Is Ukraine about to have a war?

[fdr]

Originally Posted by pilotmike

Good to see 'the laws of armed conflict' being adhered to, to the letter. Is it possible someone didn't get the memo?

Quite so PM, quite.

It appears that Pukin left his reading glasses in the same gutter that he left his soul and morality. Had he had glasses, he might have read the UN Charter:

Article 2: “The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfil in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.

Article 42: “Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.”

Article 51: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

Article 92: “The International Court of Justice shall be the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It shall function in accordance with the annexed Statute, which is based upon the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice and forms an integral part of the present Charter.”

Of course, when the perpetrator is a permanent member of the Security Council, it should be no surprise that the country that is being criminally attacked gets a bit peeved with the system.

Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, (Fourth Geneva Convention, GCIV)
August 1949, passed in 1993 by the UNSC to Geneva Conventions had passed into the body of customary international, thus making them binding on non-signatories to the Conventions whenever they engage in armed conflicts.

Article 2: Application of the Convention

In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peacetime, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

Article 4: Definition of protected persons

(defines who is protected person)
Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.


Article 32: Prohibition of corporal punishment, torture, etc.

A protected person may not have anything done "of such a character as to cause physical suffering or extermination... the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies to murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment. While popular debate remains on what constitutes a legal definition of torture, the ban on corporal punishment simplifies the matter; even the most mundane physical abuse is thereby forbidden by Article 32, as a precaution against alternate definitions of torture.

Article 33: Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage and reprisals

"No protected person may be punished for any offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property is prohibited."

Section III. Occupied territories

Article 49: Deportations, transfers, evacuations

Article 49. Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.
Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.
The Occupying Power undertaking such transfers or evacuations shall ensure, to the greatest practicable extent, that proper accommodation is provided to receive the protected persons, that the removals are effected in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated.
The Protecting Power shall be informed of any transfers and evacuations as soon as they have taken place.
The Occupying Power shall not detain protected persons in an area particularly exposed to the dangers of war unless the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand.
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

Article 53: Prohibited destruction

Article 53. 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.


It is time to take the action that is necessary to amend the UN Charter which may not ever be possible or to accept the fact that the UN is a useless structure for world stability and safety. It is as ineffective as the League of Nations was before it. Russia has no business being a member of the UN, and certainly not of the UNSC, and it is stunning that there is no simple means to remove them from the permanent membership of the UNSC, they don't believe in the UN, nor the Geneva Convention and are thus little more than a criminal and terrorist state. When India and Europe and China keeps buying oil and gas from Russia don't be under any illusion that you are not aiding and abetting a criminal, murderous terrorist nation, and the longer it takes to bring them to reasonable conventions of behavior the more damage it does to the world.


FWIW, this war is just the beginning of the turmoil of this century. We are about to enter a time of economic realities that will be earth-shattering, and they stem from the simple statistics of demographics, and the reality of geography. We are not going to get to 10 Billion on the rock, we aren't going to likely pass 8.5, we are about to enter a global famine for much of the world, accelerated by the actions of Russia. At this moment, April 2022, there are 2 Billion that are facing famine in the next 6 months, roughly 25% of the attendees to this party on the 3rd rock. That includes the fast-approaching economic collapse of China and the scrabble that is going to set off for foodstuffs, Famine is coming and is related to the cost and scarcity of food supplies, and the accelerated timeline comes from the cost of both fuel and gas supplies that affect fertilizer availability, and food shipping costs. Not a big deal if you are sitting in Canada (at least in spring or autumn) or Argentina, or USA, but no fun in China, ME, Africa, and other parts of the world. Takes some pressure off Taiwan.


International Court of Justice, Case concerning application of the Convention on the prevention of the crime of genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), §398-401 (2007). Available at: http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-re...D-01-00-EN.pdf

C. Greenwood, Self-Defence, Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Oxford Public International Law (2011). Available at: http://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/...-e401?prd=EPIL

Y. Dinstein, War, Aggression and Self – Defence, New York: Cambridge University Press, Fourth edition, 195 (2005)

E. Wilmshurst, Principles of International Law on the use of force by states in self – defence. ILP WP 05/01, Independent Royal Institute of international Affairs: Chatham House,18 (2005). Available at: https://www.chathamhouse.org/publica...rs/view/108106

W.H. Taft IV., Self-Defense and the Oil Platforms Decision, Yale J. Internat. Law, 29(2), article 3,295, 300 (2004). Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/c...2&context=yjil

E. Wilmshurst, Principles of International Law on the use of force by states in self – defence. ILP WP 05/01, Independent Royal Institute of international Affairs: Chatham House, 18 (2005). Available at: https://www.chathamhouse.org/publica...rs/view/108106; Shaw M.N., International Law, Fifth edition. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 1027

A. Cassese, International Law, Oxford University Press, 357–362 (2005); S.S. Alexandrov, Self-Defense Against the Use of Force in International Law, The Hague/London/Boston: Kluwer Law International, 100–101 (1996); R. Värk, The Legal Framework of the Use of Armed Force Revisited, Baltic Security and Defence Review, 15(1), 73 (2013)