‘Stunning Abdication’: Appeals Court Dismisses Biden Genocide Complicity Case
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“We turned to the law to help stop the horror, and the court chose to do nothing,” said one plaintiff in the case. “We are beyond disappointed.”
Palestine defenders on Tuesday decried a U.S. federal appellate panel’s dismissal of a case brought by Palestinians accusing senior Biden administration officials of failing to prevent and complicity in Israeli genocide in Gaza.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, which was led by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of several Palestinian groups and individuals.
During a Tuesday interview on Democracy Now!, CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher—who represented plaintiffs in the case—said its dismissal “essentially gives the blank check to carry out any kind of conduct that the executive wants in times of genocide, in times of war.”
Gallagher’s interview followed a Monday statement in which she referred to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting the president “absolute immunity” for “official acts.”
“On the heels of Trump v. United States, this stunning abdication of the court’s role to serve as a check on the executive even in the face of its support for genocide should set off alarm bells for all,” she said.
The lawsuit—originally filed in November in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland—sought to stop the Biden administration from aiding Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. U.S. weapons have played a critical role in Israel’s war, which Palestinian and international agencies say has killed, wounded, or left missing more than 137,500 Gazans.
While the court found that “the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law,” it dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds in late January. The 9th Circuit subsequently granted an expedited appeal in the case, which was heard in June.
“This decision is mind-boggling and, frankly, scary,” plaintiff Waeil Elbhassi said in a statement Monday. “It is just unfathomable, while we count our dead, witness the total obliteration of Gaza—aided by our own government.”
“As the death toll keeps rising and we see nonstop images of carnage during this livestreamed genocide, the court washes its hands of our case,” Elbhassi added. “We turned to the law to help stop the horror, and the court chose to do nothing. We are beyond disappointed. We have no choice but to continue to fight for our people. Our very existence is at stake.”
Israel’s conduct in Gaza—including alleged forced starvation that has fueled deadly famine in parts of the besieged strip—is under investigation by the International Court of Justice in a genocide case brought by South Africa.
Additionally, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan has applied for warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for crimes including extermination allegedly committed on and after October 7.
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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History made as UN children’s Rights convention put into Scots law
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/history-made-un-childrens-rights-convention-put-scots-law
THE UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) came into legal force in Scotland today.
Hailed as a “historic day,” it marks the end of a long journey for legislation first passed unanimously in Holyrood in March 2021 before being struck down in the Supreme Court on the grounds it breached devolution conventions by impinging on UK-wide law.
After a period of reconsideration and redrafting, the legislation was once backed by all MSPs in the Scottish Parliament last year, this time avoiding a constitutional stand-off and making it onto the statute book.
The NSPCC’s Joanna Barrett called it “a significant milestone in making sure that all children’s rights are recognised, respected and upheld.”
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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/history-made-un-childrens-rights-convention-put-scots-law
Sightings of Uncontacted Tribe Spur Calls to End Logging in Peruvian Amazon
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“This is a humanitarian disaster in the making—it’s absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco-Piro’s territory is properly protected at last,” said the director of Survival International.
A leading rights group on Tuesday called for loggers to be “thrown out” of a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon following recent sightings of people belonging to what is believed to be the world’s largest uncontacted Indigenous tribe.
London-based Survival International published video and photos of dozens of Mashco-Piro people taken near the village of Monte Salvado in southeastern Peru near the Brazilian border. The group said that in recent days, more than 50 Mashco-Piro have appeared near the village, which is inhabited by the related Yine people. A group of 17 Mashco-Piro were also recently sighted near the neighboring village of Puerto Nuevo.
Several logging companies are operating within just a few miles of where the Mascho-Piro were spotted. One company operating inside Mashco-Piro territory, Canalaes Tahuamanu, has laid more than 120 miles of road there to facilitate timber extraction. The company is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as a sustainable and ethical operator, even though it is known to be felling trees inside Mashco-Piro territory. Survival International is calling on the FSC to withdraw its certification.
“This is a humanitarian disaster in the making—it’s absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco-Piro’s territory is properly protected at last,” Survival International director Caroline Pearce said in a statement Tuesday. “The FSC must cancel its certification of Canales Tahuamanu immediately—failure to do so will make a mockery of the entire certification system.”
Alfredo Vargas Pio, president of the local Indigenous group Native Federation of the Río Madre and its Tributaries, called the new photographs “irrefutable evidence that many Mashco-Piro live in this area, which the government has not only failed to protect, but sold off to logging companies.”
“The logging workers could bring in new diseases which would wipe out the Mashco-Piro, and there’s also a risk of violence on either side,” he added, “so it’s very important that the territorial rights of the Mashco-Piro are recognized and protected in law.”
In 2014, Peruvian authorities evacuated residents from Monte Salvado by boat after around 200 Mashco-Piro armed with bows and arrows raided the village, killing livestock and pets and taking food and tools. In 2022, Mashco-Piro members killed 21-year-old Peruvian logger Gean del Aguila and wounded another man with arrows as they fished on the Tahuamanu River.
In the 1890s most Mashco-Piro were either enslaved or exterminated by private mercenaries hired by self-described Peruvian “Rubber King” Carlos Fitzcarrald—immortalized in the 1982 Werner Herzog film Fitzcarraldo. Surviving Mashco-Piro fled deeper into the Amazon and avoided contact with most outsiders. They fiercely defended their territory from intruders. However, in recent decades, loggers have penetrated and exploited Mascho-Piro lands.
There are believed to be more than 750 Mascho-Piro living in Peru. They sometimes cross the border into Brazil.
“They flee from loggers on the Peruvian side. At this time of the year they appear on the beaches to take tracajá eggs,” Rosa Padilha of the Indigenous Missionary Council in the Brazilian state of Acre told The Guardian, referring to a species of Amazon turtle.
“That’s when we find their footprints on the sand. They leave behind a lot of turtle shells,” Padilha added. “They are a people with no peace, restless, because they are always on the run.”
Around 15 other uncontacted Indigenous tribes with as many as 15,000 members are believed to remain in the Peruvian Amazon. It is illegal to make contact with such peoples for fear they would contract common human illnesses that could be fatal to unexposed populations without immunity.
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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