Hague court issues warrant for Sudan's Bashir, Reuters

Just found this because somebody posted my blog on Soros to a financial site (heh). It belongs at the ACL. I was looking at my horrible ACL International Court at the Hague page the other day. and thinking I need to revise the whoe thing. I made the IC topic page right after I learned how to upload pictures in 2004, and I went out of control. Plus I was so disgusted to see the role Angelina Jolie plays I emphasized it by putting sexual pictures of our "UN Goodwill Ambassador" on the page, and then we put up a big red flashing "warning" at the top. It's funny to see the hits that I get on that page, lot of pervs in the Middle East looking for sexual pictures of the ever so sweet and respectable Ms. Pitt. Others look for Angelina Jolie Satanist... seems to be a lot of speculation about what it is she actually represents. Not one search that I know of looking for her name with Goodwill Ambassador.

Anyway, here's the latest news on the IC's precedent setting warrant (wonder what Pinochet's was?). Which, of course, leads back to the whole issue Etzioni devoted his book From Empire to Community to, and that would be that the global enforcement arm of the court is sorely lacking. Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch refers to it as the court's "Achilles Heel."

Hague court issues warrant for Sudan's Bashir

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5232X520090305

Wed Mar 4, 2009 8:37pm EST

By Reed Stevenson and Aaron Gray-Block

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Wednesday for war crimes in Darfur, a decision that could spark more regional turmoil.

The warrant is the first issued against a sitting head of state by the Hague-based court, which stopped short of including a count of genocide over a conflict that United Nations officials say has killed as many as 300,000 people since 2003.

The court, set up in 2002, indicted Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which include murder, rape and torture. The three-judge panel said it had insufficient grounds for genocide.

"His victims are the very civilians that he as a president was supposed to protect," ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told reporters, adding that Sudan's government is obliged to execute the warrant. "It could be in two months or two years, but he will face justice."

Hundreds of demonstrators protested against the arrest warrant in central Khartoum. Bashir, 65, has dismissed the allegations made by the ICC, the world's first permanent court for prosecuting war crimes, as part of a Western conspiracy.

"It is a flawed decision," said Sudanese presidential spokesman Mahjoub Fadul. "We do not recognize it."

Hours after the warrant was issued, Sudan revoked the licences of at least six foreign aid agencies, giving no reason for the decision, aid officials said. "This will have a major impact on humanitarian work in Darfur," said one aid official.

U.N. and other agencies are running the world's largest humanitarian operation in Darfur, a mainly desert region in western Sudan. U.N. officials say up to 300,000 have been killed there, while Khartoum says 10,000 have died.

A further 2.7 million people are estimated to have been uprooted by the conflict, which began when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.

U.N. officials said hundreds of government troops paraded through the regional capital El Fasher in a show of strength.

SUMMIT IN QATAR

Sudan's under-secretary of foreign affairs, Mutrif Siddiq, told Reuters Bashir planned to attend an Arab summit in Qatar later this month despite the warrant.

ICC Registrar Silvana Arbia said the court expects enforcement of the arrest warrant of states party to the Rome Statute that set up the court and United Nations member states.

International justice expert Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said the ICC's inability to arrest was an "Achilles heel."

The ICC "has no police force of its own to go out and execute its judicial orders and is dependent on the government of Sudan to carry out this arrest warrant," Dicker told reporters at U.N. headquarters. Continued...

Israel may face UN court ruling on Gaza conflict

Communitarian Network founder Amitai Etzioni is a leading voice in the growing consensus over the ineffectiveness of the UN's soft power. To centrist PeaceHawks like Etzioni, the need to combine the authority of the UN with the military and financial power of the USA is the most pressing global security issue in the world.

What if the Zionist state and their entire history of inhumane attacks on Arab civilians was just one of many British theosophical tools used to manipulate human social evolution into a British-Dutch synthesized world government system? There is enough evidence pointing in that direction to justify further inquiry.

Are there other possible solutions to the Hegelian conflict in Gaza besides taking the case before the UN court?

Yes, there are. We don't need to grant the UN Court Supreme Communitarian powers over Israel. The United States funds Zionism. The only reason communist Israel ever survived was the same reason the communist USSR survived: American tax dollars. Israel has the military power to destroy Gaza because the US people give it to them (and it has the nuclear power because Zionist spies steal American military secrets). Wouldn't cutting off their automatic, yearly US tax money supply (and paying closer attention to Israeli dual nationals working in US Top Security areas) be a lot more cost and life efficient than using more US tax dollars and more US-NATO soldiers to enforce a UN ruling that has no hard authority without our military and tax backing?

Are we all so gullible that we will finance senseless wars of destruction and then finance the interventions to stop the senseless wars, interventions that will in turn usurp our supreme national law and place us all under the control of a global communitarian justice system? Why would free, educated people appoint the same PeaceHawks who start and manage wars of aggression to write the global peace process?

The Case Against Pinochet was the first big test of UN Communitarian Supremacy of law. The UN's Case Against Israel is not pilot test. It's the real deal.

From Peter Meyer's elist:

(3) Israel may face UN court ruling on Gaza conflict

From: Kenneth Rasmusson Date: 14.01.2009 03:13 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/14/israel-gaza-un-court-palestine

14 January 2009

Israel may face UN court ruling on legality of Gaza conflict

by Afua Hirsch, legal affairs correspondent

Israel faces the prospect of intervention by international courts amid growing calls that its actions in Gaza are a violation of world humanitarian and criminal law.

The UN general assembly, which is meeting this week to discuss the issue, will consider requesting an advisory opinion from the international court of justice, the Guardian has learned.

"There is a well-grounded view that both the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, the Geneva conventions, international law and international humanitarian law," said Richard Falk, the UN's special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.

{The surname Falk also just happens to be Etzioni's German birth name ~ Niki}

"There is a consensus among independent legal experts that Israel is an occupying power and is therefore bound by the duties set out in the fourth Geneva convention," Falk added. "The arguments that Israel's blockade is a form of prohibited collective punishment, and that it is in breach of its duty to ensure the population has sufficient food and healthcare as the occupying power, are very strong."

A Foreign Office source confirmed the UK would consider backing calls for a reference to the ICJ. "It's definitely on the table," the source said. "We have already called for an investigation and are looking at all evidence and allegations."

An open letter to the prime minister signed by prominent international lawyers and published in today's Guardian states: "The United Kingdom government ... has a duty under international law to exert its influence to stop violations of international humanitarian law in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas."

The letter argues that Israel has violated principles of humanitarian law, including launching attacks directly aimed at civilians and failing to discriminate between civilians and combatants.

The letter follows condemnation earlier this week from leading QCs of Israel's action as a violation of international law, and a vote by the UN's human rights council on Monday on a resolution condemning the ongoing Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.

"The blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel are prima facie war crimes," a group of leading QCs and academics, including Michael Mansfield QC and Sir Geoffrey Bindman, wrote in a letter to the Sunday Times.

Israel has already been found to have violated its obligations in international law by a previous advisory opinion of the ICJ, and is likely to vigorously contest arguments that it is an occupying power. It previously stated that occupation ceased after disengagement from Gaza in 2005.

Its stance raises questions as to the utility of an advisory opinion by the ICJ after Israel rejected its finding in a previous case, which found the wall being constructed in the Palestinian territories to be a violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law.

Questions are also being raised as to whether the international criminal court, which deals with war crimes and crimes against humanity, would have any jurisdiction to hear cases against perpetrators of the alleged crimes on both sides of the conflict. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian territories are signatories to the Rome statute, which brings states within the jurisdiction of the ICC.

More likely, experts say, is the establishment of ad-hoc tribunals of the kind created to deal with the war in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda.

"If there were the political will there could be an ad-hoc tribunal established to hear allegations of war crimes," Falk said. "This could be done by the general assembly acting under article 22 of the UN charter which gives them the authority to establish subsidiary bodies."

Africans reject EU Trade demands!

In Africa, the governments appear to be acting in the best interests of their citizens. Compare this report with my post yesterday about Barack Obama and his Global Poverty Bill which claims to commit to helping reduce poverty via sustainable development coupled with the U.S. 's Transatlantic Policy Network which plans to reduce trade barriers between the U.S. and the E.U.

Too bad so many of these African nations can't see through the Hegelian scam as well. This came off Peter Meyer's elist:

Forwarded from: Global Trade Watch <info@tradewatchoz.org>
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 17:33:16 +1100

* Africa takes a stand against Europe’s unequal economic partnership agreements (EPA's)

Food First ( www.foodfirst.org ) reports: "Times may be changing in Africa. Europe is no longer free to impose unfair trade agreements to the detriment of African farmers. At the second EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon in December African nations united against the EU’s push for trade liberalization and bilateral economic agreements. The EU’s 27 countries were asking African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries to permit EU goods and services to enter their domestic markets duty-free with a December 31, 2007 deadline for the new trade agreements.

Instead, African governments resoundingly voted no, forcing the European Commission into negotiations that are likely to resume in 2008. President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal emphatically refused to sign saying “We are not talking any more about EPA’s. We have rejected them.” President Thamo Mbeki of South Africa and Namibia supported Wade in deciding not to sign. This is a turning point for Africa, with African nations rejecting European domination and colonialist policies. The mobilized strength of social movements and trade union organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa also contributed to the collapse of the Summit.

Breaking with the European Commission, French President Nicolas Sarkozy stood behind the African countries that opposed unfair agreements. All in all, only 15 of the 76 poor countries involved in the discussions have signed EPA’s with Europe. Most African leaders fear that the EPA’s will flood their markets with cheap European goods, depriving them of duty revenue, while destroying local businesses and agriculture. Many also fear the EU’s strategy of single country deals that parallel the US’ inequitable trade agreements with Latin American nations."

Now what, if anything, does this have to do with the UN Law of the Sea Treaty? Here's an introduction from wikipedia, which sucks as a source sometimes but it's always a good place to start if you know nothing about the topic. For instance, Wiki has a link to http://www.burneylawfirm.com/international_law_primer.htm which has a fabulous page dedicated to the topic. I'm one of those who don't know anything about the Law of the Sea Treaty and for this I was chastised, more than once, in responses to my articles about communitarian law. I've got other pressing commitments but I will study this asap.

United States non-ratification

The United States strongly objected to the provisions of Part XI of the Convention on several grounds, saying that the treaty is unfavorable to America's economy and security. The US felt that the provisions of the treaty were not free-market friendly and were designed to favor the economic systems of the Communist states. The US also felt that the provisions might result in the ISA becoming a bloated and expensive bureaucracy due to a combination of large revenues and insufficient control over what the revenues could be used for.

Due to Part XI, the US refused to ratify the UNCLOS, although it expressed agreement with the remaining provisions of the Convention. Even though the United States is not a party to the treaty, it considers many of the remaining provisions as binding as customary international law. {Explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_international_law

[edit] Revision of the LOS Convention

From 1983 to 1990, the United States accepted all but Part XI as customary international law, while attempting to establish an alternative regime for exploitation of the minerals of the deep seabed. An agreement was made with other seabed mining nations and licenses were granted to four international consortia. Concurrently, the Preparatory Commission was established to prepare for the eventual coming into force of the Convention-recognized claims by applicants, sponsored by signatories of the Convention. Overlaps between the two groups were resolved, but a decline in the demand for minerals from the seabed made the seabed regime significantly less relevant. In addition, the decline of Socialism and the fall of Communism in the late 1980s had removed much of the support for some of the more contentious Part XI provisions.

In 1990, consultations were begun between signatories and non-signatories (including the United States) over the possibility of modifying the Convention to allow the industrialized countries to join the Convention. The resulting 1994 Agreement on Implementation was adopted as a binding international Convention. It mandated that key articles, including those on limitation of seabed production and mandatory technology transfer, would not be applied, that the United States, if it became a member, would be guaranteed a seat on the Council of the International Seabed Authority, and finally, that voting would be done in groups, with each group able to block decisions on substantive matters. The 1994 Agreement also established a Finance Committee that would originate the financial decisions of the Authority, to which the largest donors would automatically be members and in which decisions would be made by consensus.

[edit] Debate

In the United States there is vigorous debate over the ratification of the treaty, with criticism coming mainly from political conservatives who consider involvement in some international organizations and treaties as detrimental to US national interests. A group of Republican senators, led by Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, has blocked American ratification of the Convention, claiming that it would impinge on US sovereignty. The Bush administration, a majority of the United States Senate, and the Pentagon favor ratification. In addition, various special interests including scientific and international legal scholars, and mining and environmentalist groups have also expressed support.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zones

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson-Stevens_Fisheries_Conservation_and_Management_Act_of_1976

Here's Senator Inhofe's speech on the Law of the Sea Treaty last October:
http://inhofe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=ae6b61e3-802a-23ad-431c-19fcc771af03&Region_id=&Issue_id=4afd45b5-e2e8-be06-d58b-91d455490bcc

Inhofe appears to be a model Republican who supports the War on Iraq, and other lovely projects like turning Yucca Mountain outside Vegas into a nuclear waste site. Inhofe is painted as "out of touch fringe group" by Democrats. (http://www.dscc.org/news_item?news_item_KEY=3914) "Sen Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, painted Inhofe, R-Tulsa, as part of an out-of-touch fringe group that is ignoring the advice of the world's leading scientists and experts on climate change."

What's the odds Inhofe is a dialectical player, just like Boxer? Can't reach a synthesis without a left or a right. Somebody has to act out each "side." The problem is when people like me are forced to choose one or the other. I don't like the far right any more than I like the far left. It irks the hell out of me that the only elected officials who oppose the UN are right wing Christians (or Birchers) who can be labled "fringe" and discounted for their voting records in other areas like war and welfare. It makes it appear as if my anti UN sentiment is based on right wing ideology. Then there's the whole trap that if I can't identify with a side then I am a communitarian by default. There is NO place in the debates for anti communitarians.