[Gush Shalom] Cosmopolitan justice - Gush Shalom given as example
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
info at gush-shalom.org
Sat Aug 23 03:53:13 IDT 2003
GUSH SHALOM pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 www.gush-shalom.org
Not many may have seen yet the book 'Law Against Genocide -
Cosmopolitan Trials, by David Hirsh which appeared in April, in London
and mentions Gush Shalom on one of the first pages.
Hirsh mentions that the emergence of ``cosmopolitan trials'' is the
outcome of the general feeling that there should never again be allowed
a Holocaust. Mentioning the two kinds of Jewish interpretations of
"never again"- never again to Jews, i.e. the reaction of the ultra-
nationalist camp in Israel vs. never again to anybody, he takes for the
latter the example of the 2002 Gush Shalom warning letters to officers.
(You may remember that we wrote to the officers who admitted to
violations of International Law and the storm which those warning
letters caused.)
Without seeing the emerging Cosmopolitan Criminal Law as a sure
sign of humanity entering a higher form of civilization, Hirsh doesn't
share the scepcticism of those who reject the possibility that any
justice could ever come of it and that it's all only serving the interests
of the internationally powerful.
David Hirsh' message is that certain phenomena, however partial they
may remain, do constitute moral "sparks of light," and are providing
some new tools in the struggle against the immunity of sovereign
states when violating human rights.
And indeed, our own warning soldiers that there exist international
courts and the shock waves it caused, seem to support that point.
In this PhD study the writer describes in detail four different trials: two
at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; the
London trial of Andrei Sawoniuk in 1999 for crimes during the
Holocaust, and the David Irving libel case.
Law Against Genocide: Cosmopolitan Trials. Author, David Hirsh. ISBN,
1904385044, Pages, 207 pp. Publication Date, April 2003.
Glasshouse Press www.cavendishpublishing.com // To contact the
publisher: info at cavendishpublishing.com
To contact the author: d.hirsh at gold.ac.uk
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