Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
| ||||||||||||
UN Terror Draft to Outlaw Israeli Strikes - Empire? - Global Policy Forum UN Terror Draft
to Outlaw Israeli StrikesBy Siddharth Varadarajan
Times News Network
January , 2002
If the US and Israel are blocking India’s draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism because it does not outlaw attacks by the PLO and Hamas on Israeli occupation forces, they are equally unhappy with clauses which might lead to some of their own military actions being considered terrorism.
Though India successfully parried attempts to make state terrorism an offence under the Convention, the current draft does not grant a blanket exclusion to actions undertaken by governments.
The state terrorism issue was pushed by the Organisation of Islamic States with Israel in mind, and by Pakistan, with Kashmir in mind. Indian diplomats pointed to the ad hoc UN tribunals on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Lockerbie case, the attempt by a Spanish court to prosecute former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the evolution of the International Criminal Court as evidence that international law was slowly building a system for dealing with crimes by states. ‘‘We agree that there is no international consensus on these questions yet, ‘’ an Indian official said, ‘‘but nothing will be gained by telescoping that process into the terrorism convention.’’
The Indian view prevailed but, with common consent, Egypt amended the immunity granted in Article 18(3) of the draft convention to the ‘‘military forces of a State in the exercise of their official duties’’ to stipulate that their activities would be excluded inasmuch as they are ‘‘in conformity with international law’’. Article 18(2) speaks of international humanitarian law, a reference to the Geneva Conventions.
Read in its entirety, draft Article 18 clearly places riders on the use of military force by states. The assassination of Palestinian leaders by Israel, its policy of collective punishment, the firing of missiles in civilian areas, and other violations of the Geneva Conventions, would all be considered terrorism by the Convention because Israel would not be able to plead that these are activities undertaken by its armed forces in their official capacity.
Even the deliberate or ‘‘accidental’’ bombing of civilian targets by the US in Yugoslavia (the Belgrade TV station), Sudan (the country’s only pharmaceutical plant) and Afghanistan — insofar as they are not legitimate military activities under international humanitarian law, would technically be outlawed by the convention. Whether these violations would be actionable under the present geo-political realities is a different matter altogether.
More Information on Empire FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C ß 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
