Summary
The 105-page report of the UN Secretary-General’s panel of inquiry into Israel’s May 31, 2010 attacks on the Mavi Marmara and five other humanitarian ships, whose legal flaws are the subject of a post co-authored by Richard Falk and Phyllis Bennis (Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, PDF p.142-148).
Details
- The panel was announced on August 2, 2010. Its central finding, as Falk and Bennis give it, reached “the astonishing conclusion that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip was lawful and could be enforced by Israel against a humanitarian mission even in international waters” (PDF p.142).
- Its composition as they present it: chair Geoffrey Palmer, former prime minister of New Zealand and an environmental law professor, not particularly knowledgeable about the international law of the sea or the law of war; Álvaro Uribe, former president of Colombia, the only other independent member, holding no relevant professional credentials; and two members designated by the governments of Israel and Turkey, who appended partisan dissents. Its terms of reference prohibited reliance on any materials other than the two national reports submitted by the contending governments (PDF p.143-144).
- The panel found Israel used excessive force and was legally and morally responsible for the deaths of nine passengers on the Mavi Marmara, and instructed Israel to pay compensation and issue a statement of regret, while upholding the underlying legality of both the blockade and the right of enforcement (PDF p.144).
- Falk and Bennis hold that this contradicted the earlier finding of a more expert panel established by the Human Rights Council and the overwhelming consensus of qualified international law specialists, and that the report separated assessment of the blockade from its role in imposing collective punishment on Gaza (PDF p.144).
- Turkey responded with anger in the Falk and Bennis post: downgrading diplomatic representation, expelling the Israeli ambassador from Ankara and maintaining relations at the level of second secretary, suspending all forms of military cooperation, strengthening its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean, and initiating action in the General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of the blockade (PDF p.146-147).
- In the earlier Freedom Flotilla 2 post, written before the report was released, Falk notes the Secretary-General’s panel “has not yet made its report public”, and that its conclusions would apparently be unacceptably muted by the need to accommodate its Israeli member (PDF p.149-150).
Related pages
Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, Freedom Flotilla, Gaza, International Court of Justice