Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
This article explores the legal
questions around the issue of the United States of America and/or France
deciding to go ahead and attack Syria in retaliation for a supposed
deployment of Chemical and Biological Weapons by the Syrian authorities
against civilians. Any such attack would render those involved liable to
prosecution.
The first point is that whatever the
United States Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) decide and
whatever the French Presidency decides, their decisions are not binding
under international law and have no jurisdiction whatsoever outside the
frontiers of their countries.
International law is framed and binding
depending on the international treaties signed as signatory states. One
such document, fundamental in international law, is the United Nations
Charter signed on June 26, 1945 by the United States of America and
France. It came into force on October 24 that same year.
Chapter I, Article 2, point 3 states:
All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means
in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are
not endangered.
Point 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.
Chapter VI, Article 33, point 1 states
that members must resolve disputes by peaceful means inside the UNSC
(United Nations Security Council) and Article 37 point 1 states
expressly that failure to do so means the dispute must always be
referred back to the UNSC.
This means that under international law,
any decision by the United States' Congress bears no legal meaning
whatsoever outside the frontiers of the United States of America and
further, any such deliberation of or consent granted for the use of
military action overseas, without the express consent of the UNSC, is
illegal, constitutes a violation of international law, rendering those
deliberating in favour of, or consenting to, acts of violence against
sovereign states liable for prosecution under international criminal law
of incitement to murder or attempted murder.
Should such actions occur, occasioning
the bodily harm of grievous bodily harm or death of persons, then the
accusations in such criminal prosecutions would be murder with criminal
intent or the equivalent in the forums of law governing the issue in the
respective countries where such cases were brought to court.
In this case, the citizens of the United
States of America could impeach their President and de-select their
representatives. No people accepts being governed by liars, cheats and
murderers.
Regarding France, now billed as
"America's closest ally" by the Obama regime, any act of military
aggression would render it liable for prosecution for violation of the
Rome Statute (*): Article 8bis (1) of the Rome Statute, as added in
2010, reads: "For the purposes of this Statute, 'crime of aggression'
means the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in
a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the
political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which,
by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of
the Charter of the United Nations." Article 8bis (2)(b): "Bombardment
by the armed forces of a State against the territory of another State or
the use of any weapons by a State against the territory of another
State."
Either France and the USA stand by the
documents they sign or else should be expelled from all organisms whose
documents are binding to them as member states.
Regarding US internal law, a document
from the Congressional Research Service (**) of 2010, Terrorist Material
Support: An Overview of 18U.S.C. 2339A and 2339B, states clearly that
Section 2339B (Support of Designated Terrorist Organizations (18 U.S.C. 2339B) outlaws:
(1)(a) attempting to provide,
(b) conspiring to provide, or
(c) actually providing
(2) material support or resources
(3) to a foreign terrorist organization
(4) knowing that the organization
(a) has been designated a foreign terrorist organization, or
(b) engages, or has engaged, in "terrorism" or "terrorist activity."
..."The offense is complete upon assent; the support need only be planned, not
delivered"...
"Under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 2,
anyone who counsels, procures, aids, or abets a violation of Section
2339B or any other federal crime is punishable as though he had
committed the offense himself. "In order to aid and abet another to
commit a crime it is necessary that a defendant in some sort associate
himself with the venture, that he participate in it as in something that
he wishes to bring about, [and] that he seek by his action to make it
succeed."(19)"Typically, the same evidence will support both a
conspiracy and an aiding and abetting conviction."(20)
There are numerous other references in
this document pointing towards criminal liability of US Congress members
voting in favour of a military strike against Syria. When the evidence
that it was the Islamist Jihadi terrorists supported by President Obama
and his poodle states starts to proliferate (***), it is time to start
examining whether the US Congress is a serious institution or a
terrorist organization in disguise.
(***)
