The U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Who Cried Wolf
posted by Dave Hoffman
U.N. Commissioner Louise Arbour said today about Hezbollah, Gazan forces, and Israel that:
Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians. Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable. International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligation to protect civilians during hostilities. This obligation is also expressed in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity. International law demands accountability. The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control.
I am not in any way an expert in the laws of law. These folks are, but they haven’t blogged the story yet. Is the theory that the laws of war require laser guided bombing? And, in any event, did the region really need more asymmetric, empty, blundering threats? (Hezbollah and the Gazan militants are, in domestic parlance, judgment proof as against war crime tribunals).
[Update: Lynn's comment below suggests I ought to have been less glib and more clear. Isn't the commissioner's statement at least very premature, given that the fog of war is still blooming?]
July 20, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Posted in: International & Comparative Law
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Responses (5)
Lynn - July 20, 2006 at 11:05 pm
Western normative theory, Justum Bellum, has two components: the “justness” of waging a war, and then the “just” behavior within that war once waged. Each component entails separate factors … theoretical consensus includes that civilians/non-combatants are not to be included in the conflict as targets.
Islamic Jurisprudence has a similar (sp?) normative theory; it too, excludes civilians/non-combatants as targets.
As normative assertions, however, it is very easy to steamroll and manipulate these parameters.
Dylan - July 20, 2006 at 11:43 pm
“International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligation to protect civilians during hostilities.”
This is just stupid, ignoring the question of whether “humanitarian law,” international or not, is of any relevance.
“Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable.”
Alas, this goes beyond stupid to the willfully full of shit. When war is outlawed, I suppose only outlaws will be able to wage war. Good grief.
Lynn - July 20, 2006 at 11:56 pm
…(Dylan at 1143)… as spoken by one who obviously has never lived in a war/conflict zone, or has had any piece of his national liberation threatened.
opposing arguments are rarely stupid; they focus on different facts and come from a different perspective.
your use of the quoted text could as easily be relied on to persuade an individual engaged in military self-annihilatory acts (that which the Western media describes as “jihad”) to study carefully who is and who is not a military combatant. would the argument be stupid, then? who do you think the UN statement was in fact addressing? only the sovereign actors?
Lynn - July 21, 2006 at 12:19 am
Re: Author Update.
Am confused myself: diplomatically, a war must in fact be “declared.” But if it walks and looks like a duck, isn’t it a duck? How else do you describe the events in the region?
War, in fact, is being engaged in for some of the actors … the lesser of the two Islamic jihads (the larger being an internal, personal struggle with the self and temptations, behaviors), the military jihad, is evidenced by the self-annihilatory acts that have occurred. So perhaps the UN is recognizing that “their” (read: Western) definition of war can/should be broadened to include this lesser jihad?
In which case, the Commissioner’s comments are not premature, but in fact quite sophisticated and cosmopolitan.
Roger Alford - July 21, 2006 at 5:02 am
Dave,
My thoughts on Arbour’s statement are now posted over at Opinio Juris. Details here.
Roger Alford
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