Showing posts with label TONY BLAIR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TONY BLAIR. Show all posts
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, November 29, 2010
Nations That Lose the High Ground
Francis Anthony Govia
There is a compelling movie called The Diary of Anne Frank that is recommended. It is about a Jewish girl and her family who spent over two years in an attic hiding from Hitler’s goons. Anne Frank survived for much of that time through the generosity of former employees of her father who risked their own lives to bring food to these outcasts.
Like many Jews in Hitler’s Germany, their fate was not uplifting. Anne’s mother, sister, father and friends were betrayed to the powers that be, and with exception of her father, died after being transferred to concentration camps. Her father lived near forty years longer, but can you imagine the memories that tormented him before his physical being expired?
History says that Hitler killed six million Jews while the civilized governments of the West tried to appease him. Were it not for a blunder that lead his armies to attack Russia, and a similar miscalculation by the Japanese in bombing Pearl Harbor (incidents which galvanized support amongst the Allied Powers and led to the fall the Axis Powers), it is possible that Germany would have become Europe’s ruler, and not a partner in what is today the Earth’s most esteemed political union.
The descendants of Jews who experienced the sickness, deprivation, and chaos of World War II are the catalyst for some of today’s stories of injustice. So History has an uncomfortable way of repeating itself, but sometimes the protagonists and the antagonists are different. Jews who were once vilified and murdered are now accomplished political and military forces in at least two parts of the world (Israel and the United States).
Like many Jews in Hitler’s Germany, their fate was not uplifting. Anne’s mother, sister, father and friends were betrayed to the powers that be, and with exception of her father, died after being transferred to concentration camps. Her father lived near forty years longer, but can you imagine the memories that tormented him before his physical being expired?
History says that Hitler killed six million Jews while the civilized governments of the West tried to appease him. Were it not for a blunder that lead his armies to attack Russia, and a similar miscalculation by the Japanese in bombing Pearl Harbor (incidents which galvanized support amongst the Allied Powers and led to the fall the Axis Powers), it is possible that Germany would have become Europe’s ruler, and not a partner in what is today the Earth’s most esteemed political union.
The descendants of Jews who experienced the sickness, deprivation, and chaos of World War II are the catalyst for some of today’s stories of injustice. So History has an uncomfortable way of repeating itself, but sometimes the protagonists and the antagonists are different. Jews who were once vilified and murdered are now accomplished political and military forces in at least two parts of the world (Israel and the United States).
The State of Israel which has an umbilical cord tied to the mightiest nation on Earth (the United States) is a de facto sixth permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, and uses its power to intimidate, threaten, kill and deprive the Palestinian people of the basic necessities of life, suffrage, and ownership rights to which every human aspire.
The Jews of Israel are rewriting History in such a way that they have lost the high ground, and are committing crimes as heinous as Hitler's. They blockade and falsely imprison 1.5 million Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians survival depends on those who burrow under the borders of Egypt to risk life and limb to bring in necessities like food. Yet irresponsible publishers print articles intended to support that life in the Gaza Strip is functioning normally. How can life be normal in the Gaza Strip when its people are denied access to the outside world by a cruel and oppressive regime in Israel? Are their lives the lives that human beings are content to live anywhere else on Earth?
Only the foolish could believe that a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip is necessary for the security of Israel, a mighty and effective military force in the Middle East, against Hamas, a force weaker than Lebanon, a nation that Israel threatened recently with retaliation if it so much as allow a ship laden with humanitarian good to sail from its ports to the Gaza. Only a fool could believe that Israel is afraid of Hamas when the Jewish state is saber rattling and willing to take on Iran, an enemy with a potent military establishment that dwarfs Hamas. The Gaza Strip is an ambitious dream of Israel for territorial expansion and destruction of Palestinians.
Like Anne Frank, a Palestinian child knows what it is like to be persona non grata. A Palestinian life can be altered dramatically by a decision made in Tel Aviv, or through a powerful Jewish lobby in Washington DC. All that a Palestinian has can be destroyed or taken away by a government in Israel whose actions will only be appeased by the governments of the West. The government of Israel has no legal authority over the people of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but it dictates the life they live.
Only the foolish could believe that a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip is necessary for the security of Israel, a mighty and effective military force in the Middle East, against Hamas, a force weaker than Lebanon, a nation that Israel threatened recently with retaliation if it so much as allow a ship laden with humanitarian good to sail from its ports to the Gaza. Only a fool could believe that Israel is afraid of Hamas when the Jewish state is saber rattling and willing to take on Iran, an enemy with a potent military establishment that dwarfs Hamas. The Gaza Strip is an ambitious dream of Israel for territorial expansion and destruction of Palestinians.
Like Anne Frank, a Palestinian child knows what it is like to be persona non grata. A Palestinian life can be altered dramatically by a decision made in Tel Aviv, or through a powerful Jewish lobby in Washington DC. All that a Palestinian has can be destroyed or taken away by a government in Israel whose actions will only be appeased by the governments of the West. The government of Israel has no legal authority over the people of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but it dictates the life they live.
There is doubt that the governments of the West and Russia intend to bring about a lasting and permanent peace in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Were these governments to be interested in a satisfactory and permanent solution to that cinder box they helped to create they would not have appointed Tony Blair as the Special Envoy for the Quartet on the Middle East.
Mr. Blair served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom which is one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. During his time as Prime Minister, Mr. Blair’s esteemed office was consumed by an ineffectual foreign policy, and the nation’s energy was exhausted while assisting President George W. Bush in creating another quagmire for the West in Iraq. Mr. Blair’s appointment to negotiate and facilitate solutions to do away with the stalemate in Palestine establishes that the West is interested in keeping the status quo as it now stands on the ground in the Middle East.
For there to be a cessation of hostility between Israel and the people of Palestine four important and necessary steps must be implemented. First, the West must appoint a respectable and neutral person to Mr. Blair’s position with the authority and understanding that a Palestinian state is to be realized even if it is to be imposed on Israel. Second, the West should move speedily to implement sanctions against Israel and its industries should it continue to encroach on Palestinian lands, and break International Law. Third, humanitarian aid must flow unhindered in the Gaza Strip. Fourth, Palestinians of the Gaza Strip must have free access to the outside world.
Israel will not comply with any condition placed on it as long as it knows that there are no consequences to its actions. None of us will be truly free from the burdens of the Middle East until we solve the problem that was created when the British foisted the idea of a Jewish State on the residents of Palestine that lead to formation of Israel in 1948. The walls that are being built around Israel will not bring peace, freedom or protection from those they consider their erstwhile enemies. Walls are mere fixtures, and over time they become as ineffective as the Great Walls of China, and those that tumbled down in Berlin, for they are too immobile to deal with a dynamic and continuously shifting situation such as life.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu once wrote of his experience of Apartheid in South Africa that freedom is indivisible. No one is free until we are all free. The slave owner was not free until his slaves became free for it is true that much of his energies were consumed trying to prevent his slaves from revolting and killing him. The whites of South Africa and the United States were not free until they understood that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights as Thomas Jefferson wrote, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
During Apartheid in South Africa and segregation in the United States everyone were trapped by a condition of fear. The Jews of Israel and the United States will never be free until the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are treated with the same respect as their Jewish brothers, and the Palestinians too realize their dream of freedom and nationhood. This is a process that Desmond Tutu kindly refers to as transfiguration; the Earth is renewed when goodness reigns supreme as a rite of passage.
The Archbishop in his wisdom seems to suggest that transfiguration occurs even to the most unlikely situation. Maybe his pragmatism will outlast the views of the cynics that now run our government and justice system whose laws criminalize the humanitarian effort. These leaders are not securing our safety. They are prolonging our servitude to fear. They have acquired the disease of the mind like foreign terrorists that now paralyze our nation. They devalue the universal pragmatism that charity turns weapons into ploughshares.
The governments of the West are responsible for the deprivation that Palestinians know. Our civilized nations of the West have said that Israel has the right to self defense, but do not acknowledge that the Palestinians should have a similar right. Our esteemed governments of the West sit idly and speak with forked tongues while Israel’s creeping policy of genocide is exacted on Palestinians whose traditions and people have existed in a territory since biblical times.
Our great country of the United States has allowed innocent blood to fall recklessly in Palestine. The great Presidential office of the United States has become impotent when dealing with an Israel it has tied to its umbilical cord, which hinders our ingenuity and maneuverability. So too is the functioning of our senate ineffective when the leaders in the two most important parties in our nation, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have no new advice to give our President. They are messengers of a foreign power. They say to our President that the United States must stay the course of a failed foreign policy that will not punish the irresponsible actions of a rogue Israel that we sustain with the blood of our children.
Instead of taking the high ground, the greatest nation on Earth has chosen to live in the gutter of a tiny nation’s foreign policy.
Mr. Blair served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom which is one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. During his time as Prime Minister, Mr. Blair’s esteemed office was consumed by an ineffectual foreign policy, and the nation’s energy was exhausted while assisting President George W. Bush in creating another quagmire for the West in Iraq. Mr. Blair’s appointment to negotiate and facilitate solutions to do away with the stalemate in Palestine establishes that the West is interested in keeping the status quo as it now stands on the ground in the Middle East.
For there to be a cessation of hostility between Israel and the people of Palestine four important and necessary steps must be implemented. First, the West must appoint a respectable and neutral person to Mr. Blair’s position with the authority and understanding that a Palestinian state is to be realized even if it is to be imposed on Israel. Second, the West should move speedily to implement sanctions against Israel and its industries should it continue to encroach on Palestinian lands, and break International Law. Third, humanitarian aid must flow unhindered in the Gaza Strip. Fourth, Palestinians of the Gaza Strip must have free access to the outside world.
Israel will not comply with any condition placed on it as long as it knows that there are no consequences to its actions. None of us will be truly free from the burdens of the Middle East until we solve the problem that was created when the British foisted the idea of a Jewish State on the residents of Palestine that lead to formation of Israel in 1948. The walls that are being built around Israel will not bring peace, freedom or protection from those they consider their erstwhile enemies. Walls are mere fixtures, and over time they become as ineffective as the Great Walls of China, and those that tumbled down in Berlin, for they are too immobile to deal with a dynamic and continuously shifting situation such as life.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu once wrote of his experience of Apartheid in South Africa that freedom is indivisible. No one is free until we are all free. The slave owner was not free until his slaves became free for it is true that much of his energies were consumed trying to prevent his slaves from revolting and killing him. The whites of South Africa and the United States were not free until they understood that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights as Thomas Jefferson wrote, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
During Apartheid in South Africa and segregation in the United States everyone were trapped by a condition of fear. The Jews of Israel and the United States will never be free until the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are treated with the same respect as their Jewish brothers, and the Palestinians too realize their dream of freedom and nationhood. This is a process that Desmond Tutu kindly refers to as transfiguration; the Earth is renewed when goodness reigns supreme as a rite of passage.
The Archbishop in his wisdom seems to suggest that transfiguration occurs even to the most unlikely situation. Maybe his pragmatism will outlast the views of the cynics that now run our government and justice system whose laws criminalize the humanitarian effort. These leaders are not securing our safety. They are prolonging our servitude to fear. They have acquired the disease of the mind like foreign terrorists that now paralyze our nation. They devalue the universal pragmatism that charity turns weapons into ploughshares.
The governments of the West are responsible for the deprivation that Palestinians know. Our civilized nations of the West have said that Israel has the right to self defense, but do not acknowledge that the Palestinians should have a similar right. Our esteemed governments of the West sit idly and speak with forked tongues while Israel’s creeping policy of genocide is exacted on Palestinians whose traditions and people have existed in a territory since biblical times.
Our great country of the United States has allowed innocent blood to fall recklessly in Palestine. The great Presidential office of the United States has become impotent when dealing with an Israel it has tied to its umbilical cord, which hinders our ingenuity and maneuverability. So too is the functioning of our senate ineffective when the leaders in the two most important parties in our nation, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have no new advice to give our President. They are messengers of a foreign power. They say to our President that the United States must stay the course of a failed foreign policy that will not punish the irresponsible actions of a rogue Israel that we sustain with the blood of our children.
Instead of taking the high ground, the greatest nation on Earth has chosen to live in the gutter of a tiny nation’s foreign policy.
_____
Francis Anthony Govia received his Bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Boston University where he studied U.S. National Security and Foreign Policy under the tutelage of General Fred F. Woerner (Ret), Army General and former commander of United States Southern Command, and Stephen R. Lyne (Ret.), U.S. Ambassador to Ghana in Ronald Reagan administration. Mr. Govia also has a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His own blog, The Muffin Post, is an eclectic blend of commentary, news, and original poetry.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tony Blair 'to be called back' to Iraq war inquiry to answer questions about 'gaps' in his evidence
Tony Blair is to be recalled by the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War to answer new questions about 'gaps' in the evidence he gave earlier this year.
The former Prime Minister is likely to be asked to clarify the political build-up to the 2003 American-led invasion.
He is also expected to further explain the legality of Britain's participation in the controversial war.
Sir John Chilcot will write to Mr Blair next month to ask him to attend a public hearing in early 2011, reported The Times.
During his six-hour testimony earlier this year, Mr Blair mounted a vigorous defence of the invasion and insisted he had no regrets over removing Saddam Hussein.
He denied he took the country to war on the basis of a 'lie' over the dictator's supposed weapons of mass destruction.
At the end of his session one member of the audience shouted: 'What, no regrets? Come on' while others heckled 'You are a liar', 'And a murderer'.
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Sunday, September 5, 2010
Irish protesters hurl bottles, eggs, shoes at Tony Blair during book signing
Agence France-Presse
September 5, 2010
September 5, 2010
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More than 200 noisy demonstrators, many chanting slogans criticizing Blair over the 2003 Iraq war, had gathered for the event and witnesses said plastic bottles and flip-flops were thrown at him as his motorcade arrived.
None of the objects — also reported to include eggs and shoes — landed near the former premier as protesters surged towards a security barrier separating them from him before being repelled by police.
One woman said she tried to make a citizen’s arrest on Blair once he was inside the bookshop where the event was taking place.
“After I went through airport-like security to get to Mr Blair, I told him I was there to make a citizen’s arrest on him for war crimes committed in Iraq,” said Kate O’Sullivan, an activist from the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
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Saturday, September 4, 2010
Tony Blair's Big Lie Omission
In his new book, the former British prime minister asks for a fair hearing on the Iraq war. But he ignores a key meeting where George Bush suggested they con their way to an invasion.
 |
| Zuma - Guardian |
David Corn
Mother Jones
In his new (self-serving, of course) memoir, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair praises George W. Bush as a man of "genuine integrity and as much political courage as any leader I have ever met." Yet Blair leaves out of the 700-page tome any mention of a meeting he had with Bush in which the US president proposed a plan to trigger the Iraq war through outright deceit.
The early media coverage of Blair's book, A Journey: My Political Life
, has zeroed in on his complex and dramatic relationship with Gordon Brown, his onetime political soulmate. (Blair writes about him as one would an ex-lover.) Yet Blair devotes a serious chunk to defending his decision to partner up with Bush for the Iraq war. "I can't regret the decision to go to war," he writes. "…I can say that never did I guess the nightmare that unfolded." He adds, "I have often reflected as to whether I was wrong. I ask you to reflect as to whether I may have been right."
Blair rehashes the familiar arguments—the years of Saddam Hussein's recalcitrance and opposition to United Nations resolutions demanding he disarm, the so-called evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Blair writes of his first meeting with Bush—whom he describes as "very smart" but possessing "immense simplicity in how he saw the world"—in February 2001 at Camp David, when they discussed sanctions for Iraq ("there was no great sense of urgency"). Blair recalls in detail other visits and calls with the American president: his trip to Washington shortly after 9/11, a meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, where the two men discussed a possible attack on Iraq. Blair even recounts specific notes he sent Bush and telephone calls they held during the run-up to the invasion, as the pair sorted out military and diplomatic matters. And over several pages, he chronicles a September 2002 trip to Camp David to see Bush.
Read Full Article
Mother Jones
In his new (self-serving, of course) memoir, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair praises George W. Bush as a man of "genuine integrity and as much political courage as any leader I have ever met." Yet Blair leaves out of the 700-page tome any mention of a meeting he had with Bush in which the US president proposed a plan to trigger the Iraq war through outright deceit.
The early media coverage of Blair's book, A Journey: My Political Life
, has zeroed in on his complex and dramatic relationship with Gordon Brown, his onetime political soulmate. (Blair writes about him as one would an ex-lover.) Yet Blair devotes a serious chunk to defending his decision to partner up with Bush for the Iraq war. "I can't regret the decision to go to war," he writes. "…I can say that never did I guess the nightmare that unfolded." He adds, "I have often reflected as to whether I was wrong. I ask you to reflect as to whether I may have been right."Blair rehashes the familiar arguments—the years of Saddam Hussein's recalcitrance and opposition to United Nations resolutions demanding he disarm, the so-called evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Blair writes of his first meeting with Bush—whom he describes as "very smart" but possessing "immense simplicity in how he saw the world"—in February 2001 at Camp David, when they discussed sanctions for Iraq ("there was no great sense of urgency"). Blair recalls in detail other visits and calls with the American president: his trip to Washington shortly after 9/11, a meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, where the two men discussed a possible attack on Iraq. Blair even recounts specific notes he sent Bush and telephone calls they held during the run-up to the invasion, as the pair sorted out military and diplomatic matters. And over several pages, he chronicles a September 2002 trip to Camp David to see Bush.
Read Full Article
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Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Long Road to The Hague: Prosecuting Former Prime Minister Tony Blair
The Long Road to The Hague: Prosecuting Former Prime Minister Tony Blair
Part I
By Lesley Docksey
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20740
Global Research, August 23, 2010
Ex-Prime Minister and post-Downing Street millionaire Tony Blair, to celebrate the publication of his book A Journey, is holding a ‘signing’ session at Waterstones, Piccadilly on 8 September. That this man, responsible for taking us into an illegal war, playing his part in the ruination of an ancient country because he ‘believed he was right’, should advertise himself in this way has caused outrage. Time, I think, to look at where we, and Blair, actually stand in terms of what we can and cannot do to call him to account.
What hope for international law?
We have spent years constructing that body of treaties, statutes and conventions known as international law only to ignore it when it is most needed. How often has any state or rather, how many powerful Western states have been brought to account for breaching international law? And how many exempt themselves from the laws while insisting others abide by them?
The world’s record at upholding its own laws is poor. The United Nations passes Resolutions where states have breached international law, demanding compliance. It imposes sanctions, hoping to force compliance. But beyond that what is done, except to threaten belligerence? What other routes are available?
When the UN was set up, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) also came into being. It can settle disputes between states and it can give advisory opinions on legal matters when asked by recognised bodies or coalitions of such. A good example of the latter is the opinion they delivered in 1996 for the World Court Project on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons. In neither case does this really result in accountability.
Of the permanent Security Council members only the United Kingdom has made a declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the Court. Nevertheless, they all have judges sitting on the Court’s bench, and one of them, Sir Christopher Greenwood, aided the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith with his legal opinion okaying the Iraq invasion in March 2003.
But - the UN Charter authorises the Security Council to enforce the Court’s rulings. Security Council members can thus veto any judgement that interferes with the political agendas of those states or their allies. Political interests always seem to override the rule of law.
Why is it necessary to get someone like Tony Blair into court? It is the only way to demonstrate to those in power that no one is above international law, and we cannot, regardless of what statements we issue or pieces of paper we sign (or in America’s case, ‘unsign’) simply decide we are exempt in every case where it could be proved we are guilty. To get just one of the West’s leaders into court and thereby create a legal precedent, will make all the world’s leaders sit up and take note.
Prosecuting Blair
In 1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted, opening the way to establishing the ICC. When the Court was proposed, its importance was such that 60 rather than the usual 30 ratifications were required. Considering that the Convention on Cluster Munitions took four years to reach 30 ratifications allowing it to pass into law, support for the ICC was obviously keen in that the Rome Statute gained twice the number of ratifications in the same amount of time. Clearly, many countries felt the need for such a Court, but of the Security Council’s big 5, only the UK and France are fully signed up.
Following the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, many British campaigners attempted to get Tony Blair into court. Encouraged by Chris Coverdale of Legal Action Against War, (LAAW), we approached our county police forces and asked them to act. The reasoning behind this was that any British citizen, believing that a crime has taken place, has the duty to inform the police and ask them to investigate. In this case we used the International Criminal Court Act 2001, which Blair’s own government had incorporated into British domestic law.
In November 2003 Peacerights held a Legal Inquiry to examine aspects of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and their panel of international lawyers then compiled a full report on the evidence from eye and expert witnesses, together with their legal opinion that war crimes had been committed in Iraq. This was presented to the Attorney General and the ICC, which was unable to act.
The ICC cannot consider a prosecution unless it can be proved that efforts to prosecute in the home country have failed. To do that one needs to demonstrate why. And we didn’t know why, only, unofficially, that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had told the Metropolitan Police Force (the Met) that no prosecution would be allowed. And by ‘we’, I do not mean just campaigners. The lawyers also did not know and could not find out - which is where the Dorset Police came in.
In September 2003 I wrote a letter to Dorset ’s Chief Constable, requesting that Dorset Police investigate Mr Blair and members of his government for war crimes with a view to prosecuting them under the ICC Act 2001. Unlike Chris Coverdale who, in the template letter he sent round to campaigners, was accusing Blair of genocide, I decided to go for war crimes and crimes against humanity, these being much easier to prove under the definitions of the Act (cluster munitions and depleted uranium weapons cause disproportionate harm to civilians, constituting war crimes). Also, rather than swamping Dorset Police with what I thought was evidence, I simply sent them a copy of the relevant part of the Act, knowing full well that it would have been unread by the majority of the British police.
I received a letter from the Chief Constable saying that the matter was under consideration. That in itself was a major difference between Dorset and other UK police forces. The difficulty was that any complaint of illegal behaviour by members of the government comes under the jurisdiction of the Met, so any requests to investigate with a view to prosecution go through them to the CPS, the body that decides which public prosecutions go ahead. All other police forces simply refused any such requests made of them.
It took weeks, plus letters and phone calls to the Met from the Chief Inspector who was trying to further my request, before the Met informed him that the CPS had refused permission for a prosecution some months back. This was in answer to LAAW’s application, the CPS having instructed the Met at the end of November 2003, but the Met not informing LAAW until sometime in January 2004. My local force must have felt both insulted and angry at being treated in such an offhand manner by the Met, and this may explain why I ended up achieving more than I hoped.
In late March I finally met the Chief Inspector who had with him a copy of the CPS letter, detailing why the prosecution was refused. Forbidden to show me the letter, give me a copy or read it out to me, he managed in one short meeting to give enough information about the CPS reasons for refusal to allow us to prove we could not go further in this country (one reason being that ‘the ICC Act was not detailed enough to allow for prosecution’).
I informed Professor Nick Grief, from Peacerights’ Legal Inquiry panel, Phil Shiner (Public Interest Lawyers) took a witness statement from me, and that joined the Peacerights report in The Hague . Where it sits, gathering dust.
Well, you didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?
The ICC and the Crime of Aggression
The crime of aggression (then known as ‘crimes against peace’) was said at Nuremburg to be the supreme international crime, and when the ICC was brought into being, it was clear that many saw the crime of aggression as integral to the crimes that would come under its jurisdiction. So the most pressing subject for discussion at the Rome Statute Review Conference that took place earlier this year was the defining of this crime and how a prosecution would be brought at the Court (the so-called ‘trigger’ mechanism).
One of the main blocks to progress is that the decision allowing a prosecution to take place lies with the Security Council, placing it under the control of politicians rather than judiciary. Former judge Richard Goldstone, speaking on the BBC World Service, said one couldn’t put the crime of aggression into the hands of the ICC. It would be very ‘political’ to make judgements on the decision to go to war. But the ICC prosecution would not be for the decision to go to war. That decision is always political. Even in civil wars, the propaganda that drives neighbour to attack neighbour is mostly politically driven. It is the act of waging war that is the crime to be prosecuted, and the decision is only part of that act. While the ‘trigger’ allowing a prosecution to take place remains under the control of the Security Council it is impossible for any of the permanent members of the Council to be prosecuted for a crime they show an unhealthy willingness to commit. Indeed, three of them are able to control an international body they do not support.
A letter I received from the Foreign Office states “A provision on aggression that does not make reference to the Security Council would also be bad for the Court. We want to avoid the ICC being politicised... The Prosecutor needs to know that, before he embarks on an investigation, he has behind him the political support of the international community and that can only be expressed through the Security Council.” That political support would be more honestly and democratically expressed through the General Assembly, where all nations can have their say. And the best way to avoid the ICC being ‘politicised’ is to keep it well away from the Security Council.
How successful was the Review Conference in resolving this conundrum? Amendments have been incorporated which include both the definition of the crime of aggression (identifying the decision and initiation processes, preparations for war and the various actions that, as a whole or in part, constitute a crime of aggression), and a set of conditions for the exercise of jurisdiction by the court in relation to that crime. The conditions make no reference to the exclusive need of the Security Council for predetermination before allowing the ICC to investigate and prosecute. Instead, if after 6 months the Council has not acted, the Prosecutor can seek a formal authority to investigate from 6 judges of the Court itself.
The amendments agreed at Kampala have to go through the same ratification process as the original Statute, although only 30 states are required this time, and this must be completed by January 1st 2017. Everyone, including the UK government says that this means nothing will happen until 2017 and, according to the Foreign Office, “ICC States parties now have a seven-year period before making a further decision on the conditions under which the Court will exercise its jurisdiction”. But look at it another way. They have seven years to obtain half the ratifications they originally achieved in four. 110 countries have ratified the Statute, and a further 35 have signed but not ratified. Even with behind-the-scenes arm twisting, surely 30 states will step forward and clear the way for prosecuting the crime of aggression? They must do it by January 2017 to get the crime of aggression onto the books. But it is entirely possible they will fulfil that condition before then.
However - read the Kampala resolution carefully and you will see that this clause has been added to Article 15 of the Rome Statute:
‘The Court may exercise jurisdiction only with respect to crimes of aggression committed one year after the ratification or acceptance of the amendments by thirty States Parties.”
So if and when the crime of aggression is incorporated into our domestic law, we can forget about seeing Blair prosecuted for it.
But is this the only way to bring him to account?
Lesley Docksey is Editor of Abolish War
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