Peter Hart and Jim Naureckas have been writing great analyses here on the media’s utter lack of skepticism on the administration’s intelligence regarding Syria. I’d like to add that the media likewise have failed almost entirely to inform the public about the legality of a US unilateral intervention from the perspective of international law.
Barack Obama interviewed by George Stephanopoulos (photo: White House)
That Syria’s use of chemical weapons violated international law has been a major argument in favor of US intervention–and echoed in the media. Why did Obama draw the infamous “red line” in the first place? Because using chemical weapons is considered so abhorrent that the international community created a special treaty to outlaw them, and the administration argues that the US needs to make sure that law is upheld and enforced. As Obama proclaimed on ABC‘s This Week (9/13/13):
Keep in mind that my entire goal throughout this exercise is to make sure that what happened on August 21 does not happen again. That we do not see over a thousand people, over 400 children, subjected to poison gas. Something that is a violation of international law and is a violence of common decency.
Some in the media took up the same argument, like ABC‘s Christiane Amanpour (This Week, 9/1/13):
And, of course, the point is, though, your question, looking at these pictures and those that you just aired just now, is there any way the president cannot give the order? And I think many of the Western governments believe there’s no way. That this is not just ugly, it’s unacceptable under international law, and the use of weapons of mass destruction needs to be responded to.
But if international law is so important in evaluating Syria’s actions, then shouldn’t it be equally important in evaluating the proposed US response? According to the UN Charter–which takes legal precedence over all other international treaties–only the Security Council can authorize the use of military force, except in the case of self-defense. In other words, without Security Council authorization, US military action against Syria would be illegal under international law.
(Note that Syria never signed the treaty banning the use of chemical weapons, which means that technically it can’t be in violation of it–but a strong argument can be made that its actions violate other treaties to which it is a signatory.)
To hear US media tell it, though, only some international law matters.
In fact, the question of whether US military action would be legal is rarely raised. In a New York Times article headlined “The Basics of the Debate” (9/11/13), international law wasn’t mentioned. In ABC‘s interview with Obama, George Stephanopoulos didn’t ask about the legality of US military action. Nor did Amanpour in her report.
In the only example I could find of a network journalist raising the point, PBS‘s Margaret Warner (9/2/13) reported that people in the Arab League and the Egyptian government emphasized to her that “the only legal basis for military action is under either the UN charter of self-defense or by a vote of the Security Council.”
Vladimir Putin’s attempt to bring up international law were taken as an insult. (cc photo: WEF/Sebastian Derungs)
When Putin made the illegality of military action the centerpiece of his Times op-ed (9/12/13), it prompted very little discussion of the point, with reaction focusing instead on how “insulted” US politicians felt by the piece (Politico, 9/12/13). “I almost wanted to vomit,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) told CNN (9/11/13) was his reaction to Putin’s comments.
There have been some scattered op-eds that have seriously discussed this issue of international law, including two in the Times. On August 28, under the headline “Bomb Syria, Even If It Is Illegal,” political scientist Ian Hurd laid out a case that “Mr. Obama and allied leaders should declare that international law has evolved and that they don’t need Security Council approval to intervene in Syria.”
And in a September 4 column, Yale law professors Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro argued:
If the United States begins an attack without Security Council authorization, it will flout the most fundamental international rule of all–the prohibition on the use of military force, for anything but self-defense, in the absence of Security Council approval. This rule may be even more important to the world’s security–and America’s–than the ban on the use of chemical weapons.
These are both important contributions to a debate this country should be having, one that’s very much happening elsewhere in the world–but US media for the most part aren’t joining the conversation.
What is even more thoroughly suppressed in the U.S., so much so that even FAIR and the Yale Law professors who wrote that NY Times column seem unaware, is that the U.N. Charter bans the *threat* of military force, not just its use, and does so in the same sentence, making it a trick to completely ignore one while citing the other.
U.N. Charter, Article 2.4: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
Obama and Kerry have been repeatedly, and explicitly, boasting about what they have achieved with the “threat” of force against Syria. I suppose even FAIR is uncomfortable with pointing out that the Obama administration has already, not just potentially, “flout[ed] the most fundamental international rule of all” with respect to Syria.
Yes, where is the discussion of international law and Syria? There are better alternatives to unilateral aggression by the United States. President Obama could propose the United Nations:
1. Evacuate the city of Damascus where Bashar al-Assad lives in the Presidential Palace.
2. Immediately relocate the population to protect the Syrian people from further harm.
3. Blockade Damascus to contain Assad and his supporters until they run out of supplies.
Eventually Assad will surrender or be captured and brought to justice under international law.
The Rome Statute applies because Syrian national systems have totally failed. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court may open an investigation of Assad on referral by the United Nations Security Counsel, or by a Pre-Trial Chamber. [The United States cannot make a referral because we have not ratified the Rome Statute]. Then Assad may be prosecuted for international crimes, and convicted if the evidence proves his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The media can help educate people about the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court. The United States signed but did not ratify the Rome Statute. President Obama should urge congress to ratify the Rome Statute.
As demonstrated so succinctly by David G, the US is already in violation of the very international law it is using as an excuse to further its imperialist agenda. This is not only true vis-à-vis Syria, but also with respect to Iran (with Israel being an accomplice in this violation).
Furthermore, the US is in violation of so many international laws such as the use of drones to carry out extra-judicial assassinations, imprisonment of people without charge and trial, continuing to develop nuclear weapons against NPT, use of depleted Uranium and white Phosphorus, attacking Iraq and Afghanistan without UN authorization. Moreover, the US has and continues to try to overthrow democratically elected regimes and is keeping so many rogue regimes (e.g. Saudi Arabia and Israel) in power just because it serves its “interests” (more accurately the interests of the 0.1%). So the US has no legal or moral ground to stand on. Hypocrisy galore!
Also, who elected the US as the sheriff of the world? What god-given exceptionalist right does the US have to do as it pleases? Those on the left who propose for the UN to do something about Syria give away their latent imperialist way of thinking. Because if we are to punish/stop Syria, then we should punish/stop the US, punish/stop Israel, and punish/stop Saudi Arabia, etc. by the same means.
Finally, the UN, with a handful of historically imperialist and rogue countries having veto power, has no legitimacy in my eyes, let alone its selective indignation vis-à-vis illegal and immoral atrocities committed by powerful nations e.g. US attack of Afghanistan and Iraq without legal justification, Israel’s 2008 massacre at Gaza (which included use of chemical weapons, etc.). Hypocrisy galore!
What about U.S. (lack of) adherence to ‘international law’ banning chemical weapons? Where’s the media discussion of that?
Then we can consider all the other treaties the U.S. hasn’t signed, and the ones it has signed that it ignores when convenient.
If there were a public-minded media, of course …
Where is FAIR’s apology for claiming that the Houla massacre of last year was perpetrated by the rebels when in fact all the evidence, including an HRW report, suggested otherwise?
But if international law is so important in evaluating Syria’s actions, then shouldn’t it be equally important in evaluating the proposed US response?
Logical consistency is never an issue when concocting arguments for launching military campaigns.
The US have never take care of interenational law. What amazes me is that President Obama has a degree in law, he had received (after 10 months in office) the Nobel Peace and likes to indicate how the other countries must obey international law principles, but the US no necessarily. That is nothing new, it have been always like that.
From the moral standpoint, would the President rather see thousands of civilians killed by his missiles and by the weapons he is providing the so-called rebels, almost half of which are said to be mercenaries? Yet another country with assets desired by multinational corporations has had its leader demonized (even if elected) providing a reason for the self-proclaimed world’s police to invade or find and aid “rebels” to destroy said nation by declaring all who protest to be “insurgents” (even if woman and children)–not to mention the “collateral damage” from drone bombing specified victims even in countries where no war has been declared. A lot of blood on this President’s hands and all taxpayers now accessories to murder. Where’s your “vomit” for that, Sen. Menendez?
Thank God President Obama didn’t fall for netyanhu’s cartoon red line drawing!
Where is FAIR’s apology for perpetuating pro-Assad propaganda by linking to the laughably absurd Mint Press article that has now been refuted by its own alleged author?
http://brown-moses.blogspot.com/2013/09/statement-by-dale-gavlak-on-mint-press.html
I have heard numerous times the two conditions for waging war legally, namely, 1) actual self defense or 2) UN approval. Yet thanks to our lap dog news media, I’m sure 90% of the voters don’t know this basic fact.
Much is made of our founding fathers restricting the right to vote to propertied men. I can’t help but think that in those days there might have been good reason for this: they were usually better educated.
Nonetheless, let the historic record show again and again that without a truly free press and a free flow and discussion of factual information, any show of democracy is a pure farce.
where is the prosecution of war criminals? time for talk is over.
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