International law experts allege violations in Iran war

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

More than 100 experts on international law have signed an open letter expressing "profound concern" about what they see as serious violations of international law by the US, Israel and Iran in the Middle East war.

They say the US-Israeli decision to attack on Iran was a clear breach of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the use of force outside of self-defence or when authorised by the UN Security Council.

The experts point to "alarming rhetoric" being used by officials, including US President Donald Trump's threats to "obliterate" Iran's power plants.
...
In international law, say the signatories, it is "especially forbidden" to declare that no quarter will be given, a prohibition also set out in the Department of Defense's own law of war manual.



Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy91x2n29nlo

---

The letter:

We, the undersigned U.S.-based international law experts, professors, and practitioners write to express profound concern about serious violations of international law and alarming rhetoric by the United States, Israel, and Iran in the present armed conflict in the Middle East.

Due to our connection to the United States, our focus here is on the conduct of the U.S. government, but we remain concerned about the risk of atrocities across the region including the continuing risks posed by the Iranian government to Iranians through violent crackdowns on dissent, and to civilians across the Middle East through Iran’s ongoing unlawful strikes on civilian infrastructure using explosive weapons in densely populated areas.

One month has passed since the United States and Israel launched strikes across Iran. The initiation of the campaign was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter, and the conduct of United States forces since, as well as statements made by senior government officials, raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes.

We collectively affirm the importance of equal application of international law to all, including countries that hold themselves out as global leaders. Recent statements from senior U.S. government officials describing the rules governing military engagement as “stupid” and prioritizing “lethality” over “legality” are profoundly alarming and dangerously short-sighted. These claims, particularly in combination with the observable conduct of U.S. forces, are harming the international legal order and the system of international law that we have devoted our lives to promoting.
...
We write to express our concern about 1) jus ad bellum, or the decision to go to war, 2) jus in bello, or the conduct of hostilities, 3) rhetoric and threats from senior U.S. officials and their allies, which portend further abuses, and 4) the decimation of civilian harm mitigation structures within the U.S. government as a part of U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s “gloves off” approach to warfare.
...
We remind all states of their legal obligations not to aid or assist the United States, Israel, or Iran in the commission of internationally wrongful acts, as well as to cooperate to bring to an end through lawful means serious breaches of peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens) including the prohibition of aggression and the basic rules of international humanitarian law.

We also urge the U.S. governments’ allies and cooperating partners to take steps to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law, in line with Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions and associated customary international law. The United States has itself acknowledged that states should seek to promote adherence by others to international humanitarian law. The International Committee of the Red Cross 2016 Commentary on the First Geneva Convention of 1949 provides that a state is “in a unique position to influence the behavior” of partner states where the state “participates in the financing, equipping, arming or training of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict, even plans, carries out and debriefs operations jointly with such forces.”

https://www.justsecurity.org/135423/professors-letter-international-law-iran-war/

[Bayard]

1. K&R

[BlueWavePsych]

2. Kick

[snot]

3. I am deeply concerned, too, that the MSM scarcely bother to mention

the criminal illegality of so much of what the US and Israel (as well as other countries) have been doing, let alone the histories that led us to bother negotiating definitions of such crimes and what we stand to lose if we abandon all pretense of concern about them.

It reminds me of the MSM coverage of elections: it's all about the horse race – who's winning and why – rather than the issues. Yes, these wars and elections are struggles for power, and we need to know who's winning – we'd be foolish to ignore those realities – but what about the issues now at stake, including the histories that gave rise to and shaped them?