UN experts warn international order on a knife’s edge

GENEVA (18 September 2024) – Over 50 days since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its historic Advisory Opinion, declaring that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful, UN experts* are warning that the edifice of international law stands upon a knife’s edge, with most States failing to take meaningful steps to comply with their international obligations reaffirmed in the ruling. Offering specific action points for States that would ensure compliance with the ICJ Opinion and international law, a group of experts issued the following statement:

“Over 50 days have passed since the International Court of Justice issued a landmark Advisory Opinion. The ICJ declared Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, encompassing the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, as unlawful under international law and emphasised that Israel’s actions amount to annexation. The Opinion noted that Israel’s actions include forcible transfer, racial discrimination and segregation or apartheid, and a violation of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Particularly alarming is the impact of these violations on generations of Palestinian children, and the disproportionate effects on women, persons with disabilities, and older persons.

The Court has reaffirmed that the realisation of self-determination cannot be left to bilateral negotiations among two unequal and asymmetrical parties – the occupier and the occupied. It called for Israel to immediately cease its illegal settlement activities and withdraw from these areas as swiftly as possible. More importantly, the Court provided unequivocal directions concerning the responsibilities of States and international organisations, with regard to Israel’s unlawful occupation.

Despite these adamant directions, States remain paralysed in the face of the seismic shift represented by the Court’s ruling and appear unwilling or unable to take the necessary steps to meet their obligations.

Devastating attacks on Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory show that by continuing to turn a blind eye to the horrific plight of the Palestinian people, the international community is furthering genocidal violence.
[..}

more at https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2024/09/un-experts-warn-international-order-knifes-edge-urge-states-comply-icj-advisory

hey HK

I think you forgot half a pair of "quotation marks" ?

"'... determined to reverse the progress
we’ve made in Congress.' The most charitable . . . "

feel free to
delete this
comment

FFS Uncommitted. Please don't be purity trolls. Harris may not be perfect for you, but she's a hell of a lot better than Trump.

Sigh.

The uncommitted were always going to vote Biden/Harris or whomever The Party chose to put forward as candidate.
Everyone at DNC HQ knew this which is why no one paid any attention to them.

I find the story of the fake X account parody of Tanya Woo that since been deleted and the "fun over it" randomizing and depressing.

averagebob, I find it sadly ironic: the Palestinian cases are furthered by UN Resolutions, yet
their ruling leadership refuses to comply with UN Resolution181 creating the State of Israel.
I am not forgiving anything that either side has done, nor making excuses for their behavior.
I am just working out the logic: one Authority does all your heavy lifting and simultaneously
ignoring that Authority's actions.
Just saying.

@3

while not
Incorrect this
is yet again Another
plea for RCV: 'uncommitted'
Top Choice; Kamala Harris 2nd Choice

sure
it Is a
protest vote

but
it beats
theFuckoutta
Just Not Voting
which is too quite
Possibly a vote for donold

a vote to
Ensure a 1,000
year right-wing Reich.

"love too dunk on asian lady for the elon musk website"

@1, How is that piece of paper in the Hague helping Gazans? How many bullets, mortars, missiles, artillery shells, and bombs has that piece of paper caught? How effective has it been in silencing the guns?

@1 You'd (maybe) have a stronger case against Israel if you cited the arguments of these special procedures instead of just their credentials. I don't doubt their prestigious degrees and distinguished appointments...I'm just not very impressed by them. I'd be more persuaded by a strong argument from an anonymous internet commenter than a conclusory argument from a panel of UN special procedures. They may be fancy lawyers with fancy titles, but even they don't get to skip the part where they actually, you know, make an argument.

In November there are only two candidates that matter. No third party candidate can get enough votes to stop Trump, so a vote for any ticket other than Harris/Walz helps Trump. Harris isn't perfect, but Trump would simply tell Natanyahu to finish the job quickly, so the world can move on, and he and Jarrod can build their resorts on the beach. Those who support Moscow Jill are either idiots, or worse.

"The suspect pulled out a knife, and the cops fired 38 times, striking a cop, critically injuring the suspect, grazing one bystander, and shooting another bystander in the head."

Other than the suspect pulling the knife, all of that is perfectly lawful and permissible, if not desirable, under the democratic rules that the people of New York have caused to be written into law. It would be just as lawful had that man pulled a knife on anyone else on that platform and those people had fired with the same results as the cops.

The critically injured knife wielder, as a matter of law, not the persons who fired the bullets, gets any assault or homicide charges from this incident.

It would also be lawful in Washington State. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/jury-finds-gunman-not-guilty-in-downtown-seattle-shooting-that-killed-1-injured-6/

If commenters here don't like that outcome, then perhaps they need to run an initiative that changes the democratically enacted rules of the road and puts all their fellow citizens on notice that there is a different standard going forward, assuming it passes, rather than insist that the people who fired the shots be held accountable under a non-democratic standard that has not yet been placed into law and may never be placed into law.

nyt:

‘Uncommitted’
Group Says It Won’t
Endorse Harris Over Gaza Concerns

As the vice president was set to travel on Thursday to Michigan, home to many Muslim and Arab Americans, a leading group protesting U.S. support of Israel said she had not done enough to win its backing.

and

Hezbollah Leader
Vows ‘Retribution Will
Come’ After 2 Days of Attacks

Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, blamed Israel for the explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies that killed at least 37 people and injured thousands in Lebanon. Israeli planes flew over Beirut as he spoke, in an apparent show of might.

more, prophetically
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/19/world/israel-hezbollah-gaza-hamas

not to Worry:
this shit’ll likely Sort
itself out Plenty soon enough

For the record, Melissa Chaudhry and Uncommitted would both like to make it clear that the are not the "Paid Spoiler" (i.e. RFK) type of Democratic Party saboteurs, but remain firmly in the "Unpaid Useful Idiot" category. Yes, they are intent on fucking things up for everybody, but no they do not do this for personal profit -- unless you count likes and retweets as profit.

Seattle claims to be progressive, but is it?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-private-school-enrollment-spikes-ranks-no-2-among-big-cities/

@15 It would help if the school district was interested in providing programs that parents and students want. The demise of advanced learning and the coming demise of option schools will drive more families private.

If pople in swing states are stupid enough to vote "uncommitted" or Stein or whatever in the general, and claim they're doing so in support of Palestinians, I've a pretty difficult time believing they could have been counted upon to vote dem regardless. I feel like the overwhelming majority of them are just insecure attention whores who need to feel special, and this cause provides them a perfectly viable platform for doing that and calling attention to themselves. There may even be polling to suggest otherwise (that is to say that they'd vote Harris if she came around on Palestine) but if one of these morons is responding to a poll, why wouldn't they provide the most provocative and frustrating answer? That attention whore-y provocation is precisely the point of their taking such a "bold" stance in the first place.

@12: "The critically injured knife wielder, as a matter of law, not the persons who fired the bullets, gets any assault or homicide charges from this incident."

I wouldn't be quite so confident in that reading of the law if I were you. Here in Washington, if a justified self-defensive shooting of a second party also strikes and kills an innocent third party, the accidental shooting of the innocent third party may indeed be a crime. The standard is criminal negligence. RCW 9A.16.030.

The law on this point accords with what I hope would be our ordinary moral instinct, which is: even if someone is attacking you and you have to shoot them, you don't get to fire wildly and irresponsibly all over the place, striking all kinds of innocent people in the process. If you do, then you, too, are the bad guy. You have to be careful with your shooting, even when you're shooting an attacker. I doubt the law in New York is much different on this point.

So...38 shots to take down a knife-wielder, striking in the process not only the knife-wielder but also a fellow police officer, plus two separate bystanders, one of whom died? Well, if I were the cops, I might be a little worried about that pesky ol' criminal negligence standard...

@13: Nasrallah would promise retribution against a sunny day.

He knows Hezbollah has gotten their ass kicked 3x in the last month: pagers, walkie-talkies, and the Syrian missile factory raid.

“The most charitable read is that Smith really meant those as two separate thoughts—Chaudhry wants to unseat him and, in other races, rich Republicans are fighting for majority in Congress. But a quick read does make it look like he’s up against a MAGA candidate,”

I’m always amused when a paid writer makes an argument against a “charitable” reading, and instead advocates for “quick” reading.

We all know the Stranger is just barrel-scraping here, ahead of Smith’s expected ritual landslide victory over yet another of the Stranger’s no-hope candidates, but admonishing readers for paying too much attention (!) could be read (ha!) as a subtle hint about both the Stranger’s estimate of its readers, and the Stranger’s estimate of its writing.

I seriously doubt Harris has any concern about the "uncommitted" movement failing to endorse her. Now the fact that the Teamsters will not issue an endorsement because their members overwhelming preferred Trump is a lot more eye opening.

The amount of ink TS is spilling over this social housing plan is starting to border on inane. Voters are going to get to have their say on this initiative and rather than allowing activists to write their own ticket the way the previous council used to do this council took some time to create an alternative. You can disagree with that choice but voters will get the final say and I think more options for something like this is better.

From David Sedaris: On undecided voters... "To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with their food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. 'Can I interest you in the chicken?' They asks. 'Or would you prefer the platter of shit with broken glass in it?'
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

@16, Agree.

Progressive theology says act for the greater good, not what is best for your child and family.

Here is a novel idea. Public schools are made better when they have to compete, constantly having to innovate in order to retain and help parents have their kid achieve their highest potential. Society is best off when kids do.

When a job is a monopoly entitlement to a particular labor group, innovation suffers. Excellence dulls. That is not an anti-union statement, just a recognition that if the labor group, and/or their management (in this case) isn't responsive, people vote with their feet.

P.S. Fuck Reichert.

@19: “Nasrallah would promise retribution against a sunny day.”

I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve recently been told a wider war is coming: via expansion of the Hamas-IDF war, via expansion of the tit-for-tat Israeli-Iran actions, and now via (Israel’s?) literal crippling of Hezbollah. It’s like everyone’s been staying up way too late, reading “The Late Great Planet Earth,” and blearily taking it all very, very seriously.

@25

so
bibi
Won't
do Anything
that might set off
WWIII, Wormtongue?

remember: when his little War
on Palestinians's Over so
Too's his keep Outta
Prison gambit.

your smug Confidence
is not that Much
of a Comfort.

btw
what Better
beginning for an
Invasion than crippling
the Other Side's communications?

nutnyahoo's
got Motivations.

@26: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny

@18, And yet Toliver was acquitted, because he was firing over his shoulder at the person who had first gone for a weapon (the Aggressor) as he ran. All of the bullets fired that injured and killed came from Toliver and his Associate, not the Aggressor.

Here is another case from Washington. https://apnews.com/article/donald-sahota-officer-killed-murder-conviction-washington-bd62554caa33eb00b0d8805a874323df

Jonathan Feller, A Deputy, in the seconds or milliseconds he was limited to in the dark to evaluate the scene, mistook the suspect for the victim and fired and killed the victim (an off-duty officer at his own home, from another department).

Don't confuse negligence with criminal negligence. The former is quite common and is the realm of civil law (e.g. wrongful death when a motorist kills a pedestrian without DUI). The latter requires a demonstration of willfullness. I.e. I know there is a high probability that my negligent act will result in harm, but I choose to continue to engage in that act or omission. It has the higher burden of proof of "beyond a reasonable doubt" as opposed to just "more likely than unlikely" in a civil case.

RCW 9A.16.030 is the correct citation. You should also consider Washington Pattern Jury Instructions that are elected State Supreme Court requires trial courts to use in such cases.

"WPIC 17.04 Lawful Force—Actual Danger Not Necessary

A person is entitled to act on appearances in defending [himself] [herself] [another], if [he] [she] believes in good faith and on reasonable grounds that [he] [she] [another] is in actual danger of injury, although it afterwards might develop that the person was mistaken as to the extent of the danger. Actual danger is not necessary for the use of force to be lawful."

"WPIC 15.01 Excusable Homicide—Definition

It is a defense to a charge of [murder] [manslaughter] that the homicide was excusable as defined in this instruction.
Homicide is excusable when committed by accident or misfortune in doing any lawful act by lawful means, without criminal negligence, or without any unlawful intent.

The State has the burden of proving the absence of excuse beyond a reasonable doubt. If you find that the State has not proved the absence of this defense beyond a reasonable doubt, it will be your duty to return a verdict of not guilty."

You can find the applicable WPIC in Chapters 15 and 16, as well as case citations to support each. Go down the rabbit hole as far as you want. The included cites ones are just a sample of applicable WPIC. Worth a look: https://govt.westlaw.com/wcrji/Browse/Home/Washington/WashingtonPatternJuryInstructionsCivilCriminal/WashingtonPatternJuryInstructionsCriminal?guid=I6e2b6c50a9e711da978f9558dabefcda&originationContext=documenttoc&transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)

Lastly, some states, like California, use common law doctrine of transferred intent. That has not been tested in Washington, since the statute you cite largely makes it unnecessary, but it could be. If one is immune from a murder charge because they only intended to legally defend themselves from the attacker, that transfers to bystanders. It works in reverse as well. If you unlawfully intended to shoot someone, but hit bystanders that weren't the intended target, your intent for the target transfers to the bystanders. It's rooted in the legal doctrine of Mens re (latin, "the guilty mind") The guilty mind is what separates criminal from civil, Criminal Negligence from Negligence.

@27: Israel has an immediate goal of returning to their homes Israeli citizens, who’ve had to flee northern Israeli towns, due to Hezbollah’s cross-border terror attacks upon their homes. This crippling of Hezbollah, via the literal crippling of Hezbollah’s terrorist operatives, would indeed support that goal perfectly. Thus, a narrowing of Israel’s war with Hezbollah could have been the motivation for this literal crippling of Hezbollah — if Israel did actually do it, of course.

@29: Good grief, buddy, I think I have to revoke your Internet Lawyer license. You've mis-stated the level of culpability required for a finding of criminal negligence, which is what the cops who shot the knife-wielder plus three other people will be facing.

According to your erroneous standard, criminal negligence: "requires a demonstration of willfullness. I.e. I know there is a high probability that my negligent act will result in harm, but I choose to continue to engage in that act or omission."

Here is actual standard for criminal negligence: "A person is criminally negligent or acts with criminal negligence when he or she fails to be aware of a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his or her failure to be aware of such substantial risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation ... When a statute provides that criminal negligence suffices to establish an element of an offense, such element also is established if a person acts intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly." RCW 9A.08.010.

So you are correct that a willfully harmful act can be used to establish criminal negligence, but you've missed the much more important point that criminal negligence ALSO exists when the person grossly fails to take the steps that a reasonable person would take to avoid the harmful act in the first place.

At what point in the 38-shot fusillade, with multiple innocent bystanders dropping with gunshot wounds, does a reasonable police officer begin to think, "Hmm, maybe I ought not to be shooting quite this many innocent bystanders in my quest to stop Mr. Knifey over there?"

@6 What an odd comment. How is it the Palestinians "refuse to comply with UN Resolution 181 creating the State of Israel"? When I pick up any map, look at it right side up, turn it upside down, look at it back to front, what I see is a Jewish state: Israel. Since there is a state of Israel, what exactly are the Palestinians and/or their leaders not "complying with?"

What you have stated is an error of basic logic, but the other big hole in your argument is UN Resolution 181 also called for the creation of an Arab state: Palestine. Its the state of Palestine that was never created, and it isn't the Palestinians who are objecting to its creation. Now I do not wish to point out if you are differently abled, but if you have hands you perfectly have the ability to pick up any of several Israeli newspapers and read how many Israelis openly and loudly declare there is no way in hell Israel will allow a Palestinian state, and that includes their Prime Minister.

Now maybe you objection is the Palestinians didn't accept the Nabka with good enough natures and that means they aren't "complying with the creation of Israel," or something else as equally stupid, but that in no way means you have a point.

@29: And just to correct you on the facts in the Tolliver case...he pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter for killing an innocent bystander.

https://www.king5.com/article/news/crime/man-pleads-guilty-deadly-2020-mass-shooting-downtown-seattle/281-a08c7587-dc26-403c-a908-a5de99b94116

Lil Jon can kick Sportacus' ass any day. King of Lazy Town!

@32: Just to be fair, the Palestinians have always been clear that they do, in fact, reject UN Resolution 181. However, the PLO/PA has acceded to other, subsequent UN resolutions on the same subject matter, so it's a moot point, and I agree with you that @6's fixation on Resolution 181 specifically is, as you put it, "odd."

But if @6's broader point is that a substantial minority of Palestinians deny Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and pursue Israel's elimination through warfare, then, yeah, that's kind of a big sticking point here in the ol' peace process.

@31, "fails to be aware ... AND ... "

Fails to be aware = Act of the will. Willfull. A choice.

And = plus(+)

So you need both elements.

In ordinary negligence you only need the latter element of, "deviation from a standard of care ..." You don't have to choose to stick your head in the sand or continue with intentional recklessness.

Then you have the differences in standard of proof. "Proof beyond a reasonable doubt ..." is a high standard required for a criminal negligence. Regular negligence requires mere 50% + some fraction of evidence and could be found in a 1/2 dozen places walking through your living room, where if a guest got injured you'd be on the hook, but not criminally chargeable.

It's why charges of criminal negligence are rare. It exists in a very narrow, nebulous window between murder and wrongful death that is hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

@6 Palestinian Arabs were against the partition of Palestine that was decided against their will by the UN. The UN commission ignored its own charter regarding the right of people to self-determination and gave a majority of the land (~55%) to a minority of Jews (~30% of the population in 47, many of whom were immigrants) to form a Jewish state. I doubt that today's UN, i.e. not any longer under the control of the West and the colonial powers, would do something like the 1947 partition again, but as a result we certainly have a mess.

@25: that was also my reaction - after having half their young members blinded or otherwise maimed in the last 2 days, they don't have much appetite (or capacity) for a ground war. they're also going to run low on missiles.

but they have to rattle those rhetorical sabres.

@36: sorry, but you’re reading words into the criminal negligence statute that aren’t there. The magic words in the statute are “gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise.”

No need to be willful or reckless. Carelessness will do. And I know this because the statute specifically states - in language that I quoted for you, my dude - that recklessness, knowledge, or intent can all serve as substitutes to establish criminal negligence. Substitutes!

Contrary to your understanding, recklessness is sufficient but not necessary to establish criminal negligence. Criminal negligence has a lower bar than recklessness.

@37: Well, the Palestinian Arabs could have participated in the negotiations which created the UN's Partition plan, but they chose to boycott those negotiations. Instead, they chose war, in an attempt to "push the Jews into the sea" -- some of whom had been living on that land for generations.

The Palestinian Arabs chose war, which means they chose the consequences of war, one of which meant the Arab State the UN had planned has never existed. So, thanks to their boycott of the negotiations, and their subsequent loss of the war they freely chose to start instead, those Palestinian Arabs have existed in stateless limbo for over 75 years. (The Palestinian Arabs who did not choose war have been living peacefully in Israel for that whole time; l they are now known as Arab Israelis.)

There might be a lesson in there somewhere about negotiations, peace, war, etc., but you're free to see it solely as a problem with the UN, a problem so seriously bad, it could not have ever possibly deserved any response other than full-scale war. (How'd that work out, again?)

@40 Palestinian Arabs rebelled against the British occupier and the immigration of Jews (and purchase of land) starting in the 1930's. They later boycotted the partition commission that they labelled pro-Zionist, which isn't hard to believe. Palestinian Arabs had no incentive to give credibility to a process they believed was rigged against their right to self-determination. Part of the Zionist movement also considered partition as a first step toward a greater Israel that would include all of Palestine .... Some Palestinian Arabs chose war like some immigrant Jews chose terrorism:

"The Irgun was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the older and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah (Hebrew: Hebrew: הגנה, Defence).[1] The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun

Your unsurprising denial of the Nakba is duly noted:

"The Nakba ( 'the catastrophe') is the ethnic cleansing[2] of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.[3] The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war in Mandatory Palestine as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel.[4] As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.[5][6]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba#Long-term_implications_and_%22ongoing_Nakba%22

Israeli Arabs are those Palestinians that avoided the Nakba; now they are also called second class citizens like being an Arab in a Jewish state should tell you.

Israel’s Second-Class Citizens
Arabs in Israel and the Struggle for Equal Rights
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2016-06-08/israel-s-second-class-citizens

There is indeed a lesson about not trusting colonizers.

"Native Americans chose war. See how it served them. There may be a lesson in there"

@41: “Palestinian Arabs rebelled against the British occupier and the immigration of Jews (and purchase of land) starting in the 1930's.”

Thanks for noting the Palestinian Arabs’ violent intransigence predates the UN, which makes blaming the current situation entirely upon the UN completely impossible. Uh, thanks?

Meanwhile, your unsurprising omission of the illegal invasion of the territory by six Arab armies has been noted. Again, responsibility for the effects of war rests upon those entities which choose war.

@42: What has your spectacularly appalling ignorance of American history to do with the topic of Palestine?

“From 1778 to 1871, the United States government entered into more than 500 treaties with the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated in some way or outright broken by the U.S. government, with Native Americans and First Nations peoples still fighting for their treaty rights…” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_treaties#:~:text=From%201778%20to%201871%2C%20the,their%20treaty%20rights%20in%20federal)

So no, the Native Americans repeatedly chose peace. The United States chose war, and therefore the US holds all responsibility for the results, which we now call (among many other terms) lebensraum and genocide.

As noted by others, Resolution 181 created the State of Israel. It made other assignations, but... THIS is the thing the Israelis hang on to as a sticking point, that could easily be unstuck by the comment of anyone of the leadership in the last decades. But many factions existing keep the Palestinians from having an actual 'nation,' as no one group represents enough to give it the clout to be considered 'the Palestinian Government.'
Ergo, agreement creation is tenuous at best.
The problem is multilayered like Damascus steel. But, this one item, recognizing Israel's right to exist would free up so much, that I can find nothing else that would garner as much international good will.
Call me anything you want. But, pretending rules don't apply to you, or choosing to not follow some and follow others is not going to yield the required results: an independent nation w/ self governance and self-determination. I fail to see another goal that would give the citizens as much safety and security. Some folks just want to hate. Shitloads of them are in Gaza and in Israel, and many of them are armed to the teeth. Not a good sign, if you ask me.