Preemptive Strikes: Beware The Imperial Ghost Of Impunity

Chief Charles A. Taku*

The Israel-US pre-emptive strike against Iran is a fatal assault against the rules-based world order and the Westphalian sovereign veil of protection which aimed to protect the racially defined world from the scourge of war and the infamy of impunity. The rules-based world was an act of necessity which arose after the 30 years and 80 years wars in Europe. Humanity as it was then defined, did not include Africa and peoples of Africa origin as well as peoples of South East Asia origin and indigenous peoples on the face of the earth.

This is why historic  aggression, genocide, extermination, pillage, looting, human trafficking, slave trade , slavery, racism, imperialism, colonialism and ecocide  were used as legal and legitimate tools to commit atrocity crimes with the enduring effect which are ongoing. They  did not benefit from the protection against these crimes which as a matter of state policy were legal and legitimized because the victims were considered not subjects of international law.  These crimes which are still in operation in various forms are sanitized and celebrated in some cases with the complicit blessings of enabling agents among  victims. 

This explains why perpetrators and their benefitting generations are ignoring calls by victims for reparations for their desecrated and deformed spiritual ethos, systemic racial discrimination, continuing racism, stolen humanity, economic brigandage, cultural genocide and  the restitution of their stolen cultural heritage which are the civilizational indigeneity of their ancestors and their distinctive authentic subsistence identity.

The Westphalian order which conceived the notion sovereignty  and equality of nations big and small as a shields of protection against atrocious wars with a notion of fundamental freedoms and self-determination which at the time, normed their conscience of humanity left  international crimes against Africans, South-East Asians and indigenous peoples  out of their humanity matrix, thus unprotected.  They were considered not subjects of international law.  The question, I may ask, is whose international law? This calls for a decolonization of international law because the capricious construct which conceived and legitimized criminality cannot be associated with justice.  Sadly for some, our call to decolonize international law, is construed with racial lenses and resisted, hence  the rise of white supremacy as a defining ideology and tool of supposed democratic governance in Western societies.

In 1945, the UN was created with a key mandate to outlaw threat or use of force in article 2(4); permitting  the use of force only in the case of necessity defined in Article 51.

Article 2(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.

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.

Despite the prohibition of the use of force, significant developments which occurred after the founding of the UN and its Charter regime,  laid  landmines of impunity, injustice,  abusive coercive measures, use of force,  capricious and unbalanced interpretation and implementation of international norms to justify aggression and serious  international violations.

 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights  was proclaimed in 1948 to establish standards and thresholds for the application of human rights provisions of the UN Charter (  Preambular pledge, Articles 1 (3),   55 ( C) ). The UN Charter in its  Articles 1(1). Article 39 expressly outlawed aggression.  However, a series of events which occurred shortly after which were intended to resolve international conflicts in conformity with the UN Charter, with the unjust objectivization of Africans and other persons of other racial compositions in other parts of the world, laid the foundation for the uncertain application of international norms, instability and aggressive use of force outside the framework of the United nations.The establishment of the State of Israel contemporaneously with the Geneva Conventions (1948), the Genocide Conventions (1949) left unaddressed the question the state of Palestine.  This remains a critical world problem which must find a solution. It cannot be resolved by bombardments and regional escalations of armed conflicts and aggression.  It must be resolved by peaceful means, just settlement and an untainted application of norms of international justice.

Then came aggressive colonial wars by European imperial and colonial powers such as Spain, Portugal, France and Belgium and apartheid in South Africa.   France which was humiliated out of the Second World War in which African soldiers shaded their blood defending the sovereignty of France, found their countries devasted in colonial wars waged by France to stop the clamor for freedom and independence which was sweeping across Africa.   The outcome was independence with colonial treaties which granted independence without freedom. Resistance to this colonial imposition has been met with the scourge of terror, terrorism and destabilizing threats and sanctions.   The new generation of leaders in some of these countries have proclaimed an end to the colonial looting and economic brigandage which the France imposed on the suffering people of Africa. Then came the ‘no war no peace’ Korean War, in 1951 which is keeping the  Korean Peninsula war on the throes of an endless tension and war, even as the world fakes an apparency of normalcy;  the Taiwan and now the South-East Asia amber-zones of conflicts, African melting pots of colonial engineered conflicts,  gapping wounds of unaddressed historical wrongs and whitewashed  criminality, all begging solutions.  Yet more and more dog whistles  of conflicts are pilling with the advent of a new world order which is anchored on unilateral actions, persistent threats, bullying, economic blackmail, evangelical drums of war, religion blackmail  and the craving for constitutional racial inequality in supposed Western democracies.

These are some of the problems the world has been struggling to find peaceful solutions within its rules-based multilateral treaty regime, even as the progression towards self-destruction by some of the supposed gatekeepers of world peace and security under the UN Charter, permanent members of the UN Security Council, continue unabated. New challenges which were not contemplated in the UN Charter such as the rise of non-state actors with tremendous capacities to influence international relations, technological advancements with capacities of breaching the frontiers of national sovereignty, pandemics, climate change, international migration etc have stretched the definition and  application of international norms.  It has pricked instincts of international nerves of impunity and ruthless exercise of power. The result are unilateral actions and preemptive strikes making a mockery of carefully thought  norms of diplomacy,  peace and peaceful resolution of conflicts in the UN Charter.

  Unnerved instincts of preventive strikes which have been flexed lately have ushered a new world order  of  lawlessness and impunity which will make the world more unsafe into the unforeseeable future. The world must not forget that the founding fathers of the UN deliberated the consequences of war on humanity and established the UN even with a defeated Germany, which has risen to become once again, a key actor in international relations.  Preemptive attacks by Russia against Ukraine was widely condemned by many countries in the world, led by the US. That condemnation lost its luster with the Israel-US  preemptive strike against Iran when diplomacy was  clearly an option.

 The legitimization of preemptive strikes may be music to China in South-East Asia Sea and Taiwan and North Korea in the Korea Peninsula. These nuclear powers might have been nursing the ambition of resorting to the unilateral use of force outside the UN framework to realizing their territorial ambitions.  Isreal-USA preemptive strike against Iran may just have provided them the opportunity to realize their ambitions.  God forbid!  Is this what the world wants?  Is this the  potential outcome  the US intends for the world?  Preemptive actions are a poisoned spear on the conscience of humanity and must be disavowed and discouraged.  The world must embark on the path of justice, peace and diplomatic action. 

Speaking directly to Africa:  Southern Cameroons, Darfur, DRC, South Sudan require urgent international attention, justice and peace by addressing the root causes of conflicts now.  The international legal architecture which defined Africa in racist terms  and granted independence with imprints of economic crimes, devastation, war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity must shred its racist shield and enforce the rights of peoples to self-determination, justice and peace. To turncoats  gatekeepers of international peace and security: Beware of the imperial ghost of impunity. The world needs peace not war. The world is a collective boat in which humanity must collectively survive or perish. I stand resolutely for international justice and peace.

*Chief Charles A. Taku is a Barrister at Law, International Lawyer Organization Lead Counsel, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Special Court for Sierra Leone, International Criminal Court, Oude Waalsdorperweg 10, 2597 AK Den Haag, Netherlands