Teachers
Citizenship - Citizens of the World
Respect
Interactive Activity

The UK's Human Rights Act 1998 came into force in 2000 and incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights.

In this activity students explore the concept of human rights around the world and discover that, although in principle it’s good, few nations take it seriously.

Students can investigate the human rights records of 12 countries including Russia, USA, South Africa, Serbia, Colombia, and Israel. Each countries notes include case studies, comprehensive background detail and key event information.

Aims:
During this activity students will explore the issue of human rights in different countries. After completing the activity and the accompanying worksheet students should be able to:

• Discuss what a human rights violation is
• Discuss how human rights differ in countries such as Somalia, Colombia, Russia and Serbia
• Understand why it's difficult to respect human rights in all situations
• Explain why prosecuting those who commit horrendous acts is not as cut and dry as they might think

Citizenship, KS4
Knowledge and understanding about becoming informed citizens

• 1.a) the legal and human rights and responsibilities underpinning society and how they relate to citizens, including the role and operation of the criminal and civil justice systems
• 1.f) the opportunities for individuals and voluntary groups to bring about social change locally, nationally, in Europe and internationally
• 1.i) the United Kingdom's relations in Europe, including the European Union, and relations with the Commonwealth and the United Nations
• 1.j) the wider issues and challenges of global interdependence and responsibility, including sustainable development

Developing skills of enquiry and communication

• 2.b) express, justify and defend orally and in writing a personal opinion about such issues, problems or events

Developing skills of participation and responsible action

• 3.a) use their imagination to consider other people's experiences and be able to think about, express, explain and critically evaluate views that are not their own

Worksheet

Answer the following questions:

1. Read through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the European Convention of Human Rights. Which do you think is more easily enforced? Explain why.
   
   
2. Choose three of the countries profiled in “Respect” and using the UDHR as a guide identify which human rights are being violated in the countries you have chosen.
   
   
3. You have been appointed as spokesperson for a new UK human rights pressure group. Your organisation has decided to target the governments of several countries in order to convince them to put a stop to human rights violations within their borders.
   
   Choose one of the three countries you identified in the above activity and develop a strategy for how you would convince the government to make changes.
   
   Will you write letters? Start a media campaign within the country? Orchestrate a coup? Among other things, your strategy should include such things as what activities you will carry out, how and when you will implement them, where you will get funding and manpower, and who specifically in each country you will target.
   
   
4. With all the attention on atrocities around the world, it’s easy to overlook human rights violations here at home. Identify an instance when human rights have been violated in the UK and explain how you would bring justice for the victim.
   
   

Colombia	Israel
Russia	South Africa
USA	Serbia

Text from the free version of Respect is available below. 6 countries are included - Colombia, Russia, South Africa, Serbia, Israel, and USA.

The full version has case studies, background and key event information for a further 6 countries: East Timor, Somalia, India, Japan, Afghanistan, and Jamaica.


Colombia: Case study

Where is Colombia's conscience?
'I feel so bad about the things that I did...It disturbs me so much-that I inflicted death on other people.... I still dream about the boy from my village who I killed. I see him in my dreams, and he is talking to me and saying I killed him for nothing, and I am crying'. - Susan, 16

Child soldiers fight adult wars
'La Chinga', a 13-year-old Colombian assassin, has killed five people.

He's just one of the 14,000 child soldiers who have been caught in the middle of a 36-year old guerrilla conflict that sees Colombian military and right-wing paramilitaries battling it out against rebel peasants.

Rebel forces want reform
The rebel forces - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Army of National Liberation (ELN) - want land reform and empowerment for the rural poor people, the majority of the country's population.

Paramilitary groups & the war on drugs
Right-wing paramilitary groups, such as the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, are backed by the Colombia military and want to stop FARC and ELN.

The Colombia military is in turn supported by the US who provides financial aid in exchange for Colombia's participation in its war against drugs.

However, the US has been heavily criticised because international aid groups feel that the United State's interest lies more in securing oil and coffee exports than combating drugs.

Child soldier are expendable
Both the rebel guerrillas and the paramilitaries recognise the value of recruiting children.

Children are often seen as expendable. They follow orders more readily than adults and are prized as efficient and remorseless killers.

Children are voluntary participants
Many of Colombia's child soldiers are voluntary participants, attracted to military activities because they don't have educational opportunities and rural communities can't offer them a job.

300,000 kids fighting worldwide
According to the UN there are over 300,000 child soldiers worldwide, fighting in 35 countries.

A 2002 optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits governments and rebel groups from recruiting children under the age of 18 into armed forces.


Colombia: Background

A blend of ethnicities
Colombia has a rich history of cultural diversity, with an ethnic mixture primarily composed of indigenous and African peoples, descendents of the Spanish colonizers, and combinations of the three.

Natural riches
It is also extremely rich in natural resources, holding large deposits of oil, gold, silver, platinum and emeralds.

Spanish descendants
However, since the Spanish colonized Colombia in the late fifteenth century, their descendants have typically held the vast majority of the country's wealth.

This situation has provided the motivation for centuries of discontent among the poorer groups as well as for a 40-year-old guerrilla war that persists today.

More than 40,000 deaths
Since the early 1960s when the guerrilla insurgencies began, more than 40,000 people have died and countless more have been displaced.

While the original guerrilla groups were left-wing militants devoted to an overthrow of the government, radical right-wing paramilitary groups have developed to combat them.

Conflict all about cocaine
The result has been a bloody three-way conflict that is now largely centred around the cocaine trade, which guerrilla groups have long used as a means of funding their operations.

This drug trade, which the government has been trying to curb for 30 years, has had the unfortunate effect of making the name of Colombia synonymous with drug cartels, kidnapping, and murder.

Violence overshadows country's beauty
Despite Colombia's rich cultural history and natural beauty, it is now one of the most violent countries in the world.


Colombia: Key events

Gran Colombia
Colombia gained its independence from Spain in 1819 and Simon Bolivar joined it with Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama to form 'Gran Colombia.'

Venezuela broke off in 1829 and Ecuador followed in 1830, while Panama remained with Colombia until 1903, when it was lost to the United States.

La Violencia: A brutal civil war
For the next hundred years, the Liberal and Conservative Parties vied for political control of the country, until 1948, when Liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was assassinated. A brutal civil war, known as 'La Violencia', resulted and 300,000 people died over 10 years.

Two party rule
In 1958, the Liberal and Conservative Parties reached a peace agreement that allowed for a joint rule of the country and outlawed other political parties. This arrangement lasted until 1978, when a more typical party system was reintroduced. Over the next 25 years, power see-sawed between the two major parties, with both repeatedly vowing to put an end to the civil unrest and fighting that had plagued the country.

Guerilla groups rise up
In early 1960, just after the two parties began their shared rule of Colombia, left-wing guerrilla groups began sprouting up and seeking to overthrow the government. The largest were the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is still the largest guerrilla group fighting today. Right-wing paramilitary groups developed to counter these insurgents. Over the next 40 years, as thousands died in these prolonged conflicts, both sides exploited the cocaine trade to fund their goals.

US offers military aid
In 1998, Conservative president Andres Pastrana Arango began peace talks with the FARC in an attempt to end the fighting. Over the next three years, talks were repeatedly broken off and restarted as the different sides failed to reach a lasting agreement. In 2000, Pastrana won almost US$1 billion, mostly in military aid, from the United States to fight the drug cartels and protect key oil pipelines.

A state of emergency
Talks between the government and the guerrillas broke off for good in February 2002, and the fighting continues today under independent president Alvaro Uribe, who declared a state of emergency only days after he was sworn in as president.




Israel: Case study

Should Palestinians get to return home?
Home is a bittersweet word for the 4 million Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.

They're waiting to cross the threshold of their homeland but Israel won't let them go home.

Avoiding demographic suicide
Successive Israeli governments have ruled out the return of the millions of Palestinians in the Middle East, and around the world, to a country that has a population of only six million, fearing that it would equate to 'demographic suicide'.

An influx of Palestinians would eradicate the Jewish majority that gives Israel the right to call itself the world's only Jewish state.

Right of return
Peace in the West Bank hinges on Israel accepting key Palestinian demands.

Palestinians who fled Israel when the country was formed say they must be allowed to return to the area.

The UN in 1948 passed a resolution, dubbed the 'right of return', allowing them to do so - and Palestinians must be given the okay to set up a capital in eastern Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has rejected both requests, claiming that diplomatic solutions must look at the strategic needs of Israel and, at the same time, Palestinians must drop their 'exaggerated desire' for return of Palestinians within the territory of Israel.

Bloody conflict
The Palestinian-Israeli dispute is one of the world's longest unresolved conflicts, and has been particularly bloody over the last 31 months.

Over 2,000 Palestinians and over 700 Israelis have died.

Partition
Palestine is a small territory: approximately 16,000 square kilometres.

In 1947 the United Nations announced a plan to partition Palestine into two states: one Arab Palestinian and one Jewish.

Fifty-six per cent of the land was designated for the emerging Jewish State, while only 43 per cent was designated for the Arab State.

Arab Palestinians majority but get less land
The Arab countries rejected the plan pointing out that Arab Palestinians made up two-thirds of the population and owned more than 80 per cent of the land.

According to the UN partition plan, the now hotly contested area of Jerusalem and Bethlehem was an international zone.

Four million Palestinian refugees
When Israel was created an estimated 725,000 to 810,000 Palestinians fled their homes.

By the end of 2002, the number of Palestinian refugees had surpassed four million, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees.

Jordan is home to most of the world's Palestinian refugees (1,698,271); however, there are large numbers of Palestinian refugees in Gaza (893,141), The West Bank (639,448), the Syrian Arab Republic (405,601) and Lebanon (389,233).


Israel: Background

Zionist ambition
Israel has been at the centre of the violence in the Middle East since its formation, in 1948, out of the British-controlled Palestine.

The result of years of striving on the part of the Zionist movement, Israel was conceived as a homeland for the Jews, who had been spread around the world for centuries.

UN divides Palestine
The horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War increased support for a Jewish state.

In 1948, Britain ended its rule of Palestine and the United Nations divided the region into Jewish and Arab states.

Disagreement broke out between the two groups, however, and the fighting that resulted has continued on and off for the past 55 years, with a final peace agreement proving elusive.

Israeli tanks and Islamic suicide bombers
The last 15 years have been the most violent of the conflict.

Bloodshed on both sides sees Israel claiming lives in military operations and Islamic suicide bombers retaliating.

Peace talks futile thus far
Though peace talks progressed well in the late 1990s, they have since broken down over disagreements about the future of Jerusalem and the presence of Israeli settlers in Palestinian areas.


Israel: Key events

A complicated birth
In 1948, Britain pulled out of Palestine, and the U.N. divided the region into Jewish and Arab sections.

Israel was born, but Arabs rejected the arrangement since the Jews, though far outnumbered by the Arabs, were awarded 56 per cent of the territory.

Israeli control
Fighting broke out over disputed regions and, by 1949, Israel controled 75 per cent of Palestinian territory, including west Jerusalem. Egypt and Jordan annexed the remainder.

Palestinians displaced
The Jewish population swelled due to high immigration following the Holocaust.

Almost a million Palestinians were displaced. That number rose to more than 4 million by the year 2000.

PLO is formed
In 1964, exiled Palestinians formed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with the aim of overthrowing the Israeli government.

Yasser Arafat became leader in 1968.

Six-Day War
Israel captured the rest of Palestine from Egypt and Jordan in the Six-Day War of 1967, including east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, as well as the Sinai Peninsula and parts of Syria.

In a 1979 peace accord signed by Israel and Egypt, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, but all Palestinian areas continue to be controlled by Israel.

Palestinian intifada
The Intifada, an uprising of the Palestinian people, began in 1987 in the occupied areas, signaling the beginning of years of violent clashes between Arabs and Jews.

Palestinians took the brunt of the losses, as the Israeli military continually cracked down on protests by the poorly armed people.

Some 1200 Palestinians died in the first stages of Intifada.

Peace talks
Peace talks began in the early 1990s, and in 1993, Labour Party Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin negotiated a deal with Yasser Arafat through which the Palestinian Authority gained control over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Jericho.

It was an interim arrangement, pending a finalised peace agreement.

Suicide bombings
The two sides signed an expansion deal in 1995 and Palestinians gained increasing control over West Bank areas.

Unfortunately, the peace did not last, and suicide bombings by Islamic militants caused Israel to slow their withdrawal from Palestinian cities. Conflicts continued for the next few years.

Still no solution
Peace talks in 1999 and 2000 came close to finding a solution to the conflict, but ultimately, disagreements over the future of Jerusalem (Palestine claims east Jerusalem as the future capital of their country) derailed the peace process.

In September 2000, future Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited a Jerusalem holy site revered by both Jews and Muslims, sparking further demonstrations and crackdowns.

These skirmishes led to the worst fighting since the Intifada began, with Israel increasing its military presence in Palestinian areas and Islamic suicide bombers routinely attacking Jewish public spaces.




Russia: Case study

Should Russia let go?
Human-rights organisations have presented startling accounts of Russian atrocities.

A private affair
Russia is suffering from a post-communist malaise of sorts.

It has embraced the idea of democracy but hasn't quite rid itself of its KGB attitude: The big bear still prefers to keep the doors of its house firmly closed to outside scrutiny.

One of those doors leads to Russia's southern republic, Chechnya. Russia has been less than forthcoming about Chechnya's state of affairs.

The reason isn't so hard to fathom.

High-murder rate
According to unpublished government statistics, in the first two months of 2003 there were 70 murders and 126 abductions.

Chechnya has a murder rate five to eight times that of Moscow. There have been an estimated 600 to 800 landmine causalities since 1996, most of them children.

Chechen referendum
Chechnya wants independence but Russia isn't willing to let Chechnya go. Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to enter into talks with Chechen leaders and even though a referendum in March 2003 cemented Chechnya's status as part of Russia the violence hasn't stopped.

Russia wants oil, territory
Why Russia wants Chechnya is a complex issue. Russia was once part of a strong union of states, and doesn't feel it can afford to lose any more territory.

More important is the issue of oil. The Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline - a pipeline that runs from Baku, Azerbaijan's capital to Russia's Black Sea port at Novorossiisk - runs through Chechnya and Russia can't afford to lose control of the route.

World can't get in
The world hasn't been able to get a complete picture of what's going on inside Chechnya.

The world hasn't been able to get a complete picture of what's going on inside of Chechnya.

Independent media accounts aren't readily available because Russian authorities won't give journalists access.

International organisations have withdrawn or dramatically scaled back operations because foreign aid workers risked getting kidnapped, murdered, or blown up by landmines.

Startling accounts of Russian atrocities
Human-rights organisations have presented startling accounts of Russian atrocities.

Chechens have been taken away, interrogated, beaten and executed. In some cases Russian forces have blown up the bodies of executed Chechens to destroy signs of torture and make it difficult to determine the cause of death.

Russian guilt absolved by terrorism?
The international community has been slow in demanding accountability for Russia's human rights violations.

What's more, Western criticism of Russia eased considerably after September 11 when President Putin linked Chechnya to terrorist activity.

Mother Russia is aching too
The conflict is also taking a toll on Russian civilians.

In October 2002, 50-armed Chechens held the audience of a Moscow theatre hostage and 129 civilians were killed when Russian Special Forces released a debilitating gas into the theatre in an attempt to flush out the rebel forces.

Rebels continue fight
Later that year, in the Chechen capital of Grozny, Chechen forces blew up a government building and killed 72 civilians.

And, less than two weeks after the March referendum, a bus carrying construction workers exploded on a landmine set by Chechnyan rebels, killing eight.


Russia: Background

A culture of untold riches
A vast and diverse land, Russia has a rich artistic legacy left by such writers as Count Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky and classical composers like Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky.

It also has an impressive record in international athletic competition. But Russia's political and economic situation has been volatile for nearly a century.

Russian revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1917 saw the end of the Tsarist monarchy and the rise to power of the Bolshevik (communist) Party under Lenin.

USSR
Russia was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) until 1991, when reformers put down an attempted coup by hard-line communists and the Soviet Union collapsed.

89 Regions and republics
Russia is the largest state to have come out of the former Soviet Union and is actually a conglomeration of 89 regions and autonomous republics.

Money problems & rebellion
Since the end of the Soviet system, Russia has struggled to stabilise the economy and maintain political control in the former Soviet region, but has faced a devalued currency and separatist rebellions in the state of Chechnya.

Poor human rights record
The situation in Chechnya has become the country's major human-rights issue, as untold thousands have died and millions more have been displaced in an on-going battle that has attracted great amounts of international attention, but that the world has largely overlooked since the 2001 World Trade Centre attacks.


Russia: Key events

Lenin
In 1917, Bolshevik rebels overthrew Tsar Nicholas II and seized power under Lenin.

This led to the formation, in 1922, of the USSR, a coalition of several similar communist republics.

Second World War
The USSR played a decisive role in the Second World War, fighting Germany and eventually taking Berlin in 1945. This allowed the Soviet Union to expand its influence in eastern Europe.

By the mid-1980s, the Cold War was at its height, and the Soviet economy was stagnating.

Perestroika: ending the Cold War
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev introduced a massive restructuring plan (perestroika) that aimed to reform communism and bring about an end to the pointless arms race of the Cold War.

USSR crumbles
This move angered hard-line communists, who attempted to stage a coup in 1991. Their attempt was thwarted by a group of democratic reformers, who were led by Boris Yeltsin and supported economic change.

During this time other Soviet republics began to declare their independence.

In December 1991, the USSR crumbled and Russia was led into the nineties by Yeltsin.

Rubles & rubble
Yeltsin's government struggled with the economic reform as the value of the ruble fell, and in 1994, Russia faced further trouble in Chechnya.

Yeltsin sent troops into Chechnya to quell the separatist uprising, and tens of thousands of Chechen civilians were killed. International criticism of Russia's handling of the situation mounted amid reports of atrocities.

Yeltsin offers Chechnya independence
In 1996, the Russian government and Chechnya reach a peace agreement that allows Chechnya unofficial but uncontested independence.

However, as Yeltsin's health declined and the economy failed to improve over the next three years, tensions between the two sides rose again.

Putin backtracks
Vladimir Putin, who replaced Yeltsin in 1999, sent troops back into Chechnya and the fighting recommenced.

Russia claimed to hold all of Chechnya, but was unable to put an end to guerrilla attacks and uprisings, including terror attacks in other parts of Russia.

During this time, the number of refugees and displaced Chechens stretched beyond one million.

Ties to NATO
Through 2002, Russia pursued closer ties with NATO and wealthy trading partners in a continuing attempt to improve the economy.

Several suicide attacks and other terrorist moves were attributed to Chechen rebels, including the capture of a Moscow theatre, during which some 50 rebels and 120 hostages died.




South Africa: Case study

Is the South African government guilty of murder?
AIDS is the number one killer of South Africans, yet the South African government won't cough up the cash for much-needed drugs.

South Africans can't afford drugs
Millions of HIV-positive South Africans are suffering because they cannot afford to buy anti-retroviral drugs, medication that is recognised as the most effective way to manage HIV. Antiretrovirals interfere with HIV's life cycle and limits its ability to reproduce.

Biggest HIV population in the world
South Africa has a bigger HIV population than any other country. One in five South Africans are infected with HIV.

Free drugs not a solution
The government says that while there is evidence that antiretrovirals work, simply giving away drugs is not the solution.

Patients must follow a strict treatment regimen or the drugs become ineffective.

The government has concerns about how well South Africa's poor, uneducated population could follow such a treatment plan.

No infrastructure for drug distribution
Other concerns include the high costs of the drugs and a national healthcare system that doesn't have the infrastructure to support the distribution of drugs.

Activists accuse government of murder
South African AIDS activists such as the Treatment Action Campaign say the government is murdering its people and that drugs are essential not only because they save lives, but because they get rid of the stigma that goes along with HIV.

Zackie Achmat, head of the Treatment Action Campaign, is HIV-positive, but refuses to take antiretrovirals until the government distributes them for free.

Workforce is infected
Most of the 30 million HIV-infected Africans are working-age men and women.

And, even if the government doesn't see the value of keep the South African workforce alive, the companies who invest in the country do.

Private companies giving away drugs
Johannesburg-based AngloGold Ltd., one of the world's biggest gold producers, announced an antiretroviral project in 2002 as a means of coping with the costs associated with losing its workforce.

Other companies who offer antiretrovirals to their employees include De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. and Coca-Cola Co.

600 die each day
Upwards of 600 South Africans die each day from AIDS-related diseases.


South Africa: Background

Eight decades of white rule
After 80 years of rule by a white minority, South Africa held its first multiracial elections in 1994.

Marked by violence
The nineteenth century in South Africa was marked by violence, starting with the Boer War (1899-1902) between the British and the descendents of Dutch colonisers. Since South Africa became a country in 1910, racial inequality and violence have reigned.

Apartheid
The crisis was at its worst during the rule of the National Party (NP), which instituted a policy of racial segregation, known as apartheid, and kept the white minority in control of every aspect of South African life.

Mandela freed
Finally, international pressure brought about the end of apartheid in 1991 and the freedom of Nelson Mandela, a black leader who had been imprisoned by the NP for 27 years.

A recovering nation
Since 1991, in the face of overwhelming odds, South Africa has striven to create a stable democracy and stem retributive racial violence, while joining the international community and recovering from decades of economic sanctions.

It has had surprising success with this, but now faces a newer problem: the worst AIDS statistics in the world.


South Africa: Key events

Union of South Africa
In 1910, after 100 years of fighting, the British and Dutch controlled regions in southern Africa were merged into one country.

The Union of South Africa was formed from the British colonies of The Cape of Good Hope and Natal, and the Boer (Dutch) republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State.

Native national congress
Two years later, the Native National Congress was founded. It was a party of black Africans that was later known as the African National Congress (ANC).

Black oppression leads to civil disobedience
Blacks were oppressed throughout the next 35 years and, in 1948, the National Party (NP) gained power and during the following years, introduced the policies of apartheid.

The ANC, led by Nelson Mandela, began practicing civil disobedience in protest.

Economic sanctions
South Africa became a republic in 1961, leaving the British Commonwealth.

International pressure to end human rights abuses mounted steadily though the 1960s. South Africa was excluded from the Olympic Games. Crushing economic sanctions were imposed by many countries.

Still, the NP managed to hold onto power.

Mandela sentenced to life in prison
In 1964, after heading a lengthy campaign of civil disobedience and sabotage, Nelson Mandela was arrested and sentenced to life in prison.

Through the 1970s, 3 million blacks were forcibly resettled and countless people died in protests, uprisings, and clashes with security forces.

Apartheid ends
In 1989, F.W. de Klerk was elected president, and faced with sanctions and international pressure, he began dismantling apartheid.

Mandela freed
De Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and freed Mandela, who had spent 27 years in prison, in 1990.

Mandela first black president
The ANC won the first post-apartheid election in 1994, and Mandela became the first black president of South Africa.

Atonement for human rights sins
In 1996, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, began hearing the testimonies of those who committed human rights crimes during the apartheid years.

The TRC is aimed at forgiveness between the races, and is widely criticised for its approach, though South Africa appears to be recovering from apartheid remarkably quickly.

Thabo Mbeki new leader
Thabo Mbeki replaced Nelson Mandela as leader of the ANC in 1999. Mandela retired to enjoy a reputation as the elder statesman of South African politics.

Aids controversy
By the end of the century, AIDS gained prominence as the major problem facing South Africa.

In 2000, studies concluded that 20 per cent of the adult population was infected with HIV, but Mbeki downplays the problem, refusing to deal directly with the issue.




USA: Case study

Is the death penalty the ultimate human rights violation?
The United States has executed the most child criminals: 17 since 1990 and 4 in the last two years.

Axis of executioners
The US speaks out vehemently against human rights violations, so much, so that it's fighting an axis of evil that threatens world peace.

But Amnesty International says that the US conveniently overlooks its place along an 'axis of executioners'.

Ultimate rights violation
The death penalty is considered by many to be the ultimate human rights violation. Premeditated, cold-blooded killing in the guise of justice.

Only three major democracies execute
It has been abolished by all of the world's major democracies except for Japan, India and the US.

China executes most people
In 2002, more than 1,526 prisoners were executed in 31 countries.

And, even though 83 countries support the death penalty, China, Iran and the US accounted for 81 per cent of all recorded executions.

Each year China executes the most prisoners. In 2002 China executed 1,060 compared to 2,468 in the year previous. Iran executed 113. The US executed 71.

US won't sign Rights of the Child convention
The US leads the world in the execution of child offenders.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly spells out that capital punishment can't be imposed for offences committed by anyone under 18 years of age.

The US and Somalia are the only UN countries that have not ratified the Convention.


USA: Background

World superpower
As the world's only real military and economic superpower, the United States has had little trouble taking on the role of cultural superpower as well.

Cultural exports
The United States has dominated the world of entertainment for decades, exporting its television, movies, music, and sports figures to every place on earth capable of receiving them.

US icons recognised worldwide
Blues, Jazz, and Rap music, The Simpsons, Hollywood movies, and Michael Jordan are just a few examples of American cultural icons that have received nearly universal recognition in the world.

Diverse nation
The US is an extremely diverse nation comprised of hundreds of distinct ethnicities, though it does not embrace the idea of 'multiculturalism' per se.

Melting pot
Instead, the 'melting pot' is a central idea in American national identity, through which all immigrants theoretically leave their ethnicities at the door and become 'American'.

Distrust of US foreign policy
The US has also largely dominated international affairs since the end of the Second World War.

Unfortunately, this has led to increasing distrust of the US and its policies among the world's people.

Primarily, it is the US's tendency to get involved in the domestic affairs of other states when its own interests can be served that has drawn criticism over the years.

US meddling leads to terrorism?
Some argue that the increasing cultural, economic, and military interference of the US around the world has led to some of the terrorism that it has suffered in the last few years, including the September 11 World Trade Centre attacks in 2001.

Trouble on the homefront
Certain domestic issues have posed problems for the US throughout the twentieth century.

Racial tension has never ceased to be an issue since the abolition of slavery at the end of the American Civil War, with racial violence breaking out around the country with regularlity.

War on terrorism
Lately, however, domestic concerns in the US have been eclipsed by international tensions surrounding President George W. Bush's 'War on Terror' and the 2003 war in Iraq.


USA: Key events

Waves of Immigration
Three waves of immigration swelled the American population from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

British settlers
The first wave were the British settlers who colonised America starting in 1600.

Black slaves
The second was the involuntary wave of black slaves whom the British brought from Africa in their hundreds of thousands over the next 200 years.

European immigrants
The third wave was made up of the European immigrants, who poured into the country following independence, seeking political and religious freedom and opportunity.

War of Independence
The US won independence from Britain at the end of the War of Independence in 1787. George Washington was elected the first president in 1789.

American Civil War
The American Civil War was fought between 1861 and 1865 between the abolitionist northern Union under President Abraham Lincoln, and the pro-slavery southern confederacy.

Blacks free, but oppressed
The Union was the war in 1865 and abolished slavery, though black Americans continued to be oppressed, segregated, beaten, and killed, primarily in the southern states, for 100 years.

Stock market crash
In 1929, the stock market crashed, and over the next four years, 13 million people lost their livelihoods. It was 10 years before the economy regained a measure of normality.

US joins war
The US joined the Second World War when Japan attacked the US Navy at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

It defeated the Japanese in the South Pacific and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, killing upwards of 100,000 people.

Fight against communism
From 1950 onward, the US became increasingly involved in foreign affairs, and was primarily interested in fighting communism.

It regularly intervened in wars in which communist states were involved, such as the Korean War in the early 1950s and the Vietnam conflict in the 60s and early 70s.

Bay of Pigs
In 1961, the US funded, trained and encouraged Cuban exiles to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The operation fails and becomes a scandal in America.

Black rights
Black Americans were given constitutional equality through the Civil Rights Act in 1964, 100 years after being freed by Lincoln, but racial tensions remained high. Martin Luther King Jr., a revered black civil rights activist, was assassinated in 1968.

Cold War
From 1970, the Cold War between the US and the USSR escalated into a nuclear arms race and the US continues to fight communism. In 1983, under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, it invaded the island of Grenada over concerns about the island's close ties with Cuba.

Gulf War
During the Persian Gulf War in 1991 the US fought off the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait but failed to unseat Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

World resentment
America's foreign policy, combined with its flamboyant wealth, cultural domination of the world, and relentless pursuit of oil, continues to inspire resentment in poorer countries.

Many people attribute a series of terrorist attacks on American targets around the turn of the century, culminating in the World Trade Center attacks, to this resentment.

Afghanistan
Osama Bin Laden is the key suspect in the Trade Centre attacks, and the hunt for him led to the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 and the second Gulf War in Iraq.

The war in Iraq was widely opposed by the international community and incited the largest peace demonstrations in the US since the Vietnam war.

An elusive goal
Though the United Nations Security Council did not sanction the war, the US and Britain led an attack in 2003 that lasted about three weeks and seemed to succeed in overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein. Osama Bin Laden proves elusive, and the War on Terror is ongoing.




Serbia: Case study

When will Serbia uncover all of the mass graves?
Almost 500 mass gravesites are the legacy of violence in Kosovo.

Since 1998, when the violence in Serbia and Kosovo became international news, one of the major preoccupations of NATO and the international community has been investigating the reports of mass graves containing the bodies of thousands of civilian Kosovar Albanians.

These reports were the centrepiece around which NATO's involvement in the conflict revolved.

Genocide: international watchword
Since the Second World War, the term 'genocide' has become more and more of a watchword, a caution to the international community to be vigilant against the horrible events of that time ever reoccurring.

Ethnic cleansing
In the mid 1990s, during the Balkan War, the term associated with Slobodan Milosevic's nationalistic campaign in Bosnia, 'ethnic cleansing', began to replace 'genocide' as the popular expression.

When reports of ethnic cleansing began to surface in Kosovo in mid-1998, the international community, led by the United States, very quickly took notice.

Eyewitness accounts
There was some attention being given to the situation, as Kosovar rebels steadily increased violence of their fight for independence from Serbia.

It wasn't until humanitarian agencies came forward with eye-witness accounts of ethnic cleansing and mass graves that the international community intervened.

Hundreds of bodies taken away in trucks
One such account of Serb forces occupies a Kosovar town alleged that more than 500 civilians had been murdered by Serbian troops and taken away in trucks for mass burial.

As NATO became involved and began bombing Serbia in an effort to drive its military out of Kosovo, the question of mass graves became central to the debate surrounding the conflict.

Aerial photos provide proof
The issue of whether or not ethnic cleansing was really occurring in Kosovo hinged on the presence or absence of mass graves, and evidence of these became key to NATO's war publicity.

In April 1999, NATO published aerial photographs of sites it claimed were mass graves containing the bodies of up to 150 Kosovar Albanians.

300 hundred sites need to be found
After the bombing ended with the fall of Milosevic and the United Nations took over the interim government of Kosovo, forensic investigators began searching for evidence of mass graves.

By the end of 2002, they had discovered over 2100 bodies in some 200 mass grave sites.

There are thought to be up to 500 such sites in total.

US partly responsible
Some people feel that a certain amount of responsibility for the events lies with the United States.

They feel that in 1995, in an effort to end the Balkan War, the U.S. used Milosevic as a public relations tool, signing the Dayton Peace Agreement with him, and then painting him as a great peacemaker.

They argue that this move gave Milosevic a good international reputation and allowed him to act as he pleased for many months before the rest of the world caught on.

Milosevic tried
In 2002, the United Nations war-crimes tribunal brought Slobodan Milosevic before the court to stand trial on accusations involving war crimes and genocide.

He refused to recognise the authority of the court, insisted on defending himself, and attempted to thwart the court's progress at every opportunity.

Meanwhile, investigators continue to search Serbia and Kosovo to uncover the locations of all of the remaining mass graves.


Serbia: Background

Hotly contested territory
Kosovo first received widespread attention in 1998, when it became the cause of a NATO air-strike campaign against Yugoslavia.

It has, however, been a hotly contested territory for hundreds of years, with both Serbia and Albania claiming ancestral rights.

An international protectorate
While officially a province of Serbia, Kosovo has possessed full autonomy for many of the last 30 years, with most of the rights of the other Yugoslav republics.

It is now an international protectorate governed by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Population 90 per cent Albanian
With a population that is 90 per cent ethnic Albanian, Kosovo has had a history of independence movements ever since being granted autonomy in 1974.

These movements gained momentum through the 1990s and in 1998.

The Kosovo Liberation Army stepped up the independence fight and the Serbian military, under nationalist President Slobodan Milosevic, began cracking down with heavy presence in Kosovo.

Human rights abuses leads to massive bombing campaign
While the international community did not support the Kosovars' demands for independence, it did apply strong pressure on Milosevic to remove his troops from Kosovo.

Allegations of human-rights abuses and genocide eventually led to NATO beginning a massive bombing campaign that ended in a Serbian withdrawal and the formation of the UNMIK.


Serbia: Key events

Torn Apart by Territorial Dispute
Until the Second World War, Kosovo was repeatedly fought over by Serbia and Albania.

Serbian settlers
Throughout the nineteenth century, Albanians came to make up the majority of the population. Serbia tried to balance the population by sending Serbian settlers to the area through the first half of the twentieth century.

Albanian uprising
This caused frequent Albanian uprising and demands for independence. During the Second World War, Yugoslav fighters promised Albanian Kosovars the right to join Albania in return for help repelling the German and Italian forces.

The Yugoslavs did not keep their promise, and further uprisings marked the next 30 years.

Autonomy not good enough
In 1974, Kosovo won autonomy, but Serbs remained discontented for the next 15 years.

Albanian Kosovars were not satisfied with being an autonomous province and continued to push for complete independence.

Also, Serbian emigration from Kosovo led to Albanians outnumbering Serbs in Kosovo nine to one.

Milosevic strips Kosovo of autonomy
Milosevic used this discontent to rise to power and, in 1989, he stripped Kosovo of its autonomy, setting off 10 years of increasing tension and militarism in the area.

By 1998, the Kosovo Liberation Army had armed itself and was fighting a guerrilla campaign against Milosevic's Serbian forces.

NATO bombing campaign
Serbia began crushing these revolts amid growing international condemnation. In March 1999, NATO began its bombing campaign on strategic military targets throughout Serbia.

Refugees
Refugees immediately began pouring over the border from Kosovo into Montenegro, Albania, and Macedonia, with reports of widespread atrocities and ethnic cleansing.

The bombing lasts just over two months, and in June 1999, the two sides reached a peace agreement and Serbian forces began withdrawing from Kosovo.

Governed by UN

Since the end of the conflict, the UN has governed Kosovo, though recently, some state functions have been returned to the administration of local authorities.