The Wire

The Australian Red Cross managed to re-ignite the debate over the responsibilities of occupying powers, at a hypothetical forum it held last night at the University of Sydney. The forum, the Ethics of Nation Building, gathered together some of the leading professionals from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the Royal Military College and the Australian Centre for Human Rights. They discussed the definition of torture, freedom of the press and the right to protest. With US and Australian troops occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, the hypothetical setting sparked an interesting debate. Sarah Bassiuoni went to the hypothetical to hear what the experts had to say about ethical nation building.