God bless Foreign Policy, the site has published a piece by Raji Sourani, of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and Daniel Machover, of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, on the Goldstone reconsideration. The piece says that Goldstone’s shift should in no way alter the trajectory of the original report– to the International Criminal Court–despite a renewed Israel lobbying campaign.
The correct question now is whether Justice Goldstone’s ‘reconsideration’ of one finding in the September 2009 UN Fact-Finding Mission Report (UNFFM) into the December 2008-January 2009 conflict in Gaza and Israel that he chaired affects the recommendations in the March 21 resolution by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), including the proposed Security Council referral of those events to the International Criminal Court.
It was the focus on criminal accountability, with clear recommendations to involve the International Criminal Court (§1969) and for national courts to exercise universal jurisdiction over suspects (§1975), which was notable about the UNFFM Report. Indeed, it is this focus that has generated significant controversy in political circles notwithstanding the clear requirements of international law.
The Israeli government is reportedly “planning to launch an international campaign to persuade the United Nations to retract” the report. While the timing of Justice Goldstone’s opinion piece is fortuitous for the Israeli government, nothing in it provides the basis for any UN body to ‘retract’ the report or ignore the UNHRC’s resolutions…
The second passage I like deals with my favorite question about int’l law, how can it be so selectively enforced. Note Sourani’s reference to action in Libya/no action in Gaza.
Justice Goldstone was right in his op-ed to express concern about double standards vis-à-vis the UN’s reaction to varying conflicts around the world. This record undermines the pursuit of human rights. We too would like to see the UN investigate conflicts that result in significant loss of civilian life, be they in Sri Lanka, Ivory Coast, Bahrain, or the Gaza Strip. While the Human Rights Council has not been consistent in this regard, this is a negative trend that thankfully appears to be reversing.
What is required is the equal application of the law. The speedy referral of Libya to the ICC contrasts starkly with the Security Council’s failure even to debate the question of an Israel/Palestine referral. The history of bias in favor of Israel at the UNSC significantly degrades the concept of universal justice and civilians’ faith in the rule of international law. Given the key role of the UNSC, this preferential treatment for Israel and other close allies of veto-holding members needs to be addressed more urgently than bias within other UN organs.
Sadly, representatives of the victims, and the international community as a whole, do not know much more now regarding the war crimes allegedly committed by the IDF than two years ago. What we do know with absolute certainty, however, is that over two years since Operation Cast Lead, one Israeli soldier has served 7.5 months in jail for the theft of a credit card and two others received three-month suspended sentences for using a child as a human shield. We also know that over 1,400 individuals were killed, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians, including upwards of 300 children. Yet these three convictions, and the ongoing trial of a fourth soldier, have been the only concrete judicial outcomes from Israeli investigations. The majority of those investigations have been closed upon reaching the IDF’s apparently preordained conclusion that: “[t]hroughout the fighting in Gaza, the IDF operated in accordance with international law.”
