Abstract
As a lawyer, Avril McDonald envisaged a world where humanitarian law would guide all states and their militaries; a world where combatants would be restrained and civilians protected. While her keen eye as a journalist recognised that the real world was infinitely more complex than the lawmakers had envisaged, she drew on both her intellect and her passion in her scholarly contributions towards a more just world. This essay addresses the response of Avril McDonald and others to one of the many conflicts Avril addressed her mind to, namely the behaviour of Israel’s military during its 2006 bombing of Qana in Southern Lebanon, which was followed by further aggression in Gaza in 2008–2009. Recalling the responses of states to South Africa’s military aggression in the 1980s, this short contribution reflects on Avril’s scholarly contributions in order to find a ‘human face’ through advancing international humanitarian law order to restrain Israel’s military and to protect civilians.
The author is Senior Lecturer in law, human rights and development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University and honorary senior research fellow at the School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand. The author wishes to acknowledge the professional journalists, correspondents and editors of www.ElectronicIntifada.net, where some of the material in this article was originally published, to Olivier Ribbelink and Marielle Matthee of the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague as well as Marcel Brus of the University of Groningen who provided critical feedback on earlier drafts. Of course, all opinions, and any remaining mistakes and deficiencies are mine alone.
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Notes
- 1.
Kleffner et al. 2009.
- 2.
McDonald 2009b, p. 26.
- 3.
- 4.
United Nations 2009.
- 5.
Blank 2010, p. 401.
- 6.
Schabas 2010.
- 7.
This was a view very much shared by Professor John Dugard, who has often expressed the view in public seminars that one cannot, and should not makes claims of neutrality, particularly from a Western standpoint, and especially when serious human rights and humanitarian law violations have allegedly taken place, and that it was imperative, as scholars, that one base their arguments on objectively verifiable facts and a rigorous interpretation of law. For an explanation of how most of the world views Israel’s behaviour as compared to the West and, accordingly, why it is important to take this issue seriously, see Dugard 2007, pp. 733–734.
- 8.
- 9.
Achmat 2012.
- 10.
This section draws on and develops Handmaker and McDonald 2006.
- 11.
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2006.
- 12.
- 13.
Human Rights Watch 2006.
- 14.
Fisk 1990, pp. 660–690.
- 15.
This site has since been moved to: http://electronicintifada.net/lebanon, last Accessed on 23 April 2012.
- 16.
- 17.
Handmaker and McDonald 2006.
- 18.
Human Rights Watch 1996; Cluster bombs release multiple ‘bomblets’, which do not distinguish between soldiers or resistance fighters (or ‘combatants’) and civilians.
- 19.
On 30 May 2008, the Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of a Convention on Cluster Munitions agreed on the text of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which came into force on 1 August 2010; Convention on Cluster Munitions, Dublin, 30 May 2008, C.N.776.2008.TREATIES-2 of 10 November 2008. For more information, see: http://www.clusterconvention.org, last Accessed on 1 November 2011.
- 20.
Human Rights Watch 2006.
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
Reported on the website of IPB-Italia, http://www.ipb-italia.org, last accessed on 1 November 2011. The IPB won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910.
- 24.
Halpin 2006.
- 25.
Human Rights Watch 1996.
- 26.
Fidler 2005.
- 27.
- 28.
United Nations 2006a.
- 29.
Holland 2006.
- 30.
This section partly draws on and develops Handmaker and McDonald 2006.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
International Commission of Jurists 2006.
- 33.
United Nations 2006b.
- 34.
United Nations 2009.
- 35.
Human Rights Watch 2009.
- 36.
- 37.
This section draws on and develops Handmaker and Ngeleza 2006.
- 38.
Article 53 of Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, United Nations Treaty Series, Volume Number 75, provides that ‘Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations’.
- 39.
Kalman 2006.
- 40.
Human Rights Watch 2007.
- 41.
Cook 2006.
- 42.
Tsalavouta et al. 2006.
- 43.
Democracy Now 2006.
- 44.
Adelman 1993, p. 92.
- 45.
SAPA 1996.
- 46.
ANC 1996.
- 47.
Stiff 2001.
- 48.
Polakow-Suransky 2010.
- 49.
United Nations 2006c.
- 50.
Yesh Gvul 2011.
- 51.
Callister 2007.
- 52.
Government of Canada 2009.
- 53.
Biko 1996, p. 98.
- 54.
ICJ, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, General List No. 131, 9 July 2004, I.C.J. Reports 2004, p. 136.
- 55.
Nabulsi 2006.
- 56.
McDonald 2009a.
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Handmaker, J. (2013). In Search of a Human Face in the Middle East: Addressing Israeli Impunity for War Crimes. In: Matthee, M., Toebes, B., Brus, M. (eds) Armed Conflict and International Law: In Search of the Human Face. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague, The Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-6704-918-4_6
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