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Francis Boyle. The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence/Terrorism

 

Francis Boyle

 


 

Francis Anthony Boyle (born March 25, 1950) is an American human rights lawyer and professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law.[2] He has served as counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina and has supported the rights of indigenous peoples and Palestinians. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Boyle)

 

AUTHOR BIO

Francis A. Boyle

As a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law, Francis A. Boyle is uniquely qualified to address the issue of nuclear deterrence. Twenty years of anti-nuclear advocacy have earned him what may be the world's best track record for anti-nuclear acquittals. Recently, his testimony persuaded a Scottish Judge in the UK to direct a verdict against the UK Trident 2. Through his exacting international legal analysis, prolific writings and tireless advocacy, he has succeeded in establishing the illegality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence, reflected in the recent World Court Advisory Opinion of 1996.

Francis A. Boyle's long, distinguished and multi-faceted career has included: responsibility for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention; lecturing o­n nuclear weapons and international law to the U.S. military at West Point and to Soviet and foreign lawyers through two lecture tours sponsored by the Lawyers' Committee o­n Nuclear Policy and the Association of Soviet Lawyers; and representing the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the International Court of Justice (1993-94), where he won two World Court Orders against the rump Yugoslavia to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide.

Boyle has also served o­n the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992); as Legal Advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization o­n the Creation of the State of Palestine (1987-89) and to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations (1991-93), and as a Consultant to the American Friends Service Committee.

Professor Boyle teaches International Law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, and is author, inter alia, of Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law, The Future of International Law and American Foreign Policy, Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations 1898-1921, and The Bosnian People Charge Genocide. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.

Philip Berrigan

 

Philip Berrigan began nonviolent resistance to U.S. wars in 1966, breaking laws legalizing the Vietnam war. He has spent 11 of the last 35 years serving prison sentences related to his peace activism, and was most recently released from federal prison o­n December 14, 2001.He participated in six Plowshares witnesses, and has published eight books o­n nonviolent issues and war and peace.He has lectured o­n modern war and peace, nuclearism and interventionary war in most of the American States, and across Canada and Western Europe.Along with Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize six times.

 

АВТОР БИО

Фрэнсис А. Бойл

Как ведущий американский профессор, практик и защитник международного права, Фрэнсис А. Бойль обладает уникальной квалификацией для решения проблемы ядерного сдерживания. Двадцать лет антиядерной пропаганды принесли ему, возможно, лучший в мире послужной список в отношении антиядерных оправдательных приговоров. Недавно его показания убедили шотландского судью в Великобритании вынести вердикт против британского Trident 2. Благодаря его точному международно-правовому анализу, многочисленным материалам и неустанной пропаганде ему удалось установить незаконность ядерного оружия и ядерного сдерживания, что нашло отражение в недавнем консультативном заключении Всемирного суда от 1996 года.

Долгая, выдающаяся и многогранная карьера Фрэнсиса А. Бойла включала: ответственность за разработку Закона о борьбе с терроризмом о биологическом оружии 1989 года, американского имплементационного законодательства к Конвенции 1972 года о биологическом оружии; чтение лекций по ядерному оружию и международному праву для американских военных в Вест-Пойнте, а также для советских и иностранных юристов в рамках двух лекционных туров, спонсируемых Комитетом юристов по ядерной политике и Ассоциацией советских юристов; и представлял Республику Боснию и Герцеговину в Международном Суде (1993-94), где он выиграл два постановления Всемирного суда против юной Югославии о прекращении и воздержании от совершения всех актов геноцида.

Бойл также входил в совет директоров AmnestyInternational (1988–1992); в качестве советника по правовым вопросам Организации освобождения Палестины по вопросу создания Государства Палестина (1987-89) и палестинской делегации на ближневосточных мирных переговорах (1991-93), а также в качестве консультанта Американского комитета службы друзей.

Профессор Бойл преподает международное право в Университете Иллинойса, Шампейн, и является автором, среди прочего, работ «Защита гражданского сопротивления в соответствии с международным правом», «Будущее международного права и американской внешней политики», «Основы мирового порядка: подход к международным отношениям» 1898 г. -1921, и Боснийский народ обвиняет геноцид. Он имеет степень доктора права MagnaCumLaude, а также докторскую степень. Кандидат политических наук Гарвардского университета.

Филип Берриган

 

Филип Берриган начал ненасильственное сопротивление войнам США в 1966 году, нарушив законы, узаконившие войну во Вьетнаме. Он провел 11 из последних 35 лет в тюремном заключении, связанном с его миротворческой активностью, и совсем недавно был освобожден из федеральной тюрьмы 14 декабря 2001 года. Он участвовал в шести свидетелях Плаушерса и опубликовал восемь книг по ненасильственным вопросам, войне и мир. Он читал лекции по современной войне и миру, ядерному оружию и интервенционной войне в большинстве американских государств, а также по всей Канаде и Западной Европе. Филип Берриган, как и Дэниел Берриган, шесть раз номинировался на Нобелевскую премию мира.

----------------------------------------------------------

 

Xi Jinping claimed US wants China to attack Taiwan

         Chinese president told European Commission president that Washington was trying to goad Beijing into war. Financial Times.

         Sure. Xi knows exactly what is going o­n here.The United States is using Taiwan as its Attack Dog and Cat's Paw against China. The United States is using Ukraine as its Attack Dog and Cat’s Paw against Russia.And the United States is using Israel as its Attack Dog and Cat's Paw against the Middle East. Fab.

          It is the Unlimited Imperialists along the lines of Alexander, Rome, Napoleon and Hitler who are now in charge of conducting American foreign policy. The factual circumstances surrounding the outbreaks of both the First World War and the Second World War currently hover like twinSwords of Damocles over the heads of all humanity.

         Francis A. Boyle

Law Building

504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.

Champaign IL 61820 USA

Phone: 217-333-7954

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957

16-06-24

 

Си Цзиньпин заявил, что США хотят, чтобы Китай напал на Тайвань

         Президент Китая заявил президенту Европейской комиссии, что Вашингтон пытается подтолкнуть Пекин к войне. Файнэншл Таймс.

         Конечно. Си точно знает, что здесь происходит. Соединенные Штаты используют Тайвань в качестве боевой собаки и кошачьей лапы против Китая. Соединенные Штаты используют Украину в качестве боевой собаки и кошачьей лапы против России. А Соединенные Штаты используют Израиль в качестве боевой собаки и кошачьей лапы против Ближнего Востока. Потрясающе.

          Именно «Неограниченные империалисты» по образцу Александра, Рима, Наполеона и Гитлера сейчас отвечают за проведение американской внешней политики. Фактические обстоятельства, связанные с началом как Первой мировой войны, так и Второй мировой войны, в настоящее время висят над головами всего человечества, как парные дамокловы мечи.

         Francis A. Boyle

Law Building

504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.

Champaign IL 61820 USA

Phone: 217-333-7954

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957

16-06-24


See also the Bole wonderful responses here:
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=513
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1188
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1192
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=1065
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1175
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1110
And others
------------------------------------



-----------------------------------------------

 

Little Town of Bethlehem

by Francis A. Boyle,

Professor of International Law

Israel, Palestine and American Christian Hypocrite’s ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌
‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ NOV 26, 2023

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957

 

It was December of 1991 and I was serving as Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations in Washington DC. The Israelis were stalling, not even negotiating in bad faith, and the Americans under Baker and Ross were doing nothing to get the negotiations started.

This had been going o­n for 3 weeks and Christmas was fast approaching. Those of us o­n the Palestinian Team who were Christian were wondering if we were going to be able to get home for Christmas--many Palestinians are Christian, the original Christians, going back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles themselves. I would periodically check in with my wife and 2 sons at the time--little boys. My poor, sweet wife had to do all the Christmas preparations by herself without me.

So the weekend before Christmas I called her up to say I still did not know if or when I would be coming home. My oldest son who had just turned 5 talked to me o­n the phone:

"Daddy why aren't you home for Christmas?"

"Well son, I'm trying to help the Palestinians."

"Daddy, why are you doing that?"

Hard to explain the entire Middle East conflict to a 5 year old, so I put it into terms he could understand:

"Son, you know that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem don't you?"

"Yes Daddy."

"Well I am here with the Mayor of Bethlehem and some other Palestinian leaders. They are my friends and I am their lawyer. I am working with the Mayor of Bethlehem to help all the Palestinian Children have a merry Christmas."

"Ok Daddy."

All his younger brother could say was: “DaDa come home!” He broke my heart.

We got the word we could go home for Christmas o­n December 23 and I got o­n the first flight out of DC. getting home just o­n time for Christmas Eve with my family.

Periodically I had attended UCC Christmas Season Church Services in town with my family. When it came time for prayers from the congregation, I always got up and asked everyone to help the Palestinians along the following lines: "...Bethlehem is cut-off and surrounded by the Israeli army--the Church of the Nativity too. The Israelis are inflicting ethnic cleansing upon all the Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians. They are also pursuing a policy of deliberately forcing Palestinian Christians out of Palestine as part of a perverse strategy to turn a war of national liberation into a religious crusade, figuring it would play better in the United States. And these are the original Christians, going back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Meanwhile, the United States government is financing it all to the tune of $5 billion per year. Everyone in this Congregation has gifts given to them by God. So go out and do something to help the Palestinians!"

Despite my best efforts overmanyyears, that UCC Congregation refused to lift evenone finger to help the Palestinians. Soseveral years ago, I quit their Congregation and severed all ties with them. They are just a gang of moral cowards and hypocrites. They have nothing to teach me or anyone else about Christianity, let alone about peace, justice and human rights. They constitute the paradigmatic example of what the anti-Nazi martyr and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Cheap Grace

Francis A. Boyle, Champaign, IL.

Professor of International Law

Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the

Middle East Peace Negotiations (1991-93)

Palestine, Palestinians & Int’l Law

Francis’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

© 2023 Francis A Boyle

548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104

 

Francis A. Boyle

Law Building

504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.

Champaign IL 61820 USA

Phone: 217-333-7954

Fax: 217-244-1478

(personal comments o­nly)

Personal page: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957

23-12-23

-------------------------------

 

Маленький городок Вифлеем

Фрэнсис А. Бойл,

Профессор международного права

Израиль, Палестина

и американское христианское лицемерие

26 ноября 2023 г.

 

Это был декабрь 1991 года, и я работал юрисконсультом палестинской делегации на мирных переговорах по Ближнему Востоку в Вашингтоне. Израильтяне медлили и даже недобросовестно не вели переговоры, а американцы под руководством Бейкера и Росса не делали ничего, чтобы начать переговоры.

Это продолжалось уже три недели, и Рождество быстро приближалось. Те из нас, кто был христианином в палестинской команде, задавались вопросом, сможем ли мы вернуться домой на Рождество - многие палестинцы являются христианами, истинными христианами, восходящими к Иисусу Христу и самим Апостолам. В то время я периодически проверял свою жену и двоих сыновей — маленьких мальчиков. Моей бедной, милой жене пришлось делать все приготовления к Рождеству одной, без меня.

Итак, в выходные перед Рождеством я позвонил ей и сказал, что все еще не знаю, вернусь ли я домой и когда. Мой старший сын, которому только что исполнилось 5 лет, разговаривал со мной по телефону:

«Папа, почему ты не дома на Рождество?»

«Ну, сынок, я пытаюсь помочь палестинцам».

— Папа, почему ты это делаешь?

Трудно объяснить весь ближневосточный конфликт пятилетнему ребенку, поэтому я изложил его понятными ему словами:

«Сынок, ты знаешь, что Иисус Христос родился в Вифлееме, не так ли?»

"Да папочка."

«Ну, я здесь с мэром Вифлеема и некоторыми другими палестинскими лидерами. Они мои друзья, а я их адвокат. Я работаю с мэром Вифлеема, чтобы помочь всем палестинским детям весело провести Рождество».

«Хорошо, папочка».

Все, что мог сказать его младший брат, было: «Папа, иди домой!» Он разбил мое сердце.

Нам сообщили, что мы сможем поехать домой на Рождество 23 декабря, и я сел на первый рейс из Вашингтона. возвращаюсь домой как раз вовремя в канун Рождества со своей семьей.

Периодически я посещал рождественские церковные службы UCC в городе со своей семьей. Когда приходило время молитвы общины, я всегда вставал и просил всех помочь палестинцам следующим образом: «...Вифлеем отрезан и окружен израильской армией, как и Церковь Рождества Христова. Израильтяне устраивают этнические чистки всем палестинцам, как мусульманам, так и христианам, будет играть лучше в Соединенных Штатах. И это первые христиане, восходящие к Иисусу Христу и Апостолам. Между тем, правительство Соединенных Штатов финансирует все это на сумму 5 миллиардов долларов в год. Каждому в этой Конгрегации дарены подарки им от Бога. Так что выйди и сделай что-нибудь, чтобы помочь палестинцам!»

Несмотря на все мои многолетние усилия, эта Конгрегация UCC отказалась пошевелить даже пальцем, чтобы помочь палестинцам. Поэтому несколько лет назад я покинул их Конгрегацию и разорвал с ними все связи. Это просто банда моральных трусов и лицемеров. Им нечему научить меня или кого-либо еще о христианстве, не говоря уже о мире, справедливости и правах человека. Они представляют собой парадигматический пример того, что антинацистский мученик и пастор Дитрих Бонхёффер называл «дешевой благодатью».


Фрэнсис А. Бойл,

Шампейн, Иллинойс, США

---------------------------------

 

  

From: Institute for Public Accuracy <accuracy@accuracy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 1:10 PM
To: 
francis.a.boyle@gmail.com
Subject: On Israel: Lawyer Who Applied Genocide Convention for Bosnia Recommends it Now for Palestinians

 

On Israel: Lawyer Who Applied Genocide Convention for Bosnia Recommends it Now for Palestinians

The U.S. government has twice vetoed calls for a ceasefire during the current crisis at the UN Security Council.

Al Jazeera reports: "Nearly 90 countries were o­n the speakers’ list for Tuesday’s debate including about 30 foreign ministers and deputy ministers, with many echoing calls for a ceasefire and a halt to attacks o­n Palestinian civilians amid widespread destruction in Gaza and the mounting death toll."

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu  
     Boyle is professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. His books include The Bosnian People Charge Genocide (1996) Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (2009) and World Politics, Human Rights and International Law (2021).

  He said today: "The U.S. government is clearly preventing the UN Security Council from fulfilling its rightful function and declaring a ceasefire by use of the U.S. veto. The U.S. government has also corrupted the International Criminal Court, which the Palestinians signed o­n to, so the ICC is not helping the Palestinians as it is obliged to do.

  "There is another set of legal mechanisms, however. The Provisional Government for the State of Palestine or some other party to the Genocide Convention should apply that to Israel. That is what I did for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Palestinians should immediately institute legal proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague o­n the basis of the 1948 Genocide Convention, request an Emergency Hearing by the Court, and obtain an Order by the Court against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians.

  "Israel is not engaging in legitimate self defense under the UN Charter as it and the U.S. government continuously claim. It is a belligerent occupier under the Fourth Geneva Convention and other relevant legal statutes which Israel falsely claims don't apply to it.

  "The U.S. government would seek to squash any Order by the ICJ [also called the World Court] at the Security Council. This will require use of the General Assembly’s Uniting for Peace Resolution of 1950 in order to have the World Court Order turned over to the United Nations General Assembly for enforcement against Israel. The UN General Assembly could also admit Palestine as a full-fledged U.N. Member State." See Boyle's lecture o­n this: "Stopping Zionist Genocide Against The Palestinians."

  See pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post quoting Boyle in the course of his representation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993.

  The late Michael Ratner, who was president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, also embraced involking the Genocide Convention regarding Palestine, see his piece: "UN's Investigation of Israel Should Go Beyond War Crimes to Genocide" during Israel's 2014 attack o­n Gaza. Also see video of his commentary.

  Ratner stated: "I'm a lawyer. I've looked at genocide. Genocide has two elements. o­ne element is the mental element, the intent to destroy the whole or in part a national or ethnic or racial or religious group. Palestinians are clearly a national and ethnic group. And you don't need to kill them all. You just need to have the mental intent to kill part of them. For example, it would be enough to have the mental intent to kill the leadership of the Palestinians or to kill people in o­ne region. No doubt about that."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

October 25, 2023


Institute for Public Accuracy
accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
@accuracy * ipaccuracy

От: Институт общественной точности <accuracy@accuracy.org>

Отправлено: среда, 25 октября 2023 г., 13:10.

Кому: francis.a.boyle@gmail.com

Тема: Об Израиле: юрист, применивший Конвенцию о геноциде в Боснии, теперь рекомендует ее палестинцам

 

Об Израиле: юрист, применивший Конвенцию о геноциде в Боснии, теперь рекомендует ее палестинцам

 

Правительство США дважды накладывало вето на призывы к прекращению огня во время нынешнего кризиса в Совете Безопасности ООН.

 

Аль-Джазира сообщает: «Почти 90 стран были в списке ораторов на дебатах во вторник, включая около 30 министров иностранных дел и заместителей министров, при этом многие повторяли призывы к прекращению огня и прекращению нападений на палестинское гражданское население на фоне широкомасштабных разрушений в секторе Газа и растущего числа смертей». потери."

 

ФРЭНСИС БОЙЛ, fboyle@illinois.edu

Бойл — профессор международного права юридического колледжа Университета Иллинойса. Среди его книг: «Боснийский народ обвиняет в геноциде» (1996 г.), «Палестина, палестинцы и международное право» (2009 г.) и «Мировая политика, права человека и международное право» (2021 г.).

 

Он заявил сегодня: «Правительство США явно препятствует Совету Безопасности ООН выполнять свои законные функции и объявлять о прекращении огня, используя вето США. Правительство США также коррумпировало Международный уголовный суд, под которым подписались палестинцы, поэтому МУС не помогает палестинцам, как он обязан это делать.

 

«Однако существует другой набор правовых механизмов. Временное правительство Государства Палестина или какая-либо другая сторона Конвенции о геноциде должны применить это к Израилю. Это то, что я сделал для Боснии и Герцеговины. Палестинцы должны немедленно возбудить судебное разбирательство против Израиля в Международном Суде в Гааге на основании Конвенции о геноциде 1948 года, запросить экстренное слушание в Суде и получить постановление Суда против Израиля о прекращении и воздержании от совершения всех актов геноцида против палестинцев.

 

«Израиль не участвует в законной самообороне в соответствии с Уставом ООН, как он и правительство США постоянно заявляют. Он является воюющим оккупантом в соответствии с Четвертой Женевской конвенцией и другими соответствующими правовыми актами, которые, как ложно утверждает Израиль, к нему не применимы.

 

«Правительство США будет стремиться аннулировать любое постановление Международного суда [также называемого Всемирным судом] в Совете Безопасности. Для этого потребуется использовать резолюцию Генеральной Ассамблеи «Единство ради мира» 1950 года, чтобы передать постановление Всемирного суда в Генеральная Ассамблея ООН могла бы также признать Палестину полноправным государством-членом ООН». См. лекцию Бойля по этому поводу: «Остановить сионистский геноцид против палестинцев».

 

См. статьи в NewYorkTimes и WashingtonPost, в которых цитируется Бойл в ходе его представления Боснии и Герцеговины в 1993 году.

 

Покойный Майкл Ратнер, который был президентом Центра конституционных прав, также поддерживал использование Конвенции о геноциде в отношении Палестины, см. его статью: «Расследование ООН в отношении Израиля должно выйти за рамки военных преступлений и перейти к геноциду» во время нападения Израиля на сектор Газа в 2014 году. Также смотрите видео с его комментариями.

 

Ратнер заявил: «Я юрист. Я рассматривал геноцид. Геноцид состоит из двух элементов. Один элемент — это ментальный элемент, намерение полностью или частично уничтожить национальную, этническую, расовую или религиозную группу. И не обязательно убивать их всех. Нужно просто иметь мысленное намерение убить часть из них. Например, достаточно будет мысленного намерения убить руководство палестинцев или убивать людей в одном регионе. В этом нет никаких сомнений».

 

Для получения дополнительной информации обращайтесь в Институт общественной точности:

Сэм Хусейни, (202) 347-0020; Дэвид Зупан, (541) 484-9167

 

25 октября 2023 г.

Институт общественной точности

-------------------------------------


 

 

The Americans are using the Ukrainians as
Their Cannon Fodder against the Russians. Fab.

 

Here’s noted international law expert Francis Boyle’s explanation of the real situation and of US responsibility for the current crisis, as laid out over the weekend in an interview with Dennis Bernstein, host and producer of “Flashpoints” on Pacific Radio in San Francisco: 

 

“This war must be immediately terminated before it expands and sucks in the  European NATO States and the United States. Towards that end President Biden must publicly announce that NATO Expansion is over for good  and that Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova  will not be joining NATO as  member States. President Biden must also call for an international peace conference for the conclusion of a treaty that will establish  the permanent neutrality of Ukraine which will be guaranteed by the United Nations Security Council under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Then negotiations can take place between the United States and Russia over the denuclearization of Europe including the removal of US tactical nuclear weapons from NATO States that are there in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a restoration of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty that was so foolishly  and recklessly terminated by the Trump administration. Then a new round of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty Negotiations should be conducted in order to substantially lessen the tensions o­n land, sea and air between Russia and the U.S./NATO States including over  the emplacement of alleged US ABM sites in Europe that threaten Russia.

        “Make no mistake about it: The origins of both the First World War and the Second World War hover like twin Swords of Damocles over the heads of all humanity!”

I asked Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, in an email interview today, why in his view is that it is the US, not Russia, that bears the responsibility of making the first move in trying to end the war in Ukraine, and he replied, “It was our gross and consistent  violation of our international law obligations for all these years that was ultimately responsible for this war. So now  we have an obligation to honor our international law obligations in order to end it.”

Courage in the US would be required of anti-war, pro-peace activists in the US to go into the streets and demand that the US stop feeding the conflict by providing lethal aid to Ukraine, and to demand, as Prof. Boyle correctly demands, that the US immediately offer to end all talk of Ukraine’s “right” to join NATO, and to promise not to allow any states bordering Russia to join was is specifically an international organization designed to challenge and Russia by encircling it with American missiles and military bases.

Francis A. Boyle

Law Building

504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.

Champaign IL 61820 USA

Phone: 217-333-7954

Fax: 217-244-1478

03-03-22

------------------------------

 

Американцы используют украинцев как
пушечное мясо против русских. Потрясающе

 

Вот объяснение реальной ситуации и ответственности США за нынешний кризис, данное известным экспертом по международному праву Фрэнсисом Бойлом, изложенное на выходных в интервью Деннису Бернштейну, ведущему и продюсеру «Точки воспламенения» на Тихоокеанском радио в Сан-Франциско:

 

«Эта война должна быть немедленно прекращена, пока она не расширилась и не засосала европейские государства НАТО и США. С этой целью президент Байден должен публично объявить, что расширение НАТО окончено навсегда и что Украина, Грузия и Молдова не будут присоединяться к НАТО в качестве государств-членов. Президент Байден также должен созвать международную мирную конференцию для заключения договора, который установит постоянный нейтралитет Украины, который будет гарантирован Советом Безопасности ООН в соответствии с главой 7 Устава ООН. Затем могут состояться переговоры между Соединенными Штатами и Россией о денуклеаризации Европы, в том числе о выводе американского тактического ядерного оружия из государств НАТО, находящихся там в нарушение Договора о нераспространении ядерного оружия, и о восстановлении Договора о ликвидации ракет средней и меньшей дальности. так глупо и безрассудно прекращено администрацией Трампа. Затем следует провести новый раунд переговоров по Договору об обычных вооруженных силах в Европе, чтобы существенно снизить напряженность на суше, на море и в воздухе между Россией и государствами США/НАТО, в том числе по поводу размещения предполагаемых объектов ПРО США в Европе, которые угрожают России. .

«Не заблуждайтесь: истоки как Первой мировой войны, так и Второй мировой войны парят, как дамокловы мечи-близнецы, над головами всего человечества!»

Я спросил Бойля, профессора права из Университета Иллинойса, в сегодняшнем интервью по электронной почте, почему, по его мнению, именно США, а не Россия, несут ответственность за то, чтобы сделать первый шаг в попытке положить конец войне в Украине. , и он ответил: «Именно наше грубое и последовательное нарушение наших обязательств по международному праву на протяжении всех этих лет было в конечном итоге ответственным за эту войну. Так что теперь мы обязаны соблюдать наши обязательства по международному праву, чтобы положить этому конец».

Мужество в США потребуется от антивоенных активистов, выступающих за мир в США, чтобы выйти на улицы и потребовать, чтобы США перестали подпитывать конфликт, предоставляя смертоносную помощь Украине, и потребовать, как правильно требует профессор Бойл. , то, что США немедленно предлагают прекратить все разговоры о «праве» Украины на вступление в НАТО, и обещают не допускать вступление каких-либо государств, граничащих с Россией, было именно международной организацией, призванной бросить вызов и России, окружив ее американскими ракетами и военными базы.

Фрэнсис А. Бойл

Здание закона

504 Э. Пенсильвания авеню.

Шампейн IL 61820 США

Телефон: 217-333-7954

Факс: 217-244-1478

03-03-22


-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

Yeah, for sure (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1020).I took a course o­n Dostoevsky from Professor Wasiolek at the University of Chicago where we had to read everything he wrote. It was like Dostoevsky himself lecturing to us.So when I was in St. Petersburg lecturing o­n nuclear weapons and deterrence as a Guest of the Association of Soviet Lawyers, I asked them to give me a tour of Dostoevsky’s home. The Director himself gave me a guided tour and the translation was done by my Intourist Guide. A real treat!Thanks for reminding me, fab.

Francis A. Boyle,

Law Building

504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.

Champaign IL 61820 USA

Phone: 217-333-7954

Fax: 217-244-1478

12-11-21

  

Under the Dostoevsky’s Humanism Flag:

Full Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

 

Dear Francis,

Thank you very much for your warm response for Russia and Dostoevsky from America. It is published with other responses here: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1020 and o­n your personal page here: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957.

We are glad to see that you, inspired by Dostoevsky's humanism, are creating bills, which recognize any nuclear weapon as a crime against humanity, state terrorism, which violates the right to life of every person o­n Earth. Therefore, everyone has the right and duty to resist it by all non-violent means.

You have brilliantly expressed this more than urgent demand in our collective "Anti-Nuclear Manifesto" of 46 co-authors with the participation of 4 Nobel Laureates at the end of 2020: https://peacefromharmony.org/docs/Anti-Nuclear-Manifesto-XXI.pdf 14-15 pp. We sent it twice to the national missions of almost 200 countries-members of the UN General Assembly but it was ignored. What can be said about the UN, which ignores the voice of world civil society in its "Manifesto"? Why does UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres speak of humanity "on the nuclear abyss edge", but does not want to hear the world civil society voice, ignoring its unique, innovative, scientifically grounded "Anti-Nuclear Manifesto"? Maybe you could send it personally for him this historical document of world citizens, up to which world political leaders have not yet grown up?

Best wishes for peace, health and success in your peacemaking legislation, especially first, in prohibiting America's preemptive nuclear strikes, fatal for it and all of humanity,

Leo Semashko,

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1000
13-11-21

 

Под флагом гуманизма Достоевского:

полный запрет ядерного оружия

 

Дорогой Френсис,

Большое спасибо за ваш теплый к России и Достоевскому отклик из Америки. Он опубликован с другими откликами здесь: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=930 и на вашей персональной странице здесь: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957.

Мы рады видеть, что вы, вдохновлённый гуманизмом Достоевского, создаете законопроекты, признающие любое ядерное оружие преступлением перед человечеством, государственным терроризмом, попирающем право на жизнь каждого человека на Земле. Поэтому каждый человек имеет право и обязан противостоять ему всеми ненасильственными средствами. Это более чем актуальное требование вы блестяще выразили в нашем коллективном «Антиядерном Манифесте» 46 соавторов с участием 4 Нобелевских лауреатов в конце 2020 года: https://peacefromharmony.org/docs/Antiyadernyy-Manifest-XXI.pdf, стр. 14-15. Мы дважды посылали его национальным миссиям почти 200 стран-членам Генеральной Ассамблеи ООН, но оно осталось без внимания. Что можно сказать об ООН, игнорирующей голос мирового гражданского общества в нашем «Манифесте»? Почему Генсек ООН Антонио Гутерреш говорит о человечестве «на краю ядерной бездны», но не хочет слышать голоса мирового гражданского общества, игнорируя его уникальный, инновационный, научно обоснованный «Антиядерный Манифест»? Может быть вы могли бы послать ему персонально этот исторический документ мировых граждан, до которого еще не доросли мировые политические лидеры?

Лучшие пожелания мира, здоровья и успехов в вашем миротворческом законотворчестве, прежде всего в запрещении превентивных ядерных ударов Америки, смертельных для нее и всего человечества,

Лев Семашко,

13-11-21

 ------------------------------------------


THE CRIMINALITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

by Francis A. Boyle


         The human race stands o­n the verge of nuclear self-extinction as a species, and with it will die most, if not all, forms of intelligent life o­n the planet earth. Any attempt to dispel the ideology of nuclearism and its attendant myth propounding the legality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence must directly come to grips with the fact that the nuclear age was conceived in the original sins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki o­n August 6 and 9, 1945. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined by the Nuremberg Charter of August 8, 1945, and violated several basic provisions of the Regulations annexed to Hague Convention No. 4 Respecting the Laws and Customs of War o­n Land (1907), the rules of customary international law set forth in the Draft Hague Rules of Air Warfare (1923), and the United States War Department Field Manual 27-10, Rules of Land Warfare (1940). According to this Field Manual and the Nuremberg Principles, all civilian government officials and military officers who ordered or knowingly participated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have been lawfully punished as war criminals. The start of any progress toward resolving humankind's nuclear predicament must come from the realization that nuclear weapons have never been legitimate instruments of state policy, but rather have always constituted illegitimate instrumentalities of internationally lawless and criminal behavior.


THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The use of nuclear weapons in combat was, and still is, absolutely prohibited under all circumstances by both conventional and customary international law: e.g., the Nuremberg Principles, the Hague Regulations of 1907, the International Convention o­n the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocol I of 1977, etc. In addition, the use of nuclear weapons would also specifically violate several fundamental resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly that have repeatedly condemned the use of nuclear weapons as an international crime.

            Consequently, according to the Nuremberg Judgment, soldiers would be obliged to disobey egregiously illegal orders with respect to launching and waging a nuclear war. Second, all government officials and military officers who might nevertheless launch or wage a nuclear war would be personally responsible for the commission of Nuremberg crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and Protocol 1, and genocide, among other international crimes. Third, such individuals would not be entitled to the defenses of superior orders, act of state, tu quoque, self-defense, presidential authority, etc. Fourth, such individuals could thus be quite legitimately and most severely punished as war criminals, up to and including the imposition of the death penalty, without limitation of time.


THE THREAT TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS

            Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter of 1945 prohibits both the threat and the use of force except in cases of legitimate self-defense as recognized by article 51 thereof. But although the requirement of legitimate self-defense is a necessary precondition for the legality of any threat or use of force, it is certainly not sufficient. For the legality of any threat or use of force must also take into account the customary and conventional international laws of humanitarian armed conflict.

         Thereunder, the threat to use nuclear weapons (i.e., nuclear deterrence/terrorism) constitutes o­ngoing international criminal activity: namely, planning, preparation, solicitation and conspiracy to commit Nuremberg crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, Additional Protocol I of 1977, the Hague Regulations of 1907, and the International Convention o­n the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, inter alia. These are the so-called inchoate crimes that under the Nuremberg Principles constitute international crimes in their own right.

          The conclusion is inexorable that the design, research, testing, production, manufacture, fabrication, transportation, deployment, installation, maintenance, storing, stockpiling, sale, and purchase as well as the threat to use nuclear weapons together with all their essential accouterments are criminal under well-recognized principles of international law. Thus, those government decision-makers in all the nuclear weapons states with command responsibility for their nuclear weapons establishments are today subject to personal criminal responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles for this criminal practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism that they have daily inflicted upon all states and peoples of the international community.. Here I wish to single out four components of the threat to use nuclear weapons that are especially reprehensible from an international law perspective: counter-ethnic targeting; counter-city targeting; first-strike weapons and contingency plans; and the first-use of nuclear weapons even to repel a conventional attack.


THE CRIMINALITY OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

        As can be determined in part from the preceding analysis, today's nuclear weapons establishments as well as the entire system of nuclear deterrence/terrorism currently practiced by all the nuclear weapon states are criminal -- not simply illegal, not simply immoral, but criminal under well established principles of international law. This simple idea of the criminality of nuclear weapons can be utilized to pierce through the ideology of nuclearism to which many citizens in the nuclear weapons states have succumbed. It is with this simple idea of the criminality of nuclear weapons that concerned citizens can proceed to comprehend the inherent illegitimacy and fundamental lawlessness of the policies that their governments pursue in their names with respect to the maintenance and further development of nuclear weapons systems.


THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY OF

NUCLEAR  DETERRENCE/TERRORISM

         Humankind must abolish nuclear weapons before nuclear weapons abolish humankind. Nonetheless, a small number of governments in the world community continue to maintain nuclear weapons systems despite the rules of international criminal law to the contrary. This has led some international lawyers to argue quite tautologically and disingenuously that since there exist a few nuclear weapons states in the world community, therefore nuclear weapons must somehow not be criminal because otherwise these few states would not possess nuclear weapons systems. In other words, to use lawyers' parlance, this minority state practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism practiced by the great powers somehow negates the existence of a world opinio juris (i.e., sense of legal obligation) as to the criminality of nuclear weapons.

         There is a very simple response to that specious argument: Since when has a small gang of criminals -- in this case, the nuclear weapons states -- been able to determine what is legal or illegal for the rest of the community by means of their own criminal behavior? What right do these nuclear weapons states have to argue that by means of their own criminal behavior they have ipso facto made criminal acts legitimate? No civilized nation state would permit a small gang of criminal conspirators to pervert its domestic legal order in this manner. Moreover, both the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Tokyo Tribunal made it quite clear that a conspiratorial band of criminal states likewise has no right to opt out of the international legal order by means of invoking their own criminal behavior as the least common denominator of international deportment.  Ex iniuria ius non oritur is a peremptory norm of customary international law.  Right cannot grow out of injustice!

         To the contrary, the entire human race has been victimized by an international conspiracy of o­ngoing criminal activity carried out by the nuclear weapons states under the doctrine known as "nuclear deterrence," which is really a euphemism for "nuclear terrorism." This international criminal conspiracy of nuclear deterrence/terrorism currently practiced by the nuclear weapons states is no different from any other conspiracy by a criminal gang or band. They are the outlaws. So it is up to the rest of the international community to repress and dissolve this international criminal conspiracy as soon as possible.


THE HUMAN RIGHT TO ANTI-NUCLEAR CIVIL RESISTANCE

          In light of the fact that nuclear weapons systems are prohibited, illegal, and criminal under all circumstances and for any reason, every person around the world possesses a basic human right to be free from this criminal practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism and its concomitant specter of nuclear extinction. Thus, all human beings possess the basic right under international law to engage in non-violent civil resistance activities for the purpose of preventing, impeding, or terminating the o­ngoing commission of these international crimes. Every citizen of the world community has both the right and the duty to oppose the existence of nuclear weapons systems by whatever non-violent means are at his or her disposal.  Otherwise, the human race will suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs, and the planet earth will become a radioactive wasteland.  The time for preventive action is now!

 

 

AUTHOR BIO

Francis A. Boyle


As a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law, Francis A. Boyle is uniquely qualified to address the issue of nuclear deterrence. Twenty years of anti-nuclear advocacy have earned him what may be the world's best track record for anti-nuclear acquittals. Recently, his testimony persuaded a Scottish Judge in the UK to direct a verdict against the UK Trident 2. Through his exacting international legal analysis, prolific writings and tireless advocacy, he has succeeded in establishing the illegality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence, reflected in the recent World Court Advisory Opinion of 1996.

Francis A. Boyle's long, distinguished and multi-faceted career has included: responsibility for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention; lecturing o­n nuclear weapons and international law to the U.S. military at West Point and to Soviet and foreign lawyers through two lecture tours sponsored by the Lawyers' Committee o­n Nuclear Policy and the Association of Soviet Lawyers; and representing the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the International Court of Justice (1993-94), where he won two World Court Orders against the rump Yugoslavia to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide.

Boyle has also served o­n the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992); as Legal Advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization o­n the Creation of the State of Palestine (1987-89) and to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations (1991-93), and as a Consultant to the American Friends Service Committee.

Professor Boyle teaches International Law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, and is author, inter alia, of Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law,The Future of International Law and American Foreign Policy, Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations 1898-1921, and The Bosnian People Charge Genocide. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.

Philip Berrigan

Philip Berrigan began nonviolent resistance to U.S. wars in 1966, breaking laws
legalizing the Vietnam war. He has spent 11 of the last 35 years serving prison sentences related to his peace activism, and was most recently released from federal prison o­n December 14, 2001.  He participated in six Plowshares witnesses,  and has published eight books o­n nonviolent issues and war and peace.  He has lectured o­n modern war and peace, nuclearism and interventionary war in most of the American States, and across Canada and Western Europe.  Along with Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize  six times

SUMMARY

  As the U.S. War o­n Terrorism  hurtles into uncharted waters, challenging accepted norms of international law and setting a pattern for peremptory state behavior,  could a nuclear strike against a non-nuclear "rogue state" become an American option? Could conflicts between other nuclear states such as India and Pakistan go nuclear?

The Clinton Administration’s Presidential Decision Directive 60 asserted a U.S. right to target non-nuclear states with nuclear weapons in 1997.  But PDD60, as well as nuclear deterrence as a whole -- both the use and threatened use of nuclear weapons -- is illegal under the international law of warfare.

In fact, Francis A. Boyle argues in The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, the Bush administration’s toying with the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan, its intent to proceed with National Missile Defense, to renew nuclear testing and develop "bunker-busting" nuclear weapons will have disastrous impact o­n existing international efforts to rein in the global nuclear arms race through the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.  Already, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has fallen before its scythe.

This book provides a succinct and detailed guide to understanding the arms race from  Hiroshima/ Nagasaki through the SALT I, SALT II, ABM and START efforts at arms control, to Star Wars/National Missile Defense,  U.S. unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty, and events in Afghanistan and beyond.

It clarifies the relevant international law, from the Hague Conventions through the Nuremberg Principles to the recent World Court Advisory Opinion, as well as tracing contradictions in and contraventions of domestic guidelines established in the U.S. Army Field Manual of 1956 o­n The Law of Land Warfare, which remains the official primer for U.S. military personnel concerning the laws of war to which they must regard themselves as subject.

More disturbingly, Boyle reviews the intricacies of the foreign policy controversies and objectives which mark the development of American nuclear policy, often pressed forward by civilian administrations seeking to promote their geopolitical agenda over the advice and desires of the American military itself.

This book is an effective tool and a "must read" for the burgeoning anti-nuclear and peace movements, church groups, and lawyers defending anti-nuclear resisters. It should also prove instructive for the diplomatic community, and for civilian and military personnel who frame and carry out America’s nuclear policies, who more than any must weigh the possibility of being summoned o­ne day before an international war crimes tribunal

0-932863-33-7 Paper $14.95

REVIEWS

Click Here* (99k PDF file) to read the review from
—The Federal Lawyer, March/April 2003,
a publication of the Federal Bar Association, Washington, DC

*note that the review originally appeared in the March/April 2003 issue of The Federal Lawyer and is used with permission.

The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence is International Law Professor Francis Boyle's latest work. It lays out the intellectual and legal foundation for an indictment of U.S. nuclear policy and its architects, should any court aspire to assert jurisdiction o­n this issue. In the meantime, Boyle's damning post-9 / 11 legal analysis of U.S. nuclear war policy and the so-called "war o­n terrorism" is the best single book for nuclear resisters to study if they intend to defend their own direct action under international law.

The Nuclear Resister,
September, 2002

Francis A. Boyle is a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law. He has been an anti-nuclear advocate for twenty years, and has helped to achieve acquittals of many anti-nuclear campaigners, including the Trident Ploughshares activists found not guilty by the Greenock Sheriff’s Court in 1999. He is therefore well qualified to produce “… this book that will concentrate exclusively o­n the principles of international law relevant to nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence”.

The special introduction deals with the events of September 11 and the US government response, including many references to recent history, which condition that response. This will be returned to later.

The rest of the book, however, deals with international law in relation to nuclear weapons, and does so in great detail. For the lay reader this is very difficult to fully comprehend, liberally sprinkled as it is with legal terms like injuria non oritur jus and opinio juris. Despite this, it is possible to appreciate the main conclusion: nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are not o­nly illegal, but, as the title indicates, criminal under international and US law, including the US Army Field Manual of 1956 o­n The Law of Land Warfare, itself based o­n earlier versions which support the same conclusion. Every person involved in making decisions about the use of nuclear weapons, from the US President down to the operator who actually presses the button is potentially liable to prosecution, with penalties in some cases ranging from execution to a fine of not more than $1million or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both. In relating this to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is stated that all US government officials and military officers who knowingly participated in these bombings could have been (and still can be) lawfully punished as war criminals. This is a breathtaking claim, which should at the very least give pause for thought to anyone today involved with nuclear weapons at any level.

In refuting the standard defence of nuclear apologists, that there is no specific prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons in international law, a distinction is made between the “prohibitive” and “permissive” theories of international law. It is argued that the Nuremberg principles, established in 1945, support the latter; even though the International Court of Justice has adopted the “prohibitive” theory in the past, international law is continually evolving, and needs to do to cope with changes in nuclear doctrine.

A large part of the book is a collection of previous writings. This does not affect in any way the validity of the arguments o­n basic principles, but it is a little out of date in some respects. For example, the chapter o­n Star Wars was originally published in 1989, and does not include the many developments since then. This is a pity, for the new relationship between the US and Russia, in the context both of Son of Star Wars and of nuclear weapons generally, deserves a detailed analysis. (There is a brief reference in the introductory chapter.) Again, there is no reference to the Nuclear Posture Review, a very important recent development. (See Frank Barnaby’s report in the last issue of World Disarm!)

Because of the way it is compiled, the book is also somewhat repetitive. It seems to this reviewer that it could be significantly condensed – perhaps not quite to pamphlet length, but to a much shorter book – and would thereby gain a wider readership and possibly have a greater impact o­n that readership.

Returning now to the special post-September 11 introduction, this is a scathing attack o­n what he calls the nuclear nihilism of the Bush Jr. administration, the US Nuclear Power Elite and the US Nuclear Empire. The terminology of the ”war against terrorism” is analysed and comprehensively criticised. o­ne section is headed: Retaliation is not self-defence, and refers to a State Department pronouncement in the 1970s – the Vietnam era! – that retaliation and reprisal were prohibited by international law.. It is strongly argued that the war against Afghanistan cannot be justified o­n either the facts or the law, domestic or international. Instead, it is categorised as part of a Pentagon war plan for the control of oil and gas resources. Anti-terrorist legislation introduced by Attorney-General Ashcroft is described as a Police State Act, and great concern is expressed for the erosion of civil rights and the US constitution. Many other cogent comments are made o­n various aspects of George Bush Jr.’s policies, at home and abroad.

Despite a few criticisms, this is an enormously valuable book. Any supporter of nuclear weapons would find it very difficult to refute its arguments. But also, above and beyond the legal analysis, the basic moral question is posed: does the human species have a future, or is it doomed to perish in a nuclear holocaust? If it is left to George W. Bush and his cronies, there is not much room for optimism.

FRANK JACKSON, Vice-Chair,
World Disarmament Campaign UK and Editor, World Disarm!

TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY REV. PHILIP BERRIGAN

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION:
GEORGE BUSH, JR., SEPTEMBER 11th AND THE RULE OF LAW

Machiavelli Redux
International Legal Nihilism
11 September 2001
The Facts
The Powell/Blair White Paper
The Cover-Ups
The Bin Laden Video
Framing a Response to September 11th
Terrorism and the Law
The U.S. Policy Preference: Not Terrorism - War
The UN Security Council Disagrees: Terrorism, not War
Bush Sr. v. Bush Jr.
No Declaration of War from Congress
The Infamy of Korematsu
 Instead, A Blank Check to Use Military Force
Bush Sr. v. Bush Jr. Redux
"Ending States"
Honest Nuclear War-Mongering
The Prostitution of NATO
Bush Jr.'s Crusade
The U.S./UN Ambassador of Death
Nazi "Self-defense" Resurfaces
Retaliation Is Not Self-Defense
Choosing Violent Resolutions for International Disputes Humanitarian Catastrophe
Why War?
It's Still the Oil, Stupid!
How Empires Rule at Home
Bush Jr's Constitutional Coup D'Êtat
Ashcroft's Police State
Bush's Kangaroo Courts
The Bush Jr. Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty
 Conclusion/Prologue

CHAPTER 1: THE U.S. EMBRACES INTERNATIONAL LEGAL NIHILISM

CHAPTER 2: THE LESSONS OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

 "Points of Choice"
The Shimoda Case
U.S. War Department Field Manual 27-10 (1940)
Protections for the Civilian Population
The Prohibition o­n Collective Punishments
Truman's Utilitarian Justification
Military Necessity?
Aerial Bombardment
Strategic Warning
Military Versus Civilian Attitudes Toward the Bomb
The Interim Committee
The Hague Regulations
Personal Criminal Responsibility
The Nuremberg Charter
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East
The Geopolitical Reasons Behind Hiroshima and Nagasaki

CHAPTER 3: THE RELEVANCE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW TO THE  PARADOX OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Critique of the "Positivist" Approach to Analyzing the Legality of Nuclear Weapons
The U.S. Government's Argument for the Legality of Using Nuclear Weapons
The Relevance of the Nuremberg Principles to Nuclear Deterrence
The Lotus Case Versus the Martens Clause
The Precedential Significance of America's Response to Germany's Policy of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare During the First World War
Paragraph 35 of the U.S. Army Field Manual Reconsidered
The Illegality of U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Doctrine Promotes Military Insubordination
Analyzing the Legality of Illegality of the Reagan Administration's "Protracted Nuclear War-Prevailing"
   Deterrence Doctrine
The Theory Versus the Reality of U.S. Strategic Nuclear Deterrence
The Counterproductivity of the Reagan Administration's SIOP
A Preemptive Nuclear Strike Upon the Soviet Union
Nuclear Deterrence of Conventional Warfare
Is it Lawful to Possess Nuclear Weapons?
Conclusion

 CHAPTER 4. STAR WARS VS. INTERNATIONAL LAW: THE FORCE WILL BE AGAINST US!

The Deadlocked Geneva Negotiations
SALT I
The U.S. MIRV Program
The Fate of SALT II
The SALT II MIRV Buildup
SALT II Violations?
The SDI Program
SDI vs. the ABM Treaty
The Reinterpretation of the ABM Treaty
SDI as a Propaganda Gesture
SDI at Geneva
Reagan's Repudiation of SALT I and SALT II
SDI as Part of the Nuclear Arms Race
SDI as a First-Strike System
Progress at Geneva?
START at Geneva
Conclusion

CHAPTER 5. THE CRIMINALITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Introduction
Authority of the World Court's Advisory Opinion
Summary of the World Court's Advisory Opinion
The Criminality of the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons
The Importance of Paragraph 104 of the Advisory Opinion
Burden of Proof
The Right to Life
Genocide
Environmental Protection
Violations of the United Nations Charter
The Principles of Necessity and Proportionality
Nuclear Escalation
Reprisals
The Illegality of Nuclear Deterrence
Possession of Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Weapons and the Laws of War
Nuclear Deterrence and International Humanitarian Law
Nuclear Weapons and Nuremberg Accountability
Nuclear Weapons and International Humanitarian Law
Violation of the International Laws of Neutrality
Condemnation of Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Warfare
Conclusion o­n International Humanitarian Law and Nuclear Weapons
The World Court's Non-Pronouncement in Paragraph 97
Nuclear Disarmament
The Dispositif
Unanimous Ruling o­n the U.N. Charter
Unanimous Ruling o­n International Humanitarian Law
Unanimous Ruling o­n Nuclear Disarmament
The Court's Ruling o­n the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons
The Importance of Paragraph 104
Interpreting Paragraph 105 (2) (E)
The Dissenters to Paragraph 105( 2) (E)
Conclusion

CHAPTER 6: COULD THE U.S. WAR o­n TERRORISM GO NUCLEAR?

INDEX

 


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THE CRIMINALITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

by Francis A. Boyle

The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence/Terrorism. The human race stands o­n the verge of nuclear self-extinction as a species, and with it will die most, if not all, forms of intelligent life o­n the planet earth. Any attempt to dispel the ideology of nuclearism and its attendant myth propounding the legality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence must directly come to grips with the fact that the nuclear age was conceived in the original sins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki o­n August 6 and 9, 1945. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined by the Nuremberg Charter of August 8, 1945, and violated several basic provisions of the Regulations annexed to Hague Convention No. 4 Respecting the Laws and Customs of War o­n Land (1907), the rules of customary international law set forth in the Draft Hague Rules of Air Warfare (1923), and the United States War Department Field Manual 27-10, Rules of Land Warfare (1940). According to this Field Manual and the Nuremberg Principles, all civilian government officials and military officers who ordered or knowingly participated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have been lawfully punished as war criminals. The start of any progress toward resolving humankind's nuclear predicament must come from the realization that nuclear weapons have never been legitimate instruments of state policy, but rather have always constituted illegitimate instrumentalities of internationally lawless and criminal behavior.


THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The use of nuclear weapons in combat was, and still is, absolutely prohibited under all circumstances by both conventional and customary international law: e.g., the Nuremberg Principles, the Hague Regulations of 1907, the International Convention o­n the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocol I of 1977, etc. In addition, the use of nuclear weapons would also specifically violate several fundamental resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly that have repeatedly condemned the use of nuclear weapons as an international crime.

Consequently, according to the Nuremberg Judgment, soldiers would be obliged to disobey egregiously illegal orders with respect to launching and waging a nuclear war. Second, all government officials and military officers who might nevertheless launch or wage a nuclear war would be personally responsible for the commission of Nuremberg crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and Protocol 1, and genocide, among other international crimes. Third, such individuals would not be entitled to the defenses of superior orders, act of state, tu quoque, self-defense, presidential authority, etc. Fourth, such individuals could thus be quite legitimately and most severely punished as war criminals, up to and including the imposition of the death penalty, without limitation of time.


THE THREAT TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS

         Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter of 1945 prohibits both the threat and the use of force except in cases of legitimate self-defense as recognized by article 51 thereof. But although the requirement of legitimate self-defense is a necessary precondition for the legality of any threat or use of force, it is certainly not sufficient. For the legality of any threat or use of force must also take into account the customary and conventional international laws of humanitarian armed conflict.

Thereunder, the threat to use nuclear weapons (i.e., nuclear deterrence/terrorism) constitutes o­ngoing international criminal activity: namely, planning, preparation, solicitation and conspiracy to commit Nuremberg crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, Additional Protocol I of 1977, the Hague Regulations of 1907, and the International Convention o­n the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, inter alia. These are the so-called inchoate crimes that under the Nuremberg Principles constitute international crimes in their own right.

The conclusion is inexorable that the design, research, testing, production, manufacture, fabrication, transportation, deployment, installation, maintenance, storing, stockpiling, sale, and purchase as well as the threat to use nuclear weapons together with all their essential accouterments are criminal under well-recognized principles of international law. Thus, those government decision-makers in all the nuclear weapons states with command responsibility for their nuclear weapons establishments are today subject to personal criminal responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles for this criminal practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism that they have daily inflicted upon all states and peoples of the international community. Here I wish to single out four components of the threat to use nuclear weapons that are especially reprehensible from an international law perspective: counter-ethnic targeting; counter-city targeting; first-strike weapons and contingency plans; and the first-use of nuclear weapons even to repel a conventional attack.


THE CRIMINALITY OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

As can be determined in part from the preceding analysis, today's nuclear weapons establishments as well as the entire system of nuclear deterrence/terrorism currently practiced by all the nuclear weapon states are criminal -- not simply illegal, not simply immoral, but criminal under well established principles of international law. This simple idea of the criminality of nuclear weapons can be utilized to pierce through the ideology of nuclearism to which many citizens in the nuclear weapons states have succumbed. It is with this simple idea of the criminality of nuclear weapons that concerned citizens can proceed to comprehend the inherent illegitimacy and fundamental lawlessness of the policies that their governments pursue in their names with respect to the maintenance and further development of nuclear weapons systems.


THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY OF NUCLEARDETERRENCE/TERRORISM

Humankind must abolish nuclear weapons before nuclear weapons abolish humankind. Nonetheless, a small number of governments in the world community continue to maintain nuclear weapons systems despite the rules of international criminal law to the contrary. This has led some international lawyers to argue quite tautologically and disingenuously that since there exist a few nuclear weapons states in the world community, therefore nuclear weapons must somehow not be criminal because otherwise these few states would not possess nuclear weapons systems. In other words, to use lawyers' parlance, this minority state practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism practiced by the great powers somehow negates the existence of a world opinio juris (i.e., sense of legal obligation) as to the criminality of nuclear weapons.

There is a very simple response to that specious argument: Since when has a small gang of criminals -- in this case, the nuclear weapons states -- been able to determine what is legal or illegal for the rest of the community by means of their own criminal behavior? What right do these nuclear weapons states have to argue that by means of their own criminal behavior they have ipso facto made criminal acts legitimate? No civilized nation state would permit a small gang of criminal conspirators to pervert its domestic legal order in this manner. Moreover, both the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Tokyo Tribunal made it quite clear that a conspiratorial band of criminal states likewise has no right to opt out of the international legal order by means of invoking their own criminal behavior as the least common denominator of international deportment.Ex iniuria ius non oritur is a peremptory norm of customary international law.Right cannot grow out of injustice!

To the contrary, the entire human race has been victimized by an international conspiracy of o­ngoing criminal activity carried out by the nuclear weapons states under the doctrine known as "nuclear deterrence," which is really a euphemism for "nuclear terrorism." This international criminal conspiracy of nuclear deterrence/terrorism currently practiced by the nuclear weapons states is no different from any other conspiracy by a criminal gang or band. They are the outlaws. So it is up to the rest of the international community to repress and dissolve this international criminal conspiracy as soon as possible.


THE HUMAN RIGHT TO ANTI-NUCLEAR CIVIL RESISTANCE

In light of the fact that nuclear weapons systems are prohibited, illegal, and criminal under all circumstances and for any reason, every person around the world possesses a basic human right to be free from this criminal practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism and its concomitant specter of nuclear extinction. Thus, all human beings possess the basic right under international law to engage in non-violent civil resistance activities for the purpose of preventing, impeding, or terminating the o­ngoing commission of these international crimes. Every citizen of the world community has both the right and the duty to oppose the existence of nuclear weapons systems by whatever non-violent means are at his or her disposal.Otherwise, the human race will suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs, and the planet earth will become a radioactive wasteland.The time for preventive action is now!


Francis A. Boyle

Law Building

504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.

Champaign IL 61820 USA

Phone: 217-333-7954

Fax: 217-244-1478

(personal comments o­nly)

 

Преступность ядерного сдерживания

Фрэнсис А. Бойль

Преступность ядерного сдерживания/терроризма. Человеческая раса стоит на грани ядерного самоуничтожения как вид, и вместе с ней погибнет большинство, если не все, формы разумной жизни на планете Земля. Любая попытка развеять идеологию ядерного оружия и сопутствующий ему миф о законности ядерного оружия и ядерного сдерживания должна непосредственно учитывать тот факт, что ядерный век зародился в первородных грехах Хиросимы и Нагасаки 6 и 9 августа 1945 года. Атомные бомбардировки Хиросимы и Нагасаки представляют собой преступления против человечности и военные преступления, как они определены в Нюрнбергской хартии от 8 августа 1945 года, и являются нарушением нескольких основных положений Правил, прилагаемых к Гаагской конвенции № 4 о законах и обычаях войны. Земля (1907 г.), нормы обычного международного права, изложенные в Проекте Гаагских правил ведения воздушной войны (1923 г.) и Полевом руководстве 27-10 Военного министерства США, Правила ведения боевых действий на суше (1940 г.). Согласно этому полевому руководству и Нюрнбергским принципам, все гражданские правительственные чиновники и военные, которые отдавали приказы или сознательно участвовали в атомных бомбардировках Хиросимы и Нагасаки, могли быть законно наказаны как военные преступники. Начало любого прогресса в разрешении ядерной проблемы человечества должно исходить от осознания того, что ядерное оружие никогда не было законным инструментом государственной политики, а, скорее, всегда являлось незаконным инструментом международно беззаконного и преступного поведения.


ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ ЯДЕРНОГО ОРУЖИЯ

Применение ядерного оружия в бою было и остается абсолютно запретным при любых обстоятельствах как обычным, так и обычным международным правом: например, Нюрнбергскими принципами, Гаагскими правилами 1907 года, Международной конвенцией о предупреждении преступления и наказании за него. Геноцид 1948 года, Четыре Женевские конвенции 1949 года и Дополнительный протокол I к ним 1977 года и т. д. Кроме того, использование ядерного оружия также явилось бы прямым нарушением нескольких основополагающих резолюций Генеральной Ассамблеи Организации Объединенных Наций, которые неоднократно осуждали применение ядерного оружия. как международное преступление.

Следовательно, согласно Нюрнбергскому решению, солдаты будут обязаны не подчиняться вопиющим незаконным приказам в отношении развязывания и ведения ядерной войны. Во-вторых, все правительственные чиновники и военные, которые, тем не менее, могут начать или вести ядерную войну, будут нести личную ответственность за совершение Нюрнбергских преступлений против мира, преступлений против человечности, военных преступлений, серьезных нарушений Женевских конвенций и Протокола 1 и геноцида. среди других международных преступлений. В-третьих, такие люди не будут иметь права на защиту приказов вышестоящих властей, государственного акта, tuquoque, самообороны, президентской власти и т. Д. В-четвертых, такие люди, таким образом, могут быть вполне законно и самым суровым образом наказаны как военные преступники, вплоть до и в том числе вынесение смертного приговора без ограничения срока давности.


УГРОЗА ПРИМЕНЕНИЯ ЯДЕРНОГО ОРУЖИЯ

Статья 2 (4) Устава Организации Объединенных Наций 1945 года запрещает как угрозу силой, так и ее применение, за исключением случаев законной самообороны, признанной в ее статье 51. Но хотя требование законной самообороны является необходимым предварительным условием законности любой угрозы силой или ее применения, этого, безусловно, недостаточно. Для законности любой угрозы силой или ее применения необходимо также учитывать обычное и конвенционное международное право гуманитарного вооруженного конфликта.

Таким образом, угроза применения ядерного оружия (т.е. ядерное сдерживание/терроризм) представляет собой продолжающуюся международную преступную деятельность: а именно планирование, подготовку, подстрекательство и сговор с целью совершения нюрнбергских преступлений против мира, преступлений против человечности, военных преступлений, геноцида, а также серьезные нарушения четырех Женевских конвенций 1949 года, Дополнительного протокола I 1977 года, Гаагских правил 1907 года и Международной конвенции о предупреждении преступления геноцида 1948 года и наказании за него, в частности. Это так называемые зачаточные преступления, которые в соответствии с Нюрнбергскими принципами сами по себе составляют международные преступления.

Неумолимый вывод о том, что проектирование, исследования, испытания, производство, изготовление, транспортировка, развертывание, установка, техническое обслуживание, хранение, накопление, продажа и покупка, а также угроза применения ядерного оружия вместе со всем его основным снаряжением являются преступник согласно общепризнанным принципам международного права. Таким образом, лица, принимающие решения во всех государствах, обладающих ядерным оружием и несущие ответственность за свои ядерные оружейные предприятия, сегодня несут персональную уголовную ответственность в соответствии с Нюрнбергскими принципами за преступную практику ядерного сдерживания/терроризма, которой они ежедневно используют во всех государствах и среди всех народов международного сообщества. Здесь я хочу выделить четыре компонента угрозы применения ядерного оружия, которые особенно предосудительны с точки зрения международного права: контрэтнические нападения; нацеливание на города; оружие первого удара и планы на случай непредвиденных обстоятельств; и применение первым ядерного оружия даже для отражения обычного нападения.


ПРЕСТУПНОСТЬ ЯДЕРНОГО ОРУЖИЯ И ЯДЕРНОЕ СДЕРЖИВАНИЕ

Как можно частично определить из предыдущего анализа, сегодняшние ядерные оружейные предприятия, а также вся система ядерного сдерживания/терроризма, практикуемая в настоящее время всеми ядерными державами, являются преступными - не просто незаконными, не просто аморальными, но и преступными в недрах установленных принципов международного права. Эту простую идею о преступности ядерного оружия можно использовать, чтобы пробиться сквозь идеологию ядерного оружия, которой поддались многие граждане ядерных держав. Именно с этой простой идеей о преступности ядерного оружия заинтересованные граждане могут приступить к пониманию неотъемлемой незаконности и фундаментального беззакония политики, которую их правительства проводят от их имени в отношении поддержания и дальнейшего развития систем ядерного оружия.


МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ ПРЕСТУПНЫЙ ЗАГОВОР О ЯДЕРНОМ

СДЕРЖИВАНИИ/ТЕРРОРИЗМЕ

Человечество должно уничтожить ядерное оружие, прежде чем ядерное оружие уничтожит человечество. Тем не менее, небольшое число правительств в мировом сообществе продолжают поддерживать системы ядерных вооружений, несмотря на противоположные нормы международного уголовного права. Это заставило некоторых юристов-международников довольно тавтологично и неискренне утверждать, что, поскольку в мировом сообществе существует несколько государств, обладающих ядерным оружием, ядерное оружие каким-то образом не должно быть преступным, потому что в противном случае эти несколько государств не обладали бы системами ядерного оружия. Другими словами, говоря языком юристов, эта практика ядерного сдерживания/терроризма со стороны государств меньшинства, практикуемая великими державами, каким-то образом отрицает существование мирового мнения (т. е. чувства юридического обязательства) в отношении преступности ядерного оружия.

На этот надуманный аргумент есть очень простой ответ: с тех пор как небольшая банда преступников - в данном случае государства, обладающие ядерным оружием - смогла определить, что является законным или незаконным для остальной части сообщества, с помощью своих собственное преступное поведение? Какое право имеют эти ядерные державы утверждать, что своим преступным поведением они ipso facto сделали преступные действия законными? Ни одно цивилизованное национальное государство не позволит небольшой банде преступных заговорщиков так извращать его внутренний правовой порядок. Более того, и Нюрнбергский трибунал, и Токийский трибунал совершенно ясно дали понять, что заговорщическая банда преступных государств также не имеет права отказываться от международного правопорядка, ссылаясь на собственное преступное поведение как на наименьший общий знаменатель международного поведения. Ex iniuria ius non oritur - это императивная норма обычного международного права. Право не может вырасти из несправедливости!

Напротив, все человечество стало жертвой международного заговора продолжающейся преступной деятельности, осуществляемой государствами, обладающими ядерным оружием, в соответствии с доктриной, известной как «ядерное сдерживание», что на самом деле является эвфемизмом для «ядерного терроризма». Этот международный преступный заговор ядерного сдерживания/терроризма, который в настоящее время практикуется государствами, обладающими ядерным оружием, ничем не отличается от любого другого заговора преступной банды или шайки. Они преступники. Так что остальная часть международного сообщества должна как можно скорее подавить и ликвидировать этот международный преступный заговор.


ПРАВО ЧЕЛОВЕКА НА ПРОТИВОЯДЕРНОЕ ГРАЖДАНСКОЕ СОПРОТИВЛЕНИЕ

В свете того факта, что системы ядерного оружия запрещены, незаконны и преступны при любых обстоятельствах и по любой причине, каждый человек во всем мире обладает основным правом человека на свободу от этой преступной практики ядерного сдерживания/терроризма и связанных с ним признаков ядерного вымирания. Таким образом, все люди обладают основным правом в соответствии с международным правом участвовать в ненасильственной деятельности гражданского сопротивления с целью предотвращения, воспрепятствования или прекращения продолжающегося совершения этих международных преступлений. Каждый гражданин мирового сообщества имеет право и обязан противостоять существованию систем ядерного оружия любыми ненасильственными средствами, которые имеются в его или ее распоряжении. В противном случае человечество постигнет участь динозавров, и планета Земля превратится в радиоактивную пустошь. Пришло время превентивных действий!

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SUMMARY

As the U.S. War o­n Terrorismhurtles into uncharted waters, challenging accepted norms of international law and setting a pattern for peremptory state behavior,could a nuclear strike against a non-nuclear "rogue state" become an American option? Could conflicts between other nuclear states such as India and Pakistan go nuclear?

The Clinton Administration’s Presidential Decision Directive 60 asserted a U.S. right to target non-nuclear states with nuclear weapons in 1997.But PDD60, as well as nuclear deterrence as a whole -- both the use and threatened use of nuclear weapons -- is illegal under the international law of warfare.

In fact, Francis A. Boyle argues in The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, the Bush administration’s toying with the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan, its intent to proceed with National Missile Defense, to renew nuclear testing and develop "bunker-busting" nuclear weapons will have disastrous impact o­n existing international efforts to rein in the global nuclear arms race through the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.Already, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has fallen before its scythe.

This book provides a succinct and detailed guide to understanding the arms race fromHiroshima/Nagasaki through the SALT I, SALT II, ABM and START efforts at arms control, to Star Wars/National Missile Defense,U.S. unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty, and events in Afghanistan and beyond.

It clarifies the relevant international law, from the Hague Conventions through the Nuremberg Principles to the recent World Court Advisory Opinion, as well as tracing contradictions in and contraventions of domestic guidelines established in the U.S. Army Field Manual of 1956 o­n The Law of Land Warfare, which remains the official primer for U.S. military personnel concerning the laws of war to which they must regard themselves as subject.

More disturbingly, Boyle reviews the intricacies of the foreign policy controversies and objectives which mark the development of American nuclear policy, often pressed forward by civilian administrations seeking to promote their geopolitical agenda over the advice and desires of the American military itself.

This book is an effective tool and a "must read" for the burgeoning anti-nuclear and peace movements, church groups, and lawyers defending anti-nuclear resisters. It should also prove instructive for the diplomatic community, and for civilian and military personnel who frame and carry out America’s nuclear policies, who more than any must weigh the possibility of being summoned o­ne day before an international war crimes tribunal.

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REVIEWS

Click Here* (99k PDF file) to read the review from

—The Federal Lawyer, March/April 2003,

a publication of the Federal Bar Association, Washington, DC

*note that the review originally appeared in the March/April 2003 issue of The Federal Lawyer and is used with permission.

 

The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence is International Law Professor Francis Boyle's latest work. It lays out the intellectual and legal foundation for an indictment of U.S. nuclear policy and its architects, should any court aspire to assert jurisdiction o­n this issue. In the meantime, Boyle's damning post-9 / 11 legal analysis of U.S. nuclear war policy and the so-called "war o­n terrorism" is the best single book for nuclear resisters to study if they intend to defend their own direct action under international law.

The Nuclear Resister,

September, 2002

 

Francis A. Boyle is a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law. He has been an anti-nuclear advocate for twenty years, and has helped to achieve acquittals of many anti-nuclear campaigners, including the Trident Ploughshares activists found not guilty by the Greenock Sheriff’s Court in 1999. He is therefore well qualified to produce “… this book that will concentrate exclusively o­n the principles of international law relevant to nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence”.

The special introduction deals with the events of September 11 and the US government response, including many references to recent history, which condition that response. This will be returned to later.

The rest of the book, however, deals with international law in relation to nuclear weapons, and does so in great detail. For the lay reader this is very difficult to fully comprehend, liberally sprinkled as it is with legal terms like injuria non oritur jus and opinio juris. Despite this, it is possible to appreciate the main conclusion: nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are not o­nly illegal, but, as the title indicates, criminal under international and US law, including the US Army Field Manual of 1956 o­n The Law of Land Warfare, itself based o­n earlier versions which support the same conclusion. Every person involved in making decisions about the use of nuclear weapons, from the US President down to the operator who actually presses the button is potentially liable to prosecution, with penalties in some cases ranging from execution to a fine of not more than $1million or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both. In relating this to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is stated that all US government officials and military officers who knowingly participated in these bombings could have been (and still can be) lawfully punished as war criminals. This is a breathtaking claim, which should at the very least give pause for thought to anyone today involved with nuclear weapons at any level.

In refuting the standard defence of nuclear apologists, that there is no specific prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons in international law, a distinction is made between the “prohibitive” and “permissive” theories of international law. It is argued that the Nuremberg principles, established in 1945, support the latter; even though the International Court of Justice has adopted the “prohibitive” theory in the past, international law is continually evolving, and needs to do to cope with changes in nuclear doctrine.

A large part of the book is a collection of previous writings. This does not affect in any way the validity of the arguments o­n basic principles, but it is a little out of date in some respects. For example, the chapter o­n Star Wars was originally published in 1989, and does not include the many developments since then. This is a pity, for the new relationship between the US and Russia, in the context both of Son of Star Wars and of nuclear weapons generally, deserves a detailed analysis. (There is a brief reference in the introductory chapter.) Again, there is no reference to the Nuclear Posture Review, a very important recent development. (See Frank Barnaby’s report in the last issue of World Disarm!)

Because of the way it is compiled, the book is also somewhat repetitive. It seems to this reviewer that it could be significantly condensed – perhaps not quite to pamphlet length, but to a much shorter book – and would thereby gain a wider readership and possibly have a greater impact o­n that readership.

Returning now to the special post-September 11 introduction, this is a scathing attack o­n what he calls the nuclear nihilism of the Bush Jr. administration, the US Nuclear Power Elite and the US Nuclear Empire. The terminology of the ”war against terrorism” is analysed and comprehensively criticised. o­ne section is headed: Retaliation is not self-defence, and refers to a State Department pronouncement in the 1970s – the Vietnam era! – that retaliation and reprisal were prohibited by international law.. It is strongly argued that the war against Afghanistan cannot be justified o­n either the facts or the law, domestic or international. Instead, it is categorised as part of a Pentagon war plan for the control of oil and gas resources. Anti-terrorist legislation introduced by Attorney-General Ashcroft is described as a Police State Act, and great concern is expressed for the erosion of civil rights and the US constitution. Many other cogent comments are made o­n various aspects of George Bush Jr.’s policies, at home and abroad.

Despite a few criticisms, this is an enormously valuable book. Any supporter of nuclear weapons would find it very difficult to refute its arguments. But also, above and beyond the legal analysis, the basic moral question is posed: does the human species have a future, or is it doomed to perish in a nuclear holocaust? If it is left to George W. Bush and his cronies, there is not much room for optimism.

 

FRANK JACKSON, Vice-Chair,

World Disarmament Campaign UK and Editor, World Disarm!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY REV. PHILIP BERRIGAN

 

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION:

GEORGE BUSH, JR., SEPTEMBER 11th AND THE RULE OF LAW

Machiavelli Redux

International Legal Nihilism

11 September 2001

The Facts

The Powell/Blair White Paper

The Cover-Ups

The Bin Laden Video

Framing a Response to September 11th

Terrorism and the Law

The U.S. Policy Preference: Not Terrorism - War

The UN Security Council Disagrees: Terrorism, not War

Bush Sr. v. Bush Jr.

No Declaration of War from Congress

The Infamy of Korematsu

Instead, A Blank Check to Use Military Force

Bush Sr. v. Bush Jr. Redux

"Ending States"

Honest Nuclear War-Mongering

The Prostitution of NATO

Bush Jr.'s Crusade

The U.S./UN Ambassador of Death

Nazi "Self-defense" Resurfaces

Retaliation Is Not Self-Defense

Choosing Violent Resolutions for International Disputes Humanitarian Catastrophe

Why War?

It's Still the Oil, Stupid!

How Empires Rule at Home

Bush Jr's Constitutional Coup D'Êtat

Ashcroft's Police State

Bush's Kangaroo Courts

The Bush Jr. Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty

Conclusion/Prologue

 

CHAPTER 1: THE U.S. EMBRACES INTERNATIONAL LEGAL NIHILISM

 

CHAPTER 2: THE LESSONS OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

 

"Points of Choice"

The Shimoda Case

U.S. War Department Field Manual 27-10 (1940)

Protections for the Civilian Population

The Prohibition o­n Collective Punishments

Truman's Utilitarian Justification

Military Necessity?

Aerial Bombardment

Strategic Warning

Military Versus Civilian Attitudes Toward the Bomb

The Interim Committee

The Hague Regulations

Personal Criminal Responsibility

The Nuremberg Charter

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East

The Geopolitical Reasons Behind Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

CHAPTER 3: THE RELEVANCE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW TO THE PARADOX OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Critique of the "Positivist" Approach to Analyzing the Legality of Nuclear Weapons

The U.S. Government's Argument for the Legality of Using Nuclear Weapons

The Relevance of the Nuremberg Principles to Nuclear Deterrence

The Lotus Case Versus the Martens Clause

The Precedential Significance of America's Response to Germany's Policy of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare During the First World War

Paragraph 35 of the U.S. Army Field Manual Reconsidered

The Illegality of U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Doctrine Promotes Military Insubordination

Analyzing the Legality of Illegality of the Reagan Administration's "Protracted Nuclear War-Prevailing"

Deterrence Doctrine

The Theory Versus the Reality of U.S. Strategic Nuclear Deterrence

The Counterproductivity of the Reagan Administration's SIOP

A Preemptive Nuclear Strike Upon the Soviet Union

Nuclear Deterrence of Conventional Warfare

Is it Lawful to Possess Nuclear Weapons?

Conclusion

 

CHAPTER 4. STAR WARS VS. INTERNATIONAL LAW: THE FORCE WILL BE AGAINST US!

 

The Deadlocked Geneva Negotiations

SALT I

The U.S. MIRV Program

The Fate of SALT II

The SALT II MIRV Buildup

SALT II Violations?

The SDI Program

SDI vs. the ABM Treaty

The Reinterpretation of the ABM Treaty

SDI as a Propaganda Gesture

SDI at Geneva

Reagan's Repudiation of SALT I and SALT II

SDI as Part of the Nuclear Arms Race

SDI as a First-Strike System

Progress at Geneva?

START at Geneva

Conclusion

 

CHAPTER 5. THE CRIMINALITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

 

Introduction

Authority of the World Court's Advisory Opinion

Summary of the World Court's Advisory Opinion

The Criminality of the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons

The Importance of Paragraph 104 of the Advisory Opinion

Burden of Proof

The Right to Life

Genocide

Environmental Protection

Violations of the United Nations Charter

The Principles of Necessity and Proportionality

Nuclear Escalation

Reprisals

The Illegality of Nuclear Deterrence

Possession of Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Weapons and the Laws of War

Nuclear Deterrence and International Humanitarian Law

Nuclear Weapons and Nuremberg Accountability

Nuclear Weapons and International Humanitarian Law

Violation of the International Laws of Neutrality

Condemnation of Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Warfare

Conclusion o­n International Humanitarian Law and Nuclear Weapons

The World Court's Non-Pronouncement in Paragraph 97

Nuclear Disarmament

The Dispositif

Unanimous Ruling o­n the U.N. Charter

Unanimous Ruling o­n International Humanitarian Law

Unanimous Ruling o­n Nuclear Disarmament

The Court's Ruling o­n the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons

The Importance of Paragraph 104

Interpreting Paragraph 105 (2) (E)

The Dissenters to Paragraph 105( 2) (E)

Conclusion

 

CHAPTER 6: COULD THE U.S. WAR o­n TERRORISM GO NUCLEAR?

 

INDEX

 

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Abstract for the ICAN/GHA “Antinuclear Manifesto XXI

In English: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908

In Russian: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=819

 

Francis A. Boyle, JD, PhD,

Professor of International Law, USA

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957

The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence/Terrorism. The human race stands o­n the verge of nuclear self-extinction as a species. The nuclear age was conceived in the original sins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki o­n August 6 and 9, 1945 (Boyle, 2013 and below). The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined by the Nuremberg Charter of August 8, 1945, and violated several basic provisions of the Regulations annexed to Hague Convention No. 4 Respecting the Laws and Customs of War o­n Land (1907). The nuclear weapons have never been legitimate instruments of state policy, but rather have always constituted illegitimate instrumentalities of internationally lawless and criminal behavior. The use of nuclear weapons in combat was, and still is absolutely prohibited under all circumstances by both conventional and customary international law. All government officials and military officers who might nevertheless launch or wage a nuclear war would be personally responsible for the commission of Nuremberg crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes. Such individuals could thus be quite legitimately and most severely punished as war criminals, up to and including the imposition of the death penalty, without limitation of time.

The threat to use nuclear weapons (i.e., nuclear deterrence/terrorism) constitutes o­ngoing international criminal activity. Four components of the threat to use nuclear weapons that are especially reprehensible from an international law perspective: counter-ethnic targeting; counter-city targeting; first-strike weapons and contingency plans; and the first-use of nuclear weapons even to repel a conventional attack. Today’s nuclear weapons establishments as well as the entire system of nuclear deterrence/terrorism currently practiced by all the nuclear weapon states are criminal -- not simply illegal, not simply immoral, but criminal under well established principles of international law. This simple idea of the criminality of nuclear weapons can be utilized to pierce through the ideology of nuclearism to which many citizens in the nuclear weapons states have succumbed.

It is with this simple idea of the criminality of nuclear weapons that concerned citizens can proceed to comprehend the inherent illegitimacy and fundamental lawlessness of the policies that their governments pursue in their names with respect to the maintenance and further development of nuclear weapons systems. Humankind must abolish nuclear weapons before nuclear weapons abolish humankind. The entire human race has been victimized by an international conspiracy of o­ngoing criminal activity carried out by the nuclear weapons states under the doctrine known as "nuclear deterrence," which is really a euphemism for "nuclear terrorism." This international criminal conspiracy of nuclear deterrence/terrorism currently practiced by the nuclear weapons states is no different from any other conspiracy by a criminal gang or band. They are the outlaws.

In light of the fact that nuclear weapons systems are prohibited, illegal, and criminal under all circumstances and for any reason, every person around the world possesses a basic human right to be free from this criminal practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism and its concomitant specter of nuclear extinction. Every citizen of the world community has both the right and the duty to oppose the existence of nuclear weapons systems by whatever non-violent means are at his or her disposal.Otherwise, the human race will suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs, and the planet earth will become a radioactive wasteland. The fundamental intellectual means of nonviolent confrontation and resistance to nuclear weapons are focused in synergy by our international “Anti-Nuclear Manifesto” for the UN, governments and NGOs."

 

Фрэнсис Бойл, JD, PhD,

Профессор международного права, США,

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957

«Преступность ядерного сдерживания/терроризма. Человеческая раса стоит на грани ядерного самоуничтожения как вид. Ядерный век зародился в первородных грехах Хиросимы и Нагасаки 6 и 9 августа 1945 года (Boyle, 2013 andbelow). Атомные бомбардировки Хиросимы и Нагасаки представляют собой преступления против человечности и военные преступления, как они определены в Нюрнбергской хартии от 8 августа 1945 года, и являются нарушением нескольких основных положений Правил, прилагаемых к Гаагской конвенции № 4 о законах и обычаях войны. Ядерное оружие никогда не было законным инструментом государственной политики. Применение ядерного оружия в бою было и остается абсолютно запретным при любых обстоятельствах как обычным, так и обычным международным правом. Все правительственные чиновники и военные, которые, тем не менее, могут начать или вести ядерную войну, будут нести личную ответственность за совершение Нюрнбергских преступлений против мира, преступлений против человечности, военных преступлений. Такие люди могут быть вполне законно и самым суровым образом наказаны как военные преступники, вплоть до смертного приговора без срока давности.

Угроза применения ядерного оружия (т.е. ядерное сдерживание/терроризм) представляет собой продолжающуюся международную преступную деятельность. Четыре компонента угрозы применения ядерного оружия, которые особенно предосудительны с точки зрения международного права: контрэтнические нападения; нацеливание на города; оружие первого удара и планы на случай непредвиденных обстоятельств; и применение первым ядерного оружия даже для отражения обычного нападения. Сегодняшние ядерные оружейные предприятия, а также вся система ядерного сдерживания/терроризма, практикуемая в настоящее время всеми ядерными державами, являются преступными - не просто незаконными, не просто аморальными, но и преступными в недрах установленных принципов международного права. Эту простую идею о преступности ядерного оружия можно использовать, чтобы пробиться сквозь идеологию ядернизма (ядерного оружия), которой поддались многие граждане ядерных держав.

Именно с этой простой идеей о преступности ядерного оружия заинтересованные граждане могут приступить к пониманию неотъемлемой незаконности и фундаментального беззакония политики, которую их правительства проводят от их имени в отношении поддержания и дальнейшего развития систем ядерного оружия. Человечество должно уничтожить ядерное оружие, прежде чем ядерное оружие уничтожит человечество. Все человечество стало жертвой международного заговора известного как «ядерное сдерживание», что на самом деле является эвфемизмом для «ядерного терроризма». Этот международный преступный заговор ядерного сдерживания/терроризма, который в настоящее время практикуется государствами, обладающими ядерным оружием, ничем не отличается от любого другого заговора преступной банды. Они преступники.

В свете того факта, что системы ядерного оружия запрещены, незаконны и преступны при любых обстоятельствах и по любой причине, каждый человек во всем мире обладает основным правом на свободу от этой преступной практики ядерного сдерживания/терроризма и связанных с ним признаков ядерного вымирания. Каждый гражданин мирового сообщества имеет право и обязан противостоять существованию систем ядерного оружия любыми ненасильственными средствами. В противном случае человечество постигнет участь динозавров, и планета Земля превратится в радиоактивную пустошь. Фундаментальные интеллектуальные средства ненасильственного противостояния и сопротивления ядерному оружию сфокусированы в синергии в нашем «Антиядерном Манифесте» для ООН, правительств и НПО.»

 

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LAW PROFESSOR FRANCIS BOYLE CALLS COVID-19 A BIOWEAPON:

https://youtu.be/nsPFkGJFxjA

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Francis A. Boyle

Law Building

504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.

Champaign IL 61820 USA

Phone: 217-333-7954

Fax: 217-244-1478

(personal comments o­nly)


From:
Boyle, Francis A
Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2018 10:36 AM
To: Killeacle
Subject: Oh Little Town of Bethlehem - by Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law

O Little Town of Bethlehem- by Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law



O Little Town of Bethlehem

Israel, Palestine and American Christian Hypocrites



It was December of 1991 and I was serving as Legal 
 Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations in Washington DC. The Israelis were stalling,not even negotiating in bad faith, and the Americans under Baker and Ross were doing nothing to get the negotiations started.

This had been going o­n for 3 weeks and Christmas was fast approaching. Those of us o­n the Palestinian Team who were Christian were wondering if we were going to be able to get home for Christmas--many Palestinians are Christian, the original Christians, going back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles themselves. I would periodically check in with my wife and 2 sons at the time--little boys. My poor, sweet wife had to do all the Christmas
preparations by herself without me.

So the weekend before Christmas I called her up to say I still did not know if or when I would be coming home. My oldest son who had just turned 5 talked to me o­n the phone:

"Daddy why aren't you home for Christmas?"

"Well son, I'm trying to help the Palestinians."

"Daddy, why are you doing that?"

Hard to explain the entire Middle East conflict to a 5 year old, so I put it into terms he could understand:

"Son, you know that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem don't you?"

"Yes Daddy."

"Well I am here with the Mayor of Bethlehem and some other Palestinian leaders. They are my friends and I am their lawyer. I am working with the Mayor of Bethlehem to help all the Palestinian Children have a merry Christmas."

"Ok Daddy."

All his younger brother could say was: “DaDa come home!” He broke my heart.


We got the word we could go home for Christmas o­n December 23 and I got o­n
the first flight out of DC. getting home just o­n time for Christmas Eve with
my family.

Periodically I had attended UCC Christmas Season Church Services in town with my family. When it came time for prayers from the congregation, I always got up and asked everyone to help the Palestinians along the following lines: "...Bethlehem is cut-off and surrounded by the Israeli army--the Church of the Nativity too. The Israelis are inflicting ethnic cleansing upon all the Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians. They are also pursuing a policy of deliberately forcing Palestinian Christians out of Palestine as part of a perverse strategy to turn a war of national liberation into a religious crusade, figuring it would play better in the United States. And these are the original Christians, going back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Meanwhile, the United States government is financing it all to the tune of $5 billion per year. Everyone in this Congregation has gifts given to them by God. So go out and do something to help the Palestinians!"

Despite my best efforts over  many  years, that UCC Congregation refused to lift even  one finger to help the Palestinians. So  several years ago, I quit their Congregation and severed all ties with them. They are just a gang of moral cowards and hypocrites. They have nothing to teach me or anyone else about Christianity, let alone about peace, justice and human rights. They constitute the paradigmatic example of what the anti-Nazi martyr and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Cheap Grace

Francis A. Boyle, Champaign, IL.
Professor of International Law
Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the
Middle East Peace Negotiations (1991-93)


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