International law

Text in TFF PressInfo # 560 It was NATO’s first out-of-area operation, against its own Treaty and without a UN mandate. On March 24, 1999. Independent Kosovo was established – against UN SC resolution 1244. Thanks to the Clinton administration and Madeleine Albright. CNN’s Amanpour endorsed it generously on TV with her State Department husband, James Rubin, a chief operator in the non-negotiations at Rambouillet. And TIME, of course, knew the truth too. Serbia suffered tremendously from the 78 days of indiscriminate, hard bombing. I know because I was there. Finally, Serbia and its president Milosevic was threatened with total destruction of Belgrade. And gave in. Western hubris after the Cold War was won? Of course! Russia was on its knees. International law and the UN Charter sidelined. Militarism embraced. Full-spectrum dominance. The winner takes it all! Right – but with the risk of losing it all later. It’s called...

We hear next to nothing about these sanctions in the so-called free media – primary sanctions by the US hitting Iran directly, secondary sanctions by the US demanding other countries – the EU and NATO allies in particular – to implement its sanctions, i.e. to accept that US sanctions laws shall apply to them as sovereign states. The EU has not been able to get its acts together and respect the nuclear deal, or JCPOA: not in autumn 2015 when it could not find a way to temporarily host 1,5 million refugees arriving as asylum seekers from countries destroyed predominantly by the EU/NATO members themselves – and not now when the coronavirus hits Europe and they have let China be the one who helps their neighbour Italy. On March 15, 2020, I was asked by Iran’s PressTV to comment on these matters in the wake of Iranian foreign minister, Dr...

Illustration by Shenuka Corea By Richard Falk, TFF Associate March 12, 2020 Prefatory Note International law – as so much else of value – has fallen on hard times, violated and ignored, where applicable and needed. Although this is a deplorable state of affairs as the planet burns and vulnerable people suffer from ecological hazards and predatory geopolitics, it is the time to heighten struggle, and not sit home in despair. This essay in a slightly modified form was written at the request of Fikir Turu, an online source of commentary operating from Turkey, and published in Turkish. An English version was also published in Transcend Media Service, TMS, 17 February 2020. Published at Richard Falk’s personal blog  Respecting International Law: A Practical Argument International law disappoints in so many ways, making it easy to overlook why, despite its flaws, it remains valuable and indeed vital for human wellbeing. I put here...

By Richard Falk, TFF Associate March 16, 2020 Prefatory Note This post is something new for me, an autobiographical fragment written at the request of an online listserv as a suggestive model for academics at the start of their careers as diplomatic historians. I publish it here on my blog. It was found unsuitable for publication by the group that made the initial solicitation for unspecified reasons. Maybe because my work and career were not relevant to the scholarly life of a diplomatic historian, maybe because I seemed too flaky professionally to serve as a heuristic model, maybe because what I wrote risked an angry reaction from those who have weaponized anti-Semitism as (mis)defined by the IHRA definition, maybe because…a hundred other good reasons, including what was most plausible, least paranoid, that I was in a different lane when it came to a scholarly career, making my condensed narrative a...

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers February 10, 2020 The US is currently attacking one-third of the planet’s population with 8,000 economic sanctions, ongoing acts of war against 39 nations. “Their intent is to shrink the economy and cause chronic shortages and hyperinflation while ensuring a lack of access to finance to pay for essentials.” Originally posted in the Black Agenda Report, January 15, 2020 The United States is relying more heavily on illegal unilateral coercive measures (also known as economic sanctions) in place of war or as part of its build-up to war. In fact, economic sanctions are an act of war that kills tens of thousands of people each year through financial strangulation. An economic blockade places a country under siege. A recent example is the increase in economic measures being imposed against Iran, which many viewed as more acceptable than a military attack. In response to Iran...

A must-see and must-followup! February 6, 2020 Here is the knowledge, the experience, the passion and the vision that the US needs – and needs to set through before the militarists destroy America and more or less the rest of the world too. And while Kinzer’s introduction to Iran is impressively forceful, correct and pedagogic – listen to it even twice! – this 76 minutes conversation contains so much more than what pertains to Iran which makes it even more important. Now share everywhere you can… And please take note of this: This type of – free, critical – discussion can happen in the United States but how often do you see Europeans talk about these issues in this way? I know of no Danish, Swedish or Norwegian channel, intellectuals or active politicians who would come anywhere near these three personalities and would produce a similar high-quality debate. If you...

By Craig Murray January 31, 2020 In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning “imminent attacks” on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence. Originally posted on Craig Murray’s personal blog on January 4, 2020, here Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu’s government and then Blair’s, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of “pre-emptive self-defence” against “imminent” attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts and judges, would accept. Including me. What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the Bethlehem Doctrine – that here “Imminent” – the word used so carefully by Pompeo – does not need to have its normal...

Let’s cut to the chase – there is no question, no doubt, that the government of Myanmar and the army which controls it have committed the most vile atrocities against the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority that lives in the West of the Buddhist-dominated country. The International Court of Justice (the World Court) which ruled last week against the Myanmar government, may not have concluded it was genocide as some say but it did unreservedly condemn the government for its atrocious sowing of violent mayhem against the Rohingya. The Court has ordered Myanmar to take steps to prevent acts of genocide against the 700,000 or so Rohingya that remain in exile, mainly in overcrowded, unsanitary refugee camps and the 500,000 who still reside in Myanmar, and to prevent the destruction of any evidence of genocide. The Court will continue to gather evidence of attempted genocide. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres,...

By Nicolas J.S. Davies January 27, 2020 The numbers of casualties of U.S. wars since Sept. 11, 2001, have largely gone uncounted, but coming to terms with the true scale of the crimes committed remains an urgent moral, political and legal imperative, argues Nicolas J.S. Davies, in part two of his series. Originally posted on Consortium News April 3, 2018 here Part One here In the first part of this series, I estimated that about 2.4 million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the illegal invasion of their country by the United States and the United Kingdom in 2003. I turn now to Afghan and Pakistani deaths in the ongoing 2001 U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. In part three, I will examine U.S.-caused war deaths in Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.  According to Ret. U.S. General Tommy Franks, who led the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in reaction to 9/11, the U.S. government...

If you appreciated this conversation with a leading TFF expert Farhang Jahanpour is a retired professor from the University of Isfahan and former part-time tutor at the University of Oxford, former TFF Board member and now TFF Associate. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that takes center stage in this conversation can be read here.

By Nicolas J. S. Davies* January 17, 2020 How many people have been killed in America’s post-9/11 wars? I have been researching and writing about that question since soon after the U.S. launched these wars, which it has tried to justify as a response to terrorist crimes that killed 2,996 people in the U.S. on September 11th, 2001. Originally posted on Consortium News, January 15, 2020, here But no crime, however horrific, can justify wars on countries and people who were not responsible for the crime committed, as former Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz patiently explained to NPR at the time. “The Iraq Death Toll 15 Years After the U.S. Invasion” which I co-wrote with Medea Benjamin, estimates the death toll in Iraq as accurately and as honestly as we can in March 2018.  Our estimate is that about 2.4 million people have probably been killed in Iraq as a result of the historic act of aggression committed by the U.S. and U.K. in...

Photo – Eastern Aleppo, December 2016 – © Jan Oberg By Gordon M. Hahn January 17, 2020 If Western leaders are able to put aside the now worn-out cliches such as Russian Vladimir Putin ‘punching above his weight,’ ‘Trump handing Putin a victory on a silver plate’, not to mention ‘Trump as Putin agent’, there are serious lessons that they might still be able to draw from Putin’s looming victory in Syria.  Originally posted on Gordon M. Hahn’s personal blog on December 2, 2019 here First, the era in which the United States and/or the West (NATO) can dictate outcomes anywhere across the globe unilaterally has ended. Events in Syria are but the latest confirmation of this fact, but many in Washington and Brussels still do not see it. NATO expansion drove Russia into China’s arms, and the rest is history and the future.  Second, Washington and Brussels (NATO and...