The Getz Files

Somewhat overshadowed by the showboat in the jail (see below), the first decision that I was very involved in the writing came out on Friday. The full decision is here (if you read it, skip the procedural background - it's not that interesting), but I'll give you a precis.

Ramush Haradinaj, a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army and then Prime Minister of Kosovo, was indicted by the ICTY in March for various crimes. After he surrendered himself and was taken to The Hague, he applied for provisional release (bail), which was granted. He then applied to have the terms of the release varied so he could participate in politics, to the extent that UNMIK, the UN body that basically administers Kosovo, said would be good for the development of Kosovo. That was also granted, but the prosecution appealed, so we in Appeals had to decide whether those conditions were appropriate.

It was a really interesting case to work on, as it implicated the politics of Kosovo, the law of provisional release, restrictions on prisoners, and delegation, which is a fairly new topic to international law. We* decided, 3-2, after much backwards and forwards, that the new provisional release was OK, but we appended some additional conditions to it. I'm proud to have been involved with the decision.

* It's a pleasure to be able to say "we" rather than "the Appeals Chamber". Our writing style here is a bit stuffy, so it's always "The Appeals Chamber will now..." or "The Appeals Chamber considers..." It sounds a bit pompous, if you ask me (but nobody does). Apart from that, it must also be said that there are a lot of fine legal minds and excellent drafters here.

Well, it's been a while, but now that the initial whatever has dies done, I can give my impressions, thoughts about the death of Mr Milosevic.

My first impression when I heard he died was, "So he really was sick." It wasn't just a ruse. I have since noted all the "controversy" surrounding his death, with some small depression, but no surprise at all. After all, he was a highly divisive figure, and the media have a vested interest in conflict and controversy. But still, people - he had been sick for ages, he had heart problems, he was in jail, and he was undergoing a pretty stressful trial. Occam's Razor, and all - he had a heart attack and died.

I really love the Russians on this one - he should have come to Russia, then all would have been fine. Now, I'm not carrying any torch for the Dutch healthcare system, but if you had to give me a choice between being treated in Holland and in Russia, I know what I'd choose.

I really feel for those of my colleagues who've been working on the case, though, some of them for more than 5 years. All that work now seems for nothing, and the main topic of the week has been shredding. It wasn't worthless, of course - a lot of the stories came out, there were some important decisions, and this established an important principle. It also taught us some lessons - the trial was too long, so maybe it's better not to load up every possible charge. (However, Saddam's trial, which is exactly the opposite, concentrating on one discrete and, in the context of his crimes, not particularly horrific event, really isn't the way to go either.)

I do wonder how the other defendants in the detention unit are feeling. These are exactly the kind of people who will believe paranoid theories about poisoning etc. I'm sure some are quite nervous. And don't forget, another defendant, Babic, killed himself recently.

Predictably, the press were out in force on the first few days of the week, wielding cameras, mikes, booms, etc. I was sorely tempted to go outside and say, "Psst. I know what really happened."

From my point of view, it doesn't change anything - I'm working on quite different cases (to do with Rwandan genocide, the siege of Sarajevo, and the Kosovo Liberation Army). It's actually quite ironic - I was supposed to move onto the Milosevic trial, but I asked to stay in Appeals. Looks quite prescient now.

From Churchill, on the occasion of Chamberlain's death:

In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.

Even better than Holmes's "[T]ime has upset many fighting faiths."

The League Cup matters, doesn't it? I mean, all 92 League clubs take part in it! Its winners include such luminaries as United (twice - whoo-hoo!), Liverpool, the Arse, Swindon Town! It can get you into Europe! It's at the Millennium Stadium! Princess Anne gives out the prize! Really, it's very, very important!





(At least we won something.)

Thus quoth Slartibartfast. Was he right? There's been quite a lot of renaming in SA in the last few years, which is to be expected. I generally have no problem with it. I really don't mind that Pretoria is now Tshwane and Bloemfontein now Mangaung -- I had no stake in those names. I understand that others might not like it, but in some sense vae victis, and when you consider what we (whites) have managed to hang on to, I don't think it's a big deal that a few names change. We've also got used to the disappearance of the Transvaal without too much difficulty. (Though the existence of 2.2m webpages with Transvaal in them (to be sure, Gauteng has 6.4m pages) suggests that there are still a few hanging on to the old name. Transvaal.co.za is, not surprisingly, about rugby...)

I don't mind that they changed Jan Smuts airport to Johannesburg International Airport, but I sometimes wish they hadn't - I miss the old name, which I was used to, and I think there are good things to say about Smuts (in a non-South African context, he was the only man to serve on both Imperial War Cabinets, and he basically wrote the League of Nations Charter, as detailed in Margaret Macmillan's superb Peacemakers). And if you're going to change the name, why not give it an interesting name? Johannesburg International is so boring. If they didn't want a contentious name, why not something like Highveld or Golden Gateway or Reef, or even Peace & Freedom, which I think would be a very cool name for an airport? Or revive an old name from elsewhere, like Idlewild or Kai Tak.

A while back, we had a real problem with boring names: three of the new provinces had North in the title, which was totally pathetic. At least Northern Province has since changed its name to Limpopo, which I heartily approve of, but North West should get its act together. I suggest Mafikeng (or is it Mafeking), Near-Bot or Platinumania (most of the world's platinum comes from that province).

In Durban, they wanted to rename Point Road after Gandhi, who got his legal and human rights start there. Good idea, right? Big road, nobody remembers now who Mr. Point was. But the Indian community wasn't happy as Point Road has become a hangout of prostitutes and drug dealers. Ha ha. So the plan was dropped. Funny BBC story here.

Naming issues also matter in football (and other less important sports). I am dead set against stadiums named after sponsors -- too much commercialisation really is a bad thing. Much as I detest the Gooners, I think it's a real shame that they are calling their new stadium not Highbury, or New Highbury, but Emirates Stadium. And I don't think it's at all cool that Rangers, whom I like even less, are renaming Ibrox T-Mobile stadium. United better not do something like that.

Arsenal have also just signed a deal with Israel's Tourism Ministry to advertise in the ground. The Arse, showing that their cravenness is more real than apparent, asked the United Arab Emirates if that would be OK with them. (Jared, a fanatical Gooner, comments: "Arsenal Football Club is in the process of solving the Middle East crisis. ") It could be worse - Juventus, showing themselves to be both craven and anti-Semitic, actually cancelled a deal with the tourism ministry after sponsor Tamoil, a Libyan oil company, objected. So don't tell me sports and politics don't mix.

I'm not generally much of a film festival person. I used to be when I was younger, but have become somewhat disenchanted with them for a couple of reasons. First, your chance of seeing a really crap movie is pretty high. Second, they're just movies. I know that may sound heretical, but experientially there really isn't much of a difference between seeing a movie under regular circumstances and seeing one at a festival, except, as I said, for the higher likelihood of seeing a bad movie at the festival.

Nevertheless, there can be something to being surrounded by loads of (other?) pretentious people who want to look as if they care about art. And occasionally film festivals have interesting programmes. Hence, I found myself a few weeks ago at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. I had a particular purpose, however. The festival has an annual series of "Hot Spots", showcasing three cities where exciting (or whatever) movies are made. This year, the cities were Vilnius, Mexico City and Jo'burg - so I had to go and represent. (Interestingly, if I'm from Jo'burg and my ancestors are from Vilnius or thereabouts, where does Mexico City fit in the picture?)

The evening I went to was a bunch of short films, chats with the artistes (emphasis on the e) and a couple live poetry/rap/spoken word/music performances. And oy, were some of them bad. Peter van Heerden's So is n' Os Gemaak featured him hanging naked, hairy and dirty from a kind of scaffold by the Settler Monument in Grahamstown. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how good some of them were, particularly a 2-minute film about Lady Godiva, and Jaco Bouwer's I Love You Jet Li, which was a very funny narrative about a girl who falls in love with Jet Li and flies to China to find him, with filming of Jan Smuts Johannesburg International Airport*. Good poetry and singing from Ntsiki Mazwai and Shamiel X, who did a long diatribe on hip-hop. The first part, what hip-hop is not, was great fun, pacy, inventive, energetic, iconoclastic. But the second half, what hip hop is, was so right-on, "inclusive" and unthinkingly kneejerk leftie it made me want to throw up. Actual line: Hip hop is honouring indigenous people. (I guess that's where "hip" comes from; maybe "hop" stands for helping old people.)

Anyway, my point is that film festivals and short films aren't unremittingly awful. And that some people are better at saying what they oppose than what they stand for (ie, me).

* On renaming in South Africa, see above.

...with Sarah Silverman. For those who don't know her, she is a brilliant Jewish comedian, whose first film is Jesus is Magic. Gotta love the title (though, as a poster to IMDB points out, Moses is magic too). She was amazing in The Aristocrats, which is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Its tagline is No Nudity, No Violence, Unspeakable Obscenity - run, don't walk to rent a copy of it. So anyway, to get a taste of the wonder that is Sarah, here are a few of her very funny clips.

There are plenty of lyrics sites out there for those who are into that sort of thing (ie, me), but I just came across a good interactive one, where people write what the songs mean a) in fact and b) to their own warped minds: Songmeanings. This is indeed one of the finest procrastinosites I have come across. Things I have learned: Mercy Street is about Anne Sexton. (Actually, every Peter Gabriel song seems to be about something or someone very specific.) Architects (or at least one architect) think REM's Fall on Me is about "the deterioration of quality in architectural design". Bruce Springsteen fans are more articulate than Sex Pistols fans.

Finally, if anyone can tell me which song the title of this post comes from (and Googling is cheating), I'll give them a year's subscription to The Getz Files.

December's Harper's wasn't all doom and gloom. It also had some excellent children's errors, collected by the redoubtable Richard Lederer. I know we've all read plenty before, but some of these are really fresh and excellent:

• The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down.
• Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother.
• Proteins are composed of a mean old acid.
• Clouds atre high-flying fogs. I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the most important thing. Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do.
• The wind is like the air, only pushier.
• The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.