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Why are the British complaining now? They're the ones who created the monster.
Posts: 532 | Registered: Feb 2009
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Blayne Bradley
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For the love of jove, Sovereignty is the highest recognized law Israel is sovereign and its officials are immune from the laws of other nations.
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In international law dealing with sovereignty, any state has the sovereignty it can enforce. If Israel is capable of enforcing the immunity of its officials, they will be immune. Is Israel willing to go to the wall with the UK for these people? Conversely, is the UK willing to? Any argument from sovereignty has to take these things into account, not some theoretical definition. Those are only useful so far as they form a recognised framework for avoiding the necessity of taking it to the final argument. If Britain has decided no longer to recognise immunity of officials, then the only recourse of other sovereigns is retaliation, in kind or otherwise.
I do not say that this is a smart move on the UK's part, of course. There's a reason internal affairs were held apart from international sanction after 1648. But then again, this is very much a post-Westphalian world.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I think the link has changed from what it previously was. Now the article reads something like this.
Excepts:
quote:LONDON – Britain pledged Tuesday to reform a peculiar legal power that lets judges order the arrest of visiting politicians and generals — a threat currently focused on Israeli visitors that, one day, might be invoked against Barack Obama or Vladimir Putin.
...
Foreign Secretary David Miliband later announced that Britain would no longer tolerate legal harassment of Israeli officials in this fashion.
Sounds like the British are trying prevent this, and that it didn't come from the government, but rather than Palestinians working through British lawyers, which is quite a different issue.
I don't think the title of this thread accurately represents this topic anymore, if it ever did (let alone the spelling mistake!).
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Ace of Spades: You mean Recruit Westphal who was fired last week on The Academy?
Learn history, the Treaty of Westphalia.
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quote:Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but it's definitely not up to England to be actually engaging in 'law enforcement' for supposed crimes committed between Israelis and Palestinians.
I don't care how awful you (general 'you' there, not you specifically, AoS) think Israelis are, Palestinians aren't England's wards and Israelis are not their subjects to be protected or disciplined by the United Kingdom.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Their latest target is Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister and current opposition leader, who staunchly defends Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip. Israel's government confirmed Tuesday that she canceled a planned London trip this month after her office received news of a secretly issued arrest warrant awaiting her arrival.
And here's the scary part of that article. If true, it means this wasn't just a potentially applied legal theory, but it was actually activated (so to speak), and only narrowly avoided.
quote:Previously, British judges in private have accepted petitions from anti-Israeli activists to arrest Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israeli army generals when they set foot in England. Barak successfully argued he enjoyed diplomatic immunity as a serving government leader, while several other Israelis have made U-turns for home when informed of the warrants.
That's pretty scary too, but at least in those cases it was a petition to arrest, not an actual arrest warrant.
Is it any wonder that Israel views much of the world with suspicious, mistrustful eyes when this sort of stuff goes on? Short of further, y'know, Palestinian suicide bombings I can hardly think of anything more damaging to the situation there than for Western powers to start kidnapping ('arresting') Israeli politicians and military leaders on charges of fighting against people shooting rockets into their country.Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: For the love of jove, Sovereignty is the highest recognized law Israel is sovereign and its officials are immune from the laws of other nations.
*shrug*
On one hand, Canada does have something that could put us in a pretty similar situation. While AFAIK, we don't typically arrest foreign leaders on suspicion of war crimes to be tried in Canada, the "Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act" gives us this jurisdiction.
In particular:
quote:* Universal jurisdiction, which allows Canada to prosecute any individual present in Canada for crimes listed in the CAHWCA - regardless of that individual's nationality or where the crimes were committed
This wide-ranging approach is consistent with Canada's previous war crimes policy.
On the other hand, I have to agree with Lisa's assertion that these kinds of provisions are essentially a joke. For example, I would think that the odds of Canada actually having the stones to go after, say, Bush administration officials for their fairly clear war crimes in the areas of torture and illegal invasion would be somewhere around the chances of a snowball in hell.
About all that will realistically happen is bullying either small and/or pariah states such as well, Israel.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Israel may be small but it is certainly no pariah.
And this whole situation is just absurd. England ought to have better control of itself than to be wantonly issuing arrest warrants for major figures of foreign countries. What if they had gone ahead and done it?
The result would have been a full fledged diplomatic crisis.
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Phanto: Israel may be small but it is certainly no pariah.
And this whole situation is just absurd. England ought to have better control of itself than to be wantonly issuing arrest warrants for major figures of foreign countries. What if they had gone ahead and done it?
The result would have been a full fledged diplomatic crisis.
Actually, it would have been fascinating. It's kind of a shame it didn't happen.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I have to admit, it would have been interesting. But let's be clear, from appearances so far, they would have gone ahead and done it-it was only by hearing about the actual warrant and canceling the trip that it was avoided.
Arresting Dubya for 'illegal invasion' would be interesting as well, not least for the question it would entail: how many other world leaders would have to be arrested as well? Heh. And boy, if there's something that would make Dubya look better to Americans, it would be his being arrested by a foreign nation for that.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Rakeesh: Thats kind of the point. The sheer number of (current and former) world leaders guilty of this kind of thing means that only the small-fry will really be affected making the whole thing an exercise in futility. For example, based on the current UK inquiry into the Iraq War, they should have enough to take on Blair at least.
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: For the love of jove, Sovereignty is the highest recognized law Israel is sovereign and its officials are immune from the laws of other nations.
quote:Originally posted by Phanto: Israel may be small but it is certainly no pariah.
He must have meant parasite.
Asshole.
Come on Lisa, you have better resistances to moronic comments than that.
Also I agree it's kinda a shame the arrest warrant wasn't served. I can't imagine Britain coming out of it looking like a winner, much less actually holding a trial.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
That was what we call a little test. Cheap shot, I know, but at least this time you didn't shout profanities:)
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I will eat your children and bathe in your blood.
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If the second hinges on the first, my blood is entirely safe. Though I suppose I should be glad you're at least entertaining the notion of bathing:p
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I will use your bones to BUILD A SAND CASTLE!
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As Teshi says, the warrant was issued in error at the request of lawyers working for Palestinians, using a loophole in the law which the British government is going to fix.
There was never any chance that Tzipi Livni was actually going to be arrested and absolutely no chance at all of a trial.
And now the British prime minister, as well as the foreign secretary, have both apologised for the whole embarrassing non-event.
posted
It isn't at all clear nobody would be arrested on such warrants. They are in error in fact, but not in law -- they are perfectly legal warrants under British Law.
There seems to be some uncertainty over whether or not it is legal to carry them out on people with diplomatic immunity, but that's not decided yet.
It has not been a non-incident. Israeli officials have chosen a number of times not to travel to GB due to such warrants.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I don't think the United Kingdom, as a nation, wrote this law to get Israeli officials. I do think, though, that it's not at all clear there was never a chance Livni was going to be arrested, or that there was never a chance of a trial.
quote:
Their latest target is Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister and current opposition leader, who staunchly defends Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip. Israel's government confirmed Tuesday that she canceled a planned London trip this month after her office received news of a secretly issued arrest warrant awaiting her arrival.
Like I quoted earlier, the article says her office heard news that there was an arrest warrant issued secretly, and it was awaiting her arrival. That may turn out to be incorrect, that the warrant was never issued, but the case is far from closed, Bella Bee. Even an apology doesn't really close it if things really came that close. it needs serious looking into until we can determine if it was a 'non-event', and if as seems possible it was an actual event, it needs major looking into.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: Livni's office said she had decided in advance not to come to the UK but lawyers seemed unaware of that when they approached the court last week. The judge refused to issue the warrant until it was clear Livni was in fact in the country, as he was erroneously informed on Sunday.
This would seem to imply that the warrent at least was not 'secretly issued' as the Yahoo article suggests, as the Judge issued the warrant at the weekend, after someone misinformed him that Ms. Livni was in the country. Which, thankfully, she wasn't, as presumably she had been informed that this was a possibility. Of course, the judge shouldn't have issued the warrant at all.
But the point I was making was mostly that this was an action by a bunch of Palestinian lawyers and one judge, hardly 'Britian' as the title of the thread so eloquently put it. The reaction of the British government shows that they don't want the justice system to start kidnapping Israeli officials by mistake - so there was certainly never going to be any trial.
And, as it is, the legal problem is being looked into.
But nothing actually happened to Ms Livni, thanks be.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:The reaction of the British government shows that they don't want the justice system to start kidnapping Israeli officials by mistake - so there was certainly never going to be any trial.
I'm not sure how you can say that with such certainty. If Livni had actually been arrested, things might have turned out any number of ways once she was caught up in the gears of a national justice system. Especially one where the question of law was unclear, like in this case, and incredibly politically controversial, also like in this case.
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