Actively Complying with the Genocide Convention
A lawyer, Dimitri Lascaris, has seen beyond that which Murray and Escobar have described as a failure to activate the Genocide Convention.
Published: 2023-11-17
NB: The author wishes to thank Mr. Lascaris for his legal analysis and the clarity of his two part article “Israel, America’s Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier, is Sinking”. It lead directly to this analysis.
Updated 2023-12-21: Answar Allah (Houthis) are now attacking any cargo shipping destined for Israel.
Update 2024-01-28: This article made a grave error by ommision. There is a third nation represented by a political party with an armed wing which was at the time of the publication of this article and is still, as of the date of this update, and has actively undertaken to prevent and punish the crime of genocide being committed by the state of Israel. The state is that of Palestine, as represented by the politcal party Hamas. A contrite apology for this grave ommision was published in The ICJ Could Not Order A General Ceasefire. It Ordered Israel To Cease Fire on the date of this update.
Introduction
The Genocide Convention [GC] is tiny. Its core is covered in the first three articles which amount to just over a page.
Article I
Who has ratified or signed on to the GC?
Israel, US, [two 'interested parties' at the moment], Germany, France, Italy, Spain [completes all of the major EU states], UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand [completes the 5-EYES], Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, [completes all neighbours of Israel, Yemen (we'll get to that), and 130 other states.
Activating versus Embracing the Convention
Following Craig Murray's article in which he laments that no state has activated the convention, Pepe Escobar instead uses 'invoke' to note that no international legal aspect of the convention has been engaged by its parties:
Several nations should have by now invoked the Genocide Convention [...]. No geopolitical actor has dared thus far.
[Pepe Escobar]
It is almost unknown for this newsletter to pick a bone with either of these informed analysts. Mr. Murray quotes Articles 8 and 9 (VIII and IX) of the convention which outline the legal remedies specified in the convention. Mr. Escobar is also following this approach.
However, it is to Article 1 which Dimitri Lascaris, a Canadian lawyer, refers when he refers in the first part of his interview with Regis Tremblay. The interview is based upon a two part article which he published and has been combined and republished by this newsletter. Mr. Lascaris informs the listeners that:
Article I, of the Genocide Convention, obliges all parties to take steps, active positive steps to prevent genocide.
Lascaris goes on to quote a series of senior Israeli officials expressing the intent which the GC requires for a genocide to be legally identified. He concludes that it is not just he but many international legal experts who hold the opinion that what is happening in Gaza is a textbook, "slam dunk" case of genocide.
Other include including a panel of 60 of the world's leading international jurists also conclude the textbook nature of the genocide being enacted by the IDF at the explicit instruction of Israel’s political leadership.
[A little annotation of Article II.]
So, a genocide is in operation and no nation state has utilized Articles 8 or 9. But, article 1 as Lascaris notes obliges signatories to "take active steps" to "prevent [the] genocide".
Preventing, halting, distracting …
Which nations have taken some active steps? The most aware would be the Republic of South Africa, which has recent, direct experience in dealing with apartheid and the aspects of genocide which the practice entails. Their response was not only to sever diplomatic relations with Israel to but to board up Israel's embassy, marking it as an abandoned building.
The total list of nations to sever diplomatic relations, as of Oct 16th as reported by Axios, include at least the following, :
Bahrain, Belize, Bolivia, Chad, Chile, Columbia, Honduras, Jordan, Turkey, South Africa.
[from the Axios article.]
Every single one of these nations should receive international praise for actually embracing the convention. Not only that, why the hell has the "Office on Genocide Convention and the Responsibility to Protect [UN]" not issued a statement celebrating that nations are actually doing what they said they would? This interesting question will be addressed in a follow up article which should address the topic with predictably familiarity to readers of this newsletter.
There are 2 nations which are doing even more than severing diplomatic relations.
A Discussion Between an Empire Loyalist and Reality
Loyalist: Really?
Yes. You just dont hear about them as nations. But, they are active political parties in the nations in which they reside. It is from their soil which they have attacked the party committing the genocide, the IDF.
Loyalist: Who?
Yemen and Lebanon.
Loyalist: What?!
Yemen and Lebanon, otherwise referred to as "the Houtis" and "Hezbollah".
Loyalist: But they are not the armed forces of those nations.
Whoa Nellie!!
Are you telling me that it is important to you that they wear some specific uniform before they are allowed to actively try to stop a genocide? That is one hell of a slippery slope you are on.
Let me ask you, have people who you recognize as the political leadership of these nations declared these military attacks on Israel as illegal? Are they going after these forces for attacking Israel because of the genocide? No? So, these two states are permitting these political parties with a military arm to do what they have done. This is tacit support.
How about we ask that question the other way. If you ran a survey in Lebanon and Yemen, what degree of public support would one expect to find from the peoples of those nations for these attacks on Israel? 70%, 80%, 90% or more?
Thus, these are the two nations with the most compliance towards the first convention on human rights even if this aggressive opposition to genocide has to be expressed tacitly rather than explicitly.
Yes, they are complying with and actively supporting the first human rights treaty:
The Genocide Convention was the first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948 and signified the international community’s commitment to ‘never again’ after the atrocities committed during the Second World War.
Office on Genocide Convention and the Responsibility to Protect, UN.
Complicity or Active Prevention
You may ask who is stopping or attempting to stop the use of missiles and drones to force the IDF to do otherwise than pursuing their genocide? This would reveal the parties to the genocide, would it not? It would reveal those either performing the genocide or displaying (quoting Article III here) "(e) complicity in genocide".
They are Israel and the US.
They are being opposed by Lebanon and Yemen and to a lesser but no less significant degree by Bahrain, Belize, Bolivia, Chad, Chile, Columbia, Honduras, Jordan, Turkey, South Africa.
Now talk to me about David and Goliath.
One could ask “Who is sitting on the fence in the face of a genocide?” To what degree is fence sitting compolicity?
Solidarity
If you are going to attend a protest in support of the Palestinian people being genocided by Israel on the December 9th, the UN's international day against Genocide, or any other day, please consider carrying a Yemeni or Lebanese flag as you walk beside others carrying a Palestinian flag.
Show your solidarity both with the victims and those who are doing everything they can, most actively resisting the genocide in compliance with their international obligations.
If you are Yemeni or Lebanese, the world is proud of what your people and nations are doing.
Update 2023-12-21
Ansar Allah (Houthis) have generalized their attack on shipping in the Red Sea to any cargo vessel bound for Israel. The US is attempting to form yet another “coalition of the willing” for the benefit of Israel to stop these attacks. The attacks are the Houthis giving Israel a taste of their own medicine, the blockade on Gaza imposed for over 15 years.
Australia and other nations would be well advised by history to keep away from US coalitions in southwest Asia. Nothing good will come of it.
An alternative approach is to believe the Ansar Allah that when a permanent ceasefire is achieved in Gaza that the attacks will stop. Ansar Allah are applying effective geoeconomic political pressure on both Israel and the US. This, in turn, is yet more compliance with the GC.
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Sources
Israel, America’s ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’, is sinking, Dimitry Lascaris, YesXorNo, 2023-11-27
The Genocide Convention: International Law, an excerpt from Lascaris and Tremblay, YesXorNo, 2023-11-27
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, UN
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [technically a list of the parties to the Genocide Convention], UN, STATUS AS AT : 26-11-2023 (10:15:43 EDT)
Ratification of the Genocide Convention, Office on Genocide Convention and the Responsibility to Protect [UN], 2019-03-17 (the page) & 2020-09-23 (the logo with R2P) [archive.org]
Activating the Genocide Convention, Craig Murray, Craig Murray, 2023-11-13
Gaza: A Pause Before the Storm, Pepe Escobar, Unz Review, 2023-11-23
Which countries have withdrawn diplomats over Israel's actions in Gaza, Ivana Saric & Rahul Mukherjee, Axios, 2023-11-16
Responsibility to Protect: A Short History, Charles Homans, Foreign Policy, 2011-10-11
The Rise and Fall of the Responsibility to Protect, no author, "World 101: Understanding the International System", Council on Forgeign Relations [CFR],
The Responsibility to Protect: A Background Briefing, no author, Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, 2021-01-14
The Israeli - Palestinian conflict: key events from the 1940s, Radio National, ABC, 2023-11-25
Video
Dimitri Lascaris - Israel, America's Unsinkable Aircraft Carried [Carrier, typo], Tremblay interviews Lascaris, Dateline News & Conversation, 2023-11-24
Culture
Tracy Chapman - Talkin' About A Revolution (Official Music Video), from her 1988 self-titled debut album, Tracy Chapman, uploaded 2015-11-13
Copyleft: CC0
