[Gush Shalom] Cosmopolitan justice - Gush Shalom given as example

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

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