International law

With India-US ties hitting a nadir, Shastri Ramachandaran takes a look at what went wrong in big power diplomacy The world’s two largest democracies may have much in common. But far from common interests prevailing over contentious issues, India-US relations are in for an uncommon spell of stresses and strains. These are unlikely to ease any time soon in an election year, regardless of Washington’s about-turn in cosying up to Narendra Modi. Political changes in India cannot banish overnight the causes and conditions in the US responsible for the souring of what was, until recently, toasted as the “defining relationship” of the 21st century. Devyani Khobragade’s arrest and strip-search drove India-US relationship to its lowest point in 15 years. Not since the 1998 nuclear test, when the US-led “international community” imposed sanctions, has the relationship between the two been so bad.

[Prefatory Note: this text is based on my presentation at the conference listed below, which brought together a wide array of scholars, media people, and persons concerned with the future of Palestine] Second Annual Conference of Research Centers in the Arab World, Doha, Qatar, 7-9 December 2013, THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE AND THE FUTURE OF THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT. A preliminary remark: A sacrifical peace It is a welcome development that the theme of such a major conference as this one should have as its theme ‘the future of the Palestinian movement,’ so well articulated in the opening address by Azmi Bishara. It is often overlooked that as early as 1988, and possibly earlier, the unified Palestinian leadership has decisively opted for what I would call a ‘sacrificial’ peace. By sacrificial I mean an acceptance of peace and normalization with Israel that is premised upon the relinquishment of significant Palestinian rights...

By Farhang Jahanpour Despite strong opposition by the White House and the States Department and despite the pleadings of some of the most prominent bipartisan US foreign policy luminaries who have warned that additional sanctions would jeopardize ongoing diplomatic efforts, (1) many US senators are pushing forward with a new resolution that is supported by the same neocons that brought us the Iraq war. (2) It seems that the majority of Congressmen and Senators know very little about Iranian history or what is going on in Iran at present.

/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> The Middle East has been living a nightmare, partly because of a man of Russian origin who became Israel’s greatest general and, later, prime minister of Israel: Ariel Sharon. What were the inner thoughts of this man? This is what Amos Oz, an acclaimed Israeli journalist, writer and novelist, with a world-wide reputation, helped us to discover in an interview published by the Israeli daily, Davar, in December 17, 1982. “Call Israel by any name you like, call it a Judeo-Nazi state. Better a live Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint. I don’t care whether I am like Gaddafi. I am not after the admiration of the gentiles. ….I will destroy anyone who will raise a hand against my children, I will destroy him and his children, with or without our famous purity of arms….. “We’ll hear no more of that nonsense about the unique Jewish morality, the moral lessons...

/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine who lived 460-357 BC, concluded that diseases were naturally caused and were cured by natural remedies. Opium, he wrote, was one of the latter. But he was also of the opinion that it should be used sparingly and under control. If only our governments today could take such a sanguine and informed view of the use of opiates in medicine today. No one needs a more enlightened attitude than the Western forces now operating in Afghanistan where for years they have been committed to destroying the peasants’ main source of income. Afghanistan produces more opium that anywhere else in the world. Some observers say this eradication programme has done much to push country people into the Taliban camp. The West has long been shooting itself in the foot.

In a little noted initiative the General Assembly on November 26, 2013 voted to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People was requested to organize relevant activities in cooperation with governments, the UN system, intergovernmental organizations, and significantly, civil society. The vote was 110-7, with 56 abstentions, which is more or less reflective of the sentiments now present in international society. Among the seven opponents of the initiative, in addition to Israel, were unsurprisingly its three staunchest supporters, each once a British colony: the United States, Canada, Australia, with the addition of such international heavyweight states as Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. Europe and assorted states around the world were among the 56 abstentions, with virtually the entire non-West solidly behind the idea of highlighting solidarity with the Palestinian people in...

For the last three years Palestinian prisoners, mainly unlawfully detained in Israeli jails, have been engaged in a series of life threatening hunger strikes to protest administrative detention imprisonment (that is,without indictment, charges, and access to allegedly incriminating evidence), abusive arrest procedures (including nighttime arrests involving brutality in the presence of family members, detention for prolonged interrogations violating international standards, e.g. 22 hours at a time, sleep deprivation), and deplorable prison conditions (including unlawful transfer to Israeli prisons, denial of family visits, solitary confinement for prolonged periods). No recent Palestinian prisoner has received more attention among the Palestinian than Samer Issawi, released a few days ago after reaching an extraordinary bargain with prison officials last April. He agreed then to stop his hunger strike, which had lasted an incredible 266 days, either partially or completely, in exchange for an Israeli pledge to release him in eight months at the end...

Having visited Belfast the last few days during some negotiations about unresolved problems between Unionist and Republican (or Nationalist) political parties, I was struck by the absolute dependence for any kind of credibility of this process upon the unblemished perceived neutrality of the mediating third party. It would have been so totally unacceptable to rely on Ireland or Britain to play such a role, and the mere suggestion of such a partisan intermediary would have occasioned ridicule by the opposing, and confirmed suspicions that its intention must have been to scuttle the proposed negotiations. In the background of such a reflection is the constructive role played by the United States more than a decade ago when it actively encouraged a process of reconciliation through a historic abandonment of violence by the antagonists. That peace process was based on the justly celebrated Good Friday Agreement that brought the people of Northern...

Milano There it is, that fantastic duomo, the fourth in size in the Christian world, honoring their God, exuding self-confidence, and the beauty of the marble stones of the huge façade. Founded six hundred years ago, took five centuries to build, a marvel of engineering and architecture. A major concert with a choir does not manage to fill the inner space of the dome, but of the listeners, yes, with awe. Conceived in the “dark ages” as those masters of cultural violence, our historians, call them, the “middle ages”, presumably between two “shiny ages”, the Roman Empire and Western colonialism, “modern times”. Will anything built today be visited by people in five hundred years, filling them with awe? Some banks, corporations? Some corrupted national assemblies? Some stadiums, shopping centers sloppily made, collapsing, built with no love, except for money? Some huge missile ramps to sow death and harvest hatred and...

In 1978 Deng Xiaoping, architect of China’s economic miracle, said the intractable problems of which country owns what in the East and South China Seas should be left to the next generation. He was right. China should keep kicking that can of worms down the road. The recent surprise declaration that a huge swathe of international air space above the East China Sea be part of a new Chinese “Air Defence Identification Zone” (ADIZ) is counterproductive. The zone includes the Senaku/Diaoyu islands, claimed by by both China and Japan. The ADIZ demands that any aircraft flying across it must seek permission from China. What does history say? In 1971 the US post-war occupation regime returned the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands to Japan and China did not object. But, according to Meiji era documents unearthed by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, in 1885 Japan acknowledged China as the owner.

This material below was distributed by John Whitbeck, distinguished American lawyer and author, living in Paris, and doing his best to keep a group concerned with world affairs informed about latest developments, especially inthe Middle East. I also add a slightly edited text of a message sent by Robert Stiver from Hawaii, who has exhibited consistent empathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people. My press release below, although far less emotional than the cri de coeur that Robert Stiver wrote, issues from the same place of urgent concern for the brave and resolute people of Gaza. I hope that Robert is wrong however when he ends with self-tormenting words of despair: “What to do, in the name of common justice? I know not; it seems useless, all useless.” Such feelings of futility are quite understandable, but let us do all within our power to make sure that this unfolding...

/10/jonathanpower2.jpg”> This year the UN Security Council authorised the deployment of troops to the eastern Congo, armed with tanks and helicopter gun ships to defeat the one remaining dissident militia in the Congo. Two weeks ago UN officials declared that war in the Congo, which on and off has consumed the nation for over 50 years, seemed to be over. The UN, instead of using its blue helmets to keep the peace, used its soldiers to blast the enemy. Rarely talked about is Article 42 of the UN Charter which says,“The Security Council ….may take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.”