Footage of the US pursuit of the Marinera (Photo: US Coast Guard)
The UK justified its support for North Atlantic operation, saying sanction-dodging ship was stateless. Legal experts say that’s debatable
The US seizure of a Russian-flagged oil tanker, with British military support, in the North Atlantic may have violated international law, legal experts tell Declassified.
“Overall, there would appear to be no credible basis in law for this interdiction,” Douglas Guilfoyle, professor of international law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney said.
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Just before 2pm on Wednesday, US European Command announced the ship’s seizure, with Britain’s Ministry of Defence confirming soon after that it had provided the US with “enabling support in full compliance with international law”.
The support included Royal Air Force surveillance and the provision of the RFA Tideforce, a Royal Navy auxiliary ship “designed to provide key underway replenishment at sea”.
Defence secretary John Healey justified the UK’s involvement, citing the ship’s “nefarious history” of Russian-Iranian axis sanctions evasion “fuelling terrorism, conflict and misery from the Middle East to Ukraine”.
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Donald Rothwell, a professor of international law at the Australian National University, said a vessel could only be stopped, searched and seized on the high seas under four conditions.
These are if it is a pirate ship, engaged in unauthorised broadcasting, is stateless/not-flying a flag or acting in violation of US Security Council resolutions.
“None of those conditions appear to apply in this instance as I understand the tanker was Russian flagged (and that is not in dispute), and the only sanctions it was subject to were US sanctions imposed under US,” he said.
“So, on the facts, this would appear to be extraterritorial US national law enforcement taking place on the high seas/international waters, or even within the UK’s 200 [nautical mile] exclusive economic zone.”
The UK support, he added, was “not exceptional, especially as the tanker was off the coast of Scotland and would have in the normal course of events been under watch by the UK”.
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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has threatened a harsh response to a rocket attack that on July 27 struck the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, killing 12 children and injuring about 30 more.
Visiting the small town of Majdal Shams, where the children had been playing football when the strike occurred, Netanyahu blamed Hezbollah for the attack and said it would pay a “hefty price”. He said: “Our response will come, and it will be harsh.”
While Israel is claiming the attack targeted their citizens, all the victims of the strike were members of the Druze religious minority group located across Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the attack, but without an independent investigation, it remains unclear who fired the rocket.
The Golan Heights, a rocky 1,000 square kilometre region south-west of Damascus, was occupied by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in a move that, half a century on, is often referred to as the “forgotten occupation”.
After defeating Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the short conflict, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as well as the Sinai desert and two-thirds of the Syrian Golan. Around 127,000 indigenous Syrians (95% of the population) – including Christians, Muslims and Druze – fled or were forcibly displaced. Depopulated villages were razed to the ground.
Later in 1981, Israel illegally annexed the territory, passing the Golan Heights Law. The UN security council immediately condemned this as illegal and passed resolution 497 (1981) calling on Israel to rescind its action, which would have “serious consequences for peace and security in the Middle East”.
Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights was not recognised internationally until 2019 when the then US president Donald Trump released a “Proclamation on Recognizing the Golan Heights as Part of the State of Israel”.
Israel views its control over the Golan Heights as crucial to its security, as the region shares a border with Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. There is a buffer zone between the Israeli-occupied area of the Golan Heights and Syria, which is administered by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (Undof). The Golan gives whoever controls the land a vantage point overlooking Syria, which has never given up on its claim over the land.
Forgotten people
But what of the indigenous people of the Golan? Roughly 20,000 Druze people now remain, members of an Arab sect which is an offshoot of Islam that allows no intermarriage or joining from outside the religion. There are about 150,000 Druze in Israel and about 1 million across the Middle East. Druze men with Israeli citizenship are subject to military service.
Historically, Golanis have resisted the occupation via non-violent means, drawing on Druze religious beliefs, secular political ideas and the continuing assertion of their Syrian identity. The main industry in the region is agriculture and the area is known for its production of apples, cherries and olive oil.
Golanis in Majdal Shams participating in peaceful demonstration in solidarity with Palestinians. Al-Marsad
Resistance
In the years before annexation of the Golan, Israel attempted to introduce Israeli identity cards for the population. But this was rejected by Syrian communities in the Golan, who issued a wathiqa wataniya (Syrian national document), which asserted their Syrian-Arab national identity and connection to the land and opposed the annexation of the Golan.
The annexation also triggered what became known as the aldrab alkabir (great strike) that began in the February of 1982 and lasted almost six months. All segments of Golani society took part in demonstrations, discarded their Israeli ID cards and refused to pay taxes or participate in Israeli land surveys. The aim was to resist the imposition of Israeli citizenship and assert their Syrian identity.
Israel responded by placing curfews on the Druze villages, setting up blockades and restricting goods from entering, including milk and baby food. Some residents were arrested, including women who played a central role in the strike.
The Golani community responded to these restrictions by sharing resources and offering free services to one another. Palestinians also mobilised in support of Golanis by taking part in demonstrations and solidarity visits to the Golan.
This non-violent action was successful in achieving its primary aim and to this day around 80% of Golani Druze have rejected citizenship. They identify as Syrian and, unlike the Druze living in Israel, do not serve in the Israeli military.
This does mean that they are “stateless” (though not landless like many stateless people) and instead of passports they hold “laissez passer” travel documents that state their nationality is “undefined”. Without Israeli citizenship they are not allowed to vote, though they can attend Israeli educational institutions.
Meanwhile there are also an estimated 25,000 Jewish-Israelis living in the Golan Heights, across more than 30 settlements, considered illegal under international law. They are supported by the Israeli military and now together control 95% of the Golan, including much of its agriculture and industries.
Fear of escalation
There are now fears in the region that an Israeli retaliation against Hezbollah could significantly escalate the conflict. I’ve been working with local partners in the Golan Heights on a research project about Golani youth and human rights.
I spoke with a colleague in Majdal Shams this week. She told me that the people of the Golan “don’t want any other mother to scream and cry”. She said: “The Golani people are and have always been a peaceful people. Our message would be, ‘Stop the killing.’”
The 12 children were killed while playing football. Let that sink in. Then remember that it should not take their deaths to bring this forgotten occupation and these people who are forced to live under a foreign power to the world’s attention.
Consider the following example, because it’s about to come true. Someone has been a British citizen for decades. They go on holiday. When they try to return, they’re told that the Home Secretary has stripped them of their citizenship. They are not told why. They are not told the charges against them. They have no functioning right of appeal. They have been made stateless, by ministerial fiat.
This would bethe consequence of a new provision added to Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders bill, which goes through the Commons over the next couple of days.
Making someone stateless has long been seen as one of the most egregious actions a government can take. In the words of Hannah Arendt, the great scholar of totalitarianism, it deprives people of “the right to have rights”. It makes you an unperson: without protection, without home, without legal status.
This is proper police state stuff. The last-minute amendments crowbarred by the government into the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill are a blatant attempt to stifle protest, of the kind you might expect in Russia or Egypt. Priti Patel, the home secretary, shoved 18 extra pages into the bill after it had passed through the Commons, and after the second reading in the House of Lords. It looks like a deliberate ploy to avoid effective parliamentary scrutiny. Yet in most of the media there’s a resounding silence.
Among the new amendments are measures that would ban protesters from attaching themselves to another person, to an object, or to land. Not only would they make locking on – a crucial tool of protest the world over – illegal, but they are so loosely drafted that they could apply to anyone holding on to anything, on pain of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.
It would also become a criminal offence to obstruct in any way major transport works from being carried out, again with a maximum sentence of 51 weeks. This looks like an attempt to end meaningful protest against road-building and airport expansion. Other amendments would greatly expand police stop and search powers. The police would be entitled to stop and search people or vehicles if they suspect they might be carrying any article that could be used in the newly prohibited protests, presumably including placards, flyers and banners. Other new powers would grant police the right to stop and search people without suspicion, if they believe that protest will occur “in that area”. Anyone who resists being searched could be imprisoned for – you guessed it – up to 51 weeks.
Recently, the Guardian broke the news that the reason we are seeing increasing numbers of asylum seekers on our beaches is because they have cottoned on to the fact that, thanks to Brexit, we are no longer part of the Dublin Agreement. This inconvenient truth seems to have escaped Farage and Johnson and all those who are hell bent on ruining the country’s economy at any cost if we can only get control of our borders.
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Since 2016, the Tory party has rapidly morphed into the BNP-NF-Brexit Party-UKIP-Tory party but how far has it gone?
Put it this way. Now it’s suppressing its own reports on the reasons people make the treacherous journey across the channel. Home Office data show two thirds of those attempting to make the crossing are genuine refugees, many coming from war-torn parts of the world. As one of the world’s largest exporters of arms, the UK has had a great deal to do with creating the hell that they are escaping.
But the Home Office is not publishing this data. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the narrative. These are inconvenient truths that the Tories don’t want people to hear. So best they just make out that the asylum seekers are illegal immigrants coming over here to scrounge benefits and get a nice hotel on the back of the taxpayer.
