U.S. rules Iraq under international law doctrine of ‘debellatio’ and will until stable government is formed

Photo courtesy U.S. ArmyA U.S. Army brigadier general congratulates the graduates of the new police academy in Sin’Jar.Americans anxious to handover power to a sovereign Iraqi government by June 30 should remember it took 10 years for Allied Forces to return similar powers to Germany following World War II, says WUSTL political expert Victor Le Vine. Iraq, like post-war Germany, is now considered debellatio — its government no longer exists under international law. And, like it or not, the United States is stuck in Iraq until a new government is formed, a process that hinges on some very contentious constitution making. As part of an international conference on post-conflict constitutional reconstruction, Le Vine spent two years examining some 20 cases of constitution making in countries torn by war, revolution, rebellion and internal collapse. His analysis suggests that Iraqi nation-building will be both “painful and agonizingly difficult.”

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Abuse in the Catholic church

FlinnOn Feb. 27, the John Jay School of Criminal Law will release its report on the abuse of minors by priests from 1950 to 2002. Those who have seen it, claim the report will demonstrate that roughly 4,500 priests abused 11,000 minors during that time and that the abuse took place in 70 out of 90 dioceses in America. Frank K. Flinn, Ph.D., professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on the Catholicism, claims that the sex-abuse scandal is “far-and-away the most serious crisis to confront the American Catholic Church in its entire history.”

Inequalities in schools and neighborhoods focus of daylong conference Feb. 27

Social inequalities in schools and neighborhoods will be addressed by leading national scholars as well as prominent local scholars, experts and activists during a daylong conference Feb. 27 at Washington University. WUSTL’s Program in Social Thought & Analysis (STA) in Arts & Sciences is sponsoring the conference, titled “Inequalities in Schools & Neighborhoods: St. Louis and Beyond.”
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