Richard Falk

Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Was Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practise, Princeton University, a prolific writer, speaker and activist of world affairs and the author or co-author of more than 20 books, among them "Crimes of War", "Revolutionaries and Functionaries", "The War System", "A Study of Future Worlds", "The End of World Order", Revitalizing International Law", "Nuclear Weapons and International Law" and "On Human Governance". Founding member of IALANA and of the World Order Models Project, WOMP.

Professor Falk became an adviser to TFF when it was established in 1985.

Address	Centre of International Studies, Princeton University, Bendheim Hall, New Jersey 08544-1022, U.S.A.
Phone	+1-609-258 48 64
Fax	+1-609-258 39 88
E-mail	rfalk@Princeton.edu falk@global.ucsb.edu

Articles by Richard Falk

The most recent on top

Richard Falk, December 26, 2009
Tragic international failure in Gaza
Threaten Israel with sanctions if the blockade is not lifted

Richard Falk on Aljazeera, October 7, 2009
The UN special rapporteur comments on PA president Abbas "perverse" endorsement of the idea of deferring UN discussion and vote on the Goldstone Report and thereby "betraying" the Palestinian people.

International Peace Day...
Richard Falk, September 21, 2009
Why Goldstone's Report matters

Richard Falk in TodaysZaman, Turkey, September 15, 2009
Davotoglu: Turkey's finest foreign minister of republican era

Richard Falk, September 11, 2009
September 11 in Santiago - poem

Richard Falk, March 23, 2009
Report to the UN Human Rights Council on Gaza
TFF Associate and UN Rapporteur Richard Falk's matter-of-fact account on the situation in Gaza. Do government and media in the West listen properly? Does anybody take action with the concern they apply to other systematic violations of human righs and ethnic cleansing?

Richard Falk, March 23, 2009
Oral Statement on the Occupied Palestinian Territories to the UN Human Rights Council.

Richard Falk in Le Monde Diplomatique, March 2009
Israel's war crimes
Israel blamed its earlier wars on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel account for its war crimes?

Richard Falk, Transnational Institute interview, January 20, 2009
Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza

Richard Falk, January 9, 2009
Statement on Gaza to the Human Rights Council

AMW - Arab Media Watch - December 24, 2008
An interview with Richard Falk
Victor Kattan interviewed Falk about the motivation behind his deportation, comparisons he has made between Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and Nazi crimes committed during World War II, his dual role as an academic and a human rights advocate, and how defenders of Israel deflect attention from what is happening on the ground by attacking critics of the state's policies.

Richard Falk,UNHCHR, December 27, 2008
Statement on Gaza situation as of December 27, 2008

Richard Falk, The Guardian, December 19, 2008
My expulsion from Israel
When I arrived in Israel as a UN representative I knew there might be problems at the airport. And there were...

Richard Falk, December 10, 2008
Gaza - Silence is not an option
Press release by the UN Special Rapporteur and TFF Associate.

Richard Falk, November 7, 2008
Barack Obama's historic victory - and his foreign policy challenges

Richard Falk - UN Special Rapporteur, October 31, 2008
Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
This report attempts to strike a balance between highlighting incidents that illustrate deeper general problems associated with the occupation and discussing patterns of conduct that
appear to violate the human rights of the occupied people.It special theme is the health situation.

Richard Falk, September 24, 2008 - Video
International law and the nature of security - a talk before the U.S. war on Iraq

Richard Falk, August 23, 2008
Towards a necessary utopianism:
Democratic global governance

Richard Falk, August 22, 2008
Assessing the Georgian crisis

Richard Falk, August 19, 2008
Horizons of a grand theory of peace

Richard Falk, August 2008
Current Concerns
"Palestinians have been betrayed by the international community over the years"
TFF Associate and newly appointed Special Rapporteur on Palestine and Other Occupied Territories speaks to one of the leadingEuropean journals

Richard Falk, interviewed by Linda Mamoun, The Nation, June 17, 2008
A conversation with Richard Falk
"It's important not to view history as a mere creature of geopolitical forces. Popular resistance has altered the course of history. The decolonization movement, the antiapartheid movement, the movements to free the peoples of Eastern Europe from Soviet domination are all examples of struggles that seemed to defy the geopolitical structures that existed."

Richard Falk, BBC Hardtalk, May 2, 2008 - 3 videos
Hardtalk: Stephen Sackur talks to Professor Richard Falk, the UN Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories , about his suggestion that Israel has "genocidal tendancies".

Breaking
Israel denies visa to TFF Associate Richard Falk, appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the Israeli-Palestinian human rights situation. Haaretz April 9, 2008. All articles over the years by Falk below.

Richard Falk, March 5, 2008
What to expect from the next American president in the Middle East

Richard Falk, February 11, 2008
Interpreting US-Iran relations

Richard Falk, September 26, 2007
Two models of democratization in the Middle East

Richard Falk, September 1, 2007
The real meaning of Turkey's elections

Richard Falk, August 31, 2007
Comments to the exchange of letter between Hans von Sponeck-Dennis Halliday and Louise Arbour, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights

Richard Falk, July 17, 2007
Turkey's elections: An outsider's view
These elections are being intensely contested
and are viewed as crucial to the future of Turkey. I believe they are widely misinterpreted here and abroad as a contest between
Islam and secularism, whereas the real struggle going on is between two ideas of secularism.

Richard Falk, June 29, 2007
Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust
it is especially painful for me, as an American Jew, to feel compelled to portray the ongoing and intensifying abuse of the Palestinian people by Israel through a reliance on such an inflammatory metaphor as ‘holocaust.’

Richard Falk, April 30, 2007
Responsible scholarship in 'dark times'
Each of the concerns expressed here calls for a defiant spirit of truthfulness that may entail some adverse consequences. There are concerted campaigns afoot within the society to purge university ranks of radical voices and to intimidate still further the rest of the academic community. It is a historical moment that is severely testing the vitality and moral wellbeing of academic professionalism.

Richard Falk, April 6, 2007
The Genocide in Bosnia: Lawyers' justice versus justice
Widespread disappointment has greeted the near unanimous decision of the World Court in The Hague, formally known as the International Court of Justice, to the effect that Serbia was not guilty of genocide in Bosnia during the 1990s. The outcome although troubling in some aspects should not be viewed as a
defeat for the Bosnian side.

Richard Falk, January 3, 2007
What future for the Palestinians?

Richard Falk, January 1, 2007
The flawed execution of Saddam Hussein

Richard Falk, December 8, 2006
On United Nations reform: Where is Kofi Annan's "fork in the road"? Over the horizon!
This essay contends that there is no fork in road, and that the metaphor of choice is profoundly distorting. Within the United Nations System, as now constituted, there is no reform choice, and no alternative to the persistence of a geopolitically dominated reality. Outside the UN, the commitment to UN reform by civil society actors is the only worthwhile path, although the realization of its vision cannot even be imagined at this point.

Richard Falk, December 4, 2006
An American fiasco, an Iraqi tragedy
The Middle East is at a tipping-point: either allow the lethal drift continue or acknowledge urgency by undertaking a drastic change of course. One way out that is still possible would be a major regional conference. Waiting for Washington appears to be waiting for Godot!

Richard Falk, November 6, 2006
The Saddam Hussein death sentence
The American stage-managing of this judicial process has been evident to observers all along. It always seemed legally dubious to initiate a criminal trial against Saddam Hussein while the American occupation was encountering such strong resistance by Saddam loyalists. By now, even naïve America no longer listens when Washington claims that another milestone establishes progress in the war. As the milestones pile up, so do the bodies!

Richard Falk, August 31, 2006
World Order after the Lebanon War
We should take care not tooverlook the extent to which war is becoming dysfunctional. The Lebanon War is likely to be remembered not for the birth pains of 'a new Middle East' (Condoleezza Rice), but as the death throes of a system of world order that accepted war as the inevitable basis of stability and change in relations among sovereign states.

PressInfo 241, August 15, 2006
Assessing the United Nations after the Lebanon War 2006
The UN has become in these situations, sadly, more of a geopolitical instrument than an instrument for the enforcement of international law. This regression betrays the vision that the guided the architects of the UN back in 1945, chief among whom were American diplomats. It is today incapable of protecting any state that is the victim of an aggressive war initiated by the United States or its close allies.
Sad as it is, this assessment should not lead to a cynical dismissal of the Organization. We need the UN - and there are three ways in which we can help it be what it was meant to be.

Richard Falk, July 25, 2006
Lurching toward regional war in the Middle East
Israeli moves toward all out war in Gaza and Lebanon seem linked to wider dangers of a regional war with severe global consequences.
I fear that what we are witnessing is an extremely risky set of moves to shift the joint Israeli/American regional game plan in an overtly military direction. Neither the UN, world public opinion, nor regional opposition seem to have the will or capacity to halt this slide toward regional war.
We can only hope that prudence somehow mysteriously remains a restraining force, at least in Washington. Already there are signs of blowback, with Hizbollah emerging as the political winner, with Iran not far behind, given the degree to which a central cleavage in the Middle East is now shaping up as a contest between Iranian-led Shi'ias and Saudi-led Sunnis.

Richard Falk, July 25, 2006
Israel's war on Gaza
In a shocking display of disregard for the restraints of international law and morality, Israel has been resorting to a massive, flagrant, and cruel display of collective punishment inflicted on the essentially helpless and captive 1.2 million population of Gaza.
Almost as shocking has been the silence of the world community in the face of these criminal violations of the Geneva Conventions.
The truth about the Middle East is the reverse of what we are being told...

PressInfo 239, March 29, 2006
The Non-Proliferation treaty is failing: What now?
Lists the problems with the NPT and the states ignoring it. "In effect, we are calling for two new treaties: a Nuclear Disarmament Treaty and a Treaty Establishing an International Sustainable Energy Agency. These are the only initiatives that have a reasonable chance of moving us back from the terrifying edge of the nuclear precipice. By Richard Falk and David Krieger. 

PressInfo 237, March 28, 2006
Israel, Iran, and the Future of the Middle East
One of the leading world order analysts links the issue of nuclear weapons, Iran, Israel, Turkey, the Middle East and their complex relations and warns that a devastating war could break out if no one takes steps to head it off soon. He also asks why we should accept the global nuclear apartheid thinking that this whole affair is imbued with. By Richard Falk.

PressInfo 230, December 4, 2005
Ending the war on Iraq
The solutions proposed in the American political mainstream are not convincing: wait until the Iraq military can bring stability to the country seems like waiting for Godot. We should have learned better from our Vietnam experience. Mobilise the U.S. anti-war opinion, help Iraqi reconciliation and consider the 8 balanced steps that must be taken now to get us out and reshape our policies in the region. By Richard Falk.

Richard Falk, September 23, 2005
Reforming the UN - A global civil society perspective
Comprehensive analysis, a macro-perspective on the relations between the UN on the one hand and governments and NGOs on the other; review of recent reform proposals and panel reports. Cautiously optimistic about the potentials of the UN and global civil society co-operation. A must read for any student of UN affairs and others concerned about global governance in authoritarian times.

Richard Falk, September 23, 2005
Civil society judges the Iraq War
Falk here gives an account of the World Tribunal on Iraq that was ignored by virtually all mainstream Western media. He places it in a historical perspective and highlights it importance for normative global politics and governance. He was one of four TFF Associates participating.

A listing of Falk's books from the last few years - impressive!

The American Disaster in Iraq

What is a Nation? What is a State? Exploring minority rights and their limits

What is Wrong with Kerry's Foreign and Domestic Policy...So Far?

Foreword to Griffin's "The New Pearl Habor"

A New Gandhian Moment?

Reviving Global Justice, Addressing Legitimate Grievances

Gandhi, Nonviolence and the Struggle Against War

When Words Fail

On Edward Said

Empowering Inquiry: Our Debt to Edward Said

Questions Posed by the Turkish Daily News
Added Responses to the Turkish Daily News

Reimagining the Governance of Globalization

What Future for the UN Charter System of War Prevention?

The Unconquerable World. Book Review

Resisting the Global Domination Project - interview

A Modest Proposal: Giving Bush and Blair a Deadline - with David Krieger

Will the Empire be Fascist?

Challenging the United Nations

Why International Law Matters

The Iraq Crisis and International Law - with David Krieger

Why International Law Matters

A Roadmap for War: A Flawed Debate

War on Iraq: Not the president's decision - with David Krieger

Opposition to War Against Iraq

Iraq, the United States, and International Law: Beyond the Sanctions

Impending Constitutional Crisis: The Rush to War

No War Against Iraq - with David Krieger

Ending the Death Dance

The new Bush doctrine

Taming the Nuclear Monster - with David Krieger

Tämja kärnvapenmonstret - med David Krieger

The United Nations System: Prospects for Renewal

Azmi Bishara, the Right of Resistance and the Palestinian Ordeal

The First Normative Global Revolution?

Defining a Just War

See some the reactions to this controversial analysis in The Nation.

A just response

Mahatma Gandhi and the Revival of Nonviolent Politics in the Late 20th Century

Meeting the Political Challenge to Globalization

Kosovo: One Year Later

The Place of Criminal Accountability in Transitional Justice: Reflections After Kosovo