John Bolch at Family Lore is pleased that the court in Lahore has ordered that Molly Campbell/Misbah Rana must return to Scotland, upholding the principle that the proper forum for the resolution of disputes relating to children is the court of the country where the child habitually resides.
I’m pleased, too.
Kate Hudson, the chair of CND, wrote in the Guardian today arguing that a decision by the British government to renew or replace Trident would be in breach of the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Apparently Rabinder Singh QC and Prof. Christine Chinkin have given advice to that effect:
Article VI of the NPT states that each of the parties to the treaty should undertake to pursue “negotiations in good faith on effective measures” relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race and to nuclear disarmament. It is hard to see how replacing http://www.raybani.com/ Trident contributes to good faith negotiations towards disarmament. And where are the multilateral initiatives from our government that are so badly needed?
Recent legal opinion shows that a replacement of Trident would not be acceptable under the NPT. In 2005, Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin stated their opinion that the replacement of Trident is likely to constitute a material breach of Article VI.
“The linkage between the principles of non-proliferation and the obligation to negotiate towards disarmament … indicate that Article VI is a provision ‘essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty’. “The non-nuclear weapon states required commitments from the nuclear weapon states as part of their willingness to accept non-nuclear status under the NPT and failure to comply with article VI thus, in our view, constitutes material breach.”
Yeah, right. I find this advice unconvincing, or at least the way Kate Hudson has characterised it. Sure, nuclear weapon states like the UK have not negotiated general disarmament as envisaged by article VI, and I guess you could argue that, by having failed to achieve that for Ray Ban outlet so long, and showing no sign of being about to do so, they’re in material breach. But I think even that’s ambitious given that it’s arguable that no state party can fulfil article VI on its own, and therefore can’t be responsible for a breach uness it actively refuses to take part in an existing disarmament initiative.
So, either the UK is now in breach of the treaty, if you go along with Rabinder Singh, or, more likely, it’s not – regardless of what we do about Trident. What’s clear though is that renewing Trident isn’t itself a breach – nothing in the treaty forbids states from maintaining or renewing their nuclear weapons capability pending disarmament.
In case you’re wondering, India, Pakistan and Israel haven’t signed the treaty, and North Korea is the only country to have withdrawn from it, in 2003. Iran remains a party.
The papers today all report the life sentences passed on the murderers of Tom ap Rhys Price – what a senseless and stupid crime. A particularly interesting aspect of the case was the statement made by Tom’s fiancee Adele Eastman about the impact of his murder, which was read to the court under the current “victims’ advocate” pilot scheme http://www.raybani.com/ running in homicide cases in a number of major Crown Courts as well as the Old Bailey.
What to think about these statements, which are part of the government’s plans for “rebalancing” the criminal justice system in favour of victims? It’s easy for lawyers to reflexively sneer at this kind of thing as simply a populist stunt, or to pick holes in its logic (if it makes a difference it’s arguably unfair to those killers who happen to have picked on very traumatised families, as opposed to those who are saintly and forgiving, or simply stoical) but I think I’m in favour. Even if it makes no difference to sentencing ultimately, at least this scheme gives victims’ families some way of participating in the case, rather than feeling as though they’re the only people who have no say at all in what should happen to the killers.
In fact, I’d go one step further. As it stands at the moment, this kind of statement is made before the defendant’s mitigation – so that he gets the last word on Gafas Ray Ban outlet sentencing. That reflects out traditional sense that criminal defendants should always have the last word in the interests of fairness. But does fairness really require that, once guilt has been proved? Of course the defendant should speak after the prosecution, and of course he should have a right to contest anything the victims’ advocate says that the defence disputes. But I don’t really see how these family impact statements can fulfil their purpose of satisfying the bereaved unless they are the last word on the case. I suspect there’ll be pressure to adopt that procedure when the scheme rolls out nationally, probable in 2007. If that’s proposed there’ll be predictable objections from lots of my fellow lawyers – but I’m not sure I’ll agree.