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In recent weeks, the Trump administration has stepped up its efforts at “regime change” in Venezuela. In the past, Trump himself has even mentioned military action as a possible option, but the most recent moves appear more likely to be implemented, and some are already operational. According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the leading opposition contender for Venezuela’s upcoming presidential election, Henri Falcón, was told by US officials that the Trump administration would consider financial sanctions against him if he entered the presidential race. (The US State Department did not return requests for comment.) The US has backed the main opposition coalition decision to boycott the election.

1999 request for provisional measures by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the International Court of Justice Monday May 10, 1999 to Wednesday May 13, 1999

By Joan Russow PhD

Global  Compliance Research Project

ay 13, 1999• 

From the archives 

I attended the oral presentation in the ICJ in the cases concerning Legality of Use of Force brought by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia against 10 NATO states.

• I was impressed with the meticulous effort of the court to remove any perception of bias. The president of the Court was from the US and was required to step down specifically when the US case was being heard. He decided to step down for the whole hearings. [I note with dismay the lack of this principle within the International Criminal Tribunal on the Former Yugoslavia]

OBSERVATIONS:

- the merit of the questions of law surrounding the “Legality of the Use of Force” and in particular the violation of existing international law by the NATO intervention in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is sufficiently evident as to require respect for the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice

- the oral presentation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia included presentations by two highly respected specialists in International law including Ian Brownlie Chichele Professor of Public International Law who had previously argued successfully the case of Nicaragua vs the United States,  in1989 and Professor Eric Suy, the former Under-secretary-General and legal Counsel of the United Nations.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia asked the court for provisional measures to stop NATO bombing of its territory, on the grounds that NATO was engaging in the "illegal use of force". Yugoslavia argued that the NATO countries had violated their international obligations to do the following: not to resort to force against another state; not to intervene in the internal affairs of another state; to protect civilians and civil objects in time of war; to protect the environment; and to follow the ban on the use of prohibited weapons, such as those containing depleted uranium.

US President Donald Trump at the Davos Forum

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 2018 (IPS) - When the World Economic Forum (WEF) concluded in Davos, Switzerland last week, the outcome of the annual talk-fest was seemingly predictable—plenty of unrestrained platitudes but, surprisingly, less of the American populist, protectionist rhetoric.

By Joan Russow,Doctoral Candidate at the University of Victoria and co-founder of the Ecological Rights Association

(U.N. CHARTER OF MUTUAL INTERDEPENDENCE : DECLARATION FOR THE PREVENTION OF THE STATE OF ECOLOGICAL IRREVERSIBILITY. UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY AND ECOLOGICAL RIGHTS.)

Preamble:

•Whereas researchers from the international community recognize that there is enough scientific information available to indicate that the world is moving towards a state of ecological irreversibility

•Whereas researchers from the international community recognize that "multiple effects resulting from empirical observations are sufficient to justify and demand immediate action"

•Whereas researchers from the international community deem that society has enough information about the pending ecological disasters now that failure to act to address the pending disasters could be construed as [criminal] negligence

•Whereas researchers from the international community recognize that never have so many potential and actual ecological disasters been converging.  The ecological disasters are of "synergy complicity" synergistic proportions.

•Whereas researchers from the international community recognize that not only the actual  and potential impact of independent ecological disasters  warrants urgent attention but also the potential  accumulative and synergistic impact of the converging of these independent ecological disasters requires urgent action The potential accumulative and synergistic impact is   unpredictable, indeterminate and uncertain.  In the face of this  unpredictability, indeterminacy  and uncertainty, caution is deemed to be the only prudent action. " We are into fields where some of us as experts are all groping"  "no one can prove that we have not had significant warning. Caution is of  the essence"

•Whereas a significant segment of the international community  acknowledges that because of the state of urgency  new principles related to ecologically sound human behaviour must be established

•Whereas the international community has enough information about the pending state of ecological irreversibility and about the full complexity and interdependence of the deterioration of the ecosystem that failure to act could be construed as criminal negligence.

US president Donald Trump addressing the UN General Assembly in September 2017. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 18 2018 (IPS) - The continued erratic and outrageous comments by President Donald Trump – and his attempts to undermine the United Nations – are threatening to cause irreparable damage to the world body.

The signs are ominous: the US withdrawal from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); the threats against member states voting for anti-Israeli resolutions; slashing funds to a 69-year-old UN agency for Palestinian refugees; withdrawal from the 2016 Paris climate change agreement; threats to “totally destroy” a UN member state, North Korea; a US-inspired $285 million reduction in the UN’s regular budget for 2018-2019, and the insidious attempts to wreck the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement.

Responsibility to Protect Doctrine has no legitimate international status.

Joan Russow- Global Compliance Research Project  2012

In August 2005, at the UN, a straw vote was taken about the position, of different negotiating groups, vis a vis R2P. Non Aligned Movement (NAM) representing 116 member states said “NO,R2P is a reincarnation of humanitarian intervention”. Most developing states had reservations about a doctrine  sanctioning intervention in a Sovereign state. Yet, in 2011, R2P was assumed to be a UN well-supported doctrine and used to justify the invasion of LIbya.

nn

President Trump has won praise from Christian Zionists and many staunch supporters of Israel for declaring Jerusalem Israel’s capital, but critics say it only makes peace a more distant goal, reports Dennis J Bernstein.

By Dennis J Bernstein Interview with Francis Boyle

Protests have broken out across the Middle East against President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — and Western critics complain that the move adds one more brick in the wall against the prospects for peace.

Professor Francis Boyle, who teaches international law at the University of Illinois College of Law and served as a long-time legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), calls Trump’s announcement a “symbolic but still critical step in Israeli designs to control not just Jerusalem, but all of historic Palestine.” I spoke with Boyle on Dec. 6.

Graffiti on Israel’s wall in Bethlehem, West Bank. April 16, 2011. (Flickr Montecruz Foto)

Graffiti on Israel’s wall in Bethlehem, West Bank. April 16, 2011. (Flickr Montecruz Foto)

Dennis Bernstein: What was your initial response to the announcement by President Trump that the United States will be moving its embassy to Jerusalem?

Francis Boyle: It is always a sad day when you know that people are going to die.  It is a defeat for the human spirit.  In the last intifada [September 2000-February 2005], about 3,000 Palestinians died and 1,000 Israelis.  I don’t know what will happen this time.  The Palestinians have called for “three days of rage.”  Trump could very well set off a third intifada here.

Dennis Bernstein: Trump says this doesn’t get in the way of the US being an honest broker, that the vision is for peace.  From the legal perspective, how do you see this?

Francis Boyle: First of all, the United States has never been an honest broker here.  I was legal advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991, when they began, to the signing of Oslo.  It was very clear that the United States was always serving as Israel’s lawyer.  You had Miller, Ross, and Kurtzer, all three American Jews, two of them orthodox.

The Palestinians had to go hat-in-hand to present their case to American Jews.  Nothing has changed: We now have Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman, all three of whom are orthodox Jews.  The whole thing has been preposterous from the beginning.  We have always been in favor of Israel, using lies, threats and intimidation to force the Palestinians to accept whatever the Israelis are giving them.  That is international diplomacy for you, conducted by the United States, not only in the Middle East but all over the world.

By Dennis J Bernstein Interview with Francis Boyle

December 12, 2017

President Trump has won praise from Christian Zionists and many staunch supporters of Israel for declaring Jerusalem Israel’s capital, but critics say it only makes peace a more distant goal, reports Dennis J Bernstein.

Protests have broken out across the Middle East against President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — and Western critics complain that the move adds one more brick in the wall against the prospects for peace.

Professor Francis Boyle, who teaches international law at the University of Illinois College of Law and served as a long-time legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), calls Trump’s announcement a “symbolic but still critical step in Israeli designs to control not just Jerusalem, but all of historic Palestine.” I spoke with Boyle on Dec. 6.

Graffiti on Israel’s wall in Bethlehem, West Bank. April 16, 2011. (Flickr Montecruz Foto)

Dennis Bernstein: What was your initial response to the announcement by President Trump that the United States will be moving its embassy to Jerusalem?

Francis Boyle: It is always a sad day when you know that people are going to die.  It is a defeat for the human spirit.  In the last intifada [September 2000-February 2005], about 3,000 Palestinians died and 1,000 Israelis.  I don’t know what will happen this time.  The Palestinians have called for “three days of rage.”  Trump could very well set off a third intifada here.

Dennis Bernstein: Trump says this doesn’t get in the way of the US being an honest broker, that the vision is for peace.  From the legal perspective, how do you see this?

Francis Boyle: First of all, the United States has never been an honest broker here.  I was legal advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991, when they began, to the signing of Oslo.  It was very clear that the United States was always serving as Israel’s lawyer.  You had Miller, Ross, and Kurtzer, all three American Jews, two of them orthodox.

The Palestinians had to go hat-in-hand to present their case to American Jews.  Nothing has changed: We now have Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman, all three of whom are orthodox Jews.  The whole thing has been preposterous from the beginning.  We have always been in favor of Israel, using lies, threats and intimidation to force the Palestinians to accept whatever the Israelis are giving them.  That is international diplomacy for you, conducted by the United States, not only in the Middle East but all over the world.

Award Ceremony Speech

Presentation Speech by Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Oslo, 10 December 2017.

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Representatives of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017. On behalf of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, I take great pleasure in congratulating ICAN on this award.

ICAN is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons. ICAN's efforts have given new momentum to the process of abolishing nuclear weapons.

This year's Peace Prize follows in a tradition of awards that have honoured efforts against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and for nuclear disarmament. Twelve Peace Prizes have been awarded, in whole or in part, for this type of peace work. The first went to Philip Noel-Baker in 1959, and the most recent was awarded to Barack Obama in 2009. And now, this year, to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).