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boycott
BDS Campaign Against Israel Is Not Just a Right. The ICJ Shows Us It's an Obligation
Groups and individuals targeted by efforts to penalize BDS or to compel people to reject it will now have an important new tool in their legal arsenal as they assert their rights either administratively or judicially.
Aug 14, 2024
Israel and its lobby have, for years now, been engaged in a frenzy of activity to further insulate Israel from accountability by using their influence in the West to effectively outlaw organized opposition to Israel. Foremost among these efforts has been the Israeli campaign to penalize calls to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel for its gross violations of human rights. As a result, countless laws and policies are now on the books across the U.S. and the broader West, trampling on core constitutional principles and internationally guaranteed human rights in defense of Israeli impunity. But an advisory opinion issued last month by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should help to turn that around.
In its historic ruling, the ICJ found that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is entirely unlawful, that Israel practices apartheid and racial segregation, and that all states are under a duty to help bring this to an end, including by cutting off all economic, trade and investment relations with Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In other words, as a matter of international law, all countries are obliged to participate in an economic boycott of Israel’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territory and to divest from any existing economic relations there.
Because the court was bound by the parameters of the request from the UN General Assembly that triggered its findings, it did not address duties and obligations relating to activities inside the 1948 Green Line. However, the court’s authoritative statement of the requirements of international law makes clear that proponents of BDS have not only the moral high ground but also a firm grounding in international law.
The court’s advisory opinion in July comes on the heels of the commencement of genocide proceedings against Israel in the ICJ last December, and a request in May by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and the Defense Minister for crimes against humanity, including extermination. Together, they represent a historic shift away from 76 years of Western-sponsored Israeli exceptionalism and impunity, feeding hope of a new era of accountability.
Recognizing this, Israel, as well as its Western allies accused of complicity in Israel’s international crimes (chief among them, the U.S., UK, and Germany) have been scrambling to oppose, delay, and obstruct action by these courts, both by intervening in court proceedings and, in some cases, by threatening court officials. And indeed, the ICC warrant process has already been inordinately delayed when compared to previous cases. Nevertheless, for its part, the ICJ advisory opinion was both timely and uncompromising in its application of international law to Israel.
Israel and its allies also defensively claim that advisory opinions of the ICJ are “non-binding” and, indeed, the court cannot compel a state to comply with its findings. But what this tactic ignores is that the laws to which the court refers in its authoritative opinion are, in fact, binding on all states. For example, the court observed that the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, their rights under international human rights and humanitarian law, and the prohibition of Israel’s acquisition of territory by force impose so-called “erga omnes” obligations, that is, binding obligations that apply to all countries.
Among these obligations are the duty not to recognize or assist the occupation in any way, and the duty to take action to realize the equal rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people. It follows that any policies or acts by a Western country that in any way recognize Israel’s occupation, assist Israel in that occupation (economically, militarily, diplomatically, etc.), or prohibit persons under its jurisdiction from respecting international law by boycotting or divesting from Israel’s illegal occupation, would be unlawful.
Of course, the U.S., which has long ignored the constraints of international law and invested decades of effort in carving out an exception for Israeli impunity, is likely to reject the court’s findings and oppose the implementing resolution of the UN General Assembly, which is expected to follow. Some other Western states invested in the Israeli axis, like the UK and Germany, may follow suit. But it is likely that most countries, including other Western states, will adjust their policies to ensure legal compliance.
Groups and individuals targeted by efforts to penalize BDS or to compel people to reject it will now have an important new tool in their legal arsenal as they assert their rights either administratively or judicially. They can now invoke the authoritative ruling of the World Court to credibly assert that participating in boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid is not only a moral imperative and constitutional and human right, but also an international legal obligation.
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Get the GMO Out of My Mustard
Sarson Satyagraha to stop terminator technology
Aug 12, 2015
India is the home of oilseed diversity--coconut, groundnut, linseed, niger, mustard and rapeseed, safflor, and sesame. Our food cultures have evolved with our biodiversity of oilseeds. Sarson is called "Sarsapa" and "Rajika" in Sanskrit. Diverse Varieties of Sarson are grown and used in India, including Krsna Sarsapa (Banarsi Rai), Sita Sarsapa (Pila Sarson), Rakta Sarsapa (Brown Sarson), Toria, and Taramira.
On August 27th, 1998, the government announced a policy of free import of soyabean, while simultaneously banning sale of mustard oil using the tragedy of adulteration of mustard oil in Delhi with argemone, diesel, waste oil. While it was referred to as the dropsy epidemic, our visits to hospitals showed multiple symptoms because of the multiple sources of adulteration. The interesting thing about the mustard tragedy was that ALL brands were affected, and only in Delhi. . A typical adulteration is in one brand across the supply chain.
Women from the slums of Delhi called us at Navdanya and said, "Our children are going to bed hungry because they cannot eat food cooked in soya oil." They also said, "Bring our mustard back."
Women prefer natural oils such as mustard to hydrogenated fats such as Dalda for health reasons and taste. Hydrogenated fats contain trans fats, which contribute to heart problems and strokes. Soya oil, too, is an industrial oil that uses benzene, a known carcinogen. Food should give us health, not disease; the poorest women know this fundamental fact.
Navdanya, with the National Women's Alliance for Food Sovereignty (Mahila Anna Swaraj), started the Sarson Satyagraha to bring back pure mustard oil. In 1998, the sound of "Sarson Bacao, Soyabean Bhagao" rang on the streets of Delhi. The first bottle of the Satyagraha Mustard Oil was gifted to the then Chief Minister of Delhi, Sahib Singh Varma. Today, we can enjoy our mustard oil because of the Sarson Satyagraha 1998.
Our mustard is again under threat from Dr. Deepak Pental of Delhi University, who has genetically engineered it for sterility and herbicide tolerance.
Not only do we not need genetically engineered mustard, but the traits being introduced in it are known to be hazardous and illegal under international and national law. Dr Pental has spent time in Tihar jail for stealing a colleague's Mustard work, but blatantly violating national and international laws that have been put in place to protect our biodiversity and farmers' rights is a far more serious crime.
The GMO mustard is based on what has been called "Terminator Technology," which sterilizes the harvested seed. The UN Convention on Biodiversity has banned the use of Terminator Technology, and it is also illegal under India's Plant Variety Protection and Farmers Rights Act. The US Department of Agriculture and Delta and Pine Land (now owned by Monsanto) hold the patent for this technology.
Dr. Pental used Terminator Technology based on the barnase gene, which is lethal to cells.
In addition to the terminator trait, GMO mustard has been engineered to be resistant to the herbicide Glufosinate. This herbicide halts photosynthesis, resulting in plant death. When Glufosinate is sprayed on fields, all other plants die except the herbicide-resistant GMO.
These are technologies for killing life, not technologies for growing food. They must be banned.
In India, we grow mustard with wheat on our small farms. Such mixtures increase productivity and farmers' incomes. However, herbicide-resistant GMO mustard kills wheat, lowers farm productivity, and undermines food security. Herbicide-resistant crops also put evolutionary pressure on weeds, contributing to the emergence of superweeds. Due to increased herbicide use, 50% of farmlands in the US are overrun by superweeds.
Additionally, GM mustard contaminates non-GMO mustard through pollination. Percy Scmeiser, a seed breeder in Canada, lost his canola line (canola is derived from mustard and gets its name from the breeding done in Canada) to contamination by Monsanto's RoundUp Ready Canola. Steve Marsh, an Australian Organic farmer, lost his Organic Certification because of Monsanto's GM canola.
The demand for pure organic mustard oil is growing in India since most edible oils are "blended" with GMO soya oil or GMO BT cotton seed oil. The introduction of GMO mustard with Terminator traits will deny Indian citizens the right to safe and pure mustard oil because of the risk of contamination.
The GM DNA can enter cells of unrelated species and be incorporated into the cell's genome through horizontal gene transfer. The genes involved are fatal.
Barnase is known to be harmful, if not lethal, to all cells, animals and humans included. When perfused into rat kidneys, barnase causes kidney damage. When the recombinases used for gene splicing are expressed at high levels in the sperm cells of transgenic mice, the males became 100% sterile. Sterility is caused directly by the recombinase enzyme scrambling the genome, essentially by breaking and rejoining DNA at inappropriate sites on the same or different chromosomes.
Because we need an independent assessment of these far-reaching Biosafety impacts, the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) of the Supreme Court has recommended a ten-year moratorium on GMO trials to create a robust system for Biosafety Regulation. Such regulation cannot be left to those involved in risky experiments who are also trying to push hazardous GMOs onto our farms and into our food.
In addition, the TEC has recommended that no herbicide-resistant crops be introduced in India because our farmers are small, and herbicides will destroy our biodiverse food crops, which are the basis of India's food and nutritional security. The TEC also recommended that we do not genetically engineer crops for which we are a 'center of diversity.' India is the home of the genetic diversity of mustard.
Thus, every law and scientific principle of Biosafety is being undermined to push Terminator Mustard on India's farmers and thalis. GMO mustard is justified because we are importing edible oils, which will reduce imports by increasing production. The claim that this Terminator Mustard will increase yields by 30% is scientifically false and a blatant lie.
The GMO hybrid cannot have higher yields than the non-GMO hybrid.
India imports edible oils because we were forced to. When Soya oil started flooding India's market in 1998, the International price was $150/ton, while the US government's subsidy to its soya producers was $190/ton. In effect, this was dumping.
The Indian government further subsidized soya oil for the PDS by Rs 15,000/ton, making imported soya oil artificially cheaper than domestically produced mustard oil.
We need to get rid of these distorting subsidies and unjust trade rules to defend our food sovereignty and ensure Indian's can have healthy and safe food Made in India by Indian farmers.
We need to stop the insanity of transforming mustard - the symbol of spring and abundance in our culture - into a toxic crop with terminator genes, sprayed with lethal herbicides that kill everything green, including the rich diversity of our crops and directly damage our health.
On July 31, 2015 we renewed the Sarson Satyagraha by taking a pledge at Gandhi Ji's memorial at Rajghat to protect the diversity, purity and safety of our mustard.
Join the Sarson Satyagraha. Commit to boycotting chemical and GM foods and eating organic and local foods. Food Freedom (Anna Swaraj) is our birthright.
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UN's Ban Ki-Moon Caves In, Takes Israel Off List of Serious Child Abusers
Jun 09, 2015
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has caved in to pressure from Israel and the United States and taken the Israeli military off an official list of serious violators of children's rights, in this year's report on children in armed conflict.
In doing so, Ban rejected an official recommendation from his own Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui and numerous human rights organizations and child rights defenders.
Ban's act is particularly egregious since the report found that the number of children killed in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2014, at 557, was the third highest only after Iraq and Afghanistan and ahead of Syria.
\u201c#UNSG CAAC report: #Israel forces killed 557 kids in OPT during 2014, third highest in 2014 behind Afghanistan & Iraq\u201d— Brad Parker (@Brad Parker) 1433789896
"The revelation that Israel's armed forces were removed from the annex of the annual report by Ban Ki-moon is deplorable," Brad Parker, attorney and international advocacy officer at Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCI-Palestine), told The Electronic Intifada.
"The annual report and its annex, or children's 'list of shame,' has been a strong evidence-based accountability tool proven to help increase protections for children in armed conflict situations. There is ample evidence on persistent grave violations committed by Israeli forces since at least 2006 that should have triggered listing," Parker added.
"The secretary-general's decision to place politics above justice and accountability for Palestinian children has provided Israeli forces with tacit approval to continue committing grave violations against children with impunity," Parker said.
The top UN official's decision will be greeted with relief by the Obama administration, Israel and others concerned with ensuring such Israeli impunity.
Obama pressure
"The draft 2015 report prepared by the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, recommended adding Israel and Hamas to the annexed list of parties - the so-called 'list of shame' - due to their repeated violations against children," Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on 4 June.
Human Rights Watch called on Ban to "list all countries and armed groups that have repeatedly committed these violations, and resist reported pressure from Israel and the United States to remove Israel from the draft list."
But that pressure proved irresistible to Ban. Foreign Policyreported last week that the Obama administration had made a concerted effort to pressure him to drop Israel from the list for cynical political reasons.
According to an unnamed UN official quoted by Foreign Policy, the Obama administration was concerned about false accusations that "the White House is anti-Israel," as the US completes sensitive negotiations over Iran's civilian nuclear energy program.
False balance
Human Rights Watch supported calls on Ban to list Hamas as well as Israel, but this appears to have been a maneuver to look "balanced" and avoid baseless accusations of anti-Israel bias frequently leveled at the organization.
Sources familiar with the final report have told The Electronic Intifada that Hamas is not on the list either.
But the violations attributed to Palestinian armed groups, including the death of one Israeli child last summer due to a rocket fired from Gaza, can hardly be compared in scope to the systematic mass killings with impunity of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip and West Bank by Israeli occupation forces.
Since Hamas and other Palestinian armed resistance groups are already under international sanctions and arms embargoes and listed by various countries as "terrorist organizations," adding Hamas to the list would have meant little.
It is Israel whose violations continue not only with impunity but with assistance from the predominantly European and North American governments that arm it.
DCI-Palestine documented the killings of at least 547 Palestinian children during last summer's Israeli assault on Gaza.
Human Rights Watch cites as part of Israel's record the "unlawful killing of children" in the occupied West Bank, including Nadim Nuwara and Muhammad Abu al-Thahir, both 17, shot dead by snipers on 15 May 2014.
In April, a board of inquiry set up by Ban found that Israel killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians in seven attacks on United Nations-run schools in the Gaza Strip last summer.
Sabotage
In March, there was an outcry among Palestinian and international human rights advocates when it was revealed that UN officials appeared to be trying to sabotage the evidence-based process that leads to a recommendation of listing, after threats from Israel.
Palestinian organizations called on the mid-level UN officials accused of interfering with the process to resign.
This led to assurances from Special Representative Zerrougui that the decision-making process was still underway and indeed, after gathering all the evidence, Zerrougui did recommend that Israel be listed.
Such a recommendation comes after UN bodies collect evidence in collaboration with human rights organizations, according to specific criteria mandated in UN Security Council Resolution 1612.
But despite the months-long nonpolitical and evidence-based process, the final decision was always in Ban's hands.
Partner in Israel's crimes
There was much at stake for Israel and indeed for Ban if he had gone with the evidence instead of submitting to political pressure.
"Inclusion of a party on the secretary general's list triggers increased response from the UN and potential Security Council sanctions, such as arms embargoes, travel bans, and asset freezes," Human Rights Watch notes.
"For a country or armed group to be removed from the list, the UN must verify that the party has ended the abuses after carrying out an action plan negotiated with the UN."
Ban has a long history of using his office to ensure that Israel escapes accountability except for the mildest verbal censures that are almost always "balanced" with criticism of those who live under Israeli occupation.
At the height of last summer's Israeli attack on Gaza, 129 organizations and distinguished individuals wrote to the secretary-general, condemning him for "your biased statements, your failure to act, and the inappropriate justification of Israel's violations of international humanitarian law, which amount to war crimes."
Ban's record, they said, made him a "partner" in Israel's crimes. His latest craven decision will only cement that well-earned reputation.
While Israel will celebrate victory in the short-term, the long-term impact will likely be to further discredit the UN as a mechanism for accountability and convince more people of the need for direct popular pressure on Israel in the form of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
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