*Blairdoyer comes from the French word plaidoyer/closing argument in a court case

Experts disagree as to whether the war in Iraq was legal or illegal. It is a result of the complex nature of international law which is different to national and European law. It is customary law, has no common legislator, is vague and its legitimacy derives from the recognition of states concerned. Overall, international law has no supremacy over national law.

Casus belli- The case of war

Death Kurds-Victims of Chemical Ali

In order to establish the legality of the war in Iraq, it is essential to understand the long history of violence of the country.  The war was launched for different reasons. Sanctions against the regime were crumbling and the No-Fly–Zone policy not working. While the Iraqi civilian population was heavily suffering, it had little impact on Saddam’s terror regime. Smart sanctions were suggested by the US and the UK in the UN Security Council but were blocked by Russia for economic interests. The problem of Iraq remained unresolved. In fact, the problem had remained unresolved for over 12 years.

9/11 changed the mentality of the US administration and also its policy. Self defence and conflict prevention were now on top of the agenda. The premise was that war is sometimes inevitable, necessary to restore peace and security, in order to address the roots- such as bad governance and dictatorship- of potential threats.

The question remains if the Iraq war was legal under international law. According to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the use of force is authorised under two circumstances:

a) Self defence (Article 51)

b) A Security Council Resolution (Article 42)

One could argue that in case of Iraq both conditions were met, as explained by the following. Saddam was a potential threat because the possession or the capability to build WMDs constituted a threat to international peace and security. On top, the humanitarian situation was alarming. Saddam was the Ethnic Cleanser of the Middle East. Furthermore, the use of force was covered by previous UN Security Resolutions.

The opponents of the war claim this argumentation is invalid. They insist the intelligence on Saddam’s WMD capabilities was flawed. Some go a step further and accuse the government of manipulating information and misleading the public and parliament. Additionally, they do not accept Resolution 1441 as a justification for the use of previous resolutions as the legal basis for the military invasion.

Bona fide- Good faith

The House of Commons approved the war

One could follow the argument of the anti-war brigade and assume that some of the intelligence was false. This is a far cry from a lie and does not make the war in Iraq illegal under international law. The crucial question is if the British government deliberately misled the country.

So far there is no indication the Blair administration acted in bad faith. There is no evidence they doubted the existence of WMDs. There is no proof they deliberately lied to the public or parliament. Tony Blair and his ministers believed what most of  people believed at that time, namely that Saddam was in possession or at least was capable of building WMDs. The French and the Russians, the strongest opponents of the war in Iraq, did not disagree. Neither did the UN Secretary General or the weapons inspectors beg to differ.

The UK parliament shared this view and voted in favour of the invasion of Iraq. This was crucial, since after all, national law has supremacy over international law. With the backing of the House, the UK government therefore established the legal basis for the war with Iraq under national law.

Actio non accrevit infra duodecim annos- Action has not accrued within twelve years

Saddam refused to cooperate with the UN for over a decade; he was not complying with any of the Security Council Resolutions. It was impossible to assess the potential threat of Iraq. Under the given circumstances it was right of the US and the UK to use force in anticipatory self- defence.

On August 2, 1990 Kuwait was invaded by Saddam’s army. The UN issued Resolution 660 and asked Iraq to drop out of Kuwait immediately. Diplomatic efforts failed.  As a result, the UN adopted the infamous Resolution 678, which set a deadline for January 15, 1991 to comply with Resolution 660. Again, Saddam refused to act according to the previous resolution. Since Resolution 678 allowed “to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area”, the legal basis for the military operation Desert Storm was given.

On April 3, 1991, the Security Council issued another decisive Resolution, 687, which outlined the conditions for a ceasefire with Iraq:

a) Destroy all biological and chemical weapons, as well as ballistic missiles. On top, Iraq had to agree to inspections

b) Do not use, develop, construct,  or acquire WMDs

c) Do not develop or acquire nuclear weapons or material of that sort

The UNSCOM was established to carry out the inspections and Iraq was asked to cooperate with the IAEA. On April 6, 1991 Iraq formally accepted the Resolution and a ceasefire was spelled out between Kuwait and Iraq.

However, Saddam never lived up to his promises. He remained in breach of the Security Council Resolutions for all those years. Repeatedly, the UN complained about the non-compliance of Iraq but never took serious actions.  On November 12, 1997 Resolution 1137 was adopted, as a response to Iraq’s constant denial to allow the UN weapons inspectors to do their work. It “condemn[ed] ….the continued violation by Iraq of its obligations under the relevant resolutions to cooperate fully and unconditionally with the UNSCOM. “ Thus, the UN expressed its “firm intention to take further measures as may be required for the implementation of this resolution.”

Si vis pacem, para bellum - If you want peace, prepare for war

On November 8, 2002 the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1441. It gave Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations”. It insisted that Iraq remained “in material breach” and noted the absence of weapons inspectors in Iraq since December 1998, Saddam’s refusal to cease international terrorism and the repression of the Iraqi people. It threatened Saddam’s regime with “serious action”, if he continued to refuse to comply with the international community.

But once again, Saddam failed to provide full and unconditional cooperation. It was impossible for the UN weapons inspectors to do their work, and as a result impossible to accurately assess the threat deriving from Saddam’s regime. Thus, he remained not only in breach of Resolution 1441 but also of all previous ones, including 678. Crucially, it has never been rescinded and therefore established, together with Resolution 1441, the legal basis for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Legally, it is incredibly illogical to claim, as some opponents of the war do, that Resolution 678 was no longer valid because it was over 12 years old. Most of the primary and secondary legal sources on which our society is based are many years old. It would be like saying that someone is not accountable for a murder anymore because it happened 20 years ago. That is not how our legal system works.

Homo praesumitur bonus donec probetur malus- One is innocent until proven guilty

As the examination of the legal setting showed, there was sufficient authority for the use of force against Iraq under national and international law. It is sensible to claim that without war, it would have been impossible to restore stability and peace in Iraq.

However, many people remain sceptical of the legality of the 2003 invasion. So far, all attempts to hold the UK government responsible for war crimes in front of a court have failed. It is highly unlikely that the Chilcot Inquiry will provide the necessary information to change that. Like the four previous inquiries into the war with Iraq, it will criticise the government for its shortcomings but not question the legitimacy of the invasion.

The opponents will accuse Chilcot of a whitewash. They will not accept the inquiry’s findings, until it fits their agenda. But the anti-war brigade has to accept that, although they reject the policy on Iraq, it was and is not necessarily illegal. Tony Blair is not a war criminal. He was not tried by a court and he presumably never will.

The doubters should learn to cherish one of the fundamental principles of our European democratic legal system:

–Innocent until proved guilty–

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Length: 4:01

Related: Responsible Government and Confidence; Democracy

Women make up the majority of Canadians, but a minority of politicians.

Only 22.4% of the House of Commons are women, although they make up 52% of our population. That places Canada 46th out of 189 countries with national parliaments — not something we can boast about.

Those are national statistics, but they’re not much different at the local level across Canada, with a few exceptions.

About 24% of councillors across Canada are women, while only 15% are serving as mayors. The far north have the most women involved, followed by B.C., with Ontario being average with 25% female councillors and 17% female mayors.

In my home of Brantford, there are two women councillors out of 10, along with a male mayor. There only used to be one woman on council but another won a seat in 2006.

Marguerite Ceschi-Smith, who was the lone female on council for years, recently spoke to my journalism class about being a councillor and one of her favourite causes: encouraging more women to run for elected office.

Marguerite Ceschi-Smith

Ceschi-Smith helped run a campaign school for women back in October in Brantford, giving information, advice and tools to women who might consider a run for municipal office next October.

She’s also active in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which publishes an Election Toolkit for Women: The Candidates Guide to Municipal Elections.

The FCM is actively promoting women running for government, through its toolkit and other resources. It also has published a report calling for women to reach the 30% mark by 2026 at the municipal level. It’s probably a realistic goal, considering it’s 16 years away. Still, on the surface, it seems like it should be reachable sooner.

There are barriers — but not roadblocks — to women running. Most women, even if they are successful career women, still carry the bulk of the responsibility for childcare and family care.

As Ceschi-Smith pointed out to my class, it’s a big decision to run. You need the support of your family, since you’re going to lose some family time. This is particularly tougher for younger women. You also lose some privacy, with residents calling all times of the day and night with beefs and problems.

And there’s still incidents of discrimination or plain rudeness to women in office, Ceschi-Smith said.

Despite those drawbacks, there are opportunities for women who are willing to step forward. They should be encouraged to grasp them.

More women would bring fresh ideas to the table, which has been dominated too long by middle-aged men. They would offer insights that men can’t. And they would likely put a different focus on where to spend tax dollars, perhaps more on services to help families and less on traditional things like fixing roads.

They say if women ruled the world there wouldn’t be any wars. I wonder what local government would be like if women had more power?

High expectations at the Knowledge Exchange Network…but were they met?

Set in the wonderful surroundings of the terrace bar restaraunt at the Houses Of Parliament, the Knowledge Exchange Network announced its coming of age.

Given the grandeur of our surroundings and 120 delegates and representatives from all walks of industry, expectations were high.

Sadly events went down hill after  MP Barry Sheerman’s motivational opening address, stressing the need for change and the imperative to understand that our present policies and patterns of consumption  cannot be sustained.

The Chairperson of the new group Environmental Sustainability KTN, Colin Drummond, Chief Executive of Viridor, called for a policy  directive to achieve 6% Energy from Waste from the present 1.5% base.  His proposition was well delivered and drove forward yet more backing for Incineration and Recyclates.

When will the authorities wake up to Reuse and Reclamation?

No mention in any literature, posters or speeches was made at any time in the entire proceedings about Reuse and Reclamation. So much for joined up government.

Only last month we had spent a whole day in Whitehall on the other side of Parliament Square listening to a DEFRA presentation on the need to change the Waste Hierarchy to comply with future European Waste Directive proposals. Yesterday, the only stated view was to do more of what already fails; the poor, hapless politicians were  trying to do their best but had no grasp of how, in their desperation to get things going, they were  sowing the seeds of failure.

Politicians need a reuse roadmap, not a commercial dead end

The good intentions of politicians who continue to believe down-cycling will remedy anything was palpably tragic given the cynicism of the commercial vested interests who were there only to control the opportunities that might come their way from Government.

I must stress, I have no doubt that the politicians present genuinely believe they are finding postive solutions.

They have no idea what the alternatives are because they are surrounded by commercial lobbyists who are concerned to promote only self interest. You cannot burn and crush your way out of the present over-consumption of virgin raw materials.

We, the reclaimers, need to do more

Why, on such an important ocassion, was there no reference even obliquely to Reclamation in any of the speeches, literature or wall posters?

The answer can only be the failure of the reclamation trade and sustainability lobby to convince  politicians that they are directed into a policy cul-de-sac that solves nothing. The financial and organisational muscle of the orthodox down-cyclers deafens all alternative voices.

We need to remove subsidy to the demolishers and recyclate industry and redirect priorities away from incineration as a central plinth of our campaigns for  Environmental Sustainability.

There will be a case for crushing and burning, but only on the margins if we are to recover the full carbon value of scarce materials.

Like the Olympic project, with all its fine words of support for sustainability, Reclamation has been substituted for Recycling. Valuable opportunities have, in reality, been ignored in favour of Down-Cycling.

Ten out of Ten for hospitality, charm and sincerity!  Nil points for change or improvement.

More about MASCo Sustainability

Imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following
employee statistics .

29 have been accused of spouse abuse

7 have been arrested for fraud

9 have been accused of writing bad cheque’s

17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

3 have done time for assault

71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

21 are currently defendants in lawsuits

84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year
And collectively, this year alone, they have cost the British tax payer £92,993,748 in expenses!!!

Which organization is this?

It’s the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline.

What a bunch we have running our country – it says it
all.. And just to top all that they probably have the best ‘corporate’
pension scheme in the country!

The rumour mill that Stephen Harper might prorogue Parliament again this year has prompted quite a few theories about why, along with the spawned jokes about it becoming a regular Conservative Christmas tradition. Governor-General Michaelle Jean granted prorogue of Parliament last December after the members of the opposition in government formed a coalition with the intent to rule the government.

Much debate has already been expended on whether what Stephen Harper did was strictly constitutional, since canceling Parliament fell outside of the normal role for which prorogation was intended. Using prorogue to political advantage, or in the case of the previous December, to avoid being defeated by the opposition, could be seen as an evasion of the democratic process. Then again, the Conservatives made a fair argument that the Canadian public had just made their democratic choice two months before that, when voters across Canada extended the Conservatives another minority government.

I have no interest in dredging up the former debate again, but the possibility of another prorogation has made waves within the political punditsphere. Such a thing could be seen as the Conservatives avoiding the continued questioning from the opposition on the detainee affair and testimony from diplomat Richard Colvin. Others believe it has more to do with partisan opportunism in the Senate.

A prorogation traditionally expunges all orders of the legislative body [that would include the current bill before the House to kill the gun registry], and is usually enacted after completion of the agenda set forth in the Speech from the Throne. Prorogation is set before elections to prevent the Senate from sitting during the campaign so that all existing business in the Upper House is reset before the start of the next Parliament.

That’s what makes this newest speculation about prorogation so interesting, and directly related to the Senate. The Conservatives have an opportunity to take the balance of power in the Senate, and one could hardly say the opportunity has come without due provocation.

The liberal-dominated Senate voted yesterday to weaken the government’s product safety bill by invoking some ridiculous concern about a police state arriving in Canada. The amendments passed in two votes of 45-42 and 46-41. The move was based on the Liberal concern that it would give Health Canada powers to enforce corporate compliance with federal recommendations for product safety.

Particularly bizarre, as John Ivison wrote in the National Post, “was when Senator Mobina Jaffer invoked the situation in the 1970s in her native Uganda under Idi Amin, where a local mayor was killed and his genitals cut off. Her point, apparently, was that if the government compels companies to tell them when its products suffocate children, we’ll soon be living under a dictator who awards himself the Victoria Cross and claims to be the Last King of Scotland.”

The amendments will be sent back to the House of Commons, where they were already unanimously approved in June by all the parties. This certainly gives the Conservatives a good reason to fight the rather rogue actions of the Senate with their own kind of fire: prorogation.

Although the Conservatives will soon have a majority in the Senate, the Liberals dominate the steering committee, which sets the Senate timetable and would allow the Liberals to hold up any legislation they don’t like. But with prorogation, the Conservatives could reconstitute all committees and control the Senate for the first time since they formed the government in 2006. It would be a supreme piece of irony that the Conservative’s first real taste of power would come from a place they derided strongly as being unelected and unaccountable, particularly because of Stephen Harper’s own previous promises never to appoint representatives to the Senate.

(Roger’s Note: Stepen Harper, George W. Bush, Barak Obama: speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil)

Toronto Star, December 11, 2009

Harper government says it will not comply with Opposition motion passed by Parliament, setting stage for legal battle

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government appears unwilling to hand over documents as ordered in a vote last night in the Commons, setting the stage for a showdown with Parliament and a possible rendezvous with the courts.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said that the government would release only “legally available” documents on whether Afghan prisoners detained by Canadian forces were subject to torture when handed over to local authorities, and what the government knew about the issue. The definition of that is apparently going to be established in days and perhaps weeks to come by officials.

“These are done by experts, non-partisan individuals, who have a look at these things, who have no other interests but the best interests and security of Canadians, particularly those Canadians in uniform,” Nicholson said.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said that’s not good enough, and the government is standing in the way of democratic rights.

“This is about democracy. Last night, the House of Commons said ‘We need the documents. We need all the documents. We need to end the censure. We need to end all this wiping-out of documents.’

“We need the truth. This is about the honour of Canada. This about torture. This is about our human-rights reputation,” Ignatieff told reporters in Montreal.

“This is an issue about fundamental democracy in Canada and we see absolutely no reason why the government just can’t do what Parliament says.”

International Trade Minister Stockwell Day indicated this morning that the opposition parties would have to go to the courts to get all the information they’re seeking.

A PMO spokesperson later confirmed that the Conservative government does not intend to turn over the documents as ordered by Parliament.

The government will respect laws intended to protect national security and the operational security of the Afghan mission, the spokesperson said.

“When people ask for all the information, when they ask for every little bit of information … it would be naive to the extreme to think that that information can be given out. I don’t think Canadians would like the fact that our troops would be unnecessarily exposed,” Day told reporters during the release of a quarterly progress report on Canadian involvement in Afghanistan.

“But if there’s a piece of information that somebody doesn’t have, there is a process,” Day said.

The Liberals narrowly pushed through a motion in the Commons on Thursday that forces the Harper government to release waves of unedited documents on Afghan detainee treatment. The motion passed with a vote of 145-143, and has legal force – Parliament, according to the Commons law clerk, represents the ultimate court in the land.

But the government and the department of justice are arguing that other laws – those protecting national security, for instance – take priority, and Day made clear today that the Conservative government intends to use that interpretation to block the documents’ release.

“We are not going to make information available just readily, about friend and foe alike, about specific items, about a security operation that could imperil our own troops and could imperil the citizens,” Day said.

The government fought hard Thursday against the release of information, arguing that the Taliban would profit from the data, while soldiers and Canada’s partners abroad could be compromised.

Information about when and how Canadian officials visit particular prisons, for instance, “would be of great value to the insurgents, and to the terrorists,” said Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said such arguments were “ridiculous.”

“The risk of putting anybody in operational danger is about zero, but even if there was a case of operational risk, a parliamentary committee could find a way to get the documents,” Ignatieff said.

He said the Liberals were forced to take this measure because of the way the Conservatives have been releasing documents surrounding the detainee-transfer issue for the past few years – either with significant portions blacked out, or indiscriminately sharing more documents with friendly sources outside Parliament than with MPs.

The issue has become more contentious in the wake of recent testimony to a committee of MPs by senior Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin that he had warned of potential detainee torture while he served in Afghanistan, but that his warnings were ignored.

Then on Wednesday, chief of defence staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk produced evidence that a prisoner detained by Canadians and transferred to Afghan police in June 2006 was abused – only a day after he had given contrary testimony to a Commons committee.

Natynczyk also cited a report that said soldiers photographed the detainee before the transfer to ensure that if Afghan police abused him “as had happened in the past,” they would have a record of his condition. Intelligence specialist Wesley Wark said the heavy censorship of the documents supplied to the parliamentary committee probing the handling of prisoners has turned the hearings into a “farce.”

With files from Les Whittington

I don’t spend my time admiring a lot of Canadian journalists, but one of the ones I keep a respectful eye on is Maclean’s Magazine’s Aaron Wherry. In addition to being one of this country’s up-and-comers in the world of political coverage, he has the unenviable task of reporting on the activity in the House of Commons. Being asked to cover the juvenile, feckless, and often borderline sociopathic behaviour of our nation’s supposed leaders seems like a recipe for either a low-grade personality disorder or a complete loss of faith in humanity and the democratic process, but Wherry appears to have avoided both. Better yet, in his colourful reportage of the schoolhouse antics that take place for 45 excruciating minutes every day that the House of Commons sits, Wherry manages to transform the bickering and badgering into a narrative that’s downright interesting. That’s no minor accomplishment, given the mediocre characters and plot elements with which he has to work.

My admiration for Wherry’s talents was reaffirmed this past week, as the Harper government continued to clumsily fend off accusations of incompetence in the way it has handled Richard Colvin’s complaints about the possible torture of detainees Afghanistan. The government, and particularly Defence Minister Peter MacKay, were put on the defensive by Colvin’s accusation that he registered his concerns about possible torture through the bureaucratic chain of command, and that those concerns were eventually known to members of the Harper government, who did nothing about them. How has the Harper government responded? By hiding behind the troops, of course.

“When will they stop attacking these men and women who are heroes,” Transport Minister John Baird asked. MacKay, in fighting for his job, told the house that “what is interesting when we hear the allegations of partisanship is to note that the Liberal Party is now fundraising on the issue of Taliban transfers, trying to scare Canadians and further smear Canadian soldiers during their important work in Afghanistan.” The Harper government’s argument, recycled by its various ministers in a variety of rhetorical reformulations, is that any suggestion of impropriety on the part of Canada’s troops amounts to treason, or as close as one can come to it in Canada.

Right-wing politicians, talk radio hosts, and editorial writers have been using this formulation with success for years in the United States. The Liberals, predictably, have rejected the government’s assertions that their criticism amounts to cowardice or complicity with the Taliban, but they haven’t bothered to dangerously flawed challenge the logic behind those charges, instead parroting the same platitudes about the military. That logic, writ small, is that our soldiers are beyond reproach, and beyond the criticisms of the civilians whose interests they serve.

It’s a nifty political move on the part of the political right, but it’s also fundamentally flawed. Shouldn’t we be asking more questions and paying more critical attention to the military, given that they are one of the few groups in society that is bestowed with the sanction to use lethal force? Shouldn’t they be subject to the most intense oversight mechanisms and a higher standard of accountability, given the tools with which they work and the jobs they’re asked to do? More importantly, aren’t the politicians hiding behind them doing them a major disservice? Doesn’t shielding them from any meaningful criticism only serve to exacerbate the mistakes they might be making, and will therefore continue to make? More importantly, doesn’t that degrade the uniform they wear and the history of which it is made?

We are, theoretically, in Afghanistan as part of an international effort to spread democracy and the rule of law. But we’re surely not setting much of an example if every time members of the House of Commons ask basic questions about the behaviour of the military the government flies into a fit of flag-waving hysteria. That they do so predictably is why I wouldn’t wish Aaron Wherry’s job on anybody. I’m sure Maclean’s pays him well for his work, but I’d be willing to bet that he spends a good portion of that paycheque drinking away the existential pain that’s inflicted on him in, and by, the Commons.

Brent South Labour MP Dawn Butler made history yesterday as she became the first Black Woman to speak at the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons. She was congratulated on this achievement by Tom Clarke MP, who on Tuesday received a Disability Champion Award.

Dawn has long championed youth issues in Parliament and was recently promoted as Minister for Young Citizens and Youth Engagement.

See LINK to debate on the Hansard online archive: LINK