It's Going To Be Hard To Find A Legal Justification For Attacking Syria

[FarCenter]

First of all, Syria is one of the few countries that has never signed the U.N. Chemicals Weapons Treaty. Not having signed the treaty, they are not legally bound to it. Although Syria has signed the Geneva Conventions and the Geneva Gas Protocols, which ban such things as violence against non-combatants and the use of chemical weapons, those conventions only apply to the use of weapons against foreign countries, saying nothing about their use on one's own people, as noted by Northwestern politics professor Ian Hurd.

Furthermore, the U.S. hardly has the high moral ground after it supported Iraq with full knowledge Saddam Huessein was gassing Iranians and Kurds in 1988. What possible argument would the U.S. have for supporting, not to mention not intervening in, Iraq after it used chemical weapons?

...

It's also tough to argue for a humanitarian intervention based on the death of 100,00 Syrians, when the U.S. mission is explicitly not to toppple the regime but only to send a message. In other words, it won't do much to stop the killing.

To put it simply, Washington proposes to violate international law in order to protect an international law which Syria has never officially promised to abide.

But just because it's illegal, doesn't mean that the war won't happen. After all, many claim that the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was illegal, without a resolution from the UN Security Council. However, the US and UK argued that pre-existing resolutions from the Persian Gulf War in 1991 also authorized them to act in 2003, in order to defend Kuwait from immiment threat of Saddam's WMDs by "all necessary means."

Washington's intent in Syria, on the other hand, has no clearly defined legal justification — at least nothing resembling the Persian Gulf War — so Western lawyers have their work cut out for them.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/legal-justification-for-attacking-syria-2013-8

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. In War Crime trials after WWII, it was established that a country does not have to sign a treaty...

to be held accountable for a war crime. Those who did this can be tried by the International Court of Justice or any one of several countries that have a policy of trying war criminals under International law (Spain is one of those countries.).

President Reagan should be held accountable for what happened during his administration. We know where he is at.

100,000 people weren't killed by gas, and this hasn't been phrased as a response to the humanitarian crises.

It is clear that Geoffrey Ingersoll doesn't have a clue as to what he is talking about or he is just trying to blow smoke.

Finally: In my opinion, the best solution would be to announce that all members of the Syrian Administration, it's military, and any Rebels implicated in this crime should be refused diplomatic credentials and arrested on sight and turned over to the International Court of Justice for investigation and trial.

[The Straight Story]

2. Wasn't hard for Syria to find justification to gas some people

Oh...that's right, they didn't need one and no one cares about what they did.

So if no one is going to hold them accountable for their actions who would hold us accountable?

[eomer]

3. That's because you mistakenly believe that words have meaning.

Whitehouse counsel eat this stuff for breakfast and then take the rest of the day off.