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pampango

(24,692 posts) Mon Apr 28, 2014, 05:00 PM Apr 2014

UN urged to defy Assad over delivering aid or 'risk lives of millions of Syrians'

Eminent legal experts argue that UN should ignore Syria's ban on supplying aid directly to areas outside Assad regime's control

The lives of hundreds of thousands of Syrians are at stake because of the UN's "overly cautious" interpretation of its mandate to deliver humanitarian aid, a group of more than 30 of the world's top legal experts claims.

A letter published in the Guardian on Tuesday, signed by 35 top lawyers and law professors from around the world, argues that the UN humanitarian agencies have the legal right to defy the Syrian government's "arbitrary" refusal to allow food aid and medical supplies to reach areas under rebel control. The UN estimates there are now more than 9 million people in need of humanitarian aid, of whom 3.5 million are in areas that are hard to reach. Nearly a quarter of a million of them are totally cut off by fighting, and of those, 80% are besieged by government troops.

The letter – whose signatories include Richard Goldstone, the former chief prosecutor for The Hague war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia, Sir Nicolas Bratza, the former president of the European court of human rights, and several other global authorities on international humanitarian law – argues that permission from opposition groups in effective control of Syrian territory represents sufficient legal grounds to deliver aid to those areas. Moreover, the letter says that under international humanitarian law, parties to a conflict can only withhold consent to humanitarian deliveries for valid legal reasons, during a specific and temporary military operation, for example.

"They cannot, however, lawfully withhold consent to weaken the resistance of the enemy, cause starvation of civilians, or deny medical assistance. Where consent is withheld for these arbitrary reasons, the relief operation is lawful without consent," the legal experts argue.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/legal-experts-urge-united-nations-ignore-assad-ban-aid-syria-rebels

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UN urged to defy Assad over delivering aid or 'risk lives of millions of Syrians' (Original Post) pampango Apr 2014 OP

Considering those areas are controlled by the most radical jihadists. Jesus Malverde Apr 2014 #1

Starving 200,000 civilians as collateral damage to achieve a strategic goal is not liberal policy. pampango Apr 2014 #2

Jesus Malverde

(10,274 posts)

1. Considering those areas are controlled by the most radical jihadists.

Reply to pampango (Original post)

Mon Apr 28, 2014, 06:02 PM

Apr 2014

It's a bad idea for the UN to supply them.

This is framing for yet another "humanitarian" war.

These same groups have been killing americans and their allies. They are very dangerous terrorists.

That they are enemies of an enemy, does not make them our friends. Support by secular international organizations for radical religious groups makes no sense.

We've seen in Libya what international support for religious radicals will achieve. The enslavement of women, the killing of minorities and law based on religious edict.

pampango

(24,692 posts)

2. Starving 200,000 civilians as collateral damage to achieve a strategic goal is not liberal policy.

Reply to Jesus Malverde (Reply #1)

Mon Apr 28, 2014, 06:33 PM

Apr 2014

Nearly a quarter of a million of them are totally cut off by fighting, and of those, 80% are besieged by government troops.

The point of the letter published in the Guardian was that the UN has the responsibility to provide food aid to trapped civilians even when troops on either side would rather see them starve in order not to risk helping the enemy.

All people cut off by fighting are encircled by either government (80%) or opposition (20%) forces - both of whom can argue that allowing in food aid will help the other side. Allowing food aid under UN auspices to 200,000 trapped civilians does not seem like a policy that most liberals would oppose, just because military forces don't like it.

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