Politicians' Declarations

Reply from Sion Jobbins

Dear Robbie

Thank you for your email which arrived this morning. I aggree with the pledge but have one question. The assumption in the pledge seems to be towards internationally recognised nation states. What is the situation in relation to stateless nations who do not have the option of a recognised government inviting UK military support? (I'm thinking of a situation similar to that of the Kosova Albanians - a military action which I supported as it withstood ethnic cleansing by a larger and recognised nation state).

Yn ddiffuant,

Sion T. Jobbins

Dear Sion

Thank you for your e-mail as below. I appreciate that this is a very busy time for you and given your stated position of "general agreement" (?) with our declaration I thought it worth while to send you a brief statement in response, although please bear in mind these issues of international politics and law rarely lend themselves to trite and brief answers.

Speaking for myself I have to say that one of the most important reasons why I support the notion of a greater respect for and development of international law as the appropriate method and means for the settlement of international disputes (including as between so called ‘stateless’ nations) is because of the twofold consequence of firstly, its universal jurisdiction and secondly its inherent impartially as a "judicial process" for the administration of international justice under the law and by due process.

This means that where such disputes affecting those many so-called "stateless nations" in this World arise, what we should have is a mechanism for those affected populations to have a recourse to an impartial Court exercising a politically independent and objective universal jurisdiction to investigate allegations, be that of say "crimes against humanity" or other breaches of fundamental and universal human rights or otherwise.

In particular, what we need additionally in this World is an International Court of Human Rights (whether or not based on the model of the of the Strasbourg Court which is far from faultless) to which "peoples" as well as States can have a recourse, with jurisdiction to enforce at the very least the UN Universal Declaration on Fundamental Human Rights against all those States who are members of the UN.

Those Nation States who then declined or refused to sign up to such a International Court of Human Rights (ICHR) could then be genuinely politically and impartially identified by the "civilised world" as genuine "pariah nations", and made subject to binding international economic and political sanctions, perhaps permanently. I'd like to see the response of the WTO to that kind of regulation upon international capitalism!

Furthermore if in the judgement of such a Court such breaches of international humanitarian and human rights as they found to have been committed within those States were of susch a nature and severity as to actually thereby threaten the maintenance of international peace and security, then such a Court should have the power to refer the matter as a question of urgency to the Security Council, for that body, as the duly appointed and authorised global police authority, to take such action as it deemed appropriate and necessary in the circumstances, to overcome such a threat to the peace.

Of course, you can point to the fact that the Security Council, is first and foremost a political organisation, and in particular that it is hidebound by the veto powers of its permanent members. I would not seriously doubt but that had Blair and Clinton sought the "authority" of the Council to bomb Yugoslavia, rather than acting through NATO instead, then Russia may well have vetoed such a move in response to some perceived political sense of "pro-Slavic alliance". But that is the nature of the political challenge before us to reform and improve the functioning and mechanisms of the international organisations in general which we have and the Security Council in particular.

The existence of that political challenge is not, however, an excuse to attempt to create a separate and external Anglo-American led, Western dominated coalition, with access to the most powerful weapons and military industrial resources on the face of the planet, in order to thereby create a rival centre of power or axis of influence, for the creation a 21st Century Global Police Force dedicated to the ambitions of Pax Americana.

If life in the political morass of the UN, and especially the SC, is messy and internecine and problematic that merely reflects the enormous diversity of the cultural interests and political ambitions which those genuinely interested in a world-wide authority must strive to reconcile if there is ever to be any hope of genuine peace in this World.

However, that will not ever be genuinely done by the high level bombing of a TV studio in Beograd, killing cameramen and make-up artists, or the strafing of a bus convoy on the road to Djakovice or by the blowing up the bridges across the Danube and thereby imprisoning the economic life of Hungary and Slovakia amongst others against international law.

What is more access to such a putative International Court of Human Rights would also be open to the scores of thousands of ethnic "Serbian" Kosovars, such as the 25,000 who used to live in the northern part of the city of Mitrovica but who have since been forced out, nay "ethnically cleansed", since the "Albanisation" of that City under the not so watchful eyes of IFOR. Or the hundreds of "Serbian" Kosovars whose lands have been stolen, whose property has been looted and whose women have been raped, and who are now forced to live 'Serbian Ghettos", in the larger towns and cities of Kosovo, whilst the Albanian Kosovar dominated police and courts system in Pristina sits back and laugh behind their hands. Justice is or should be blind.

But in the final analysis the ultimate partiality and bias behind such an "alternate" nonlegal system of "humanitarian intervention" is the fact that whilst Albanian Kosovars, Iraqi Kurds, Tajiki Afghans and some others may for the time being happily find that their national interests are coincidentally promoted and protected by the omnipotent American Imperial ambitions ; what hope in that is there for the future human rights, let alone national interests, of Tibetan Chinese, Chechen Russians, Turkish Kurds or most tellingly Palestinian Israelis ! among many many others (not forgetting of course the case of Native Americans !).

No. It is often said by those who support such a doctrine of so-called 'humanitarian intervention' that the ends justify any mere legal imperfection of the means. Nonsense, if the history of mankind on this planet should have taught us anything it should have taught us that such politically partial, imperial power motivated means ultimately lead to only one end .... war, ... followed by more war, ... followed by more war.

However, all of that said of one thing I am absolutely certain, as things stand today in the admittedly imperfect system of global security that was established in 1945 after the scourge of two world wars, for the restoration and maintenance of international peace, resort to the hostile use of armed forced, whether by individual nation states or when acting in so-called coalitions (of the willing or otherwise), against the territorial integrity and political independence of other states, without the justification of either a response in self-defence to a prior or imminent attack upon them, or of the unambiguous and specific authority of the Security Council of the UN, is by definition an unlawful act of international aggression, and a crime against peace, in the sense which saw Von Ribbentrop wear his neck tie too tight. That is the law, not what you hope ought to be the law.

There is no international, legal authority or justification whatever, either in conventional or customary law, for the so-called doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" ; and what is more the lie, the international deceit which most tellingly proved that fact is that when the Government of Yugoslavia took our Government, together with the other members of NATO who were bombing their towns and cities from 20,000 ft, to the World Court in the Hague in 1999, our case was presented by two lawyers.www.icj-cij.org/

Rt Hon John Morris of Aberavon QC MP AG, the then Attorney General and thereafter the infamous Prof Chris Greenwood QC of the LSE. Whilst John spent most of his time fawning before and nostalgising about the "World Court" he did claim in bland and unsubstantiated terms that the bombing of Yugoslavia was needed and "justified" in order to suppress and prevent further breaches of the humanitarian and human rights of the ethnic Albanian Kosovars. However, when Chris Greenwood was then wheeled on to present the actual "legal" case for the UK, not one word of argument in support of such a legal justification was offered. Instead Greenwood used every device of legal challenge imaginable to oust the jurisdiction of the Court to even sit and hear the case for Yugoslavia without the consent of the UK Government.

In the absence of a genuine multilateral conventional process for the development of a legal system for "humanitarian intervention" under the respected auspices of the UN, and especially the Security Council, togwether with the impartial and jurisprudential recourse to an ICHR, the case for a doctrine of so-called 'humanitarian intervention' which is ad hoc, is doomed to be nought else be a piece of international geopolitical spin doctoring, to provide a fig-leaf for the self evidently partial and one sided geopolitical ambitions of the American Empire and its Anglo-American Coalition of the Willing -(Paxis Americana!)

Of course, I and every other right thinking person in this World wants to see the fundamental human rights of Albanian Kosovars respected and protected, because their rights are my rights. That is why I want the same thing for Tibetan Chinese, Chechen Russians and Native Americans. But the means to that end matters, it matters a very great deal. Because without a genuinely world wide, impartial, objective and globally accountable "lawful" and 'legal' means to achieving those ends, then the fundamental human rights of everyone on this planet to live in peace is placed in permanent jeopardy. Yes Sion I think the means matter too, just ask the Palestinians!

Yours Robbie

Robbie Manson

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