Critique internationale - Content
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Nicolaidis (Kalypso), Howse (Robert), EDS. The Federal Vision. Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the United States and the European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, 537 pages.
Chopin (Thierry), La République « une et divisible ». Les fondements de la Fédération américaine, Paris, Plon, 2002, 324 pages.
Ducreux (Marie-Elizabeth), Marès (Antoine), DIR. Enjeux de l’histoire en Europe centrale, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2002, 264 pages.
Revault D’Allonnes(Myriam), Fragile humanité, Paris, Aubier, 2002,233 pages.
Timmerman (Kenneth R.), Shakedown : Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson, Washington, Regnery Publishing, 2002, 501 pages.
Ebrahim-Vally (Rehana) Kala Pani. Caste and Colour in South Africa, Le Cap, Kwela Books, 2001, 248 pages
[The future of international protectorates in the Balkans. Independent International Commission on Kosovo]
Why conditional independence? The follow-up of the Kosovo report
The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, created in 1999 by the Swedish government and co-presided by Richard Goldstone and Carl Tham, came to the conclusion in its October 2000 report that the NATO intervention was legitimate, although illegal, and that the aim of establishing an international protectorate that was a consequence of it should be the “conditional independence” of Kosovo. One year later, in Fall 2001, it considers that the situation has evolved in a way that confirms the wisdom of its analyses. The fall of Milosevic and the decline of violent nationalistic movements obvious in the recent elections in various parts of ex-Yugoslavia, far from justifying passivity from the international community, obliges it to seize the opportunity to discuss the final status of Kosovo in the best possible conditions. This independence should be conditional, with shared sovereignty. Indeed, all national sovereignties in the 21st century are shared in some way.
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[Priorities and limits to penitentiary policy in Russia]
In the Russian context where political leaders base their legitimacy at least partially on their determination to combat crime, penitentiary policies and criminal law change slowly and are far indeed from meeting the criteria of a democratized political regime. The selection and ranking of objectives and priority values of public action meet diplomatic criteria (present a democratic image of Russia abroad), as well as budgetary and practical considerations more so than those of a general reform project. Thus the goal of reducing the prison population has led to granting many amnesties with virtually no thought to how imprisonment fits within judicial practices. However, prison directors and regional directors of the penitentiary administration enjoy considerable leeway, which in some cases allows them to conduct their own penitentiary policy. But they should not expect to see their careers benefit from their innovative initiatives.
[Reform and stasis in South African prisons]
The transition in the 1990s gave South Africans the opportunity to rethink their conception of crime and punishment. The Constitution in particular contains explicit provisions regarding the respect of inmates’ human dignity. Law 111 of 1998 on correctional services is also very liberal. However, the mindsets and practices of the former regime die hard (especially but not only due to a lack of funds). Furthermore, a wave of criminal violence, to the surprise of those who expected to see it decrease with the end of apartheid, has inflated the prison population not only mechanically but also under the growing pressure of public opinion for a more repressive attitude. The improvement of prison conditions required to achieve the asserted priority objective of the rehabilitation of the inmates is thus far from being accomplished.
[German singularity. The surprises of unification in the prison system]
As in most other areas, prisons in GDR and FRG differed before 1989 on all accounts (their role in the repressive mechanism, their objectives, their practices). The transition policy in prison matters was conducted according to the same method as for the unification of the rest of the administration, i.e. one (or several) Land in the West was twinned with a Land in the East, civil servants were exchanged and the East Land adopted the laws and regulations of its western counterpart. Depending on the indicators chosen, the resulting situation today reflects either persistent but very attenuated differences between the old and new Länder (for instance the indicators of the degree of openness or the physical conditions of detention, the East being less open and tougher than the West), or between the pairings themselves (for instance the ratio of social workers to prisoners, which are similar in the “pairs” of Länder).
[Prison reform in Turkey: good use of the European standard]
The prison reform announced in 2000 had two manifest objectives: humanitarian motives (improve conditions of incarceration) and motives of security (reassert state authority in the prisons). It mainly involved replacing the dormitories with one- to three-inmate cells. These dormitories were, however, places where socialization and politicization occurred, particularly among Kurdish and extreme leftwing organizations. Inmate resistance took on the form of a hunger strike which, for various reasons, was soon isolated from public opinion, and therefore took a more desperate and radical turn. In conducting their reform, the Turkish authorities responded to European pressure by choosing among the demands expressed by European institutions those which it suited them to implement, regardless of any priority Europe had given them.
[Did May ’68 change French prisons?]
It was three years after May ’68 but still in its wake that the Prison Information Group was created (for which Michel Foucault was one of the spokesmen), following an inmate hunger strike started by members of the maoist organization Gauche prolétarienne. The prison issue then made its entry into the political field, first because all inmates, even common law criminals, were considered by these activists as victims of class society (in this right they were invited to express themselves personally and not be “represented” by intellectuals); second, because post-May ’68 was characterized by a dispersion of the revolutionary struggles into various equally legitimated fields (school, insane asylums, prisons, etc.). While being careful not to acknowledge any relation of cause and effect, the government authorities undertook a prison reform, which got a second wind after 1974 (election of President Giscard d’Estaing), though it remained modest in scope.
