Country Watch
Tuvalu, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Cape Verde, Samoa, Vanuatu, and Comoros have also come forward to plead with the General Assem- bly to take action on climate change. Many of these island nations make up AOSIS , the Alliance of Small Island States, whose concerns about ris- ing sea levels can be seen in their “1.5°C to Stay Alive” campaign, which addresses the negative impacts of climate change.
Since the UNFCCC entered into force in 1995, members of the Conference of the Parties (COP) have been meeting annually to discuss the suc- cesses and failures of dealing with climate change. With the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, otherwise known as COP 17, coming up late November into December in Dur- ban, South Africa, the issues facing these island nations will be brought to light once again.
*Submitted by Mollie A. Dapolito
EULEX To Investigate Human Organ Trafficking in Albania
It sounds like something straight out of a horror film - innocent people killed to harvest their or- gans for sale on the black market. The stories are real and are currently under investigation by the European Union Rule of Law Mission to Kosovo (EULEX).
Xavier de Marnhac, head of the EULEX, an- nounced in early October that an EU prosecutor will travel to Albania to investigate the organ traf- ficking claims. The allegations date back to the 1998-1999 Kosovo War and stem from a report written by the Council of Europe. The report al- leged that Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, and commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army set up detention centers at the Albania-Kosovo border, killed Albanian and Serbian civilian detain- ees, and sold their organs on the black market. The Council of Europe’s report also alleged that Prime Minister Thaci was the leader the KLA
Drenica Group, a criminal network that commit- ted “grave crimes, including the inhuman treat- ment and killing of prisoners with the purpose of removing and trafficking in human organs.” These harvested organs were then sent overseas for transplants.
Prime Minister Thaci vehemently denies these al- legations and has pledged his cooperation with the investigation. The Albanian Foreign Minister, Edmond Haxhinasto, also pledged that “his gov- ernment and the nation’s institutions would be open and supportive to a full and conclusive in- vestigation.”
Meanwhile seven Kosovars, mostly doctors, are being tried by three-judge panel led by EULEX. They are accused of “participating in an interna- tional organ trafficking ring” which began in Pris- tina, Kosovo in October. They were indicted for luring poor people into selling their kidneys for payments, which were never made, then selling the organs for as much as $137,000.
Carla Del Ponte, former prosecutor for the Inter- national Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugosla- via, wrote a book about her time at that court and claimed that “roughly 300 Serbians and other non-Albanian prisoners were victims of organ trafficking during the war.” These claims spawned the current investigation in Albania. EULEX an- nounced in August that American prosecutor American John Clint Williamson, would lead the investigation and the task force that will conduct the investigation into this grisly tale.
The Council of Europe’s 2003 report on organ trafficking in Europe shows that this is not just a recent problem unique to Albania. The report states that “[w]orldwide, the issue of organ trade is not so new. In the 1980s experts begun to no- tice what would become known as ‘transplant tourism’ when prosperous Asians begun travel- ling to India and other parts of Southeast Asia to receive organs from poor donors. Since then other routes have opened up, from Brazil to the
ILSA Quarterly » volume 20 » issue 2 » December 2011
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