Consortium... In this statement released Wednesday, a group of international law experts warn that a U.S. military strike on Syria would be illegal if not in self-defense or with U.N. Security Council authorization.
We are practitioners and professors of international law. Under international law, military strikes by the United States of America and its allies against the Syrian Arab Republic, unless conducted in self-defense or with United Nations Security Council approval, are illegal and constitute acts of aggression.
The unlawful killing of any human being without legal justification, under every legal system, is murder. And an act of violence committed by one government against another government, without lawful justification, amounts to the crime of aggression: the supreme international crime which carries with it the evil of every other international crime, as noted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946.
The use of military force by a state can be used in self-defense after an armed attack by another state, or, with the approval of the United Nations Security Council. At present, neither instance would apply to a U.S. strike against Syria.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
We understand the urge to act to protect innocent civilians. We strongly condemn any and all violence against civilians, whoever the perpetrators. But responding to unlawful violence with more unlawful violence, bypassing existing legal mechanisms, is a road to a lawless world. It is a road that leads to Hell.
Accordingly, we urge the United States and its allies to refrain from illegal conduct against Syria. We must point out that for the last several years, as is now common knowledge, the United States has armed rebels/insurgents to overthrow the current government of Syria. This is illegal under international law.
In 1986, in The Nicaragua Case, the International Court of Justice reprimanded the United States for arming and supporting contra militias and combatants, and for mining Nicaragua’s harbors, as acts which violated the U.N. Charter and international law. Perhaps the Syrian crisis would look differently today if the United States and its allies had consistently respected law for the last several years. They have not.
United Nations Security Council
We take pains to note what should be obvious: our demand that the United States and its allies immediately comport themselves with their international legal obligations is not a justification, excuse, or some type of free pass on the investigation and accountability for international legal violations committed by other actors who may be involved in this sad affair. But our point is a simple one: the only way to resolve the Syrian crisis is through commitment to well-settled principles of international legal norms.
We urge the United States to abide by its commitment to the rule of international law and to seek to resolve its disputes through peaceful means. These means include recourse to the use of established and legitimate institutions designed to maintain international peace and security, such as the U.N. Security Council or the International Court of Justice. Unilateral action is a sign of weakness; recourse to the law is a sign of strength. The United States must walk back from becoming the very monster it now seeks to destroy.
Poster Comment:
Gregory Herr... No understandable “urge” to protect innocent civilians underlines any U.S. foreign policy machinations. And this latest ploy to “justify” an attack on Damascus is obviously not a “response” to unlawful violence. The writers correctly point to the fact that the U.S. has been arming what they all too politely/mistakenly call the “rebels/insurgents” with the express purpose of overthrowing the legally recognized Syrian government. We cannot assume any facts, narrative, or accountability without an internationally recognized investigation (which may or may not take place). The track record of the U.S. in the Middle East and that of the so-called “insurgents” and their “Hollywood” P.R. flaks (White Helmets) hardly inspires confidence in any narrative coming from those quarters. So let’s be careful with our words. The U.S. isn’t seeking to destroy any “monster”. It’s looking to finish what it started in 2001. But Russia got in the way. Arrogant force finally met immovable object.
So the “planners” need to call off the dogs or Everybody loses. They can’t have their way in everything all the time. They need to grow up and face reality real quick. Live and still be rich, or persist and find out what it means to “be all equal in the end”. Appeals to man-made “law” won’t phase you, I know…but natural laws have a real way of coming up and biting you in the arse when you least expect it. Can’t say you weren’t warned. The line had to be drawn somewhere. Destroying Damascus really all that important to you?
john wilson... Well, the purpose of a lawyer is to give legal advice and support a case in the courts for a prosecution or a defense. When the individual has already been found guilty even before a lawyer has been consulted or any application to a judicial review started, then the ‘law’ doesn’t apply. Law only applies when there is a body that is able to uphold it and since there isn’t any organisation that is appointed to deal with supposed breaches of law, then what’s the point. International law is like a sports match without a referee, it only works if all the players stick to the previously agreed rules of the game. America and the UK doesn’t even pretend to stick to the rules and the US won’t even sign up to the international court!!!
Sam F... Yes, the US evades international law by refusing to submit to the ICC, and even threatening to militarily attack the Hague. But the article properly notes that it will ultimately pay heavily for its crimes, for “bypassing existing legal mechanisms, is a road to a lawless world.”
The conduct of the US since WWII and especially since 9/11 has been very similar to that of Hitler, its tyrants inventing pretexts for bullying and theft for political bribes, and to pose falsely as protectors, accusing their moral superiors of disloyalty. Their devotion to dishonesty and deception is very similar.
The article shows that international law experts have long known the criminality of the US oligarchy tyrants, and the world awaits only the opportunity to end the US empire with well-deserved embargoes, defeats, and expulsion from NATO and the UNSC. This is inevitable as US aggression on borrowed funds increases to hide its diminishing economy. When BRICS has the ability and resolve to establish another reserve currency, establish a stronger UN more attractive to most nations without inviting the US, and finally to embargo the US, the US tyrants will have their final humiliation.
The process of motivating the US majority to restore democracy will begin only when its economy collapses, for they are corrupted by luxury and hubris, the accidental aristocracy of a world which will at last punish them severely for their crimes.
phillip sawicki... I would simply add to this fine statement that I think it would have been even better if it had incriminated Israel as well as the US for conditions in the ME today. It is reported that in 1948 President Harry Truman explained his country’s recognition of the newly created state of Israel by saying ‘I have 600,000 Jews in my country and no Arabs.” Truman was a typical ward heeler without a mind of his own, and Winston Churchill instructed him in Potsdam and later on the “perfidy” of the USSR. Truman seems not to have realized that it was the Soviet Union, suffering more than 20,000,000 deaths, that defeated Hitler in WW2. Is it possible that it is now the US’s turn to be destroyed by Russia in a war perhaps likely to destroy the human race? I hope not.
Tatarewicz... US is only a proxy for Israel which has been at war with neighbors in the ME for the past century. US foreign policy is determined by a Congress whose Democrat and Republican members were assured of the necessary financial and organization support by the Israeli lobby and associates to get elected after pledging military and financial support for Israel. Thus US is under occupation of a foreign power and will be so until the electorate organizes to takeover national elections from AIPAC..