope is to someday visit the country, God willing, and take in all the sights, sounds, smells and experiences that up until now, I have only experienced through the anecdotal, photographic and video evidence.
However, I feel that my timetable and window for visiting the country is rapidly closing. If things continue in their current economic and political direction under President Correa, there may not be any socio-political stability left, not to mention the inevitable deterioration of the economy that always accompanies centrally-managed socialist states. See Cuba and Russia for good examples. Moreover, I may have to learn Chinese in addition to Spanish to get around the country. So what exactly is going on in Ecuador? Didn’t Rafael Correa make everything better?
President Correa’s Vision
Leftist President Rafael Correa of Ecuador easily won a second term as president of Ecuador on February 16th with 56% of the vote compared to the 23% of his closest competitor, Guillermo Lasso, a banker from Guayaquil.[1] Now President Correa will be able to continue his radical socialist agenda for another four years in Ecuador, especially if his party strengthens their hold on the Assembly. Not everyone in Ecuador is happy about that.
“There is a lot of apprehension that if he wins the Assembly, there will be a greater concentration of power,” said José Hernández, an editor of Hoy, a Quito daily newspaper. “He will try to flatten everyone who is in his way. He will try to dominate more because that’s his personality, and that’s what he wants to do.”[2] So just who is Rafael Correa? Read more
Blind Man’s Bluff: Kazakhstan’s Mirage of Compliance with International Obligations to Uphold the Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Assembly and Association
“Blind Man’s Bluff: Kazakhstan’s Mirage of Compliance with International Obligations to Uphold the Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Assembly and Association” by Kapok Tree Diplomacy
© Kapok Tree Diplomacy. May 2011. All rights reserved. Jeff Dwiggins.
FREE PREVIEW
Section One – The Right to Freedom of Expression
ICCPR Principles and Obligations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), though not legally binding, declares that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression … and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (Art. 19).The ICCPR, which Kazakhstan ratified in 2006 (UN Treaty Collection), expands upon this definition and binds state parties “in accordance with its terms and with international law” (Steiner, Alston and Goodman (SAG) 152). Treaty obligations are to be governed by the Vienna Convention’s Article 26 fundamental principle of pacta sunt servanda which states, “[e]very treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith” (Dunoff, Ratner & Wippman (DRW) 58). Article 19 of the ICCPR declares: Read more
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