The national conference was convened under the auspices
of SpinLaw, a law student group originating at the University of Toronto
Law School and Osgoode Hall (the law school of York University in Toronto),
and organised locally by the Social Activist Law Students Association
at Dalhousie University. a presentation in which keynote presenter Michael
Mandel, a professor of international law at Osgoode Hall, who organised
Lawyers Against The War, asked: "Can we do good things through law,
or should we concentrate on stopping bad things through law?", the
importance of using legal forums, including even the International Court
set up to try Slobodan Milosevic, the last president of Yugoslavia, in
order to expose "the aggressive imperialist policy of the United
States" occupied pride of place.
Prof. Mandel was careful to advise against fetishising
any particular piece of law, even the apparently most "anti-war"
portions of customary international law emanating from key decisions of
the United Nations or the famous "Nuremburg Statutes".
The Nuremburg Statutes established the essential principle
that unleashing a war of aggression is the supreme crime, in which --
by virtue of the conflict being illegal and unauthorised -- all killing
automatically becomes murder. Principle II held that the "(i) Planning,
preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation
of international treaties, agreements or assurances" and the "(ii)
Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of
any of the acts mentioned under (i). are such "Crimes Against Peace",
"a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity"
as set out in Principle VII and "a crime under international law".
By this standard, the war against Iraq, as with the
war against Yugoslavia, was blatantly illegal. The Anglo-American invasion
of Iraq was also not justified by any Resolutions of the United Nations
or its Secuity Council, although resolutions providing for inspections
were consistently cited as a smokescreen by Bush and Blair to legitimate
aggression. In terms of Yugoslavia the rationale of humanitarian intervention
was cited as the excuse after the fact, that is, after the U.S. and the
NATO alliance launched aggression.
Additionally, a wide range of activities -- from expelling
the resident population of a militarily occupied zone (as in former Yugoslavia)
to moving one's own population into an occupied area (as Israel has been
doing in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since the end of the June 1967
war) -- become "war crimes".
But the Nuremburg Tribunal itself, from which these
statutes emerged, Prof. Mandel stressed, actually operated to exonerate
or save the hide of some of the most brutal, murderous and utterly unrepentant
Nazi leaders. The U.S., and later the entire NATO alliance, used the Nazis
to more efficiently penetrate and combat the Soviet bloc by taking advantage
of specialised knowledge possessed or acquired uniquely by these individuals
on behalf of the Hitler regime.
At the same time, the principal arrangements put in
place since the end of the Second World War -- including the United Nations
Charter (1945), the Nuremburg Statutes (1946), the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (1948), the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), and the International
Conventions on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic and Social Rights
(ICCPR & ICESR, in the 1960s) -- still provided important benchmarks
for assessing, censoring and sanctioning behaviour by states that is deemed
to have gone beyond the pale of what the rest of the world community deems
acceptable.
The single most remarkable feature of the wars unleashed
by the U.S. and its allies in Kosovo / former Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan
and now in Iraq was their stark absence of any legitimacy whatever in
light of any of these instruments. The deepening of popular discontent
with the undertaking of such adventures was inseparable from this sense
of Great Powers attempting to raise anarchy to the level of authority.
more information about the Conference:
http://www.spinlaw.ca/idealaw/
Copyright New Media Services Inc. © 2004. The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not necessarily reflect those of shunpiking magazine or New Media Publications.