Latvia files Allegations of Genocide re Ukraine v. Russian Federation

Latvia files a declaration of intervention in the proceedings under Article 63 of the Statute

THE HAGUE, 22 July 2022. Genocide – On 21 July 2022, the Republic of Latvia, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Allegations of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Ukraine v. Russian Federation).

Pursuant to Article 63 of the Statute, whenever the construction of a convention to which States other than those concerned in the case are parties is in question, each of these States has the right to intervene in the proceedings. In this case, the construction given by the judgment of the Court will be equally binding upon them.

To avail itself of the right of intervention conferred by Article 63 of the Statute, Latvia relies on its status as a party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”). It states that “[a]s a Party to the Genocide Convention, Latvia has a direct interest in the construction that might be placed upon that treaty in the Court’s decision in the [proceedings”, indicating that it “wishes to intervene in order to make submissions on [the] construction of the Genocide Convention on issues relating to merits as well as jurisdiction”.

In accordance with Article 83 of the Rules of Court, Ukraine and the Russian Federation have been invited to furnish written observations on Latvia’s declaration of intervention.

Latvia’s declaration of intervention will soon be available on the Court’s website.

History of the proceedings

The history of the proceedings can be found in press releases Nos. 2022/4, 2022/6, 2022/7 and 2022/11, available on the Court’s website.

Note. The Court’s press releases are prepared by its Registry for information purposes only and do not constitute official documents.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It was established by the United Nations Charter in June 1945 and began its activities in April 1946. The Court is composed of 15 judges elected for a nine-year term by the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations. The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). The Court has a twofold role. first, to settle, in accordance with international law, through judgments which have binding force and are without appeal for the parties concerned, legal disputes submitted to it by States; and, second, to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized United Nations organs and agencies of the system.

Czech MEP Zdechovsky : ”Organ harvesting is a lucrative state-sponsored business in China”

“Organ harvesting is a lucrative business that is state-sponsored in China and specifically targets Falun Gong practitioners as well as other prisoners of conscience, which is unacceptable,” Czech MEP Tomas Zdechovsky said in his introductory speech at an event organized at the Press Club in Brussels on 29 June, on the eve of the EU rotating presidency by the Czech Republic.

The conference was an initiative of EU Today which had invited to the debate [watch full conference below]

• Carlos Iglesias, head of the legal team of NGO Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH)
• Nico Bijnens, President of Falun Gong Belgium,
• A Chinese Falun Gong practitioner who had been a victim of the repression of the Chinese Communist Party, and
• Willy Fautre, director of the Brussels-based watchdog Human Rights Without Frontiers. 

“I was one of those MEPs who tabled the last resolution against this practice adopted by the European Parliament on 5 May last,” Zdechovsky said.

“The European Parliament considers that organ harvesting from living prisoners on death row and prisoners of conscience in China may amount to crimes against humanity, as defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. If China wants to have harmonious commercial relations with the EU, it must put an end to this inhuman practice.”

During the conference, the attendees could watch a video showing several phone conversations between a potential client abroad in search of an organ and several hospitals in China. It could be concluded from those discussions that human organs could be provided to him, even “à la carte.” Indeed, the foreign client asked with insistence to get an organ from a Falun Gong practitioner because “those people have a healthy life, do not smoke or use drugs” and the potential traffickers in the hospitals agreed to this sort of transaction.

In the resolution, the Parliament is calling on the Chinese authorities to promptly respond to the allegations of organ harvesting and to allow independent monitoring by international human rights mechanisms, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Up to now, there has not been any constructive response.

The Parliament is concerned over the lack of independent oversight as to whether prisoners or detainees provide valid consent to organ donation. Its resolution also denounces the lack of information from the Chinese authorities on reports that the families of deceased detainees and prisoners are being prevented from claiming their bodies.

The EU and its Member States should raise the issue of organ harvesting in China at every Human Rights Dialogue, said MEP Zdechovsky, who insisted that the EU Member States should publicly condemn organ transplant abuses in China

The resolution also warns EU citizens against transplant tourism to China and proposes to take the necessary measures in order to prevent such a business. No detail is however provided about the nature of such measures but some think this sort of tourism should be criminalized.

The issue has however become more complex since China has established transplant centers in the Gulf region which have advertised ‘halal organs’ which can only come from Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

The Parliament calls on its Member States to ensure that their conventions and cooperation agreements with non-EU countries, including China, in the area of health and research respect the EU’s ethical principles in relation to organ donation and the use for scientific purposes of elements and products of the human body.

On the eve of its presidency of the EU, the Czech Republic should consider the resolution of the Parliament about the issue of forced organ harvesting as a matter of priority.

Watch and listen the conference here:

Russia is wrong, and what about the EU?

The attack on Ukraine represents a great paradox: there is public international law that clearly envisages the possibility of international interventions to protect civilians or collectively reduce countries that use war for non-defensive purposes (such as Russia); but we do not have effective global political arrangements to do so.

The UN Security Council, charged with ensuring global peace and security, contains Russia and China as permanent members with veto power. While Russia’s action is unjustifiable, my hypothesis is that certain macro-social processes have been at work that have indirectly favoured aggression. In the following, I will try to point both to some of these developments and to certain alternatives that the EU could take.

EU countries placed much of the responsibility for their security in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), a US-led collective defence body created at the same time as the UN to defend Western interests against Soviet communism. The UN (which included the USSR) was intended to preserve world peace, but the West also created its own organisation because it saw the USSR as a threat. NATO symbolises this Cold War, so its eastward enlargement into former Soviet republics is interpreted in Russia as a threatening encirclement. Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO has been a trigger. The European Union has probably been the most successful region in the world in terms of peacemaking through political integration and deepening interdependence and trade. The United States of Europe, however, has not come into existence, in part, because European defence was delegated to NATO. When Trump announced his cessation of support for NATO, the European Union realised the problem of defence dependence. Now, Isn’t it possible for the European Union to continue to integrate and, moreover, to expand eastwards, while not excluding Russia? NATO’s eastern expansion conveys the idea of threat, while EU expansion raises expectations of shared benefits and identity, of interdependence. This may sound idealistic, so a less ambitious prospect would be for the European Union to assume its own defence and complete its political integration.

The humanitarian situation in Ukraine’s pro-independence provinces deserves special attention: it is one of Russia’s arguments for legitimising the invasion. The UN should send international observers to Donetsk and Luhansk, to dispel any shadow of doubt about Ukraine’s behaviour since the signing of the Minsk peace accords in 2014. Putin considers them unilaterally broken by Ukraine. In February, the UN published a notice announcing that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. This is a step in the right direction that could be complemented by the measure proposed here.

This in no way legitimises Russia’s attack, nor its desire to demilitarise Ukraine, nor its call for a coup d’état by the Ukrainian military to simplify negotiations with Moscow. Crossing such a dangerous red line for world peace cannot be ignored: it would open the way for similar actions by Russia or other countries.

However, any military action against Russia, inside or outside Ukraine, would have devastating global consequences, both for Ukraine, Russia and Europe. Likewise, arming Ukraine is a dangerous strategy. Other historical experiences, such as Afghanistan (1978-1992) and Syria, show that arming a population is a ticking time bomb whose place and range of explosion are unpredictable.

Unequivocal denunciations by as many states as possible, diplomacy and economic sanctions seem the only immediate way forward. Russia cares about sanctions: inflation, the freezing of funds and the closing of potential markets for gas sales hurt it. Although it looks like a superpower, its economy is not robust, internal inequalities are rampant, it is threatened by terrorist groups and there is dissent. In the medium term, reducing NATO’s influence (until its eventual dissolution), strengthening European foreign and defence policy and expanding the Union eastwards should be the way forward.

Finally, the transformation and universalisation of the UN’s collective security system, as the only framework for settling international conflicts, but democratised and endowed with indisputable coercive capacity, seems to be the essential collective project if humanity is not to be finally extinguished by the threats it itself produces.

If the federation of the United States of the world takes too long, what is sometimes seen as utopian may be remembered as the practical solution that could not be tried out because of narrow-mindedness but which would have prevented civilisation from succumbing to barbarism.

Originally published in Spanish at Diario de Navarra and SerGarcia.ES

“Youth stand up to Violent Extremism” Training Course in Jordan

“Desert Bloom” United Religions Initiative (URI) Cooperation Circle (CC) conducted “Youth stand up to Violent Extremism Training Course” in cooperation with EUROMED EVE Polska – Poland in Jordan, from 12-16 February 2022, – reports Mamoun Khreisat, Regional Coordinator of URI Middle East & North Africa.

The training aimed at building the capacity of youth workers in the field of the prevention of violent extremism while reinforcing global competence and universal morality that promotes values of respect, cultural diversity, continuous improvement and self-confidence to advance a shared respect for human dignity.

The training achieved its main objectives of:

1.      Supporting the professional development of youth workers in the field of P/CVE through non-formal and informal methodologies, tackling the Root Causes of violent radicalization, Radicalization Process, Intercultural Citizenship, Digital & Media Literacy, critical thinking and effective communication.

2.      Fostering youth civic engagement in public life (economic, political and socio-cultural participation), through:

a.      Economic empowerment by building youth entrepreneurial competencies)

b.      Enhancing young people’s engagement in political and public life by developing youth advocacy skills to develop effective youth policy, improve youth access to service, defend youth rights and challenge horizontal inequality.

The project was coordinated by EUROMED EVE Polska (Poland) and hosted and implemented in Jordan by Desert Bloom for Training and Sustainable Development (Jordan). is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

Thirty youth workers/leaders participated in this training representing the following 9 organizations, out of which are 5 URI CCs:

1.      EUROMED EVE Polska- Poland

2.      Desert Bloom- Jordan (URI CC)

3.      Have A Dream- Egypt (URI CC)

4.      ASSOCIAO MEDESTU – Portugal

5.      BRIDGES-Eastern European Forum for Dialogue- Bulgaria (URI CC)

6.      Beit Ashams for Self-Development – Palestine (represented by Volunteering for Peace CC)

7.      Moroccan Youth Forum for Cultural Exchange & Scientific Research – Morocco (URI CC)

8.      Kalamáris Egyesület- Hungary

9.      Association Euro-Med EVE Tunisia- Tunisia.

The participants along with 5 URI members in Jordan attended the World Interfaith Harmony Week celebration in Madaba, a city well-known for churches, Byzantine and Umayyad-era mosaics, and archeological complexes. We listened to inspirational stories of the deep-rooted cohabitation between Muslims and Christians in Jordan by distinguished religious leaders. Then we visited religious sites the city including the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist, the mosque of Jesus Christ, St George’s Greek Orthodox Church (which has the oldest mosaic map of Palestine and other biblical sites and important places such as Jerusalem, Gaza, Dead Sea or Nile Delta, it goes back to the 6th century) and Mount Nebo (famous pilgrimage site).

The participants will continue working on PVE, they agreed to develop a practical and user-friendly Toolkit to serve as a guide on building youth resilience to PVE. Also, they launched a Facebook page under the name “United Against Violent Extremism” to serve as a Social Media platform dedicated to preventing violent extremism (VE) through raising awareness of the root causes of VE, and counter extremists and terrorists’ online propaganda.  Please like the page.

Feedback from some participants:

        Even though the topic was harsh, I enjoyed the workshops and we’ve discussed some very important and interesting topics. I liked that we talked and brainstormed about things we don’t usually talk about at home with our friends and family. Here we learned new perspectives and we could share our thoughts with each other.

        The content of the course is quite interesting. I learned a lot.

        I like the diversity of activities and the diversity of participants and their perspectives. I learnt a lot of new information, and got new experiences.

        I liked the activities, the cultural diversity of the group as well as teamwork

        I enjoyed expressing our identities in painting. Also, I liked the religious leaders’ presentations on the occasion of the World Interfaith Harmony Week.

        Interesting and useful course content which opened my mind to a variety of issues in the Middle East and Europe, mobilized me to work and thinking about solving problems that lead to Violent Extremism in a peaceful way through understanding the roots of various problems. I like the diversity of participants and making new friends as well as the accommodation and the delicious local food.

        The training opened many opportunities for developing further projects.

        I appreciate the fact that this training was not only based on lectures, we had hands-on practices and activities

        I liked everything about the course. It was great. I loved the diversity of activities, experiences, culture and getting to know new people from whom I learned a lot.

Source: The United Religions Initiative – Middle East & North Africa Office | Zamzam Commercial Complex, Tela Al-Ali, Ar-Raafah Street, P.O. Box: 942140, Amman 11194 Jordan | Mamoun@uri-mena.org | info@uri-mena.org | www.uri-mena.org  | Follow URI MENA on Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/mena.uri