Supreme crime
Supreme crime | |
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Type | legal |
Initiating a war of aggression supposedly has a special place in international law, but in practice, this doesn't seem to apply to "US"... |
Official narrative
The concept of supreme crime is a legal principle that a war waged other than in self-defense, (called a "war of aggression" in international law) is more egregious than any other international crime. The term was introduced by Justice Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials.[1]. During the trials he stated:
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. [2]
Problems
This high sounding principle does not seem to be carried out in practice. George Monbiot, noting that Tony Blair waged "an unprovoked war, described by the Nuremberg tribunal as "the supreme international crime" – looks incontestable", wrote in 2009 that "I have spent the past three days trying to discover, from legal experts all over Europe, where the crime of aggression can be prosecuted. The only certain answer is that the situation is unclear. Everyone agrees that within the EU two states, Estonia and Latvia, have incorporated it into domestic law. In most of the others, the law remains to be tested. In 2005 the German federal administrative court ruled in favour of an army major who had refused to obey an order in case it implicated him in the Iraq war. The court's justification was that the war was a crime of aggression."[3]
Examples
Page name | Description |
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2003 Iraq War | A war for oil carried out after "Operation Mass Appeal" an MI6-backed propaganda campaign. |
2011 Attacks on Libya | "Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of US military aggression and lawlessness in recent memory", carried out under a pretext of "humanitarian intervention". |
References
- ↑ Gabrielle Kirk McDonald and Olivia Swaak-Goldman (2000). Substantive and Procedural Aspects of International Criminal Law: The Experience of International and National Courts. Brill. p. 33. ISBN 978-90-411-1133-3.
- ↑ The Nuremberg principles- Wikipedia page July 2015
- ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/oct/26/making-blair-eu-president-crazy