The United States and Islamic Law

The Department of Government Law and International Affairs at Murray State University hosted Mr. Abed Awad on Thursday night, March 24th, 2011.

Mr. Awad is an internationally recognized American lawyer specializing in Islamic law, with degrees from Rutgers and Pace International School of Law, among others.

The invitation to Mr. Awad was extended in order to educate faculty, staff, students, and the community, in general, about Islamic law, and to address the attention of U.S. media has directed towards Sharia law.

Honestly, my own thoughts paralleled some of those I have both heard and read - that U.S. law should prevail in the United States. Not that I am against Sharia law, or any other law for that matter, but from strictly a reductionist viewpoint, my opinion was that too many legal systems make the application of law difficult, if not unfair. In other words, the simpler, the better.

These thoughts, though, were essentially ignorant of the U.S. legal system, and global legal systems, in general, and if I had bothered to challenge my own views I would have understood their ignorance. Yes, like the Grinch, I think I had a few brain cells grow three sizes tonight.

The United States legal system allows for agreements and contracts to be written and entered into based on a wide variety of legal and religious precedents. For example, not everyone in the United States marries according to Christian doctrine. Jews do not, and Jews have what is called “Rabbinical Law,” which governs many secular and religious practices. Not all Christians abide by the same Christian laws, either. Quakers, Amish, Mennonites, Russian Orthodox, and Greek Orthodox all have different rules regarding marriage, death, and charity.

People write contracts and engage in business and other activities not necessarily according to civil laws but by religious laws. We might not be exposed to dealings such as these, living in rural Kentucky, or rural America, but those living in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, or other urban areas might run across business contracts that cut across cultural and religious lines.

Businesses may engage in contracts around the world, and those contracts may stipulate compensations, penalties, or interest. In some areas of the world, Israel, Jordan, Malaysia, how those financial instruments are calculated may be governed by religious law rather than civil law.

As individuals, we may never run across personal or business dealings that engage us in contracts or agreements that require us to be knowledgeable about religious laws. Individual events, marriage, death, tithing and charity, divorce, adoption are areas in which religious laws may prevail over civil law because of the contract in place to bind the parties together.

Oklahoma passed a law that makes the practice of Sharia law illegal and voids any contract that involves international law. Tennessee has a bill pending that would make the practice of Sharia law a felony. Both of those legal proceedings are fraught with problems. First, Sharia law is religion-based. The U.S. constitution forbids the making of any laws that forbid or restrict the practice of any religion. Second, legal precedent already allows for other religious laws to be considered in legal proceedings, from Greek Orthodox to Rabbinical laws to Mormon law. Third, people and businesses may already have contracts in place containing elements that address the religious laws in place elsewhere. Legal experts must be in place to address potential breaches in contract stipulations. By making any religious law illegal the courts then have no ability to consider a contract breach and therefore no legal remedy is available. Fourth, states have no power to control the treaties engaged in by the Federal Government. International treaties have the power of domestic law. International treaties that incorporate religious laws then need to have lawyers skilled in international law.

In conclusion, my knowledge of our United States legal system was greatly expanded tonight. The inclusion of Sharia law in our legal system is not unique nor should be deemed as catering to a special interest, as Rabbinical (Jewish) laws, and laws from other Christian sects are commonly found within our legal system. Judges, jurors, and lawyers often use expert testimony, expert witnesses, rabbis, priests, and clergy for interpreting contracts and agreements. Focusing on a single religion and treating that religion’s doctrine differently than others is unconstitutional. By making the process of considering any religious law or doctrine illegal, the legal system itself will be unable to bring about any legal resolution.

To learn more about Abed Awad: http://www.abedawad.com/aboutAbedAwad.htm

How Well Do You Know the United States?

http://blogs.census.gov/censusblog/

One of the best ways to learn about the United States is too look at Census Statistics, or to look at U.S.A Trade data.

Why do we call the region south of the Ohio River the Bible Belt? How do we know people are moving to the Southwest? If you want to live around rich people,where should you relocate to? If you want to open or perhaps you run a chain of daycare centers, where might you want to focus your attention?

The U.S Census Bureau operates a fun blog. The chart at right is from this blog. Rather than focusing on the technical aspects of the U.S.Bureau and the work they do, these writings are derived from their statistical findings, such as an examination in the growth of Native American-owned businesses. Several of their most recent offerings chart residential changes in post-Katrina New Orleans.

And, they also diverge from the purely demographic to the esoteric, like charting the increase in Dental Floss imports from 2006.

Technorati Tags: census 2010,bible belt,katrina,demographics

Earthquake Japan: A Fated Event

The 8.9 magnitude earthquake centered off the northeast coast of Japan’s main island, Honshu, has been predicted to happen for at least a decade.

The map at right (courtesy United States Geological Survey) illustrates the epicenter of the most significant earthquake to affect Japan in a century.

The pink lines indicate the boundaries where crustal plates meet. The red lines are faults, fractures in the earth’s crust.

The islands of Japan are on the eastern edge of the giant Eurasian Plate, directly across from the Filipino Plate, and the Pacific Plate. And, located not too far away to the north is the North American Plate, and to the south is the Australian Plate.

These plates move around, albeit slowly. GPS sensors have been placed on these plates that measure movement. Geologists then know direction and velocity. The one element we do not know is stress; we do not know and have no good way of measuring the pressures that build up along fault lines, and more significantly, the subduction zones that occur at the boundary of these plates.

The Eurasian Plate pushes east, the Pacific Plate pushes west, and the Filipino Plate is caught in the middle.

Needless to say, the geologic pressures at work are pretty enormous, and dangerous when they are released.

Japan has an extensive and sophisticated civil alert network to warn people of dangers and hazards. Unfortunately, these activate after the event. Geologists and others still have no good way of predicting this form of natural hazard, not in the same way has we can predict hurricanes or cyclones.

The world gets nervous when Japan shakes because Tokyo is one of the world’s great Financial Capitals, along with New York, London, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Note that three of the world’s financial centers fall in seismically active regions (Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo).

Disruption in the financial markets, markets that control the movement of money, investments – essentially global trade – makes those in London, New York, and elsewhere nervous. Most financial centers have sophisticated methods for backing up and archiving financial information. Still, the disruption and the subsequent reallocation of resources takes time to implement.

Technorati Tags: earthquake,japan,usgs,finances,stock market

Can the U.S. Ego Handle Being #3?

Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, says that the United States needs to get ready to be Number 3 in the world, economically speaking.

Don't come after me, email him.

It is inevitable, though. Let's run some numbers.

Population of the United States: .... 310,000,000 people
Population of China: ..................1,400,000,000 people
Population of India: ...................1,100,000,000 people

A Rule of Thumb that I use is that 50% of a country's population is essentially the Labor Force.

Labor Force of The United States: ... 150,000,000 (Actual = 153 million; CIA World Factbook; 2010)
Labor Force of China: ......................700,000,000 (Actual = 819.5 million; CIA World Factbook; 2010)
Labor Force of India ........................650,000,000 (Actual = 478.3 million; CIA World Factbook; 2010)

Now, let's look at a measure of Economic Productivity, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

GDP of The United States: .... $14,700,000,000,000 (in PPP; CIA World Factbook; 2010 )
GDP of China: .......................  $9,872,000,000,000 (in PPP; CIA World Factbook; 2010)
GDP of India: ........................  $4,046,000,000,000 (in PPP; CIA World Factbook; 2010)

From: TradingEconomics.com

Judging from these numbers, The United State's economy is about equal to the combined economies of China and India.

However, economic growth for the last 5 years or so has not been promising. The U.S. has been hindered economically by two wars, stagnating domestic economic policy.

Economic growth in China and India is promising. For the last 10 years, China has experienced economic growth of at least 9% annual growth. In the years between 2003 - 2008, economic growth was in excess of 10%.

For India, the story is more measured, by the trend is mostly the same, expansive economic growth. Outside of a few quarters between 2004 - 2010, economic growth in India has been in excess of 7%.

In comparison, the best year between 2001 - 2010 for the United States occurred in 2004. After growing from about 0.5% in the first quarter of January 2002, the economy improved to an annual growth rate of 4% in the first quarter of 2004.

Not that I want to portray a bleak picture; the numbers essentially speak for themselves.

China and India both have much larger populations, individually, than does the United States. Both China and India have much economic growth left; in fact, many would argue that the true economic potential of both countries is 20 - 40 years away, given that China / U.S. relations remain congenial, and that Pakistan / India relations do not run the world to the brink of annihilation (again). Likewise that China / India relations remain congenial, and that India does not find China's attempt to become the de facto leader in Asia a threat.

We've had a good run at being the world leader.

As our educational systems falter, as American continue to be distracted from STEM education, as parents and educators argue about how to manage classrooms, as children lose discipline, as entitlement programs create in-fighting and bickering among political rivals and as Americans, born into entitlements, fight to keep them, and as the United States presses "democracy" within the Middle East and Central Asia, our economic competitors will continue to mature and evolve. China and India, seeking to make theirs lives better, will look at consumer markets domestically and abroad, and build new relationships. Chinese and India will (and do) focus on training, education, science, and math.

That the United States will lose its economic position and status is not really a knock against us, but merely an illustration of how far behind us, economically, both India and China are. Each has come along way in educating populations, and bringing citizens out of poverty.

Each has a long way to go, however, and as India and China cover that distance, the United States will have to evaluate, and continue to re-evaluate its global role.

Technorati Tags: news,china,india,economic growth,willem buiter,citibank