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Military
action is legal
By
Subroto Mukherjee
GlobalomNet
Media Service
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Justice A.S. Anand |
Military
strikes against a country supporting terrorism are now legitimised under
UN resolutions, Justice A.S. Anand, former chief justice of the Supreme
Court of India said in London.
Justice Anand said that UN resolution 1368 adopted on September 12 last
year expressed a determination to counter terrorist acts ‘’by all
means’’.
India being a proponent of peace would inevitably want to explore all
other options, Justice Anand said. But the UN resolution does give India
the option of using military force as well, he said.
Justice Anand, who was visiting Britain under the L.M.Singhvi fellowship
under which legal luminaries from India and Britain visit one
another’s countries, said the UN resolution “implies the use of armed
force as well.’’
Justice Anand said “by recognising the inherent right of individual or
collective self-defence in accordance with the Charter, the resolution,
for the first time, recognised military self-defence as applicable against
terrorist acts perpetrated by non-state actors.’’
The former chief justice said ‘’this automatically legitimised
unilateral military strikes against another country, at least until the
Security Council takes its measures, something that occurred earlier but
was never given the stamp of approval by the United Nations.’’
Further, resolution 1373 adopted on September 28 ‘’reaffirmed the
inherent right of individual or collective self-defence as recognised by
the Charter of the UN,’’ Justice Anand said. The resolution commanded
member states to take a series of measures against international
terrorism, Justice Anand said.
Those measures were exactly copied from the texts of international
conventions for the suppression of terrorist bombings and terrorist
financing of 1997 and 1999, Justice Anand said. ‘’Thus in one go,
those conventions effectively became binding for the entire UN
membership.’’
The resolution created a counter-terrorism committee to monitor
countries’ fulfilment of these mandates, Justice Anand said.
The former chief justice argued against any selective approach to dealing
with terrorism. Liberal democracies need to ‘’come forward to frame
and agree to some essential basics,’’ Justice Anand said.
‘’Let there be a comprehensive law providing that for terrorists, who
commit an act of terror in one country, steps shall be taken to extradite
such terrorists to the country where he committed the act of terror for
being tried under the law of that land - existence or absence of
extradition treaties notwithstanding,’’ Justice Anand said.
In this connection, he said, ‘’not only would the achievement of a
universally applicable definition of terrorism be helpful, but it would
also assist the need for an internationally recognised screening mechanism
for identifying terrorist groups, an exercise which is essential to combat
terrorism.’’
Justice Anand said ‘’there is also need to have uniform legislation to
control the funding of such terrorist groups or organisations because
without financial support, the terrorist groups cannot function.’’
Ethnic
Council of Canada is a representative body of 64 different language news
weeklies published in Canada.
Ranvir
is a Homeopath doctor serving the Indo-Canadians for over 30 years.
Ranvir
is committed to helping the community to keep in touch with India - news,
social events, music, entertainment - and promote the local businesses by
bringing their activities to the community, He has been serving the
community through his news weekly, Nagara, and a radio
programme, Radio Sabrang, which is a favourite station of the
community, and is relayed from CJMR 1320 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm Monday
to Friday.
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