The Foreign Service Journal, October 2009

12 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 9 english/2009-07/23/content_1175 6009.htm ). Both the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and its former foes in the National Congress Party have ex- pressed satisfaction with the newly de- marcated borders and agreed to observe them. These successes, however, were partially overshadowed by the fifth an- niversary of the ICJ’s ruling against Is- rael’s construction of a separation wall between Israeli and Palestinian terri- tories ( www.sott.net/articles/show/ 190312-Five-years-after-ICJ-rul ing-Israel-expands-its-illegal-Wall- onto-more-Palestinian-land ). De- spite a decision by the court and a vote by the U.N. General Assembly declar- ing an obligation for signatories to the Geneva Convention to compel Israel to uphold the rulings, there has been no action by any party to the dispute. Still, the list of pending cases vol- untarily brought before the ICJ — among them such monumental dis- putes as Kosovo v. Serbia and Peru v. Chile — is a reassuring indication of a willingness to attempt international ar- bitration and other nonviolent conflict solutions ( www.icjcij.org/docket/in dex.php?p1=3&p2=1&PHPSESS ID=7721bda04b0456828d608a58 319ebc3d ). The new, independent Interna- tional Criminal Court, meanwhile, is investigating four situations — in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Uganda and Sudan (Darfur) — and began its first trial in January ( www.icc-cpi.int/ ) . Established under the Rome Statutes in 1998 and opened for business in 2002, the ICC is backed by 110 nations but is still boycotted by the U.S., China, Russia and India. To keep up with these contentious cases and other issues surrounding the more than 20 functioning international courts, follow reports issued by the Project on International Courts and Tribunals ( www.pict-pcti.org/index. html ). The Beautiful Bunker? The 1990s witnessed a gradual turn away from creative designs for U.S. embassies. As fear of terrorist attacks rose, the buildings slowly moved from cultural representations of America’s unique vitality to fortresses. Some crit- ics now claim that embassy architec- ture has reached a nadir, as architects told to value safety above all other con- siderations churn out what the Los An- geles Times — a frequent reporter on this issue — has called “one-size-fits- all bunkers” ( http://latimesblogs.lati mes.com/culturemonster/2009/ 07/ ). The State Department has long been under wide-ranging criticism for failing to fulfill one of the “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture,” formulated by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and issued by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, that federal facilities “reflect the dignity, enterprise, vigor and stability of the federal gov- ernment.” So in July 2008, State’s Bu- reau of Overseas Buildings Operations commissioned the American Institute of Architects to review embassy archi- tecture ( www.dwell.com/articles/ph ilip-kennicott-on-americas-embas sies.html ). And on July 9, 2009, the AIA’s 21st- Century Embassy Task Force released a 40-page report, “Design for Diplo- macy: New Embassies for the 21st Century,” to the public ( www.aia.org/ aiaucmp/groups/aia/documents/pd f/aiab080400.pdf ). It cites the Cen- ter for Strategic and International Studies’ 2007 report, “The Embassy of the Future,” as a key source of infor- mation for its own findings and recom- mendations ( http://csis.org/files/med ia/csis/pubs/embassy_of_the_futu re.pdf ). Both reports agree that it is possi- ble to blend aesthetics and security in embassy design. Furthermore, the AIA’s report highlights several ways in which the OBO can achieve this per- fect harmony while also lowering costs. The Road to Damascus President Barack Obama made a sharp break with George W. Bush–era foreign policy in late June, when he an- nounced his intention to send an am- bassador, as yet unnamed, back to Syria C Y B E R N O T E S 50 Years Ago... T his, then, is the challenge: Are we, the peoples of the eco- nomically advanced free nations, going to persevere in our efforts to help the one billion people in the free world’s less-developed areas place themselves firmly on the road to progress? Or are we going to be found wanting in this supreme test of our free and democratic way of life? — Under Secretary of State Douglas Dillon, from a talk delivered to the Harvard University Association in Cambridge, Mass., on June 11, 1959; FSJ , October 1959.