Richard Falk

'Albanese is perhaps the one figure of our times that future historians will recall as the one who did the most to redeem our generation from its guilt over the genocide of the Palestinian people. Her reflections in this book are not just timely – they are for the ages' - Yanis Varoufakis Israel’s genocide in Palestine and the complicity of powerful Western states is undermining international human rights and the UN system. The United States has imposed sanctions on lawyers, UN experts, and Palestinian officials in an attempt to bully and intimidate them into silence. One prominent example is UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has played an important role in documenting Israel’s atrocities and those who profit from its oppression of Palestinians. This book compiles Albanese’s indispensable and damning reports on Israel’s conduct in Palestine since October 2023. First outlining the case that this period should be understood as a genocide, Albanese goes on to explain how the ongoing violence fits into a longer history of Israel’s settler colonialism, and finally presents a devastating indictment against the international corporations that treat mass killing and destruction as a business opportunity. The volume also features a reflection by Albanese on the current state of affairs; revelations by her predecessors Richard Falk, John Dugard, and Michael Lynk of their experiences as UN special rapporteurs; and a preface by Lex Takkenberg, a 30-year veteran of UNRWA, co-authored with scholar Mandy Turner. The ebook is free to download from www.plutobooks.com indefinitely, with a request for a donation to the Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA. All royalties from sales of the book will be donated to UNRWA.

This book addresses the geopolitical dimensions of the Ukraine War. From its inception the United States and the NATO alliance that it dominates regarded this conflict as primarily a battle for the future of global security in the post-Cold War 21st Century world. In effect, international law regarding peace and security was intended to constrain the weak and revisionist states such as pre-World War II Germany and Japan. Freedom of action to use force beyond the law was reserved for the strong. With the passage of time this UN conception of geopolitical actors has become less and less existentially descriptive of international reality due to the relative geopolitical passivity of the UK and France as well as the collapse of their overseas empires. Furthermore, this UN approach has been increasingly systemically challenged as regressive, undermining the Rule of Law in world affairs, and making it nearly impossible for the UN even to perform its primary war prevention role. With the Soviet collapse the US sought to substitute unipolar arrangements for the bipolarity of the Cold War era. The primary stakes from this perspective involved whether responsibility for global security would remain under exclusive Western control as had been the case since the early 1990s or would shift to arrangements of shared responsibility as had been the more normal situation since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. However, the Ukraine War seems likely to terminate with either a new type of antagonistic bipolarity with Russia and China cooperating as informal partners in opposition to a U.S.-led NATO or some form of more cooperative multipolarity that adopts a broader policy agenda than global security, likely incorporating world economic, ecological, and humanitarian challenges, with a new sensitivity to 'human security.' If this analytical perspective holds up, the American goal of consolidating unipolarity as a permanent successor to the bipolar Cold War will not emerge from the ashes of Ukraine. Future geopolitical alignments will be dramatically affected by a decisive outcome of the Ukraine War. If Russia loses, the existing system will be consolidated; if Russia wins, it will be somewhat multilateralized. The Ukraine War significantly exposed the imprudence of Moscow and Washington with respect to escalation risks, and the contrasting prudence of China, the first modern Great Power to have attained such a status without relying on conquest or militarist expansion

This book is the first comprehensive examination of UN efforts to protect Palestinian human rights in the territories occupied by Israel more than 50 years ago in the 1967 War. Working through the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, three top international legal experts served for six consecutive years as unpaid Special Rapporteurs with a UN mandate to report on Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and human rights standards. Being outside the discipline that controls UN bureaucrats, they enjoyed a high measure of political independence in carrying out their factfinding and reporting missions. Strikingly, despite their differences in background and political outlook, they came to a unanimous consensus confirming the routine and various Israeli violations of Palestinian basic rights. This book recounts their frustrations, their trials, their experiences, and their conclusions. This joint effort breaks new ground in studies by the UN in several respects. It demonstrates both the positive role played by the UN in a politically controversial area and its blockage by geopolitical forces preventing it from securing the implementation of international law. However, the intense reactions of Israel and pro-Israeli NGOs to this UN work, most notably by UN Watch, attest to the significance of a reliable accounting of Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights Their consistent evasion of the substantive charges made by careful reporting, and recourse by Israeli supporters to discrediting, defamatory attacks on the persons of these Special Rapporteurs, with charges of anti-Semitism, the core of which is subtly shifted from its proper usage as hatred of Jews to justifiable criticism of the state of Israel. While some might argue that the UN inability to enforce international law as futile, or worse, view the UN as merely a vehicle of power politics, this book proves that international public opinion and international solidarity politics are influenced by persuasive expert findings as to international law. Such well-evidenced conclusions encourage transnational activism, as is evident from increased worldwide support for the BDS Campaign and other nonviolent external pressures. This brilliant and authoritative account of the manner in which Israel has administered the Occupied Palestinian Territory during the past 20 years should be regarded as the definitive assessment of that situation.

This political memoir reveals how Richard Falk became prominent in America and internationally as both a public intellectual and citizen pilgrim. interwoven and enriched with personal accounts of his living, learning and loving in many parts of the world. Falk's journey began with a comfortable, yet troubled, childhood in New York City that included a conservative political and secular background, leading on to an Ivy League education. From there, Falk built a life of progressive commitment, highlighted by visits to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, to Iran during the Islamic Revolution, to South Africa at the height of the struggle against apartheid, and frequently to Palestine and Israel. This led to his enduring many defamatory attacks launched by militants defending U.S. foreign policy, and especially in reaction to his expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to achieve basic rights and a just peace. The assault reached its height during the six-year period when Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. Along the way, while a professor of international law at Princeton University, he has published more than 50 books on many scholarly topics, including studies of the profound dangers now facing humanity, the relevance of international law and the UN, and prospects for transforming world order in the direction of peace, justice, and ecological viability. His publications and activism describe various encounters with embedded American militarism, especially as expressed by governmental resistance to responsible efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. In the course of his travels, teaching, and writing, Falk has dealt with many leading personalities around the world, such as Ayatollah Khomeini and Vietnamese PM Pham Von Dong. Aside from a life of travel, commitment, and personal intimacy two themes have dominated his public roles--engaging with the controversies of the present and envisioning a future of world order that is humane and sensitive to ecological limits.

This anthology discusses the war system and provides a rigorous social science approach that is sensitive to values. It premises the etiology of war on a complex reality that builds understanding by investigating all major structural and behavioral variables of the human situation.

This text is designed to provide students with a solid theoretical and methodological base for understanding how the present international system works, how that system is likely to evolve given current world trends, and what realistically can be done to alleviate the most serious global problems. Part 1 develops a world order perspective by examin

Dieses essential vermittelt einen Einblick in die Grundlagen von Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts sind kleine Computerprogramme, die vor allem im Zusammenhang mit der Blockchain-Technologie zum Einsatz kommen. Mit ihnen lassen sich Verträge digital abbilden, überprüfen und automatisiert vollziehen. Die damit verbundenen Potenziale sind bei weitem noch nicht ausgeschöpft, doch schon jetzt finden sich zahlreiche Anwendungsmöglichkeiten. Allerdings werfen Smart Contracts auch eine Reihe rechtlicher Fragen auf. Die Autoren erläutern die Bedeutung und die Struktur von Smart Contracts und geben einen Einblick in deren rechtliche Handhabung.

An interdisciplinary study of this nature and scope reflects contributions of many scholars in divene disciplines and fields concerned with human conflict behavior in general and with human war-prone behavior in particular. They are too numerous to enumerate here. Still, our deep gratitude goes to those scholars whose writings have been incorporated in this volume as "sample representatives" of what their particular disciplines can contribute to the study of war.

This text is designed to provide students with a solid theoretical and methodological base for understanding how the present international system works, how that system is likely to evolve given current world trends, and what realistically can be done to alleviate the most serious global problems. Part 1 develops a world order perspective by examin

Efter att ha uthärdat ett halvsekel av en allt hårdare ockupation utforskar palestinierna nu olika vägar för att uppnå fred. De för en kamp för sina rättigheter i enlighet med internationell lag i sådana fora som FN och Internationella domstolen i Haag, samtidigt som de söker stöd i global solidaritet och fredlig aktivitet genom Rörelsen för bojkott, desinvestering och sanktioner (BDS). Richard Falk har studerat Israel/Palestina-konflikten inifrån under sin långa internationella verksamhet. I ”Palestinas horisont” ser han närmare på de pågående förändringarna och ger en ingående analys av en av vår tids mest kontroversiella frågor. Han undersöker sambanden och förvecklingarna i Israels och Palestinas historia och politik, samtidigt som han går in på de komplicerade relationer konflikten har skapat i det internationella samfundet. Han avvisar bestämt idén att den palestinska kampen nu skulle vara en förlorad sak och tar upp nya möjligheter att få till stånd förändringar. Han sätter därvid in den pågående konflikten i ett större sammanhang. Han reflekterar över Edward Saids arv och framhåller hans idéer som en humanistisk modell för fred, som tar hänsyn till de väldiga svårigheterna att åstadkomma en lösning. Richard Falk, född 1930, är professor emeritus i Internationell rätt vid Princeton University. Mellan 2008 och 2014 tjänade han som FN:s särskilde rapportör om situationen för de mänskliga rättigheterna i det ockuperade Palestina. Richard Falk, en av palestinafrågans mest etablerade och auktoritativa röster, framlägger här sin hittills mest genomtänkta och samlade historiska översikt. Richard Falk har författat ett tjugotal böcker, bl.a. “Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope”, “Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism”, “Chaos and Counterrevolution” och “Religion and Human Global Governance”.

Richard Falk has dedicated much of his life to the study of the Israel/Palestine conflict. In Palestine's Horizon, he brings his experiences to bear on one of the most controversial issues of our times. After enduring years of violent occupation, the Palestinian movement is exploring different avenues for peace. These include the pursuit of rights under international law through the UN and International Criminal Court, and the new emphasis on global solidarity and non-violent militancy embodied by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS). In focusing on these new tactics of resistance, Falk refutes the notion that the Palestinian struggle is a 'lost cause'. He also reflects on the legacy of Edward Said and the importance of his humanist thought in order to present a vision of peace that is mindful of the formidable difficulties of achieving a just solution to the long conflict.

Richard Falk has dedicated much of his life to the study of the Israel/Palestine conflict. In Palestine's Horizon, he brings his experiences to bear on one of the most controversial issues of our times. After enduring years of violent occupation, the Palestinian movement is exploring different avenues for peace. These include the pursuit of rights under international law through the UN and International Criminal Court, and the new emphasis on global solidarity and non-violent militancy embodied by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS). In focusing on these new tactics of resistance, Falk refutes the notion that the Palestinian struggle is a 'lost cause'. He also reflects on the legacy of Edward Said and the importance of his humanist thought in order to present a vision of peace that is mindful of the formidable difficulties of achieving a just solution to the long conflict.

Kill Boxes addresses the legacy of US-sponsored torture, indefinite detention, and drone warfare by deciphering the shocks of recognition that humanistic and artistic responses to violence bring to consciousness if readers and viewers have eyes to face them.Beginning with an analysis of the ways in which the hooded man from Abu Ghraib became iconic, subsequent chapters take up less culturally visible scenes of massive violations of human rights to bring us face to face with these shocks and the forms of recognition that they enable and disavow. We are addressed in the photo of the hooded man, all the more so as he was brutally prevented, in our name, from returning the camera's and thus our gaze. We are addressed in the screams that turn a person, tortured in our name, into howling flesh. We are addressed in poems written in the Guant namo Prison camp, however much American authorities try to censor them, in our name. We are addressed by the victims of the US drone wars, however little American citizens may have heard the names of the places obliterated by the bombs for which their taxes pay. And we know that we are addressed in spite of a number of strategies of brutal refusal of heeding those calls.Providing intensive readings of philosophical texts by Jean Am ry, Jacques Derrida, and Christian Thomasius, with poetic texts by Franz Kafka, Paul Muldoon, and the poet-detainees of Guant namo Bay Prison Camp, and with artistic creations by Sallah Edine Sallat, the American artist collective Forkscrew and an international artist collective from Pakistan, France and the US, Kill Boxes demonstrates the complexity of humanistic responses to crimes committed in the name of national security. The conscious or unconscious knowledge that we are addressed by the victims of these crimes is a critical factor in discussions on torture, on indefinite detention without trial, as practiced in Guant namo, and in debates on the strategies to circumvent the latter altogether, as practiced in drone warfare and its extrajudicial assassination program.The volume concludes with an Afterword by Richard Falk.

Emeritus Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

Emeritus Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

This book depicts the challenges associated with the emergence of a new global order in which patterns of conflict and the role of traditional military power are in the process of radical flux. Our ideas about global order have yet to catch up with these new behavioral trends, including the rise of non-state transnational political actors in the context of neoliberal globalization. In this historical setting the modern territorial sovereign state is confronted by multiple challenges ranging from climate change to mass migration to transnational political extremism. The existing global order seems currently overwhelmed by these challenges, resulting in widespread stress and chaos that is transforming global security in ways that endanger democratic governance. The future will be determined by whether the peoples of the world make their weight felt in support of sustainable global justice and overcome the impact of oppressive and exploitative patterns of corporate and state behavior. It is this problematic set of circumstances that Power Shift addresses.

The Arab Spring has consistently confounded expectations. While many in the West believed that the uprisings would usher in a new age of liberal, secular democracy in the Middle East, in reality their outcomes have proven to be both complex and contradictory. Most ominously, many countries have already experienced a dramatic counterrevolution, in the form of renewed dictatorship, while others have simply descended into chaos and internal conflict.Richard Falk, a distinguished scholar of international law and former UN Rapporteur on Palestine, has been writing on the Arab Spring since its inception in 2011. Chaos and Counterrevolution brings together his collected writings on the uprisings and their aftermath across the region, and offers a unique perspective on these momentous events.Through essays whose subjects range from the Syrian civil war and the emergence of ISIS to the coup in Egypt and the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, Falk explores how and why the Arab Spring has drifted so far from its original goals, and demonstrates how the West has exacerbated the problem through inept and counterproductive interventionism. Chaos and Counterrevolution provides invaluable insight into what has already become one of the defining episodes of our age.

The Arab Spring has consistently confounded expectations. While many in the West believed that the uprisings would usher in a new age of liberal, secular democracy in the Middle East, in reality their outcomes have proven to be both complex and contradictory. Most ominously, many countries have already experienced a dramatic counterrevolution, in the form of renewed dictatorship, while others have simply descended into chaos and internal conflict.Richard Falk, a distinguished scholar of international law and former UN Rapporteur on Palestine, has been writing on the Arab Spring since its inception in 2011. Chaos and Counterrevolution brings together his collected writings on the uprisings and their aftermath across the region, and offers a unique perspective on these momentous events.Through essays whose subjects range from the Syrian civil war and the emergence of ISIS to the coup in Egypt and the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, Falk explores how and why the Arab Spring has drifted so far from its original goals, and demonstrates how the West has exacerbated the problem through inept and counterproductive interventionism. Chaos and Counterrevolution provides invaluable insight into what has already become one of the defining episodes of our age.