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George Szamuely (born 1954) is a senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute.[ citation needed ] He was a frequent columnist for the Taki's Top Drawer pages of the New York Press . Szamuely has also written for Antiwar.com, Counterpunch , Commentary , The Observer and the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is a frequent contributor to the RT show CrossTalk.
He was born in Hungary to Tibor Szamuely (1925–1972), of a Hungarian Jewish merchant family, and Nina (née Orlova; 1923-1974), of Russian parentage. [1] His great-uncle was the Communist revolutionary Tibor Szamuely (1890–1919). His sister Helen Szamuely, was a prominent figure in the founding of the UK Independence Party. [2] He was educated in England at University College London and at the London School of Economics. He received a PhD from London Metropolitan University.[ citation needed ]
He worked for some years as an editor at the Times Literary Supplement and at The National Law Journal . He was also a weekly columnist at the New York Press .[ citation needed ]
Szamuely has been an ardent critic of the United States foreign policy, arguing that the reality is the diametric opposite of the lofty rhetoric. The professed humanitarian aspirations invariably lead to extremely non-humanitarian outcomes. [3] [ non-primary source needed ] His opposition to the state of Israel has allied him with paleoconservatism and libertarianism.[ citation needed ]
He has been highly critical of the workings of the United Nations tribunals, in particular the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He argues that the tribunal and human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch foster conflict rather than reconciliation and serve the interests of Western powers and those of their allies by targeting their opponents, while ignoring or minimizing their, often far more serious, crimes. [4] [ better source needed ] He has expressed doubts as to whether the International Criminal Court would ever be willing or able to administer impartial justice. [5] He has argued that Serbia's actions in Yugoslavia have been unfairly misinterpreted. [6]
Szamuely's history of NATO's intervention in the Balkans, Bombs for Peace: NATO's Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia, [7] is published by Amsterdam University Press.
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It was fought between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.
The Rambouillet Agreement, formally the Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, was a proposed peace agreement between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and a delegation representing the ethnic Albanian majority population of Kosovo. It was drafted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and named for the Château de Rambouillet, where it was initially proposed in early 1999. Among other things, the accords called for 30,000 NATO peacekeeping troops in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory; and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law. Yugoslavia's refusal to sign the accords was used by NATO to justify the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property, deception by perfidy, wartime sexual violence, pillaging, and for any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings including genocide or ethnic cleansing, the granting of no quarter despite surrender, the conscription of children in the military and flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity.
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic criminal acts which are committed by or on behalf of a de facto authority, usually by or on behalf of a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the context of wars, and they apply to widespread practices rather than acts which are committed by individuals. Although crimes against humanity apply to acts which are committed by or on behalf of authorities, they do not need to be part of an official policy, and they only need to be tolerated by authorities. The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place during the Nuremberg trials. Initially considered for legal use, widely in international law, following the Holocaust, a global standard of human rights was articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Political groups or states that violate or incite violations of human rights norms, as they are listed in the Declaration, are expressions of the political pathologies which are associated with crimes against humanity.
The legitimacy under international law of the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been questioned. The UN Charter is the foundational legal document of the United Nations (UN) and is the cornerstone of the public international law governing the use of force between States. NATO members are also subject to the North Atlantic Treaty.
The NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) headquarters occurred on the evening of 23 April 1999, during Operation Allied Force. Sixteen employees of RTS were killed when a NATO missile hit the building.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an agreement was reached that led to the withdrawal of Yugoslav armed forces from Kosovo, and the establishment of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. The official NATO operation code name was Operation Allied Force whereas the United States called it Operation Noble Anvil ; in Yugoslavia the operation was incorrectly called Merciful Angel, possibly as a result of a misunderstanding or mistranslation.
Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni was an Egyptian-American emeritus professor of law at DePaul University, where he taught from 1964 to 2012. He served in numerous United Nations positions and served as the consultant to the US Department of State and Justice on many projects. He was a founding member of the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University which was established in 1990. He served as president from 1990 to 1997 and then as president emeritus. Bassiouni is often referred to by the media as "the Godfather of International Criminal Law" and a "war crimes expert". As such, he served on the Steering Committee for The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, which was launched to study the need for a comprehensive convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, and draft a proposed treaty. He spearheaded the drafting of the proposed convention, which as of 2014 is being debated at the International Law Commission.
Theodor Meron, is an American judge. He served as a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism). He served as President of the ICTY four times and inaugural President of the Mechanism for three terms (2012–19).
Paul R. Williams holds the Rebecca Grazier Professorship in Law and International Relations at American University, where he teaches in the School of International Service and the Washington College of Law. He is the president and co-founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) which provides pro bono assistance to countries and governments involved in peace negotiations, drafting post-conflict constitutions, and prosecuting war criminals, and was consultant at the London based Bosnian Institute for years.
International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetration. The core crimes under international law are genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
Tibor Szamuely was a Hungarian politician and journalist who was Deputy People's Commissar of War and People's Commissar of Public Education during the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Humanitarian intervention is the use or threat of military force by a state across borders with the intent of ending severe and widespread human rights violations in a state which has not given permission for the use of force. Humanitarian interventions are aimed at ending human rights violations of individuals other than the citizens of the intervening state. Humanitarian interventions are only intended to prevent human rights violations in extreme circumstances. Attempts to establish institutions and political systems to achieve positive outcomes in the medium- to long-run, such as peacekeeping, peace-building and development aid, do not fall under this definition of a humanitarian intervention.
Antonio Cassese was an Italian jurist who specialized in public international law. He was the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the first President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon which he presided over until his resignation on health grounds on 1 October 2011.
Michael Mandel was a Canadian legal academic, specializing in criminal law with a particular interest in criminal sentencing and legal theory.
Tibor Szamuely was a Russian-born Hungarian Jewish historian and polemicist.
The Grdelica train bombing occurred on 12 April 1999, when two missiles fired by a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle fighter bomber hit a passenger train while it was passing across a railway bridge over the Južna Morava river in the Grdelica gorge, some 300 kilometres (190 mi) south of Belgrade, Serbia. At least 20 civilian passengers were killed or declared missing. Estimates of the total death toll run as high as 60. It is considered the deadliest rail disaster in Serbian history.
Marko Attila Hoare is a British historian of the former Yugoslavia who also writes about current affairs, especially Southeast Europe, including Turkey and the Caucasus. Marko is Associate Professor of History at the University Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, in Sarajevo.
The Independent International Commission on Kosovo (IICK) was a commission established in August 1999, in the aftermath of the Kosovo War, by the government of Sweden on the basis of the initiative of its Prime Minister Göran Persson. The Commission assessed that NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was "illegal but justified", in order to prevent further atrocities by Yugoslav forces, which intensified during the NATO bombing. The crisis had been caused by ongoing human-rights violations by Yugoslav forces in Kosovo during the 1990s, although when some Kosovar Albanians shifted from unarmed to armed resistance, this exacerbated the Yugoslav response which included many crimes against humanity. The Commission also reported that international presence established in Kosovo did not prevent Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and other Albanians to ethnically cleanse Kosovo ethnic minorities.
Mark Steven Ellis is an international criminal law expert and the executive director of the International Bar Association. He is the current chair of the UN-created Advisory Panel on Matters Relating to Defence Counsel of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals.
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