International law

  By Jan Oberg Commenting on Iran’s global PressTV why the US sanctions against Iran are one big violation of international law and why other countries should resist all pressures from the US and its threat of imposing its secondary sanctions on them – remember Trump’s tweet that anyone who does business with Iran will not do business with the US. This behaviour – including the attempt to suffocate 85 million innocent Iranian citizens – is an unacceptable type of policy as well as a gross violation of human rights. Decency, ethics and simple fairness should compel the world to tell the US that on this one it stands alone. The burden here is very high on the Euopean Union. In passing, let me say that I am happy to work with PressTV. I’m always being treated with respect and gratitude and over the years not one attempt to manipulate...

  This is literally a unique experience of extraordinary educational value: Listen to 98-year old Ben Ferencz sharing his crystal clear perception of the human stupidity of war – all wars – and how he sees the situation of humanity. He remains a realist, he says, with more optimism than pessimism. Listen to him telling about his truly amazing, unique life as a lawyer devoted to the common good of humanity and to securing justice but also human care for victims as well as perpetrators. He is the last surviving Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor and has thought more than probably anyone about the psychology and politics of evil. Ferencz is a staunch believer in abolishing wars as such and, of course, in nuclear weapons abolition. He challenges the entire Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC, and argues that there is only one winner in wars: Death. If you are a teacher, get your students...

Photo: US President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at the Moscow Summit 1991 By Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images Over the last four month, ten articles about the new Cold War have been published on the TFF Associates blog. And on our social media you’ll find hundreds of brilliant, informative posts written by others. While this new Cold War is certainly different from the first Cold war that ended in 1989, we are not in doubt that there is a new such tragic war and that the risk of military confrontation between Russia and NATO countries in Europe has increased. We also happen to think it could have been avoided. This Cold War has to do with, among many other things, NATO’s counterproductive expansion since 1994, the way Yugoslavia broke down and was broken up, with Ukraine and now Syria as well as – perhaps surprisingly to some – the...

  Comment by Jan Oberg RT offers the background and, towards the end, Oberg deals with what it means politically. The U.S. has upheld sanctions on Iran since 1979. When is enough enough? With what right does the country suffocate the 85 million Iranian citizens? Perhaps it is time that you boycott these two companies since they have now decided to contribute more to war than to peace, to support the U.S. in its gross violations of international law (by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal which is under a UN Security Council resolution) and in its human rights violations – not to speak of threatening sanctions on everybody else who continue to do business with Iran. Watch the show… Some “parameters” may prevent you from using the arrow below. If so click “Watch the show…”    

    Comment “We deeply regret the re-imposition of sanctions by the US, due to the latter’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)” – say High Representative Federica Mogherini and Foreign Ministers of E3 (Jean-Yves Le Drian of France, Heiko Maas of Germany, Jeremy Hunt of the United Kingdom). That’s an important statement. But more is needed. While the EU needs to protect its member states against US attempts to bully and punish everyone who from today deals with Iran, it needs to step up all kinds of co-operation with Iran and be ready to endure whatever conflicts with the U.S. this may entail. The future of the EU is at stake. No less. Also – says Oberg – it is peculiar that the US has chosen August 6, Hiroshima Day, to re-impose its sanctions on Iran in the wake of its decision to withdraw from the...

Donald Trump’s efforts to block Iran’s oil exports are intended to harm Iran, but his policy also harms the US and the rest of the world.   By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich July 2, 2018 • It is as clear as day that President Trump is obsessed with regime change in Iran. What is not made clear is the full extent of the damage his gambit will cause to Americans and American interests. Without cause or justification, Mr. Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA), striking a hard blow to America’s European allies—and its own credibility. Moreover, he threatened European countries with secondary sanctions should they continue to trade with Iran. Originally published by Foreign Policy Journal on July 2, 2018 To top it all, in his latest move, he has called for all Iranian oil exports to be cut off by November. Or in practical terms, he...

  By Gunnar Westberg June 21, 2018 The North Korea – USA nuclear crisis should teach us several lessons regarding nuclear weapons: 1. Nuclear weapons do not prevent nuclear proliferation. In 1970, the nuclear weapon states accepted the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT. In this treaty, they agree to negotiate the complete disarmament of their own nuclear weapons. They have – equally completely – disregarded this pledge and insist that they must retain nuclear weapons in order to prevent other countries from acquiring them. The North Korea example shows us that this does not work.   2. Nuclear weapons are contagious. The nuclear weapons states also insist, contrary to their pledge in the NPT, that they must keep their nukes “for their own security”. This provides an excuse for other states to acquire them. A small country such as North Korea, DPRK, has stronger reasons to build nuclear weapons than a...

  • Give the man a break. Donald Trump found out in Singapore that, as Churchill said, “Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War”. If war can be avoided by a warm, long, very private chat without advisers, with effusive body gestures and promises of a world stage when his opponent, Kim Jong Un, is invited to the White House, then Trump has showed the way. It was learning the hard way because a few months ago when Trump threatened to incinerate North Korea he met counter threats from North Korea that could have led to the deaths of 30 million people in South Korea alone, never mind what numbers might die in an attack on American troops stationed in Japan and Guam naval base. I have no proof but I do think Trump can make a grand peace with North Korea, unlike his predecessors. They too had the will but were...

  There is a clock ticking – towards July 20th. That is when the International Criminal Court for War Crimes goes into its summer recess. The question is will it be able in the six weeks that remain start proceedings against the US for alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan? The court originally held a preliminary investigation in 2006. It ruled that evidence of war crimes existed, but with fewer than 20 allegations it decided to proceed no further. But later that year fresh evidence came to light and it reopened the case. Afghanistan joined the ICC in 2003.  The US never did although President Bill Clinton tried hard to win approval. At the moment the ICC has seven cases, beside the US one, that remain under on-going examination: Colombia, the UK in Iraq and Afghanistan, Palestine, Nigeria, Ukraine and Gabon. On November 3rd last year the ICC’s chief prosecutor,...

  President Barack Obama was not a war criminal despite US involvement in wars in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and against ISIS. His predecessor George W. Bush was. Apart from anything else his administration tortured captives. Was the former British minister, Tony Blair, the closest ally of Bush, also a war criminal? And should he now be prosecuted and tried for war crimes? Did Blair lie over the reason for going to war with Iraq – the supposed stockpile of weapons of mass destruction that he alleged Iraq possessed? It depends on how you define lie. If you define lie as saying this cat is white when in fact it is black he didn’t on the big issues. But what he did do was give the impression the cat was assuredly white when it was in fact a sort of dark greyish white. As far as the public could tell from...

  Can you smell the whiff of smoke? You surely can. But the gunfire? Not yet. But it must start soon if the battle has any chance of success. President Donald Trump has to be faced down. Not only because of his sabotage of the Iran nuclear deal but also because of his attack on Europe’s export of steel and aluminum which breaks all the rules on tariffs set by the World Trade Organisation. This man should not be allowed to get away with his gross disturbance of the world political and economic order. Donald Tusk, the President of the Council of the European Union, said boldly last week, “Who needs enemies when you have friends like this?” Who indeed? Trump is, as David Goodhart wrote in Foreign Affairs, “a living fossil, the sort of ‘ugly American’ common enough in earlier eras”. Trump is leading America into a dark tunnel...

  Juan Cole May 14, 2018 The move of the Trump administration of the US embassy to Jerusalem is intended, according to the president, to signal a recognition of the reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. This move is controversial because Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem is not recognized in international law. The 1947 partition plan suggested in the UN General Assembly for what should happen in the British Mandate of Palestine after the British decamped did not have the force of law, since it was never endorsed by the UN Security Council.   Originally published on Informed Comment here But even the UNGA partition did not award Jerusalem to the 500,000 European Zionist settlers brought into Palestine by the British colonial authorities as part of their long-term plan to divide and rule the Middle East. (In 1799 General Bonaparte invaded Ottoman Palestine and only found about 3,000 Jews...