Richard A. Falk
Richard Anderson Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the author or coauthor of 20 books and the editor or coeditor of another 20 volumes. Falk has published extensively with multiple books written about international law and the United Nations.
In 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
Early life and education
Falk was born into a New York Jewish family. Defining himself as "an American Jew", he says that having an outsider status, with a sense of not belonging, may have influenced his later role as a critic of American foreign policy. His being Jewish signifies above all for Falk, "to be preoccupied with overcoming injustice and thirsting for justice in the world, and that means being respectful toward other peoples regardless of their nationality or religion, and empathetic in the face of human suffering whoever and wherever victimization is encountered."Falk obtained a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in 1952 before completing a Bachelor of Laws degree at Yale Law School. He obtained his Doctorate in Law from Harvard University in 1962. His early thinking was influenced by readings of Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, and C. Wright Mills, and he developed an overriding concern with projects to abolish war and aggression as social institutions.
Professional career
Falk began his teaching career at Ohio State University and Harvard in the late 1950s. In 1961, he moved to Princeton University, which served as his academic affiliation for over thirty years. He was appointed Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice in 1965, a position he retains as emeritus professor. In 1985, he became a Guggenheim Fellow. He retired from teaching in 2001.Since 2002, he has been a research professor at the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. As of 2013, he was director of the Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy project.
Falk is a critic of the Westphalian system of nation states, which he argues must be transcended by a more international institution to control the resort to force by nations, as the world moves towards a global ethos in which states renounce their boundary-obsessed territorialism in exchange for a regime of consensually negotiated aims, in which national leaders must be subject to accountability. With regard to specific geopolitical situations, he has published books and essays analyzing the ideological aspects of the American Human Rights Debate, the legality of the Vietnam War and other military operations. With regard to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he wrote that it is "inescapable that an objective observer would reach the conclusion that this Iraq War is a war of aggression, and as such, that it amounts to a Crime against Peace of the sort for which surviving German leaders were indicted, prosecuted and punished at the Nuremberg trials conducted shortly after the Second World War."
Activism
Falk's engagement with politics began at Ohio State University, where in the 1960s as a member of the faculty of law he was a witness to racism targeted at black students. His move to Princeton University, where the teaching of law was linked to politics, international relations and other social sciences allowed Falk to integrate his professional expertise in international law with his ethical and political values. Falk aimed to combine his academic work with political activism in a role he described as a "citizen-pilgrim".In media
Falk is a member of the Editorial Boards of The Nation and The Progressive. He has spoken on college campuses and for organizations.Former activities
Falk is a former advisory board member of the World Federalist Institute and the , as well as a former fellow at the Transnational Institute. During 1999–2000, Falk worked on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, an initiative of the Prime Minister of Sweden Göran Persson.For several years Falk served on the Santa Barbara, California local committee of Human Rights Watch. In December 2012, he was asked to resign from the local committee. Falk said he was asked to resign from HRW because his work for the United Nations was contrary to HRW's policy. Later that month, in response to a press release from a lobby group, UN Watch, that criticized Falk, forty representatives of major international human rights organisations worldwide signed a letter to HRW urging it to "clarify that he was not 'expelled' as an enemy of human rights' as UN Watch claimed." Phyllis Bennis, a signer of the letter, wrote that HRW stated in a reply on January 1, 2013, that the UN Watch's statement was filled with inaccuracies and falsehoods and that Falk was asked to resign from HRW to comply with long-standing HRW policy.
Appointments at the United Nations
United Nations Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestinian territories
In 2001, Falk served on a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestinian territories with John Dugard, a South African based in Leiden University in the Netherlands, and Kamal Hussein, former foreign minister of Bangladesh. Falk stated the two main issues: "One is evaluating whether the conditions of occupation are such as to give the Palestinians some kind of right of resistance. And if they have that right, then what are the limits to that right?" "The other issue at stake in this current inquiry is to evaluate how Israel as the occupying power is carrying out its responsibility to protect the society that is subject to its control." After its investigation the commission issued a report, "Question of the violation of human rights in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine."Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
On March 26, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Falk replaced South African international law professor John Dugard, who left his post in June 2008 after seven years. Falk's appointment expired in May 2014.Response to appointment
The appointment of Falk was made by a consensual decision by the 47 members of the UN's Human Rights Council. Although Jewish groups tried to persuade the European Union and Canada to oppose Falk's appointment, the EU did not intervene, and Canada did not oppose although it distanced itself via a statement.According to a UN press release, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Itzhak Levanon strongly criticized the appointment stating that Falk had written in an article that it was not "an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with the criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity" and argued that "someone who had publicly and repeatedly stated such views could not possibly be considered independent, impartial or objective."
According to The Forward, Falk said: "Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not." Levanon further stated: "He has taken part in a UN fact-finding mission which determined that suicide bombings were a valid method of 'struggle'. He has disturbingly charged Israel with 'genocidal tendencies,' and accused it of trying to achieve security through 'state terrorism'. Someone who has publicly and repeatedly stated such views cannot possibly be considered independent, impartial or objective." The Israeli government announced that it would deny Falk a visa to Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip at least until the September 2008 meeting of the Human Rights Council.
The UN press release reported that the Palestinian representative, Mohammad Abu-Koash, said that it was "ironic that Israel which claimed to be representing Jews everywhere was campaigning against a Jewish professor who had been nominated to the post of Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory." The Palestinian statement went on to refer to Falk as the "author of 54 books on international law" and concluded that his appointment was "a victory for good sense and human rights, as he was a highly qualified rapporteur."
A former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, criticized Falk's appointment to the United Nations Human Rights Council by stating: "This is exactly why we voted against the new human rights council" and "he was picked for a reason, and the reason is not to have an objective assessment — the objective is to find more ammunition to go after Israel."
UN investigations and reports as Special Rapporteur
2008
In May 2008, Israel refused to admit Falk to gather information for a report. The National Lawyers Guild urged Israel to permit Falk entry by stating, "Falk made no claims any different from those made by John Dugard, the man he was to replace, in several reports on conditions in the Occupied Territories." Human Rights Watch issued a statement that asked Israel to reverse its expulsion of Falk from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In a July 2008 interview, Falk stated the constraints would "limit my exposure to the direct realities. But I think it's quite possible to perform this role without that exposure. Barring my entry complicates my task but doesn't make it undoable."In June 2008, Falk proposed to the Human Rights Council for his mandate to investigate violations of international humanitarian law in the Palestinian territories to be extended to include possible Palestinian infringements. He stated his goal was to "insulate" the council, which is dominated by Islamic and African states, usually supported by China, Cuba and Russia, "from those who contend that its work is tainted by partisan politics."
On December 9, 2008, the United Nations released a statement by Falk in his official capacity as "Special Rapporteur" that noted that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto, and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, among other top officials, have expressed concern for the "desperate plight" of civilians in Gaza. Falk stated: "And still Israel maintains its Gaza siege in its full fury, allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease." He outlined steps that must be taken to avoid a "humanitarian catastrophe." They included implementing the "responsibility to protect" a civilian population from collective punishment and a determination of "whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law," which The Jerusalem Post wrote would go before the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
On December 14, Falk arrived at Ben Gurion Airport with staff members from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on an official visit, planning to travel to the West Bank and Gaza to prepare a report on Israel's compliance with human rights standards and international humanitarian law. In an interview, Falk stated the Israeli government distorted his real views and that he saw the expulsion as an "insidious pattern of trying to shift the attention from their objections to the person." Pillay called Israel's detention and expulsion of Falk as "unprecedented and deeply regrettable."
On December 27, 2008, Falk issued a statement condemning the December 2008 Israel strikes on Gaza as "war crimes" because he claimed that they included collective punishment, targeting of civilians and a disproportionate military response to Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, which also targeted civilians. He stated that Israel had ignored Hamas's diplomatic initiatives to re-establish the ceasefire which expired December 26 and condemned nations that provided Israel military support and participated during the siege of Gaza. In an article for the Houston Chronicle, Falk reaffirmed that he had "called on the International Criminal Court" to investigate Israeli leaders responsible for possible violations of international criminal law.