Libya,
Illlegal Assaults
(please scroll down for Dr.KÖchler)
British
MPs condemn PM over Libya Fri Apr 15,
2011 8:26PM Share | Email | Print
British lawmakers have condemned Prime
Minister David Cameron's talk of regime
change in Libya as outrageous,
saying he is illegally seeking to topple
Muammar Qaddafi.
Members of Parliament (MPs) called for a
recall of parliament on Friday, insisting
that they had only supported the government
in its attempt to enforce a no-fly zone over
Libya to protect civilians as stipulated by
the UN Security Council resolution 1973 last
month, British media reported.
David Cameron drew MPs' condemnation when he
published a joint article by US president
Barack Obama, and French president Nicolas
Sarkozy, boasting that Qaddafi must go,
and go for good.
Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama penned a joint
article, in which they dismissed a Libyan
future with Qaddafi as "unthinkable",
alleging that his staying on would represent
an "unconscionable betrayal" by the
rest of the world.
"It is unthinkable that someone who has
tried to massacre his own people can play a
part in their future government," said
the article, which appeared on Friday in the
London Times, The Washington Post and the
French daily Le Figaro.
However, several Labour Party MPs in Britain
put their weight behind the demand for the
parliament to be recalled saying that it was
outrageous to be talking about regime change
in Libya.
This joint letter makes it clear to the
world that NATO will not stop till Gaddafi is
removed. If that isn't regime change I don't
know what is, said John Baron, the
Conservative MP for Basildon and Billercay.
"You only recall Parliament if there has
been a material change of emphasis and this
is a clear change of mission. The bottom line
is that regime change is illegal under
international law", added Baron who is
also a member of the foreign affairs
committee.
"What they have come out with is totally
against what was agreed in Parliament",
said Halifax MP Linda Riordan.
Thomas Docherty, a member of the defense
select committee, said he would back a vote
to authorize regime change in Libya, but he
added, "this is well beyond what the
House of Commons voted for. It is well beyond
the resolution."
This is while that French Defense Minister
Gerard Longuet said in Paris, the US, Britain
and France are thinking beyond UN resolution
1973, which authorizes action to protect
Libyan civilians, and now seek regime change.
However, other world powers including the
BRICS group -- Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa - have urged that "the
use of force should be avoided" as far
as the Libya crisis is concerned.
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has gone
further, arguing that Resolution 1973 did not
authorize military action of the kind being
carried out in Libya by attack jets from NATO
and some Arab countries.
British
Parliament Recall?
A Tory MP says the parliament should be
recalled since UK Prime Minister David
Cameron's latest remarks mark a change in
Britain's original mission in
Libya.
In a joint letter published on Friday, UK, US
and French leaders claimed that NATO and
other coalition countries must keep the
military intervention over Libya to force the
Libyan ruler to step down from power.
John Baron, the conservative MP who has been
against Britain's military involvement in
Libya, urged the UK parliament to take action
against the country's participation in the
Libya war since the joint letter of Cameron,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US
President Barack Obama indicate a change in
Libya mission.
I believe that Parliament should be
recalled. This statement is a clear
alteration to the original mission that would
justify recall, he said.
He argued that the military intervention was
proposed as a humanitarian operation to save
the lives of the Libyan civilians, but "clearly
that is no longer the case."
"If you were being charitable you could
say this was an example of mission creep. If
you were being uncharitable [you] could say
it was an ulterior motive," he added.
SAB/AKM/HE
Britain
in breach of Libya UN resolution
Fri Apr 15, 2011 The
British government is to supply the Libyan
revolutionary forces with 1,000 sets of body
armor, Downing Street confirmed.
According to Downing Street's statement, the
body armors are planned to help the
revolutionary forces defend themselves
and their communities against regime forces
that attack civilians.
The British National Security Council has
earlier provided the Libyan revolutionary
forces with 'non-lethal military equipment',
including 100 satellite phones.
The news comes amid the international
conference in Qatar regarding the war in
Libya, where Britain urged other NATO members
to enhance more ground attacks in the country.
British foreign secretary William Hague
joined French foreign minister Alain Juppe in
pressuring the members of NATO to increase
their military operations against the Libyan
ruler, Muammar Gaddafi.
Hague claimed that the burden of the air
strikes have been carried by Britain and
France.
French foreign minister believed that NATO
was not taking enough actions, and the US
military power is required to make certain
the mission's success. Saying: NATO
must not relax military pressure. Its
military actions should be adapted.
In a visit to the French President Nicolas
Sarkozy on Wednesday, British Prime Minister
said that Britain and France were playing the
key roles among the coalition countries.
with President Sarkozy I am going to be
sitting down to make sure that we leave no
stone unturned in doing everything we can
militarily, diplomatically, politically to
enforce the UN resolution, to put real
pressure on Gaddafi, and to stop the
appalling murder of civilians.
Meanwhile, the Libyan revolutionary forces
have criticized the US-led forces for their
failure to prevent the killing of civilians
by Gaddafi troops.
Many civilians have reportedly been killed
since the US-led coalition unleashed a major
air campaign against regime forces on March
19 under a UN mandate to protect the Libyan
population.
Meanwhile, the US-led forces have admitted to
killing revolutionary forces and civilians in
a fresh airstrike in eastern Libya.
"ALL
NECESSARY MEANS" What definition of
the Term?
United Nations vs. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya:
Humanitarian Intervention or Colonial War?
Vienna, 28 March 2011
P/RE/22682c-is
On Saturday, 26 March 2011, the President of
the International Progress Organization sent
the following Memorandum to the President of
the Security Council and to the Secretary-General
of the United Nations:
MEMORANDUM
by the President of the International
Progress Organization on Security Council
resolution 1973 (2011) and its implementation
by a coalition of the willing
under the leadership of the United States and
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Vienna, 26 March 201 1P/22680c
On 17 March 2011 the United Nations Security
Council adopted a binding resolution with the
stated goal to protect civilians in the
domestic conflict in the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya. Although the concurring
votes of the permanent members are
required under Article 27(3) of the UN
Charter for all decisions on other than
procedural matters, the decision, adopted
without the consent of China and Russia, is
considered legally valid since it has become
customary among United Nations member states
to treat abstention as consent.
In order to meet the requirement of Article
39 of the Charter for the imposition of
coercive measures, including the use of force,
the Council has determined that the
situation of domestic conflict in
Libya constitutes a threat to international
peace and security. In contravention to the
provisions of Articles 42ff of the Charter
related to the collective enforcement of
resolutions by the Council itself, operative
paragraphs 4 and 8 of the resolution
authorize all Member States, individually or
through regional organizations or
arrangements, to undertake all
necessary measures for the protection
of civilians and for the enforcement of a so-called
no fly zone in the airspace of
Libya.
It is obvious that the delegation of
virtually unlimited authority to interested
parties and regional groups as has
become customary since the Gulf War
resolutions of 1990/1991 is not only
incompatible with the United Nations Charter,
but with the international rule of law as
such. Although the provisions of Articles 43ff
of the Charter for the making available to
the Security Council of armed forces and
national air force contingents have remained
dead letter and the Military Staff Committee
has never become operational, the Security
Council can under no circumstances authorize
a use of force the extent and form of which
is solely at the discretion of those parties
that volunteer to intervene on behalf of the
UN. The procedures outlined in the operative
paragraphs of resolution 1973 (2011), and
their implementation by the interested
parties, including NATO, contradict the
doctrine of collective security which is the
foundation of the provisions of Chapter VII
of the United Nations Charter in several
important respects:
1. The notion all necessary
measures which interested member
states are invited to take to protect
civilians (Par. 4) and to enforce
compliance with the ban on flights (Par.
8) is not only vague but also totally
undefined. In a context of international
power politics, imprecise terms will
unavoidably be interpreted according to the
self-interest of the intervening parties and,
thus, can never be the basis of legally
justified action. Such terms have often been
used as pretext for a virtually unrestrained
use of force.
2. The lack of a precise definition of the
term all necessary measures makes
it impossible, a principio, to ascertain the
compatibility and commensurability of the
adopted measures with the goals stated in the
resolution. This effectively guarantees
interested states and groups of states, as
well as their political and military leaders,
to act outside a framework of checks and
balances, and with total impunity.
3. To authorize states to use
all necessary measures in the
enforcement of a legally binding resolution
is an invitation to an arbitrary and arrogant
exercise of power, and makes the commitment
of the United Nations Organization to the
international rule of law void of any meaning.
The fact that the Security Council, using the
phrase all necessary means,
adopted the same approach earlier, namely in
resolution 678 (1990), dealing with the
situation between Iraq and Kuwait, does not
justify the present action in the domestic
conflict situation in Libya.
4. The interpretation of the term all
necessary measures by two senior
members of the British Government, shortly
after the adoption of the resolution, is
evidence of the problems caused by the use of
an undefined term, and in particular of the
abuses of power this invites. Both, the
Secretaries of Defense and Foreign Affairs
explicitly declined to exclude the targeted
killing of the Libyan leader as one of the
possible measures authorized
under the text of resolution 1973 (2011).
Although they did not repeat these views in
later statements, and the British Prime
Minister did not support their interpretation
of all necessary measures, the
Pandoras box has now been opened.
5. The characterization of the resolution by
the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation
as defective and flawed insofar
as it allows everything and
resembles medieval calls for crusades,
was very much to the point. Shocking as this
assessment may be for the self-appointed
guardians of mankind and representatives of
the so-called international community,
a procedure by which a countrys
leadership is declared an international
outlaw, and everyone (state or regional group)
is invited to join in the battle in whichever
way he pleases indeed resembles the rationale
of the crusades. However, a medieval hostis
declaration has no room in modern
international law. International vigilantism
and a humanitarian free-for-all are elements
of anarchy and belong in a pre-modern system
of imperial powers, as it existed before the
abrogation of the jus ad bellum.
6. In the context of Chapter VII enforcement
measures, including the use of armed force,
the formula all necessary
measures effectively invites unilateral
action by the self-appointed members of a
coalition of the willing,
something which not only gradually subverts,
but perverts the United Nations
rationale of collective security in the
service of an undeclared imperialist agenda,
hidden behind humanitarian motives such as
those proclaimed under the slogan of the
Responsibility to Protect (a set
of principles adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly in 2005, which seems to have
replaced the earlier phraseology of
humanitarian intervention).
7. The ban on the use of force according to
Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter
will become totally meaningless if, by way of
a Chapter VII resolution, every member state
can effectively use force in pursuit of an
abstract goal in a unilateral manner, and
without any checks and balances.
8. The stated goal of the protection of
civilians has been implemented by
interested member states, first and foremost
the former colonial powers in North Africa in
tandem with the United States, in a way that
has caused even more deaths among innocent
civilians.
9. Contrary to the purposes of Chapter VII of
the UN Charter, the implementation of
resolution 1973 (2011) by interested parties
has led to an increased threat to
international security instead of containing
it. What was essentially a domestic conflict,
resulting from an armed uprising, has now
become an international one. By intervening
in a domestic conflict situation on the side
of one party, the states that undertook to
enforce the resolution, individually and
through NATO, have further fuelled the
conflict and brought about a situation that
may lead to the disintegration of Libya, with
the prospect of long-term instability in the
entire North African and Mediterranean region.
10. The involvement of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) as coordinating
entity for the enforcement of the flight ban
and, eventually, all military operations in
Libya has further complicated the
international dimension of the conflict. NATO
is a mutual defense pact of European states,
including Turkey, and two North American
states. Even if in the disguise of
crisis response operations and
noble humanitarian motives, offensive action
in North Africa outside the treaty
area will further threaten
international peace and security. NATOs
involvement as a regional organization,
albeit not representing the concerned Arab
and North African regions, also testifies to
the dangers of the general authorization
formula in resolution 1973 (2011). NATO
certainly represents a spectrum of interests
that is totally different from that of the
concerned region. In view of its composition
and political agenda, it is totally
inappropriate for the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization to act as the exclusive enforcer
of Chapter VII resolutions of the Security
Council.
11. By deciding to protect
civilians in Libya while not acting in
comparable situations of uprisings in Bahrain
and Yemen, the Security Council has obviously
chosen a policy of double standards that
seems to be determined by the strategic and
economic interests of the intervening
countries.
12. In an act of utmost hypocrisy, the
intervening countries hide their vested
interests behind the stated humanitarian goal
of resolution 1973 (2011). Under the cover of
the Responsibility to Protect,
which the Secretary-General of the United
Nations evoked as rationale of the resolution,
an effectively unilateral use of force has
taken hold, amounting to military measures
that, as acts of war on the side of one party
in a domestic conflict, go far beyond the
stated goals of the resolution and are
carried out with total impunity and without
sufficient checks and balances. Due to the
authorization formula of all necessary
means (or all necessary means,
in resolution 678 [1990]) the Security
Council has made itself a mere bystander.
Because of the voting provision of Article 27(3)
of the UN Charter, the authorization cannot
be cancelled without the consent of those
permanent members that have succeeded in
inserting it into the resolution.
13. It is to be recalled that operative
paragraph 6 of resolution 1970 (2011) by
which the Security Council has referred the
situation in Libya to the International
Criminal Court (ICC), provides for a kind of
preventive impunity for all
officials and personnel from countries
militarily intervening in Libya in so far as
they will, in spite of the referral decision
under Article 13(b) of the Rome Statute, not
be subjected to the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court. This approach,
which amounts to an effective amendment of
the Rome Statute of the ICC, for which the
Security Council has no authority, again
reveals the predominance of political
considerations over those of justice or human
rights.
14. In line with the Security Councils
tendency, since the end of the Cold War, to
arrogate powers not given to it in the
Charter, and to broaden its mandate as global
administrator of justice,
resolution 1973 (2011) appears to have
further widened the scope of action on the
basis of Chapter VII so as to include the
protection of the civilian population in
situations of domestic conflict. However, if
the Council aspires to be an enforcer of
rights and an arbiter in domestic conflicts,
it will have to abide by the basic principles
of the rule of law, first and foremost the
exclusion of arbitrariness in the enforcement
of the law. As long as it encourages member
states to act as they please, allowing them
to further their own national interests in
the disguise of enforcement action on behalf
of the United Nations, the Security
Councils practice will itself
constitute a threat to international peace
and security.
15. In view of the legal contradictions
resulting from the authorization of the use
of all necessary measures under
Chapter VII resolutions of the Security
Council, impacting on the very legitimacy of
the world organization as an agent of
collective security, the member states in the
United Nations General Assembly should
consider to seek an Advisory Opinion from the
International Court of Justice according to
Article 96(1) of the Charter.
Dr. Hans Köchler
International Progress Organization
Enquiries: info@i-p-o.org,
phone +43-1-5332877, fax +43-1-5332962,
postal address: A-1010 Vienna, Kohlmarkt 4,
Austria