Since its founding, the Kimberley Process and the diamond industry have been quick to praise themselves, but many of the scheme’s civil society participants have pointed out structural weaknesses and chronic political apathy that prevents the Kimberley Process from effectively stemming the trade of conflict diamonds. Although negative reports about the Zimbabwe diamond trade date back to 2007 and its own review team recommended suspension in July of this year, the Kimberley Process has yet to take action. That is why analysts were looking to see what would happen at this plenary meeting as an indicator not just of the state of the Zimbabwean diamond trade but also of the Kimberley Process itself.

The outcome? Absolutely nothing. Once again, the Kimberley Process has passed on its responsibilities to stop the trade of conflict diamonds. Instead of expelling Zimbabwe from the scheme, which would prohibit any other participants (pretty much the rest of the world) from importing Zimbabwean diamonds, the representatives agreed to give Zimbabwe more time to meet the conditions required of them as a participant of the scheme. It will now re-evaluate the situation in June 2010 to decide whether Zimbabwe should face temporary suspension or expulsion. This is at least the second time that the Kimberley Process has given Zimbabwe an extension, showing once again its lack of political will and inability to fulfill the scheme’s basic mission.

 Although Zimbabwe is claiming that it is making progress in meeting the requirements of the Kimberley Process, most civil society observers disagree. Thus the scheme may be running out of credibility. As it is, Ian Smillie, one of the architects of the Kimberley Process resigned as an official civil society representative in May. In a letter to the diamond industry, Smillie explained his reasons:

“I am leaving because I feel that I can no longer in good faith contribute to pretense that failure is success. I thought in 2003 that we had created something significant. In fact we did, but we have let it slip away from us . . . The KP has been confronted by many challenges in the past five years, and it has failed to deal quickly or effectively with most of them.”

Looking at the events in Windhoek this past week, it appears that Smillie’s assessment of the Kimberley Process was spot on.

Yesterday Maine voters dealt a blow to LGBT rights, with 53% of those who voted in a referendum opting to repeal Maine’s state law recognizing the right of same sex couples to get married.  While New England is considered the region of the U.S. most supportive of the right of same sex couples to marry, the outcome of this referendum whittles the number of U.S. states recognizing this right down to a measly five.  Yesterday’s election day was “a deep and bitter disappointment” for the families in Maine seeking legal recognition and for LGBT advocates and allies around the U.S. who were watching Maine with hope. 

Last week the U.S. was shocked when a justice of the peace from Louisiana refused to marry an interracial couple.  It is hard to believe that such a practice would still occur, living on long after a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling outlawing racial discrimination as an obstruction to the right to marry.  The justice of the peace in question resigned the very same day that Maine voted against gay marriage.  The Governor of Louisiana called the resignation “long overdue” and further stated that his resignation upholds “the will of the vast majority of Louisiana citizens and nearly every governmental official in Louisiana.”  Just as it is disturbing that anyone at all could wish prohibit interracial marriage, it is extremely unsettling that so many Americans continue to believe that they have a right to restrict the marriage of other people on the grounds that the couple is of the same biological sex. 

At one point in time, interracial marriage did not fit into the “tradition” of American marriage or indeed marriage around the world.  It was a fight to remove restrictions to marrying someone considered to be a different race than you.   Many opponents to gay marriage claim that they are defending the “traditional” family by protesting the rights of same sex couples to marry, with this family having a woman and a man at its center. But why does this tradition need a defense in the first place?  Our definitions of family continue to evolve and the law evolves to recognize this and to support family as an important institution within society.  We are much less likely to live in extended families than we were a hundred years ago; we divorce and we re-marry at a frequency unimaginable only a few decades ago; we adopt children from around the world, made possible by globalization; we live with step-children and step-parents in modern “blended” families; we care for aging parents in a multigenerational home because we are living longer.  Our family structure changes and changes significantly as the world shifts around us.  It is curious that those who cling so tightly to marriage as only between a biological woman and biological man cannot see these changes, many of which have already redefined the relationship between family and biology. 

The freedom to marry whom we choose is a human right because the choice of a marriage partner is one of the central choices in a person’s life.  Under U.S. law, we see support for this right in many contexts, such as the freedom to pursue what makes us happy; the rights of privacy in our family homes and that these privacy rights extend to how we arrange our personal relationships; and the right not to be unfairly discriminated against relative to our fellow citizens.  Same sex couples are not different from male-female couples in a way that can justify treating their unions differently under the law.  Some would say they are different because they cannot biologically reproduce, but clearly reproduction is not a requirement for marriage being recognized in law.  For those who rely on the religious heritage of the U.S. to distinguish same sex couples, the separation of church and state will not allow an encroachment of some people’s religious values into a civil recognition of the right to marry. 

While November 3 was a disappointing day for same sex couples in Maine and around the U.S., history remains on their side.  It may take a few more years, but eventually the law will catch up with the right of same sex couples to marry, to sanctify their relationships, to obtain the legal benefits that correspond to legal marriage, and to raise children in an environment that is rendered more stable through these legal entitlements.

The bulk of Bernstein’s argument is that as a democratic society, Israel should not be subjected to the same treatment as its non-democratic neighbors.  By having the institutions that define a democratic society — a free press, regular multi-party elections, and a vigorous academia — such societies should not be the focus of human rights organizations.  This is because there is a difference between “open” and “closed” societies:

At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them - through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.

 

That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in the Soviet gulag - and the millions in China’s laogai, or labor camps.

 This reasoning fits the purpose that Human Rights Watch first had when it started as Helsinki Watch in the 1970s.  Back then the world was divided by the Cold War and a monumental battle between democratic capitalism and communism.  At the time it was easy to draw clear lines between human rights protectors and human rights abusers.  The problem is that in reality, players on both sides of that particular battle often played dirty.  The truth of this has emerged out into the open in the twenty years since the Cold War ended, but it is clear that the lessons of those years have not been fully learned.  

Bernstein is correct in that there is a difference between countries such as Denmark and Burma.  But if human rights are universal, then there cannot be a line between who is worthy or scrutiny for their actions and those who are not.  Whether it is political oppression in Zimbabwe, xenophobia in Europe, torture in the United States, or excessive civilian casualties on the part of Israel in Lebanon and Gaza, all constitute human rights abuses and all should be held accountable by domestic and international human rights organizations.  

Israel is an issue that stirs the passions of many, and it will inevitably continue to do so.  In the process, many on both sides of the debate lose perspective about what it is we are talking about.  Although Bernstein lauds the existence of an open society in Israel, part of an open society is the ability of civil society to criticize government action; at the same time, Israel does not act within a vacuum and there are serious issues that need to be addressed on the Palestinian side as well.  It is possible to criticize Israeli action and not be anti-Israel, just as it is possible to acknowledge that Islamic extremism and the violence it promotes is a serious problem without being an Islamiphobic.  In such situations, sticking to clear lines often does more harm than good, and as Scott MacLeod points out, could harm the peace process rather than promote it, which will inevitably lead to even more human rights abuses.

Refugee children aboard the Oceanic Viking (from the BBC)

The Christian Science Monitor has good coverage of the ongoing boat people controversy in Australia.  Due to the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, there has been a global surge in Sri Lankan Tamils seeking asylum with other countries.  Given Sri Lanka’s location, many of these asylum seekers pay people smugglers for spots on less than seaworthy boats that may get them to Australia.  The problem is that Australia really doesn’t want them.  As a result, these boats are normally intercepted while still in Indonesian waters and the asylum seekers taken to Indonesian detention centers where they may spend years waiting to be resettled in another country or sent back home.    

This was the plan when the Australian customs boat Oceanic Viking saved 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers from their sinking ship last week.  But this time the asylum seekers aren’t cooperating.  Although the Oceanic Viking has been docked at the Indonesian port of Kijang since Monday, the Sir Lankans are refusing to disembark.  They want to go to Australia, and appear determined to make it as difficult as possible for the Australian government to shrug off their humanitarian obligations to Indonesia.  

The Oceanic Viking group may have gotten the idea from the 255 Sri Lankan Tamils who are refusing to leave the Australian Navy vessel that rescued them three weeks ago.  They too want to go to Australia, and are making it very difficult for Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to warehouse them in Indonesia quietly.  

This is not the first time that Australia’s refugee polices have come under scrutiny.  Under former Prime Minister John Howard, Australia introduced their “Pacific Solution” policy that saw asylum seekers — many of them Afghan, Iranian, and Iraqi refugees — deported to detention centers on small Pacific islands rather than allowing them to remain on the mainland.  The policy had broad support in Australia, but also fierce critics who charged that the “Pacific Solution” was just the new name for the outdated “White Australia Policy” that largely prohibited non-White immigration to Australia throughout the 20th century.  It also brought up the uncomfortable irony that while Australian soldiers were involved with waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, thereby making those countries far less bearable than before, the government was also unwilling to give shelter to innocent civilians caught up in those conflicts.   

The current compromise with Indonesia regarding these asylum seekers — often dubbed the “Indonesian Solution” — is seen as a big step up from the Pacific Solution strategy, but still is a source of controversy as refugee warehousing is less than ideal from a refugee rights perspective.  On top of the human rights considerations, it is estimated that the government is spending $75,000 a day to keep the Oceanic Viking docked with the asylum seekers on board.  Many in Australia do not feel that they should have to bear this cost, while the asylum seekers themselves feel that they should be given the opportunity to enjoy the rights given to them under the 1952 Refugee Convention.  The standoff is leading to uncomfortable questions about whether the Australian government should allow the situation to proceed naturally, or whether they should force the Sri Lankans off the Oceanic Viking by any means necessary, including violent force.  

There are of course many other issues and questions involved in such situations, but the story of the Oceanic Viking is bringing these questions and Australian immigration policies back into the international limelight.  Given this context, it might be a good time for Australia to re-evaluate where and how this story will ultimately end, regardless of what happens to the Oceanic Viking and its passengers.

Karadzic presenting himself at the ICTY following his 2008 arrest. Agence-France Press–Getty Images

It appears that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is going to try Radovan Karadzic, the so-called architect of the Bosnian war’s genocide, in absentia.  After hiding for over a decade following two 1995 indictments for the siege on Sarajevo and the massacre at Srebrenica, Karadzic was finally arrested and brought into custody at the Hague in July of 2008.  Despite the fact that his indictments are over a dozen years old and he has gathered a team of lawyers, he is claiming that he has not had time to prepare his defense.  Perhaps having learned a lesson from the massive delays in court proceedings caused by Slobodan Milosevic’s boycotts and disruptive and domineering showmanship when in the courtroom, the ICTY has declared that the show will go on without him.  After stalling on October 26 when Karadzic refused to show, the trial began on October 27 despite his absence.

There is great debate over the legality of “trials in absentia” or trials in which the accused is not present.  Importantly, the scenario most dreaded and to be prevented by rules against trials in absentia are situations in which the accused is not afforded the opportunity to defend herself.  This is clearly not the case for Karadzic, who has had 14 years since his indictment and over a year since his arrest to prepare his defense.  Nor has he been denied counsel, having employed a team of lawyers.  Further, ICTY judges have made clear that they will appoint him attorneys to provide for his defense should he continue to boycott his trial.   Factually, Karadzic’s situation is not the situation that rules against trials in absentia aim to guard against.  Rather, Karadzic has been given both ample time and ample resources to mount his defense.  It is Karadzic and not the court that presently obstructs this defense.

But what exactly do rules about trials in absentia say?  What they don’t say is that you can’t hold court proceedings unless the accused is physically present in the court.  Article 21 of the ICTY Statute-the rules that govern the court proceedings-outlines the rights of the accused and Article 21.4.d provides for the right of the accused “to be tried in his presence and to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing.”  Similarly, Article 14.3.d of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides that the accused has the right “[t]o be tried in his presence, and to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing.”

Few would claim in good faith that Karadzic has been denied this right.  Indeed he is sitting very close to the courtroom in which he is being tried at the moment that I write this, and could enter it and proceed with his defense if he chose.  And this is the key-he is making a choice to waive this right.  Just as a person can waive her right to be represented by an attorney, Karadzic’s boycott is his waiver of his right to be present in the court room while he is tried. 

International law contemplates the possibility that a fair trial can occur despite the absence of the defendant.  Indeed, the defendant’s rights can be fully upheld even if she refuses to show up in court. Special emphasis is placed on the situation of an otherwise fair trial in which the defendant could be present but chooses not to be. The Human Rights Committee, the treaty body assigned with the task of articulating the details of the rights located in the ICCPR, has clarified in its General Comment 13 that it is possible to hold a trial without the accused present and still uphold all relevant rights of the accused as provided for under international law.  Paragraph 11 of General Comment 13 clearly contemplates trials in asbentia and their legality when it states: 

When exceptionally for justified reasons trials in absentia are held, strict observance of the rights of the defence is all the more necessary.

It is no stretch to say that there are exceptional and justified reasons for proceeding with Karadzic’s trial without him.  It is exceptional that he has been on the run for so long.  The crimes he is accused of are certainly exceptional and are of the character and magnitude to compel his trial.  That Milosevic’s trials were allowed to be stalled for so long by his antics should be deemed exceptional as well, and the ICTY is right to avoid such missteps in the Karadzic case. 

As for justification, how much more does the court have to justify itself before it can start proceedings–should court personnel march to his jail cell and conduct the trial there?  It would be another case if Karadzic had turned himself over to the court and then asked for an extension to prepare his defense.  But he has little ground to ask for 8 more months to prepare given the lengthy delay that he has already caused.  As time goes on, the court becomes more justified in beginning the trial without him, because his individual insistence on impeding the proceedings cannot hold out against the claims of both the victims of the war and the international community to see the facts of his case brought before the court.

Importantly, the Human Rights Committee has further elaborated as recently as April 2009 that situations parallel to Mr. Karadzic’s can justify trials in asbentia:

This provision [Article 14 paragraph 3] and other requirements of due process enshrined in article 14 cannot be construed as invariably rendering proceedings in absentia impermissible, irrespective of the reasons for the accused person’s absence.  Indeed, proceedings in absentia may in some circumstances (for instance, when the accused person, although informed of the proceedings sufficiently in advance, declines to exercise his right to be present) be permissible in the interest of the proper administration of justice.

This 2009 Human Rights Committee communication repeats identical language from a 1983 Human Rights Committee public document, making it the prevailing legal interpretation of the issue at the time when Karadzic was indicted.  In short, despite debate on the topic, the ICTY is likely entirely justified in beginning the court proceedings in spite of Karadzic’s boycott.  This is good news for all who think that a decade and a half is enough to wait.

A women's self help group for microfinance in India

The World Economic Forum released their annual Global Gender Gap Report today, reporting on how successfully (or unsuccessfully) countries have been in the last year when it comes to closing the gender gap between men and women in the key areas of political and economic participation, educational opportunities, and health.  Norway lost out on its top spot to Iceland, and fell to third place behind Finland while Sweden ranked fourth.  The only other European countries to finish in the top ten were Denmark (7) and Ireland (8), while the Philippines slipped three spots to rank ninth.  However, South Africa improved dramatically, ranking sixth compared to twenty-two last year, while Lesotho moved up to rank tenth compared to sixteen in 2008.

Overall, the UK ranked 15, Canada 25, and the US dropped a few spots to 31, however the US and UK were among a handful of countries to tie for first place in equal educational attainment.  At the bottom of the list was Yemen, followed by Chad, Pakistan, Benin, and Saudi Arabia.  While there was some improvement among states in the Middle East and North Africa, countries from those regions dominated the lower rankings.

Increasingly many countries are recognizing that closing the gender gap is not just a women’s rights issue, but a necessity for sustained development.  However such change in attitudes can be difficult, especially in the face of contrary traditional norms.  Nonetheless, the overall assessment made by the report was that 67% of countries made improvements in closing the gender gap, while 33% saw conditions deteriorate over the last year.  Although it is unfortunate that a third of the world is slipping backwards from equal rights for women, it is encouraging that generally we are moving in the right direction.

For more highlights from the report, check out the Press Release issued by the WEF.

In Chechnya and indeed elsewhere in that wide expanse of impunity (see Dagestan and Russia), Estemirova was finding hard evidence of Chechnya’s state sanctioned torture. She connected the murders with those responsible. She worked for Memorial, a Russian organization whose main task - among others - was to preserve the memory of abuse incurred under the heavy hand of a Soviet empire.

Memorial has since been awarded Europe’s Sakharov Prize for the Freedom of Thought.  The prize is awarded each year by the European Parliament and seeks to honor those with the courage to face down intolerance, fanaticism and oppression.

One of those questions is whether AICHR will be able to have any impact on human rights in the region given the limitations and member skepticism it is already facing.  An editorial in The Bangkok Post highlighted many of the problems facing the AICHR, including the almost complete lack of commissioners with any human rights credentials, the continuing prohibition by ASEAN of formal civil society participation, and the inability of the commission to investigate, sanction or otherwise punish human rights abusers.  These developments leave much to be desired from AICHR, particularly given the human rights problems that the region faces.  

These human rights issues have hurt the reputation of ASEAN over the years.  In particular, ASEAN’s weak track record on Burma despite its appalling human rights record has undermined its claims of progress and a genuine respect for human rights.  The apparent irony that a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world is now a member in good standing of a regional human rights body did not escape many observers this past weekend.  However, Burma is not the only member of ASEAN with human rights problems.  The Philippines is frequently criticised by the European Union and international human rights organizations for continuing issue of extra-judicial killings, while freedom of expression is largely absent in Singapore.  Cambodia has also come under fire for its intolerance for any form of political opposition, an issue that has been present since the 1960s, along with chronic religious persecution in neighboring Vietnam.  More recently, the violent breakup of protests in Malaysia demonstrated the continuing lack of some political freedoms there, while Thailand has found itself having to answer to abuses committed by its military against ethnic Rohingya asylum seekers from Burma who washed ashore.  This constant news cycle along with the financial crisis means that ASEAN needs a positive source of attention.  This was one of the reasons why the AICHR has finally come into being after years of being pushed by the Philippines, to no avail.  But by making the commission so toothless and being so deferential to member governments, it has attracted more criticism than praise in its first days.  

Regional human rights organizations can have a tremendous amount of power to bring about change as seen with the Inter-American system in the Americas, but they can also be made largely useless by their member states as is mostly the case with Africa; it remains to be seen whether the AIHRC is a step forward for Southeast Asia, or merely just a step.  However, after this weekend’s summit, the AIHRC has a lot more hearts and minds that it needs to win over before it will be seen as a credible addition to the regional human rights family.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food’s, Prof. Olivier De Schutter’s, second presentation to the UN General Assembly.  The interactive dialogue that followed Prof. De Schutter’s presentation is an excellent example of how the Special Procedures system of the UN Human Rights Council allows for greater flexibility and responsiveness to thematic issues like the right to food and to country specific situations. 

The role of a Special Rapporteur and of independent UN mandate holders in general represents progress in the human rights field and within the UN system because it takes a pressing human rights concern that has bubbled up to the UN via civil society and member state activity, empowers an individual or small team to further investigate and recommend solutions to these concerns, and can harness all members of society, from States to grassroots organizations to United Nations bodies to the media, in researching and formulating responses to these problems.  Appointing an independent expert who is both within and beholden to the UN system and yet functions independently and flexibly enhances the efficiency and capability of the UN.  And, it allows for reporting from these experts in a manner that is often impossible for member states of UN bodies to undertake on their own.

Prof. De Schutter’s latest report is a case in point regarding the ability of a special expert to say things that others cannot.  The report takes on current intellectual property rights as they relate to seeds, agricultural technologies, and the right to food.  In the first place it is both innovative and necessary that a right to food approach to food security takes into account the commercial side of food production and related agricultural concerns such as climate change, as opposed to limiting the right to food focus on (the also important and necessary) legal entitlements to this right located in court cases, framework laws, and constitutional provisions. 

Without addressing the commercial regime in which the production of food takes place the right to procure and obtain food rings hollow, as it captures only the demand side of the equation.  Analyzing the commercial concentration of agricultural inputs through a human rights lens and with a focus on the smallest, poorest farmers, who are not only food producers but must use their livelihoods from this production to secure their own food, refocuses the food security debate on those most affected.  While dominating the seed market may be seen as a success for companies such as Monsanto, agro-business monopolies have a significant impact on the lives, livelihoods, and production capabilities of small, poor farmers that is often detrimental.  These monopolies also impact agro-biodiversity, which has become even more crucial to maintain in the face of climate change.  And yet it can be hard for member states who benefit financially from such companies or whose governments are highly oriented to accept foreign investment in any form to take a critical eye or a public voice to such commercial concentration issues.

What is fascinating about the interactive dialogue process between a Special Rapporteur and the General Assembly is that it provides a platform for member states and affiliated organizations to respond to such claims and for the special experts to further explain themselves.  Yesterday, countries were not reticent to comment on their own view of the world’s intellectual property regime and to ask pressing questions.  In turn, Prof. De Schutter was able to respond briefly and advance and further elaborate upon the claims made in his report.  It is always heartening to see a report being put to use to further discussions and plans for action rather than just sitting on a shelf gathering dust. 

And, it is encouraging to see UN member states fully engaging UN special experts on topics that often call for substantial changes to be made at the national level and thus for engagement and resource shifting from these governments.  While no one pretends that the global food security problem will be solved over night, it is nonetheless inspiring to see people in positions of influence asking all of the right questions.

While it is no secret that racism lives on in the United States, it was nonetheless shocking news that a justice of the peace in Louisiana had refused to marry an interracial couple because he doesn’t “believe in mixing the races that way.”  Keith Bardwell, the justice of the peace in question, has served in his elected position for 34 years, and his current term runs until December 31, 2014.  By “mixing the races that way,” (emphasis added) Mr. Bardwell expanded that he is primarily concerned with the children of an interracial marriage, who–he concludes–are not accepted by either of their parents’ racial groups and often end up being raised by relatives other than their parents.   He is quoted as saying:

• “I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves.  In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer.”


Mr. Bardwell has also offered the media some other very interesting quotes.  He has stated that he is not in fact a racist, pointing out that when he marries black couples, he allows them to use his bathroom.  This statement supposes that a racist would not share a bathroom with someone of a different skin color. Segregated bathrooms were certainly the case under the Jim Crow laws that plagued the southern United States from the late 1800s to the late 1900s.  Perhaps it is this type of manifested racism that Mr. Bardwell is referring to in defining himself as not a racist, particularly given that as late as 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court was still involved in dismantling Jim Crow laws by upholding the desegregation of public school buses in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.  Given his lengthy tenure as Justice of the Peace it is likely that Mr. Bardwell remembers this era clearly, including the unanimous 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia prohibiting all race based restrictions on marriage.

Mr. Bardwell is also quoted as acknowledging reprimands from Louisiana’s Attorney General regarding his refusal to marry interracial couples.  Hammond, Louisiana’s Daily Star newspaper writes that

• He said the state attorney general told him years ago that he would eventually get into trouble for not performing interracial  marriages.

”I told him if I do, I’ll resign,” Bardwell said. “I have rights too. I’m not obligated to do that just because I’m a justice of the peace.”

It appears that Mr. Bardwell has been admonished and yet allowed to continue refusing to marry interracial couples.  It is unclear who he was supposed to “get in trouble” with if not the Attorney General him or herself.  As a justice of the peace he is formally part of Louisian’s judicial system, and so an agent of the state.  Due to his official state position and the fact that the highest state officials were aware that he was breaking the law, it is likely that Louisiana and/or its highest state officials can be found liable for violating the prohibition on race based marriage restrictions.  It would seem that, given Mr. Bardwell’s blatant refusal to comply with the law and his insistence that, despite his position as a public official, he had a “right” to break the law, Louisiana officials should have forced him to resign many years ago.  That his current tenure extends to 2014 is also problematic.  Given Mr. Bardwell’s adamant admission of his practice of refusing to marry interracial couples, Louisiana should at the very least temporarily suspend him from his position until the case is formally resolved.

The fact that Mr. Bardwell has been allowed to do this for so long also raises the question of whether Louisiana should undertake a more systematic investigation into its justice of the peace system.  It is one of the few remaining states in the U.S. that employs justices of the peace, a position inherited from the UK and utilized for minor administrative legal tasks that nevertheless can have a huge impact on people’s lives, such as issuing a search warrant or signing a marriage license.  Given that Louisiana has apparently turned a blind eye to Mr. Bardwell’s actions for so many decades, it could be the case that racial prohibitions on or obstacles to marriage are taking place in other pockets of the law.  

The evidence that Louisiana state officials tolerate and perpetuate race based marriage obstruction implies Louisiana’s tolerance for racism in its myriad forms. At a minimum the state of Louisiana should publicly clarify that the law prohibits race based restrictions on marriage and explain the state’s process for ensuring that state officials uphold the law.  It should also clarify the mechanisms and programs it utilizes to end racism and discrimination of all kinds, and perhaps its plans to reinvigorate them.  At the moment, it is giving the impression that it has been asleep at the wheel and complicit in and thus liable for state administered racism.