In 2021, the Australian effort to pursue the matter risks going under or, at the very least, losing steam. For one, events on the ground in Afghanistan are moving quickly. The Taliban forces are resurgent and eagerly awaiting the finalised departure of foreign-led forces.
Achieving justice through international court processes tends to be celebrated by parties who either benefit directly from them or observe them with a dispassionate eye. For the rest, it’s politics.
When brutal events take place, they are disbelieved; if they are acknowledged they are justified and rationalised as aberrations. Scapegoats are found, retribution targeted for reasons of moral expiation.
Empires can prove rather loose in dividing up territory. The Soviet Union, in leaving Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan in 1923, was setting the scene for future violent squabbles, not least because the initial decision in 1921 had favoured Armenia. The former autonomous oblast comprises the north-eastern flank of the Karabakh Range of the Lesser Caucasus, extending […]
Using publicly available material from the WikiLeaks database has thrown up a dilemma for scholars and researchers.2 In principle, this would seem a non-issue: material, despite its classified status, is made available via online search engines that serve a range of informational, pedagogical and research purposes. Such availability offers the chance of the material being reproduced, for example through links to other sites, including online learning tools such as Blackboard. But the search for knowledge…
