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Treaties & Conventions 10/10/2008 5:18:35 PM EST World Financial Crisis Descends, Nations Ascend and Descend, Hummus Wars Begin, While British Judges Fuss With Fabric International & Foreign Law Blog LexisNexis Legal Editor/Site Coordinator LexisNexis International & Foreign Law Center World Financial Crisis Descends, Nations Ascend and Descend, Hummus Wars Begin, While British Judges Fuss With Fabric
This week has seen a dramatic intersection of events. The mortgage crisis in the United States has had repercussions around the globe. Coordinated multi-national efforts are being taken as I write this to establish financial safeguards and a regulatory framework to prevent a worsening of the crisis and to set the world on the road to recovery. Or at least we are urged to hope so. The future of sovereign wealth funds is a rising topic and what role they may play in the solution...if they can (after all they have investments in the institutions and assets that went south too!). Any one with ideas about how to solve this crisis is welcome to share them with us……
Issues of public international law are especially in the news this week, in particular the nature of sovereignty at the beginning and the end of the process of nationhood. The world financial crisis has risen to such proportions that the sovereign nation of Iceland is teetering on the brink of “national bankruptcy”. What will befall this nation of geologic and climatic wonders, whose currency has plummeted in value on world markets, remains to be seen. ….
Serbia has won a UN vote calling for the ICJ to review the legality of the unilateral declaration of independence by the region of Kosovo, in an attempt to channel local tensions through the judicial process. The U.S. and 47 other nations hastily granted recognition to the Kosovar entity, as if it were a colonial region freeing itself from control of its colonial overlord. The problem is, Kosovo is a traditional heartland region of Serbia, not a colonial appendage on another continent. Would the 48 nations, who were so quick to extend recognition to Kosovo, be as quick to do the same for Scotland, Bavaria, or Catalunia unilaterally declaring their independence from the U.K., Germany or Spain, respectively? The current political campaign in the U.S. has exposed the Alaskan independence movement, and the tenuousness of Québec’s participation with the 13 Anglo/Native provinces and territories to make up Canada is well-known. As some UN diplomats have pointed out, while 48 nations have recognized Kosovo, another 144 have not…..
“The Hummus War” When dramatic crises occur, the last thing one needs is a flair up of tensions in the Middle East, yet that is precisely what has happened this week, as the Lebanese Industrialists’ Association announced its plans to sue Israel over its culturally hegemonic aggressive act of claiming that “hummus” (a.k.a. hummous bi tahini - cooked and mashed chickpeas, normally blended with sesame paste, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic ) is “Israeli”. According to LIA president Fadi Abboud, it is likely that this dispute will “spread” to the eggplant dish baba ghannouj and to tabbouleh, a salad made of chopped parsley and tomatoes. While acknowledging that the Palestinians may also have a colorable claim to hummus, the Lebanese are confident they have a case for baba ghannouj and tabboulleh.
They are likely all wrong…..
The written historical record pushes back the recipes of hummus (chick peas mashed with olive oil [and varying other ingredients in some places] to the Byzantine Empire (of which Lebanon was a part in those days) whose lasting influence in art, architecture, cuisine, and fashion is still very perceptible from Moscow to Addis Ababa and from Ravenna to Mosul and even in some places farther a-field. Ever wonder why Greek, Turkish, Syrian, Lebanese, Armenian, Jordanian, Palestinian, Egyptian, and Tunisian restaurant menus all look and sound and are so similar? And an examination of several Slavic countries’ menus will reveal that influence as well (e.g., placzki/palačinta/palatshinken/blintzes/blinis {which are all related in part to pita/pide} all deriving from the Byzantine πλακοῦντα (plakounta)meaning “flat cake”; tomato-and-cucumber-based salads often with a cheesy topping (shopska), etc). These lands and their peoples were all part of the Byzantine Commonwealth (i.e., either territories directly ruled by the Byzantines, former trading colonies/outposts, or in close political and cultural relationships with the Empire) and among whom the tastes and flavors of the Empire circulated along with the trade in goods. And don’t be misled by the “spread of Islam” claims – nomadic conquerors rarely influence entire cuisines (e.g., steak tartare is the only legendary culinary contribution of the great Mongolian Horde); seventh century Arab cooking was already part of the Byzantine Commonwealth culinary menu for over 700 (including Old Rome’s control) years before Mohammed’s movement began to take Arabic cuisine dishes abroad.
While the Byzantine Empire was remarkably ethnically diverse, and in its contemporary way, democratic even, and thus a great synthesizer of the best available, it’s likely that the evidence in this case will consist of the skimpy chronological record augmented by the archaeological evidence. There can be little doubt that hummus was commonly made throughout the Empire as a food of the common people. As Jody Jaffe summed up the origin of hummus in Bethesda Magazine:
“Chickpeas were cultivated 7,000 years ago in the Middle East. But there’s evidence that our ancestors have been eating them for tens of thousands of years. Some think the Phoenicians brought the chickpea to Western Europe. This much is certain though, by Roman times, chickpeas were part of the diet. Consequently, the history of hummus is murky, with several cultures claiming origin.”
Flipping Their Wigs! Alas, those to whom we might have considered turning to help us sort out all these messes of worthless mortgages, unstable nations, and mashed vegetables, have now gone soft on us. British Justice no longer appears to be what it was! An English friend recently shared the following from correspondence on the subject of the change in Court Robes and the Abandonment of Wigs by British Judges:
“But now I have to get on your case (not yours personally, but that of your judicial establishment) – how can there be any semblance to true British Justice without wigged judges!?!? It was bad enough when there were Whig judges, but at least they were wigged and that helped keep them in line! Now, all hell will surely break loose. And how insularly ‘fashionista’-ically selfish!? Did anyone there think about the havoc that this frivolity – together with the designer robes that are discarded altogether for civil cases – will wreak on the Commonwealth and the world?! Admittedly, the South Africans have had better robes than you all for some time, but they also have the better Roman-Dutch-law-anchored legal system. The Scots and St. Lucia as well, same kinds of reasons. But what about the Ugandans, Nigerians, et al. struggling to establish the rule of law and now to be distracted by this frivolous fashion revolution? It's not easy to wear wigs in tropical heat, but Ugandans and Nigerians and Kenyans, not to mention Zimbabweans (otherwise under tremendous political pressure) and Nevians and Jamaicans, as well as Malaysians and Indians (and lest we forget the Cypriots, Pakistanis, Belizans, Zambians, and numerous others?), have all soldiered through, keeping up standards of Justice and the rule of law in the British tradition with a stiff, if sweaty, upper lip, in spite of the obvious difficulties of doing so while bewigged and/or robed in stifling heat, and now you go and pull the rug out from under them??!!! How injurious to the Rule of Law! How traitorous of the English toward their very own traditions of BRITISH Justice! We are saddened, appalled, and heartbroken at the prospects of a world about to go mad, chaos reigning in the streets. It's bad enough we Yanks've gone and messed up the world financial system, …… (heaven help us!!), for which we are being and shall continue to be duly and justly chastened for years to come – but to tamper with the very essential underpinnings of British justice, that revered world-wide symbol and icon of stability, grace, fairness and decorum, a justice that would help see us through this crisis, the JUSTICE that would help the world keep sane in these trying times, that is … it's just unspeakable!” You have a duty, like it or not, to maintain that which you have come to represent for the rest of us in the world. New Labour apparently just doesn’t get it. If we can’t count on British Justice to maintain its traditions, to be stalwart and a constant in changing and troubled times, what can we count on?….."
Enough said…..
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