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Hostage

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  • Judge who acquitted war criminals at Hague had 'close and confidential relations' with U.S. gov't
    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 1:47 pm with 1 replies

      As I said in the other thread, the problem with this theory is that it would hardly be unusual for the presiding judge of a tribunal like the ICTY to consult with the people who are deciding whether to appoint a chief prosecutor. . . . “There is absolutely no evidence in the WikiLeaks documents that Meron have taken instructions from the U.S. and Israel,” said Heller on the phone from South Africa.

      No it's none of his business and the USA doesn't have sole discretion in the selection of Prosecutors anyway.

      Here is what Heller really had to say about the revelations from the Wikileaks cables:

      The President has no role in the appointment or reappointment of the Prosecutor under the ICTY Statute or RPE, nor is supervising prosecutorial strategy (outside of the relevant provisions of the ICTY Statute) part of his brief. So he should not have been channeling anyone’s concerns to anyone other than, perhaps, his fellow judges — and he especially should not have been channeling them to his own government.

      link to opiniojuris.org

      That's a comment he exchanged about an article he wrote taking Meron to task for undermining the independence of the office of the Prosecutor in violation of the terms of Statute, i.e. Meron is guilty of betraying confidential information in the much the same way as Harhoff. See Kevin Jon Heller, The Real Judge Meron Scandal at the ICTY:

      Needless to say — I hope! — it is completely unacceptable for a judge to encourage a state to not re-appoint the Prosecutor of his tribunal because he disagrees with the way she has exercised her prosecutorial discretion or because he doesn’t believe she is a “first class prosecutor.”. Art. 16(2) of the ICTY Statute provides that “[t]he Prosecutor shall act independently as a separate organ of the International Tribunal.” Judge Meron’s secret meeting with the US Ambassador was inconsistent with any notion of the OTP’s independence. Indeed, it was a frontal assault on it.

      link to opiniojuris.org

  • Hillary's court is the Israel lobby
    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 1:43 am

      In sum, Daily Show audience is younger, better educated, more politically aware–and, I assume, much smaller than the other audiences.

      Both shows average about 2 million total viewers.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 12:02 am with 3 replies

      “Regular Joe and Jane”s are getting their world view from the mainstream media.

      That includes entertainers, like John Stewart, who have ridiculed the politicians who have been backing intervention in Syria. See for example: John McCain's Syrian Photo Op: John McCain meets with Syrian rebels and shows the Obama administration how to differentiate between the good guys and the bad. link to thedailyshow.com

  • Meet the Israeli-linked firm that sold Big Brother machines to Mubarak, Qaddafi – and Washington
    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 1:56 am

      Binney emphasized that the devices do not only retrieve so-called metadata, which only offers general records of data, . . .

      Well even in that area an Israeli company, Amdocs, has been processing billing data (i.e. metadata) for almost every phone company in the US for many years now.

      US telecoms have simply out-sourced that task to Israeli firms.

  • US and Israel are accused of manipulating Hague to acquit accused Serb and Croat leaders
    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 3:07 pm

      I see two cables, both related to Carle del Ponte’s reappointment, not day-to-day issues. Both cables are from 2003, ten years ago.

      The complaints haven't been limited to two Wikileaks cables, but rather on reports from his colleagues and co-workers concerning the Judge's habitual practice.

      As I said, it doesn’t surprise me a great deal that the President of the Tribunal would consult with one of the appointing authorities on the reappointment of the Chief Prosecutor

      It's not part of the Court President's brief and he has been criticized for talking to outsiders at all, and condemned for talking to his own government about it. See The Real Judge Meron Scandal at the ICTY link to opiniojuris.org

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 2:56 pm

      Pushed how? By pushing deadlines and setting time restraints?
      Maybe yes, maybe no. Nobody specifies.

      There was actually a very specific allegation based on inside information, but who knows (yet) if it's true. So far it's unsupported. The members of the Court who are in a position to know are refusing to comment for the record, but leaking information about a so-called mini-revolt and "pulling a Meron" on Meron by suggesting that his term as President not be renewed.

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 2:43 pm

      None of this explains the decision of independent judges to acquit a defendant. If that’s true, then your argument is that every judge is acting on behalf of their home country, not just the US judge.

      Some of the commenters here are reminiscent of the proverbial frog being boiled alive. The USA and Israel have publicly launched frontal assaults on the norms of international criminal law. So it's really irrelevant whether they're doing the same thing in private behind closed doors at the Hague. See: Israel Pushes To Change International Laws Of War After Damning Gaza Report link to huffingtonpost.com

      Let's spell it out one more time. As a matter of public law, the US has conditioned its foreign assistance and the exercise of its good offices on behalf of other states upon their conclusion of bilateral agreements that guarantee US citizens unconditional immunity from prosecution by the international criminal tribunals. The USA has placed sanctions on states that have failed to pledge their cooperation. If that approach fails, there is another US law that allows the armed forces to use any necessary means to free any Americans or Israelis awaiting trial in the Hague.

      So the Judges of these tribunals and their governments have been given every possible incentive to cooperate in granting the wishes of the USA and Israel, or else.

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 12:32 pm

      If, as you say, the US is pressuring all of these other judges to decide in ways that would make it difficult to prosecute US soldiers down the road, what exactly would getting rid of Meron accomplish?

      If he's as big a prick as the NYT report alleges, it might give the other Judges a great sense of self satisfaction. BTW, Meron was elected to the Tribunal by the U.N. General Assembly in March 2001.

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 12:23 pm

      A nice argument that would have more weight if these were state reps, rather than judges.

      Please explain why Meron has spent years coordinating and communicating day-to-day internal management issues with the U.S. State Department through its Embassy in the Netherlands, instead of through the UN organs he's supposedly working for? You keep saying he's not a state rep, but that claim is unconvincing in light of all the evidence disclosed by Wikileaks. What gives?

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 12:05 pm

      You really are disingenuous. The bill protects US servicemen and CERTAIN ALLIED PERSONS, not all allies and not specifically Israeli allies. It’s is wholly disingenuous to suggest that this has anything to do with Israel or that the Act is anything but symbolic.

      I've given you the link to the text of this statute several time now. It specifically defines Israel as one of the governments that can request assistance under the act in freeing an allied person:

      SEC. 2013. DEFINITIONS.

      As used in this title and in section 706 of the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001: . . .

      3. COVERED ALLIED PERSONS- The term `covered allied persons' means military personnel, elected or appointed officials, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the government of a NATO member country, a major non-NATO ally (including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand), or Taiwan, for so long as that government is not a party to the International Criminal Court and wishes its officials and other persons working on its behalf to be exempted from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

      link to state.gov

      You don't need to apologize, you just need to take the chip your shoulder and STFU about the quality of other people's fact checking.

      As far as the ICTY cases, I’ve shown that in the cases where you claim, with zero proof, that the US judge or NATO states exercised pressure, in at least one instance, most of the majority was from Africa. You’ve not responded to that point, as befits a conspiracy theorist.

      In fact I've pointed out that the USA had used threats and coercion against the governments of all the countries you cited to obtain bilateral ICC agreements that grant the USA blanket immunity in any ICC criminal case. That's been an open scandal in the legal community for more than a decade.

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 11:18 am

      Indeed. So I will re-post the comment I’d posted earlier and which you blithely ignored.

      I didn't ignore it. It's just irrelevant. Luka Misetic didn't address the fact that one of the Judges is claiming, on the basis of insider knowledge, that Meron actually pushed for acquittals or outcomes.

      So Misetic can point at the countdown clock and speculate all he wants to, but that won't explain away what Harhoff has actually said. It also doesn't explain why another senior court official would tell the New York Times that half the Judges want Meron replaced as President. All of them are senior jurists who are perfectly well aware of the UN timetable.

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 10:43 am

      “They believed that Meron and the judges that joined in the decisions simply want to cooperate or assist their governments.”

      Yeah, a very convenient excuse for the disgruntled here, particularly when Meron comes from the country with the world’s most active military. What were the motivations of the Madagascar, Maltese, and Senegalese judges?

      As of 11 December 2006, the U.S. State Department reports 102 countries have entered into bilateral ICC immunity agreements with the USA. Two of the countries on your list above, Madagascar and Senegal, have signed one of those get-out-of-jail-free, behind the barn immunity agreements. The third, Malta, has entered into a formal agreement to be a NATO partner state. In the past, the USA suspended military aid to Malta for 3 years to punish it for refusing to sign a bi-lateral agreement on ICC immunity. So yes, the USA has thrown its weight around and used its influence or threats against these countries.

      BTW, would you like to comment on the propriety of Judge Meron's direct relations and on-going communications with the US State Department on day-to-day internal ICTY management issues that bypass normal UN channels?

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 7:10 am

      All of which has nothing to do with the comment I posted.

      Beware, Okay, you may be really are clueless.

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 7:06 am

      Correct, Judge Meron ascertained that this is still is opinion. That must be due to the fact that the Geneva Convention is so airtight and clear on the issue of settling nationals in foreign occupied lands, that there is virtually also no room whatsoever to retreat from his expert opinion given 18.September 1967 to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

      Well most of us give him credit for "cutting to the chase" and providing a brief summary of his advisory opinion in the cover letter stating flatly that "My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

      But like many Israeli legal opinions or decisions, it goes on to advise how to best disguise or downplay that fact in order to circumvent the provisions of the conventions. I've mentioned elsewhere how the Supreme Court used the decision against torture to advise the government on the legislative changes needed to make the practice (technically) legal and to explain that it would hold security service personnel immune in the meantime.

      We shouldn't loose sight of the fact that Meron did something exactly like that back in 1967. He advised the government to establish settlements under the military's auspices (i.e. the Nahal settlements) and try to make them look non-permanent if they decided to go ahead with their plans anyway. He also included himself (i.e. "we") when describing the right-wing Zionist proposition regarding the disputed status of the West Bank and Jerusalem under the armistice agreements. See the full opinion starting on page 3 of 6.
      link to soas.ac.uk

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 6:12 am

      Then why would anyone worry that a decision requiring a finding of specific direction would make it difficult to convict an Israeli military official in an international tribunal?

      The new rule actually allows the Court to ignore the allied commander's state of mind or stated intent to aid and abet the crimes in question. It allows the Court to ignore the fact that a criminal organization existed that actually did carrying out crimes with support supplied by the allied commander - and that the allied commander was aware of that situation. This is an utterly bizarre way to "put an end to impunity". There are no parallels in previous state practice.

      In these cases the Court actually did ignore an overwhelming amount of evidence which established all of those hypotheticals because the Prosecutor couldn't show that the allied commanders had specifically directed the support they provided to the parts of the organization responsible for commission of the crimes:

      Strangely, though, the tribunal concluded that the “specifically directed” requirement was not a mens rea requirement (something that would have been similar to the “purpose” requirement for aiding and abetting that criminal law students know well) but rather an actus reus requirement. In short, the prosecution had better draw a straight line from the defendant’s conduct to the criminal behavior, rather than rest on a circumstantial case of general assistance to an organization that then engages in criminal behavior, even if the defendant has the intent to facilitate the criminal conduct.

      -- link to liebercode.org

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 5:32 am with 7 replies

      So there is not a shred of evidence that Israel, the United States, much less ‘The Lobby’, exerted any pressure on Judge Meron whatsoever.

      There's quite a bit of misunderstanding here about the role of the President of the Court in "pushing things along". That only applies to the work of the Judges. He is not in charge of deciding who gets prosecuted or which charges will be filed in a case. For that reason, both the President and the Prosecutor submitted separate closure schedules to the Security Council, because many of the decisions were strictly a matter falling within the Prosecutor's discretion.

      In addition, Meron has been criticized for establishing unnecessary and on going contact with the US Embassy to the Netherlands ever since he arrived at the Court, instead of communicating through normal UN channels:

      WikiLeaks dispatches covering the period 2002-2004 (see enclosed WikiLeaks dispatches) show that Theodor Meron abused his function as ICTY President and that he revealed all information on ICTY directly to the US Embassy to the Netherlands. Analysts have concluded that due to his narrow interests Meron “involved” US State Department in ICTY's activities and that US State Department has never publicly distanced itself from the in(appropriate) communication with Meron as ICTY President.

      -- See ICTY:"Meronization" of our future link to ifimes.org

      Milan Markovic has noted that U.N. rules apply to the ICTY’s judges, Regulation 1.2(i) prohibits the communication of confidential information obtained from their official positions. He has suggested that Harhoff be removed by the UN, but the same logic could just as easily be applied to remove Meron for his direct dealings and disclosures to the U.S. State Department.

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 4:49 am with 1 replies

      To me, the bottom line in all of this is that there is no evidence that Judge Meron is some sort of closet Zionist sympathizer acting under the influence of the US, Israel, or the Zionist Lobby attempting to modify legal standards of proof to benefit future cases involving Israeli or US defendants.

      I don't know of any evidence that he was acting under influence, but there are obviously plenty of peers who think he was deliberately modifying legal standards to prevent future cases against western government officials.

      I find the whole idea that the Bosnian Serb militias were on legitimate missions extremely far-fetched. Others are wondering out loud why the Appeals Court didn't mention some of the hypothetical legitimate objectives that all of these defendants were expending considerable resources to achieve, e.g. See Cornell Professor Jens David Ohlin, "Why Did the ICTY Acquit Stanisic and Simatovic?" link to liebercode.org

    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 12:17 am

      P.S. Here's a link to the cable which shows that Meron was deeply involved in discussions about the details of managing the Prosecutor's office and case selection with members of her staff, behind her back. At the same time he was engaging in talks with US officials about ways to get rid of her. link to wikileaks.org

      The ICTY Statute established the Office of the Prosecutor and stipulated that it enjoys complete independence from the Trial and Appeals Chambers. So Meron's behind the scenes interference was "off the reservation".

      I personally find Meron's comments that lend credence to the USA's "principled opposition to the International Criminal Court" very disappointing. The USA's objections to the ICC have been based upon American exceptionalism, and are anything but well-principled.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 11:34 pm with 1 replies

      In your view is this more likely a heated dispute over the legal standard of proof in highly controversial cases, or do you see the nefarious hand of outside forces manipulating the decisions of presiding judge Meron?

      I don't think the Judges should be talking out-out-school and speculating with 60 outsiders or making idle accusations like this at all.

      But Wikileaks disclosed a cable dated 27 July 2003 which detailed a conversation in which President Meron deliberately undermined the statutory independence of the Prosecutor's office by asking a US Ambassador to help block the re-appointment of Carla Del Ponte. So people who live in glass houses . . .

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 11:26 pm

      Fascinating discussion. Hostage, as the main contributor, just exactly where do you come down on the question of whether Judge Meron was acting under the influence of US/Israeli/Lobby pressure to reduce the standard of guilt in these cases?

      I've already said that I don't think he was under any such influence. But I think that he was probably mindful that the record before him clearly illustrated that the controlling legal authorities set a standard that could be applied to NATO Commanders in exactly the same way to establish their guilt for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Like the US Prosecutor, Mark Harmon, he probably wanted to establish a standard that could be used to make finer-grained distinctions.

      I agree with Marko Milanovic and Kevin Jon Heller that the special direction standard is totally unsatisfactory and unnecessary in cases where the enterprise itself is entirely a criminal one, or very nearly so.

      I've noted that I think it would be useful this standard had been employed in the Holy Land Charities case, which unlike the Serbian militias, were not aiding and abetting any organizations known for their involvement in mass murder and other serious crimes.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 10:53 pm

      Have you ever done an oral argument? It’s called an analogy.

      This was a case where the Prosecutor happened to be from the USA and a member of the California bar. The Judge in an international criminal tribunal wanted to know if the controlling legal authority that made the Serb commander guilty on the grounds of "knowledge" would also mean that NATO commanders in Afghanistan were guilty too? The Judge said it was a legal question, not a political one. The Prosecutor finally admitted the two situations were analogous and the defendant was convicted.

      It may not have made headlines in the mainstream media, but it got plenty of attention among expert commentators and scholars, including Jewish ones: e.g. link to dovjacobs.blogspot.nl

      The conviction was overturned on appeal, but there wasn't a shred of state practice cited or any precedent to support the decision. The Appeals Chamber cited dicta that only went back to its own Tadic decision, and the Appeals Chamber itself had dismissed and rejected that reasoning in subsequent decisions on the subject.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 10:31 pm

      “you concede the point that crimes committed by Israelis and Americans are overwhelmingly committed by rogue individual soldiers, not commanders,

      No I do not. If the standard for aiding and abetting is "knowledge", then the US Commanders in Afghanistan and elsewhere were perfectly aware of the fact that they were assisting in the collection, waterboarding, and deportation of protected persons to a secret network of prisons or to Guantanamo. That wasn't an unexpected or accidental side effect carried-out by a few rogues, that was a central part of their mission. I've commented elsewhere that the Congress even tried to immunize those responsible under the terms of the 2006 Military Commissions Act and by allowing the President to adopt a definition of the term "torture" that was different from the one contained in the international convention on torture.

      Thanks to our Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto punishment, the only place these individuals can be tried is in an international tribunal where their acts have been considered crimes at all times and places. But now, prosecutors have to produce evidence that they specifically directed the operation of the prison networks, waterboardings, & etc. These people are not stupid enough to have put those orders in writing or to have kept records lying around afterwards. We even have statements that say top officials ordered the destruction of what little evidence there was, like the video tapes of waterboardings. Now it doesn't even matter if the Commander knew about those videos or that waterboarding was happening in facilities under his jurisdiction at Bagram Air Base, so long as there's no evidence that he personally and specifically directed those things to happen. See for example Jose Rodriguez, Ex-CIA Officer, Defends Destroying Waterboarding Videos In 'Hard Measures' Book link to huffingtonpost.com

      If that isn't a crime and evidence of a guilty mind, then I don't know what is.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 9:53 pm

      So, are you asserting that Europe would like to send peacekeepers to the Middle East to help Israel defend itself?

      Wow! You really are uninformed. The idea of using NATO forces in the West Bank has been proposed by President Clinton, the Secretary-General of NATO, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Relations, and former National Security Advisors James L. Jones, Brent Scowcroft, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. See:
      *The Associated Press NATO offers Israel, Palestinians peacekeeping troops after Mideast peace deal link to washingtonpost.com
      *NATO in the West Bank link to newsweek.com
      * Abbas: “Future State Will Be Under NATO Security Forces Headed By The USA” link to imemc.org
      * Abbas Wants US-led NATO Force for PA State: PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas told US lawmakers he wants a US-led NATO force to provide security for the future 'Palestinian state.'
      link to israelnationalnews.com

      So EU and the US officials have both suggested ending the occupation by deploying NATO peace keepers in Palestine. AIPAC and Israel have responded by rejecting the idea. They've lobbied for the demilitarized Palestinian dependent state and their continued presence in an undivided Jewish capital, the Jordan Valley, and all the settlement blocs - so they can keep on shooting fish in a barrel and colonizing the region while using the lame excuse that Israel has to be able to defend itself, by itself.

      Nonsense. It covers US servicemen, not the allies. link to hrw.org

      You need to work on your basic reading comprehension. The link you just supplied says:

      The new law authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague.

      I gave you a link to the text of the Statute itself. It's unambiguous on the subject of freeing allies on the request of the allied government. Here it is again:

      SEC. 2008. AUTHORITY TO FREE MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CERTAIN OTHER PERSONS DETAINED OR IMPRISONED BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT.

      AUTHORITY- The President is authorized to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any person described in subsection (b) who is being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.

      PERSONS AUTHORIZED TO BE FREED- The authority of subsection (a) shall extend to the following persons:

      Covered United States persons.

      Covered allied persons.

      Individuals detained or imprisoned for official actions taken while the individual was a covered United States person or a covered allied person, and in the case of a covered allied person, upon the request of such government.

      link to state.gov

      Israeli government is not Israel lobby.

      Ambassador Rice was lobbying the President of the ICC about the handling of the Goldstone report on behalf of Israel stupid.

      How so? . . . Not one of these is a NATO country.

      We're talking about three appeals cases where there were one or more Judges from a NATO member state on the panel. The New York Times article points out that Meron has been accused of pressuring a Turkish Justice who had the swing vote in one of those cases.

      I specifically said that NATO states had a self-interest in changing the aiding and abetting standard independent of any interest in protecting Israel.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 12:52 pm

      You quote an appellate colloquy in which an analogy is drawn to American involvement in Afghanistan as evidence that the Americans are “pressuring the court.”

      You need to work on your reading comprehension. That was the trial court, not appeals chamber. You are putting scare quotes around words and phrases that don't even appear in any of my comments in this thread.

      The senior court officials quoted in the New York Times article said that they do not think the rulings which abruptly rewrote the legal standards that had applied in earlier cases were the result of American pressure. They believed that Meron and the judges that joined in the decisions simply want to cooperate or assist their governments. I said that I doubted that the US or Israel would bother approaching the ICTY, since they are already working publicly and privately with the ICC as observer states to protect their interests.

      You're trolling the thread with artless lies, distortions, and the usual crap you spout about racism.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 12:29 pm with 8 replies

      I see nowhere here any substantiation of the accusation that Israel is “manipulating” the Hague.

      Oh please, Phil said "Is this the US imperial state or the Israel lobby at work? My suspicion is of course the Israel lobby;"

      1) Our own President has become the head cheerleader of the mantra that Israel has to able to defend itself by itself without the presence of peace keepers;
      2) Our own Congress has hidden away provisions in a so-called "American Service-Members' Protection Act" that would allow the use of force to free Israeli or any other allied civilian officials awaiting trial in the Hague.
      3) After the General Assembly endorsed its findings and recommended action by the ICC, the Congress adopted legislation calling on the UN to rescind the Goldstone Report;
      4) There are Wikileaks cables which illustrate behind the scenes requests from the Israeli government to the US for assistance in getting the Palestinian complaint in the Hague withdrawn and meetings where US UN Amb. Rice lobbied ICC President Song about the Court's handling of the Goldstone report.

      But no, you can't comprehend that the US government or the Israel Lobby had a hand in any of that.

      What nonsense. Meron did not make these decisions by fiat.

      No, he was assisted by colleagues from other NATO countries with a stake in reversing the existing appeals chamber stare decisis on aiding and abetting which held that acting with "knowledge" was the applicable legal standard, not "intent" or "special direction".

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 11:19 am with 2 replies

      @Hostage You may be treading on thin ice. Beware.

      Beware, you may be clueless.

      Judge Meron and his colleagues were reviewing transcripts where the trial judges were asking the prosecutors very specific legal questions about analogous cases wherein NATO commanders had "knowledge" of on-going crimes against humanity and war crimes, yet continued to supply assistance to allies; continued to participate in the war; & etc. just like the Serbian commanders. Note that "specific direction" was found NOT to be an element of the actus reus of aiding and abetting in the previous Appeal Judgment in Mrksic (para. 159) and Vasiljević (cited above).

      The Prosecutor and Judges in the Momčilo Perišić, case even employed the United States and the illegal transfer and detention of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as an example or hypothetical.

      In a split decision, the Judges decided to ignore their own appeals decisions on the subject (stare decisis) and adopt the specific direction standard that they had formerly rejected. Harhoff is not the only expert who suspects that "something is rotten in the State of Denmark".

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 10:02 am with 6 replies

      Some of us are not aware of the fact, or have simply forgotten that members of the US military were engaged in strictly criminal enterprises with the CIA when they kidnapped suspects in other countries and transferred or deported them to foreign prison facilities in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention.

      The Italian criminal courts and British Supreme Court have ruled that so-called renditions and continued detention in Guantanamo violate Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Conventions, Article 8 of the Rome Statute, and local criminal laws.

      The trial chamber judges in these particular ICTY cases specifically questioned the prosecutors on the issue of liability or culpability for aiding and abetting war crimes on the basis of the defendant's knowledge that crimes had been committed or were likely to be committed. They specifically wanted to know if US and NATO commanders in Afghanistan were also considered guilty under that legal standard? That was part of the official trial record from below that Judge Meron and the other appeals judges were considering, when they decided to raise the bar and adopt the previously rejected "special direction" standard. So it could appear that they were looking after their own individual county's interests (i.e. NATO).

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 8:01 am with 9 replies

      It is yet another conspiracy theory for which Phil provides zero proof other than his own “feelings.”

      Fair enough. I'll quote the in-court exchange that was recorded between Presiding Judge Moloto and Senior Trial Attorney Harmon during the closing trial arguments in the Perišić case. It was the first conviction that was overturned on a point of law (not on the facts) by the Appeals Chamber using the new "specific direction" standard.

      This is evidence that the ICTY Judges are mindful of the possible implications of these legal questions in connection with the possible criminal culpability of NATO commanders in what Judges see as "analogous circumstances". These two officers of the Court even use the United States as their example:

      Judge Moloto: [M]y question is what is the authority for the proposition that, if an army assists another army in war and crimes are committed of the nature that are charged in this indictment, that the assisting army or commander of the assisting army is guilty of aiding and abetting those crimes?
      Mr. Harmon: Your Honour, General Perišić provided assistance knowing that that assistance was going to assist the VRS [Bosnian Serbs] and it was likely that that assistance would be used in the commission of crimes.
      Judge Moloto: Okay. Let me paint you an analogous scenario and get your comment on it. A war began in Afghanistan in 2001 and it is generally known that there are allegations of crime having been committed at least since 2002 to date. Does that make the commanders of the various NATO armies that are jointly participating in that war guilty of the crimes that are alleged to have been committed, and are still being committed, like detentions in Guantanamo, in Bagram, in Kabul and all these places?
      Mr. Harmon: Your Honour, you are asking me obviously, an explosive political question.
      Judge Moloto: No, no. It’s a legal question.
      Mr. Harmon: I would like to answer your question. The objectives, as I understand, of the NATO forces isn’t to ethnically cleanse parts of Afghanistan. It is to be engaged in a military campaign against the Taliban. It is --
      Judge Moloto: Mr. Perišić is not charged with ethnic cleansing. He is charged with murders. That’s why I’m making the distinction between the actual crimes that are charged in the indictment. […]
      [snip]
      Judge Moloto: [M]y question still stands, […] – what is the authority for that proposition and I’m saying can you comment on the – on the analogy that I’ve drawn because all the other commanders of the NATO nations that are involved in Afghanistan are aware of the kind of crimes that have been committed there and are still continuing with that war. It’s not a political question, it’s an analogous situation to this one.

      Mr. Harmon: I draw the distinction as I say, as follows, Your Honour, the first situation is it’s a war, it’s a war in Bosnia and it was a war in and it is an on-going war in Afghanistan. Where I make my distinction is the purpose in objectives. The objectives of Bosnian Serbs, in part of strategic objective number 1, was to ethnically cleanse, if you will, that is a much broader term, it was to separate the Serbs from the non-Serbs. That act gave rise to conduct, long-standing conduct that lasted throughout the war of the VRS taking populations of Muslims and Croats and removing them from their homes by force. That was no mystery. General Perišić was aware, as we say in our brief, was fully aware of the conduct of the Bosnian Serbs, and with the knowledge of that conduct he provided them with assistance that enabled them to continue to conduct the war, continue to commit crimes, and that assistance that he provided had a substantial effect on the commission of those crimes. So I make a distinction between the Afghan war, where there is not the stated purpose which is to remove and ethnically cleanse. I also make one other observation about the Afghan war. In the Afghan war, and I’ll take the United States as an example, because I’m familiar with the United States’ participation in part in that. When there were crimes that were committed by American soldiers, those crimes were prosecuted in the United States and people are serving life prison sentences as a result of those crimes committed against Afghan civilians. In this situation, there were no prosecutions whatsoever, either in the VRS or in the Federal Republic of the Yugoslavia for war crimes.
      [snip]
      Judge Moloto: You see, unfortunately, we don’t seem to be on the same wavelength. […] [T]he point I’m asking simply is because the armies, the commanders of the remaining NATO countries that are participating in Afghanistan are aware of the fact that crimes have been committed, crimes against humanity have been committed, and yet those commanders are still continuing to participate in that war, are they then guilty of those crimes that are being committed? That’s just – you either say they are not guilty or they are guilty. If anybody is guilty of those crimes, then they are equally guilty with those people of those crimes, because they are aware of those crimes being committed and yet they are continuing to participate in that war.
      Mr. Harmon: I draw a distinction, Your Honours, between continuing to participate in the war. The position we assert here is identical to the situation in your hypothetical situation.
      [snip]
      Judge Moloto: And, therefore, if it is identical, then you are saying, yes, they ought to be guilty if anybody else is guilty.
      Mr. Harmon: Your Honour, I don’t want to go that far. I’m saying that the situation is identical in terms of the framework of our case.
      Judge Moloto: I won’t force you to go any further than that.

      Here is a link into the relevant ICTY video transcript at 8 minutes 43 seconds link to youtube.com

      That's part of the official record that Judge Meron had to revist on the appeal, where the other Judges say that he pressed them for an acquital. So that might put the situation into a different perspective.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 7:25 am with 1 replies

      Just a total distortion of what the article says.

      The European Journal of International Law's Talk! blog is dishing-up the same material covered in Phil's article. See: Danish Judge Blasts ICTY President [UPDATED] link to ejiltalk.org

      How on Earth can it be a total distortion of what the article says when Phil is simply summarizing the contents of the Danish Judge's letter (.pdf)? The New York Times reported that even before Harhoff’s letter was published the acquitals had already been very controversial among international lawyers, human rights groups, and at least half of the 18 judges of the ICTY itself. Your claim that it's just one irritated Jurist is the distortion in this case.

      There's really no problem finding articles or blog comments by scholars with PhDs in international law condemning the adoption and application of the "specific direction" standard in these cases. Here are some that discuss the pros and cons by Profs James Stewart and Kevin Jon Heller with comments by a number of other experts:
      *James G. Stewart Guest Post: The ICTY Loses its Way on Complicity – Part 1 link to opiniojuris.org
      *James G. Stewart Guest Post: The ICTY Loses its Way on Complicity – Part 2
      link to opiniojuris.org
      *Kevin Jon Heller : Why the ICTY’s “Specifically Directed” Requirement Is Justified link to opiniojuris.org
      *James G. Stewart “Specific Direction” is Indefensible: A Response to Heller on Complicity link to opiniojuris.org
      Manuel J. Ventura: Guest Post: What the ICTY appeal judgment in Perišić means for the SCSL Appeals Chamber in Taylor link to dovjacobs.blogspot.nl

      Even people, who support doing a better job of distinguishing between the culpable and non-culpable have either condemned this particular exercise or refused to defend these acquittals. Marko Milanovic an editor of the European Journal of International Law commented on the articles above saying:

      Even though I am very much opposed to the Perisic acquittal – and even more so to that of Stanisic and Simatovic, two utter villains if there ever were any – I accept your point that there is a purpose served by the specific direction standard, namely drawing a line between culpable and non-culpable assistance to a crime. This is precisely why the Appeals Chamber did what it did, looking at Libya, Sirya etc, and its reasoning will have consequences even outside the ICTY – note the pending Charles Taylor appeal. But even if we disregard the conceptual objections made by James etc, the specific direction standard is in my view manifestly incapable of drawing that line in a non-arbitrary way.

      What Perisic, and especially Stanisic and Simatovic did, was not some generalized aid to a war effort, knowing that there’s a risk that some crimes might happen. This wasn’t your Syria or Libya. Rather, they provided vast amounts of aid to an entity which had a systematic policy of committing crimes against international law. Ethnic cleansing was not just an unfortunate risk or possibility in Bosnia and Croatia, it was the whole point of the war effort. This was especially true in the initial stages of the conflict. Without the massive amounts of aid, assistance and coordination (at the very least) that was provided by the Serbian leadership to the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs, it would have been impossible to commit ethnic cleansing on the immense scale that provoked the creation of the ICTY in the first place.

      So, in short, I find the Appeals Chamber’s approach profoundly unsatisfactory. If what Stanisic and Simatovic in particular did was not criminal, then I really don’t know what is. And I am even more unsettled by thinking of what the consequences of such reasoning would have been in the Milosevic case, had that come to final judgment.

      NB: We’ve had an interesting discussion of this on EJIL Talk, and I particularly commend to readers the comment by Manuel Ventura, who in a separate post provides some very interesting details of the oral argument in Perisic: link to ejiltalk.org

      Heller who had authored the theoretical defense of the standard replied:

      Marko,
      I happily defer to your understanding of the ICTY cases — that’s why I specifically disclaimed any desire to affirm how the various chambers applied the specific-direction test. My goal, as you recognize, was simply to point out that there are situations in which the requirement might make sense. You are absolutely right that when an organization is primarily, if not exclusively, engaged in unlawful acts, the test seems particularly unsatisfactory.

      What we have here is a disgruntled judge who probably simply wants another judge other than Meron, who is 83, on the bench, and probably because Meron is actually getting these judges to do hard work, which is what admin judges are supposed to do.

      No, these decisions had already caused a shit storm in the international criminal law community.

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 9:35 pm

      Can a judge (other than the President) in the Trial Chambers sit on an appeal of his/her decision in the TC

      No.

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 5:14 pm

      “There is no equality of nations or responsibilities before the bar of ‘international’ criminal justice”

      That's true, but it's a work in progress and more loopholes get closed with each passing day. The ICC and ICJ are not a panecea, but the OAS, the AU, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and other regional bodies have entered into treaty agreements with the ICC on enforcement of sentences. In many cases, they have agreed to set-up their own extraordinary criminal tribunals or to use existing regional courts like the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, or the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to hear contintious cases and to compliment the efforts of the ICJ and ICC to end impunity with less outside intervention.

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 4:30 pm

      although he quite rightly declined to give his opinion on the jurisdictional aspects

      Israel has not granted the ICC jurisdiction. So the Palestinians can only grant the Court jurisdiction over crimes committed by members of the Israeli government, the civil administration, the IDF, or the settlers while located on Palestinian territory in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. But that would not include jurisdiction over the acts committed by co-perpetrators who are only located on Israeli territory. So yes, there are complicated jurisdictional issues involved. But there is no question that the local Israeli officials who implement the illegal policies on the ground in Palestine can be prosecuted.

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 3:39 pm with 2 replies

      Q: What is the appeals process made up of for these international tribunals?

      The statutes and amendments adopted by the Security Council establish the jurisdiction and operation of the Courts, including provisions governing the composition and number of the trial chambers and the appeals chamber. link to icty.org

      The Judges of the ICTY Appeals Chamber also serve as the Judges of the Appeals Chamber for the Rwandan Tribunal. link to icty.org

      One of the somewhat unusal features has been the practice of allowing Amici Curiae to file motions of acquittal with the Trial and Appeals Chamber, e.g. link to icty.org

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 10:26 am

      I’m also an attorney and I have yet seen no sufficient factual basis for attacking Judge Meron’s conduct.

      Well the main objection is that Meron has backtracked on doctrines and standards that he helped establish in the first place. Even commentators like Kevin Jon Heller @ Opinio Juris and Marko Milanovic @ the Eurpean Journal of International Law Talk! page, who welcome the specific direction standard as a necessary reform to the doctrine of joint criminal enterprise, don't support the way it was applied by the Appeals Chamber in these cases.

      All of the defendants were guilty of the aiding and abetting war crimes. There is just no way that they could have been completely unaware of the fact that the forces they were commanding or supporting had morphed into machines of mass murder and criminal persecution that systematically employed summary executions, torture, and rape. Hell the international press was reporting on that situation day-in and day-out. The ICTY Appeals Chamber specifically held in Vasiljević that, in contrast to the doctrine of joint criminal enterprise, the mens rea of aiding and abetting is mere knowledge, not intent:

      In the case of aiding and abetting, the requisite mental element is knowledge that the acts performed by the aider and abettor assist the commission of the specific crime of the principal. By contrast, in the case of participation in a joint criminal enterprise, i.e. as a co-perpetrator, the requisite mens rea is intent to pursue a common purpose.

      The text of the Harhoff, email explains in full detail that this new standard is a complete departure from the previous doctrines employed by the ICTY (and everyone else) regarding military command responsibility. link to bt.dk

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 7:42 am

      What Citizen says about favored interests is largely correct, which is why I look with a jaundiced eye at Hostage’s many legal citations.

      Well I'm usually citing the work of the General Assembly, its Legal - Sixth Committee, it's subsidiary organ: the International Law Commission, and the ICRC or UN treaty bodies that were responsible for the progressive codification of international law or the establishment of the international criminal tribunals.

      FYI, those are precisely the same special interest groups that gave Meron his current gig with the ICTY. Much of his previous legal experience was acquired either working with or in one of those well-funded UN or ICRC special interest groups. A simple review of his biography/CV will confirm that. link to unmict.org

      In fact much of the material I post here about constituent acts, elements of crimes, and customary law is derived from Meron's life work in those areas:

      Prior to his election to the ICTY, President Meron was a Public Member of the U.S. Delegation to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) Conference on Human Dimensions in Copenhagen in 1990. In 1998, he served as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC), where he was involved in the drafting of the provisions on crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. He also served on the Preparatory Commission for the Establishment of the ICC, with particular responsibilities for the definition of the crime of aggression. He has acted as counsel for the United States before the International Court of Justice, and in 2000-2001 served as Counselor on International Law in the U.S. Department of State.

      President Meron has also served on several committees of experts of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including those on Internal Strife, on the Environment and Armed Conflicts, and on Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law. In addition, he was a member of the steering committee of ICRC experts on Customary Rules of International Humanitarian Law. President Meron is a frequent lecturer at ICRC seminars, and he founded and continues to lead the annual ICRC seminars for U.N. diplomats on international humanitarian law at New York University, a tradition spanning nearly three decades.

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 6:55 am

      i didn’t read anything about even a suggestion of “automatic convictions” in the article. who’s claiming or advocating that?

      FYI, the German Prosecutors failed to produce any reliable evidence that John Demjanjuk was a co-perpetrator of war crimes. The Judge of the Munich Court came to the conclusion that it was sufficient to prove the presence of an accused in a concentration camp to convict him of accessory to murder. He reasoned that every SS member or guard present in a concentration camp was part of the “machinery of murder”. He also concluded that the network of concentration camps had been established and existed for no other purpose.

      In another related article here at MW, "Hiding in Plain Sight", the Associated Press admitted that its investigation found no record that Michael Karkoc directly committed any war crimes. But the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem explained that guilt by association is sufficient grounds for extradition and prosecution in the US and Germany:

      “In America this is a relatively easy case: If he was the commander of a unit that carried out atrocities, that’s a no brainer,” Zuroff told AP. “Even in Germany … if the guy was the commander of the unit, then even if they can’t show he personally pulled the trigger, he bears responsibility.”

      There would be no problem convicting Brig. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Pundak using Meron's specifically directed standard of evidence, since the General himself has publicly stated "We Razed Arab Villages, So What? . . . If we hadn't done it, there would be a million more Arabs and there would be no Israel." link to mondoweiss.net

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 5:33 am

      @ Gil Maguire, I personally don't think that these Meron acquittals would establish a precedent that would help Israeli officials. After all, they are willing participants in a JCE I criminal enterprise to illegally colonize or annex Arab territories. The commenter's here may not realize that the doctrines regarding joint criminal enterprises; command responsibility; and the rejection of a defense based upon superior orders are still considered controversial, even if they are well-known. See for example: Jennifer Easterday, Obscuring Joint Criminal Enterprise Liability: The Conviction of Augustine Gbao by the Special Court of Sierra Leone link to bjil.typepad.com

      The existence of well-known government planning behind the development and construction of the settlement blocs would probably still leave officials open to liability for "systematic crimes" committed in furtherance of the common plan (JCE II) and the "extended" JCE III doctrine regarding crimes committed outside the common criminal plan that were a natural and foreseeable consequence of that plan. It would only be necessary to establish that they were co-perpetrators and "specifically directed" or participated in the initial JCE I common enterprise (if the Court accepts the doctrine of JCE II & III).

      All of the JCE doctrines were fleshed out in ICTY cases, but they have not been universally accepted, even by the other UN tribunals. In fact, a few had already refused to prosecute individuals on the basis of JCE II and JCE III before these acquittals in the ICTY.

      FYI, I have several of Meron's books, like Henry's Wars and Shakespeare's Laws: Perspectives on the Law of War in the Later Middle Ages and can't imagine a better qualified individual for a job in the ICTY. Apparently the other judges and the General Assembly agreed, because they've elected him and placed him in the top spot twice now.

      Another factor to keep in mind is that international criminal law is a subset of the international foreign relations laws that are created by the governments of States. So it's part of a Judge's normal role to implement well-reasoned government policies when they can.

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 4:24 am

      It is outrageous, therefore, that the Assembly of States Party appointed an Israeli-US jurist to be the president of the court. They were kowtowing, to try to win U.S. support for the court.

      Meron is not a judge of the ICC. He is a US jurist who was nominated by our government to serve as a Judge of the UN Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 3:19 am with 1 replies

      @Gil Maguire I tend to agree that the US and Israel would not pursue actions indirectly through the ICTY, which is winding down and getting ready to fold-up shop, in order to influence the actions of the ICC.

      There's plenty of evidence that they've gone straight to the officers of the ICC and used their public and private influence as observer states to protect what they perceive to be their own interests. There are reports from other ICTY senior officials who say 18 judges of the tribunal have grouped around an alternative candidate for the scheduled election for tribunal president this fall because they feel Meron is trying to cooperate with his government, but not because they feel he has been approached improperly on the subject, e.g. link to ejiltalk.org

      Judge Meron's 1967 memo is exactly the sort of documentary evidence that can be used to establish that Israeli officials "specifically directed" the establishment of settlements, despite legal advisories from a multitude of sources that it contravened the 4th Geneva Convention, customary norms regarding racial segregation reflected in the ICERD, & etc.

      As I noted above, it's a shame that the US does not use the "specifically directed" standard in its own jurisprudence, like the Holy Land Charities case. It would be consistent with the civilized notion of giving the defendant in a criminal case the benefit of any doubt.

      At the same time, Meron is departing from well-established ICTY and other customary views about criminal dereliction of duty and implicit command complicity in systematic and widespread criminal acts committed by subordinate forces.

    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 12:17 am

      P.S. In the case of targeted killings, the Israeli Supreme Court has rejected the principle - in writing - that certain crimes are prohibited at all times, regardless of the motive involved. That includes murdering members of the armed forces or civilians who are taking no active part in hostilities (e.g. Gaza Police officers). They are simply not legitimate targets for summary executions:

      Here is the applicable portion of Common Article 3:
      (1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed 'hors de combat' by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

      To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

      (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

      (b) taking of hostages;

      (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

      (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

      (2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 11:49 pm

      Good point Hostage. How about something more fundamental like killing Palestinians by the zionist army including targeted assassinations by the military and the intelligence agencies?

      I think Zionist politicians and judges feel like they enjoy absolute impunity. In many cases, they simply can't resist gloating over that fact and bragging about their criminal acts.

      On the other hand, the standard Meron applied here would have led to the acquittal of the defendants in the Holy Land Charity cases, since there is no such crime in international law as "providing material support" and there was no evidence that the money was "specifically directed" to any criminal enterprise or organization. See for example: The CMCR Invents the “War Crime” of Material Support for Terrorism link to opiniojuris.org

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 6:08 pm

      Without an accurate translation of Judge Harhoff’s letter, neither you, me nor Phil, can say for certain whether Judge Meron, “.. was determined to achieve an acquittal.”

      The Judge has overturned the customary rule which says that commanders have an affirmative duty to prevent their subordinates from systematically violating the laws and customs of war and to impose regular military discipline. Heretofore, any acts of omission gave rise to individual criminal responsibility through various modes of complicity or dereliction.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 5:51 pm with 4 replies

      Palestine, beware. The game is being played in a devious way so as to pre-neutralize our ICC/ICJ action.

      To some extent, but Meron's ruling simply says you can't convict a defendant using guilt by association alone. There must be some evidence that the person "specifically directed" the commission of a crime or the operation of a criminal organization. You could easily indict and convict Netanyahu of violating the prohibition against transferring or facilitating portions of the occupying power's own population into the territory it administers using nothing more than his own speeches and press releases. The same thing applies to his cabinet members, the remainder of the Knesset, and the members of the Supreme Court.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 5:34 pm

      The Israeli military commanders and their legal appendages are forever trying to extend the scope of what is possible in the IDF’s rampages, on the assumption that if they lead the way others will follow and that is the way the law will be made and interpreted

      True enough, but there would be no problem at all meeting the ICTY’s new “specific direction” standard for aiding and abetting in connection with illegal deportations, the illegal settlements, and the crimes of persecution or apartheid. Those are crimes regardless of the motives involved and they represent obligations, not options.

      The problem for the defense is that Zionist leaders are completely brazen and openly admit their official disdain for international law. The publicly endorse illegal policies which amount to serious crimes.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 5:19 pm

      so is it to be Africans only who will be found guilty by the UN War Crimes tribunal?

      Correction: the ICTY has put European criminals behind bars. The United Nations has established Special international criminal tribunals in Rwanda and Yugoslavia and Special Courts in Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Cambodia and East Timor.

      On the other hand, the ICC is not a UN tribunal. It has only put one person in jail so far. The US, for one, was violently opposed to creating a permanent criminal court with general jurisdiction. It would have required US consent to amend the UN Charter to create a permanent tribunal, so the General Assembly convened a Special Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries instead so that they could established their own independent Court. The ICC merely has a treaty relationship that calls for limited cooperation with the UN.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 4:32 pm

      Phil ignores the whistleblower’s own comment. Judge Harhoff asked, “Have any American or Israeli officials ever exerted pressure on the American presiding judge (the presiding judge for the court that is) to ensure a change of direction?”. “We will probably never know.”

      Hasbara fail. The Goldstone report addressed several questions and issues directly to the ICC Prosecutor. Wikileaks revealed that the Government of Israel considered the Palestinian complaint with the ICC “an act of war” and asked the United States for help in getting it quashed. Wikileaks also revealed that in response, UN Ambassador Rice personally met with President Song of the ICC and stated serious concerns about the way the ICC should handle the Goldstone report.

      The fact is that the US has adopted legislation that authorizes the use of any force necessary to free US or Israel officials from jail if they are awaiting trial by the ICC. link to state.gov

      There is no way to spin that as anything other than a blatant threat and contempt for the Court.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 3:53 pm with 5 replies

      The whistleblower in the case, a Danish judge, accuses the United States and Israel of exerting influence to make the international criminal court toothless.

      That of course is nothing new. Wikileaks had already revealed behind the scenes maneuvers by the US, UK, and France. Of course the US has publicly adopted the Hague Invasion Act to spring US or Allied Israeli officials from jail by force if they ever fall into the hands of the ICC. link to state.gov

      This doesn't necessarily translate into a precedent for other criminal tribunals, since different doctrines have evolved over time regarding criminal enterprises that are reflected in the statutes of the newer Courts, i.e. JCE I, JCE II, & etc.

      The Judges of each Court interpret their own statutes for themselves anyway. But the ICC has a lawmaking organ in its Assembly of State Parties that can amend the Statute to codify offenses and their elements without regard for the wishes of the Judges or the Security Council.

      A much more interesting legal development would be the Obama administration's mental gymnastics and theatrics over the alleged use of chemicals weapons during the Syrian civil war. The latest news reports say that the US will make a fund available that rebels can use to purchase weapons from third parties.

      FWIW, the US and UK unsuccessfully argued in the Security Council that Sadaam Hussein had crossed a red line by using chemical weapons on his own civilian population.

      Then during the 2010 ICC Kampala Review Conference the US opposed amendments to the Rome Statute, including ones that would have specifically criminalized the use of weapons that cause unnecessary suffering (like chemical weapons, biological weapons, white phosphorus, or nuclear weapons, & etc.) in non-international armed conflicts for the very first time.
      link to dataspace.princeton.edu

      Only six or seven ICC member states have ratified the proposed amendments so far. That means that without another "special tribunal" there is no conventional basis to prosecute the use of these weapons as war crimes during civil wars today. See Chemical Weapons: Is it a Crime? link to humanrightsdoctorate.blogspot.com

      So it's ironic that both the US and UK are once again working without a UN mandate to arm rebels because a "red line" (they've worked assiduously to make irrelevant) has been crossed by the Syrian government. See Legally Meaningless “Red Line” Crossed in Syria link to opiniojuris.org

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 2:20 pm

      The judge may be a committed Zionist, and as a former Israeli diplomat this seems likely.

      Thankfully, Theodor Meron already cooked Israel's goose back in 1967 when he was the Chief Legal Adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He wrote the now-famous classified memo that said establishment of settlements in the Israeli administered territories contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. link to soas.ac.uk

  • Northeastern University criticized for sanctioning Students for Justice in Palestine
    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 2:21 am

      Your position advocating censorship of pro-Israel speakers on campus is well-known here. The soldiers were hosted by a student group on campus, just as Norman Finkelstein was in 2011.

      You are fond of misrepresenting my position. Members of the IDF are not students or covered by any diplomatic exemptions. They are agents of a foreign state. I'm opposed to our state governments or their instrumentalities hosting foreigners who are only present on campus to conduct public propaganda campaigns, period.

      The last time we discussed this, I pointed out that the omnibus federal budget act prohibits using appropriated funds for publicity or public propaganda campaigns and noted that a Legal Advisor at Ken Marcus' Brandies Center and one of the Brooklyn Trustees had threatened to file a Title VI lawsuit on that and other grounds:

      “We’re not talking about academic freedom,” said Wiesenfeld. “What this is is propaganda and propaganda is verboten in universities."

      link to mondoweiss.net

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 1:51 am

      This is one of those we’re-jealous-of-your-organization complaints so we’re going to play victim.

      No as I pointed out, it's a case of a university providing a federally subsidized pulpit so that a foreign government can conduct public propaganda. The victims aren't pretending, this is exactly the kind of intimidation that is illegal and discussed in the "Dear Colleague" letter published by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.

    • Hostage June 14, 2013 at 6:09 am with 3 replies

      Northeastern University criticized for sanctioning Students for Justice in Palestine

      Activities which intimidate and harass Palestinian students are prohibited under Title VI.

      Why don't we see any criticism from the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights? This is a clear example of a university violating the Title VI guidelines that Zionists preach so much about. Administrators have no business hosting members of the IDF who are engaged in a public propaganda campaign to drum-up support for their wars from a federally-subsidized pulpit.

      They sure as hell have no business spouting off sanctimonious bullshit about "civility", when the IDF is waging a war of aggression against the family members of the student body using blockades, home demolitions, illegal deportations, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, and murder.

  • Palestinian activist Abir Kopty: Oslo should go, the peace process serves Israeli interests
    • Hostage June 18, 2013 at 5:49 am

      Abir Kopty makes it clear that she seeks the elimination of the Jewish state and the remarks by Warschawski back this up.
      This can only lead to the destruction of the Jewish entity in Israel and is nothing more that the utopian dream of Marxists, who still live in some fantasy land.

      I still have a nice collection of I like Ike buttons. I don't feel the rest of the world is under any obligation to maintain such a thing as a Jewish State in Palestine or even tolerate one that mistreats one in five people living there. Its is not indispensable, so its disappearance would not automatically trigger destruction or the apocalypse.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 11:35 am

      (neither blockade nor the ability to enter a state is tantamount to occupation). And the fact that “everybody says so” isn’t an argument.

      It actually is an argument. International law is simply the collection of rules that states adopt to govern their mutual relations. Customary law is whatever they say that it is.

      They have agreed that territory is occupied from the moment it is placed under the jurisdiction of the advancing military forces. If those IDF gunboats in Palestinian territorial waters have the authority to stop the inhabitants from navigating freely, then the rules of occupation apply. If 30 percent of the agricultural land of Gaza is subject to IDF jurisdiction as part of a buffer zone or kill zone, then the laws of occupation apply. I could go on, but you get point.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 11:23 am

      You seem to be (sincerely) an intelligent and knowledgeable person, and I wud expect you to answer to the point.

      You seem to be a troll who wants to steer the conversation away from the point and onto imbecilic ones.

    • Hostage June 17, 2013 at 10:45 am

      As I am sure you are aware, the Greek Cypriots rejected a compromise for a federal state, that was accepted by Turkish Cyrpriots.

      I'm aware that the TRNC has not been dismantled in accordance with the applicable UN resolutions. So the UN Security Council and General Assembly have imposed a regime of collective non-recognition on UN member states regarding any cooperation or assistance with the so-called "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". That legal regime has the same legal consequences as the ones regarding the non-recognition of Rhodesia, the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights by Israel, and the demographic changes (facts on the ground) in the Occupied West Bank.

      Would pursuing war crimes prosecutions impede Palestinian effort to gain full UN membership? Obviously.

      Obviously not. Pending cases in the ICC have nothing to do with the criteria for membership contained in Article 4 of the UN Charter.

      For years, Israel and its allies employed any excuse whatever to prevent the Arab portions of the former Palestine Mandate from being admitted as a member state states of the United Nations. That resulted in an ICJ case which held that the only criteria are those enumerated in Article 4 of the UN Charter, i.e. membership is open to every peace-loving state.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 1:31 pm

      Your response is just not to my original point

      Yes I responded by pointing out that the question was a red herring, i.e. an extraneous issue that is meant to distract the readers from the fact that Israel and the US have used the Oslo Accords as cover for continued colonialism and apartheid. If you can only respond by claiming that colonialism and apartheid aren't as bad as Israel's earlier wars of aggression and the Nakba, then you can stop spamming the thread.

      There were no Syrians or Libyans heading up the panels of criminal law experts who authored the 1972 study. The International Law Commission and the member state-elected CERD panels of experts have subsequently confirmed those findings and advised that they are held by the majority of leading western publicists.

      For example, in 1998 the Experts panel for the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination said that the status of the Jewish-only settlements was clearly inconsistent with the prohibition of apartheid and similar policies of racial segregation contained in Article 3 of the Convention. The Committee noted General Recommendation XIX, prohibited all forms of racial segregation in all countries; and that there was a consensus among publicists that the prohibition of racial discrimination, irrespective of territories, was an imperative norm of international law. CERD/C/SR.1250, 9 March 1998 link to unispal.un.org

      Here's an extract from the latest report: The Committee draws the State party’s attention to its General Recommendation 19 (1995) concerning the prevention, prohibition and eradication of all policies and practices of racial segregation and apartheid, and urges the State party to take immediate measures to prohibit and eradicate any such policies or practices which severely and disproportionately affect the Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and which violate the provisions of article 3 of the Convention. CERD.C.ISR.CO.14-16 link to www2.ohchr.org

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 2:48 am

      Compare “before Oslo” – military rule and occupation, “after Oslo” – de facto state (actually even two states), self rule (however hampered in you opinion), government and people enjoying enormous aid, etc.

      Some “exploitation”.

      So why don't you trade places with the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank and see how you like having the tables turned for awhile?

      Your argument is utter nonsense. Compare the size of the illegal settler population before and after Oslo. That's illegal colonialism. Establishing and enlarging Jewish-only settlements is part of a systematic policy of Bantustanization. That is prima facie evidence of the crime of apartheid. -- See the Human Rights Commission, Study Concerning the Question of Apartheid from the Point of View of International Penal Law, E/CN.4/1075, 15 February 1972, pp. 51 – 52.

      Israel has been pursuing a policy of deliberate Bantustanization ever since the days when the Minister of Agriculture, Ariel Sharon announced his plans to breakup the contiguity of large Arab population centers in Israel and the Occupied territories by establishing inland strips of Jewish settlements. The US government was informed about that, but chose to do nothing. Sharon bragged about the plan at great length in interviews with the Jerusalem Post, dated September 9th and 12th, 1977. Those reports were submitted as exhibits to the US Senate. As the old saying goes, "Its a fact, and you can look it up in the Library of Congress". link to loc.gov

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 2:31 am

      @Hostage – - The big picture is full UN recognition with 1967 borders. War crimes are comparatively insignificant issue. Comparatively.

      Which Palestinian politician or activist are you quoting? I've never heard one yet who claimed that war crimes are a comparatively insignificant issue.

      Once again, Cyprus has UN membership and recognized borders, but that hasn't solved any of its problems with the Turkish occupation or internally displaced persons.

    • Hostage June 14, 2013 at 7:35 pm

      i am a little confused with your reference to ” The people living under South African Apartheid had the good common sense to establish separate national liberation and human rights movements” as it pertains to the PA.

      I get a little confused by Israeli and Jordanian passport holders lecturing the PLO on the one state solution and normalizing relations with Israel.

      The PA was only a creature of the lapsed Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. It ceased to exist when it was redesignated as part of the Government of the State of Palestine several months ago. Palestinian statehood had already been declared before the Oslo Accords were concluded. Statehood, as such, was never a final status issue of the lapsed Accords. Each of the parties formally reserved their respective positions on subjects not specifically addressed in the agreement.

      I was talking about the need for Israeli Palestinians to establish their own national liberation and human rights organization. They need something analogous to the ANC which sought equal rights, but did NOT seek independence from South Africa. Incorporation in another existing state on the basis of equal rights and non-discrimination is a valid mode of exercising the right of self-determination.

      The PLO is analogous to SWAPO/Namibia which demanded and sought complete independence from South Africa. That is also a valid mode of exercising the right of self-determination. Plenty of people advised SWAPO back in the day that it was impossible to establish two states and that there was really only one sovereign state between Cape Town and the Marienfluss. These Israeli and Jordanian members of Palestinian or Israeli civil society are very reminiscent of the divided opinions that existed among the peoples who lived under the South African apartheid regime. In that case there wasn't a one size fits all solution.

    • Hostage June 14, 2013 at 6:50 pm

      "The Palestinians have also decided to put off applying to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to sign the Rome Statute and thus obtain standing in the court as a state." [Haaretz 04 April 2013]

      I think people put too much emphasis on joining the UN or the ICC. That's not necessary before Israeli war crimes can be prosecuted. I also think people put too much emphasis on relatively minor delays. We are talking about crimes with few, if any, statutory limitations going forward from July of 2002. Trials in international tribunals can take decades, and countries are still investigating and prosecuting crimes committed during WWII.

      The Rome Statute allows non-member states to refer crimes committed on their territories to the ICC by voluntarily accepting the Court's jurisdiction. Palestine has already done that. You only need to look at the situation in the occupied territory of northern Cyprus to see that joining the ICC offers no guarantee that illegal situations will be investigated or prosecuted without additional grassroots or diplomatic political pressure.

      Cyprus is an ICC, EU, and UN member state. Nonetheless, portions of its territory remain under an illegal occupation regime. Worse still, Turkey and Cyprus are both state parties to the European Convention on Human Rights. Some of the displaced victims of the conflict filed a petition with the European Court of Human Rights concerning their right of return and compensation. The Court refused to even hear their case on the basis of international human rights law and advised the victims to first seek compensation from the Turkish courts. Note that the right of return is based in international humanitarian law (the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocol), not human rights law. There are other justiciable differences, since Israel has agreed to implement General Assembly resolutions 181(II) and 194(III) and agreements must be kept (pacta sunt servanda). Nonetheless, the Palestinian Solidarity Movement has been totally missing in action with regard to providing support for Palestine's existing Article 12(3) declaration. That has given the Prosecutors all the cover they need to ignore the situation.

    • Hostage June 14, 2013 at 6:21 pm

      hophmi: abandon the PLO … If they can’t do that, then they are sure to attract unwelcome attention from the Israeli State security establishment.

      That wasn't Hophmi, that was me. Oslo had nothing to say in connection with Palestinians citizens of Israel living in Nazareth. In fact Israeli Palestinian NGOs denounced the Lieberman plan to strip them of their citizenship and incorporate the territory they inhabit into the jurisdiction of the PA.

      FYI, the PLO satisfies all of the statutory criteria to place it on the US State Department's list of foreign terror organizations. The President has simply used his authority to temporarily waive the application of the law in the interest of US national security, e.g. See Presidential Determination - Waiver of and Certification of Statutory Provisions Regarding the Palestine Liberation Organization Office link to whitehouse.gov

      Nonetheless, the Goldstone report accused militias affiliated with the al Fatah party and the PLO of committing war crimes by firing rockets and mortars into southern Israel during Operation Cast Lead. So unless the Palestinians of Nazareth wish to be treated like enemy civilians, they should disassociate themselves from the PLO or accept the concomitant scrutiny from the Israeli security establishment that relations with their belligerent brethren will naturally attract during the on-going conflict.

    • Hostage June 13, 2013 at 11:25 pm

      Asherpat the Oslo Accords have lapsed. The PA was redesignated as the Government of the State of Palestine shortly after the UN vote and it was never a party to those agreements (as many Israeli officials have pointed out).

      The Oslo Accords and the so-called peace process have been exploited by Israel and the US to facilitate further colonialism and apartheid. It really doesn't matter if the alternatives were worse, since any agreement which violates peremptory norms of international law or which has been obtained through coercion, threats, or the actual use of force is null and void from the outset. See articles 52 and 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

      It became obvious during the UN bid that Israel employed the Oslo Accords to deny the Palestinians self-determination. The ICJ had already advised as much.

    • Hostage June 13, 2013 at 11:13 pm with 4 replies

      i completely agree! palestinians should dump the PA for good.

      I have trouble getting my head around an article like this. The people living under South African Apartheid had the good common sense to establish separate national liberation and human rights movements, i.e. the ANC and SWAPO, based upon the fact that one group wanted independence from South Africa, while the other did not.

      The PLO/PA contained elements of an enemy entity engaged in an on-going international armed conflict with Israel. If Israeli Palestinians don't want to be viewed as a fifth column, then they should abandon the PLO and stop worrying about the now-defunct PA and Oslo Accords. If they can't do that, then they are sure to attract unwelcome attention from the Israeli State security establishment.

    • Hostage June 13, 2013 at 10:07 pm

      besides, palestinians don’t need abbas to go to the UN. there’s a difference between the PA and the PLO. one can dismantle the PA and the PLO will still represent the palestinian people at the UN. abbas didn’t go to the UN representing the PA, but the PLO.

      For obvious reasons your state's government represents you in the UN. For obvious reasons: 1) Israel has never represented the Jewish people in the UN; and 2) the PLO has never officially represented the Palestinian citizens of Israel in the UN.

      The UN did not recognize Abbas. They recognized the State of Palestine and its organs. Its representatives, officials, and form of government can be altered or replaced without effecting that recognition. The same thing has happened to many other countries without disturbing their status as states.

      BTW, the PLO, the ANC, and SWAPO were all recognized as national liberation movements and invited to be UN observers at a time when that option was only open to States. At the time, the UN Economic and Social Council pointedly refused to alter its rules in order to permit the PLO to join as a non-state member. It went ahead and intentionally ignored the objections from Israel and the United States and admitted the PLO as a full member. The US and Israel have been waging a war of threats and blackmail over recognition of Palestinian statehood by the other UN organs ever since then. When the UN Secretariat caved-in and listed Palestine as an "observer entity", it was an empty jesture, since its own ESCWA (a part of the Secretariat itself) continued to publish and catalog official rules on UN letterhead which declared that Palestine was a full member state of that organ:

      ESCWA comprises 13 States, viz., Bahrain, Egypt, lraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

      link to ESCWA.un.org

  • U.S. gov't sides with 'UN Watch' and lobby and against Richard Falk
    • Hostage June 13, 2013 at 9:19 pm

      The latest figures from the UN show clearly that the Syrian conflict is by far the bloodiest and most enduring of all the Arab uprisings. It’s the only one that’s mutated into a full-scale, heavily militarised civil war.

      Just to illustrate the illogical nature of hasbara. In 1948, Ben Gurion blamed the UN for failing to intervene in the civil war in Palestine to impose a political solution. Nowadays the Israelis insist that the international community has no right to intervene and impose a political solution in Palestine, but run their mouths non-stop about the need for it to do so in nearly every other imaginable situation.

    • Hostage June 13, 2013 at 9:12 pm

      Shame- and disgraceful

      Of course. The refusal of the EU to recognize the State of Palestine - even after the UN General Assembly vote - is what really undermines the viability of the two state solution.

      The EU should write a report of its own about EU acts of omission before offering criticism of Falk's report for any perceived oversights. His report highlights a collective EU failure to ensure respect for, and compliance with, the Geneva Conventions and the 1st Additional Protocol. It isn't at all obvious what the EU means when it uses phrases like: "illegal under international law".

      The EU foreign affairs representative Ashton and the foreign ministers shouldn't express embarrassment or surprise when their own courts issue arrest warrants for the responsible Israeli officials, if they truly understand the meaning of those words.

    • Hostage June 13, 2013 at 8:40 pm

      The ADL was created in 1913 by bankers from London,the same year the Federal Reserve was created.

      The ADL was founded by the Bnai Brith. It's like asking if the 3rd Communist International could be relied upon to support Lenin's or Stalin's policies. The Bnai Brith and the ADL are part of the Zionist International.

    • Hostage June 13, 2013 at 12:35 am with 2 replies

      How sad it is to see that Moon has been co-opted to support their dirty words and deeds. He has become little more than a patsy and a stooge.

      He started out as a patsy and a stooge. I commented in the past that his Palmer Inquiry dog and pony show was designed to make the real investigation of the flotilla massacre conducted by the UN HRC disappear without really doing anything. The fact is that the Charter doesn't allow the Secretariat to conduct UN business under the guidance of any particular member states.

      Falk's predecessor took the UN to task for allowing the Secretary General to remain a member of the so-called Middle East Quartet, because it does nothing to enforce the ICJ Advisory Opinion and helps Israel commit violations of international law, the Road Map, and the applicable UN resolutions. John Dugard pointed out that UN resolutions are legally binding on the Secretary Generals and that it was (and still is) improper for them to even appear to be working outside the organization to overturn the decisions taken by the responsible UN organs.

  • The kids are back, and it's not alright
    • Hostage June 16, 2013 at 2:49 am

      You said Beinart knew Zionism was wrong.

      Even by his own biased standards, he recognized that Zionism as it is presently constituted and practiced by the Jewish community is wrong.

      He devoted an entire book to the subject of the "Crisis of Zionism" which prescribed a number of corrective actions that have been soundly rejected.

      His readers are left with the inescapable conclusion that he didn't really care about others, but was only suggesting band-aids that will help downplay the unavoidable public relations fiascoes, like the one he perceived when he saw a video of a 5 year-old Palestinian child cry as the Israelis hauled his father off to jail:

      I’m not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis, since that would require Israel no longer being a Jewish state. I’m actually pretty willing to compromise my liberalism for Israel’s security and for its status as a Jewish state.”

      So on a fundamental level the book is really just some more Zionist demagoguery aimed at the audience of Jewish insiders.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 12:40 pm

      the idea that all “peoples” have a right to “national self-determination” on their own sovereign land, though perhaps well-intentioned, is ultimately rooted in Romantic German notions of “blood and soil,”

      It was a platitudinous Wilsonian ideal that was ultimately entrenched in international law by the UN Charter, which is based upon equal rights and self determination of peoples.

      It really only means that all of the inhabitants of a territory have the right to freely participate in selecting their form of government, choosing their representatives, and disposing of their national resources. It's expressly forbidden to exclude anyone from participating in the political life of the country on the basis of their race, religion, or ethnicity under the terms of the Charter and the associated UN human rights treaties and declarations that were adopted to codify and implement the principles of international law contained in the UN Charter.

    • Hostage June 15, 2013 at 12:02 pm

      What a callous answer.

      Except I'm not disregarding any societal antisemitism that these little fascists have been exposed to in this country.

      Are you asserting that Arab kids who grew up here have no stake in being pro-Palestinian because they’ve never seen an Israeli soldier?

      Who needs the Israelis? American society perpetrated the post 9/11 round-up of innocent Muslim and Arab immigrants; subjected Arabs and Muslims to a regime of illegal surveillance; imprisoned hundreds of innocent Arabs and Muslims illegally without trial at Guantanamo Bay; accepted the use of kill lists and drone attacks against Arab Americans far away from any battlefields; murdered hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims and made millions more refugees in wars of aggression that were characterized as "preventative self defense".

      While all that was going on our government pledged unconditional support for Israel and allowing tax-free contributions to be funneled to Jewish hilltop youths who were colonizing Occupied Palestine. Those criminals have a philosophy that is indistinguishable from these little fucktards and yourself.

      So if I seem a little callous when you whine about persecution, its because you couldn't stand the pace if real persecution, like I described above, was actually directed your way.

    • Hostage June 14, 2013 at 5:56 pm with 1 replies

      hostage, you didn’t close your quote. were you quoting howard grief?

      No, it's a parody of Rashi's commentary on Genesis 1:1. He explained Israel hadn't stolen the land. He reasoned that, although God had initially given the Land of Canaan to others, he still had the authority to give it to whom ever he desired - and that he had taken it away from the inhabitants and given it to Israel.

      I was poking fun at the idea that the international community had the power to give all of Palestine to the Jews in the first place, and pointing out that even if they did, they've subsequently ceded significant portions of it back to the Palestinians. They've done that on several occasions since the days of San Remo.

    • Hostage June 14, 2013 at 7:05 am with 3 replies

      featuring Howard Grief, who spoke at a settler conference, arguing that the 1920 San Remo conference gave Jews sovereignty over all of historical Palestine.

      Not quite all of historical Palestine: "The entire earth belongs to the Allied Powers, blessed be they; They created Israel (this we learn from the hasbara) and gave it to whomever they deemed proper. When they wished, they gave it to the Jews, and when they wished, they took it away from them and gave it back to the Palestinians (by a vote of 138 in favor to 9 against, with 41 abstentions). link to un.org

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