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Al Jazeera (English)
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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

A legal minefield for Iraq's occupiers
(David Scheffer, Financial Times, July 23, 2003)
Because they rejected a United Nations-supervised administration of post-Hussein Iraq, the US and Britain needlessly shoulder most of the legal responsibility for the success or failure of the administration and reconstruction of Iraq. No wonder other nations and groupings, such as India, Pakistan and Nato, have rejected Washington's appeal for troops. Why risk the liabilities of a military occupation under current conditions, especially when a simple Security Council mandate could trump occupation law, with all its attendant burdens? . . . In an awkwardly crafted resolution in May, authored by Washington and London, the Security Council designated the two victorious nations as the "occupying powers". This title carries all the responsibilities, constraints and liabilities that arise under occupation law, codified in the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and other instruments. . . . In the last half-century no country requiring such radical transformation has been placed under military occupation law instead of a UN mandate or trusteeship. No conquering military power has volunteered formally to embrace occupation law so boldly and with such enormous risk. And never in recent times has an occupation occurred that was so predictable for so long and yet so poorly planned for. . . . Occupation law was never intended to encourage invasion and occupation for the purpose of transforming a society, however noble that aim. The narrow purpose is to constrain an occupying military power and thus discourage aggression and permanent occupation. . . . The liability trap deepens every day, dug by the failure of the occupying powers to plan for and take immediate action to prevent looting of critical facilities and cultural sites, to deploy enough soldiers to maintain security and to establish effective law enforcement on the streets with well-trained police. The occupying powers also risk liability in other ways: by their refusal to permit entry of international weapons inspectors or of humanitarian supplies from the UN and other relief organisations in the early stages of the occupation; by their failure rapidly to restore and maintain water, sewerage and electricity services; by having created unemployment on a massive scale; and by their controversial plans for the management of Iraq's oil industry. . . . Occupation law imposes high performance standards on an occupying military power and liability can arise quickly. This is particularly so in cases where an occupation and its many responsibilities were readily foreseeable - as is the case in Iraq, whose invasion was planned for a long time.

posted by LoZo 3:25 PM