In an interview with Wall Street Journal editorial board member Mary Kissel (embedded below), UN Watch’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, revealed that human rights icon Aryeh Neier, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, opposed the appointment of William Schabas to investigate Israel’s conduct of Operation Protective Edge.
In a lecture at the SciencesPo Paris School of International Affairs, where Neier teaches together with Schabas, the former said that commissions of inquiry are one of the few good things to come out of the UN Human Rights Council.
In regard to Schabas, Neier called him a well known and leading scholar. However, given Schabas’ statement on bringing Netanyahu before the ICC, Neier said that “Schabas should recuse himself.”
Neier said that “any judge who had previously called for the indictment of the defendant would recuse himself.”
Neuer added that when he told Schabas that he should recuse himself, Schabas replied that he had “consulted with a broad range of people who said that he’s fine.” Neuer, referring to Neier, continued that “[w]hen people like that, people who are extremely pro-UN, pro-Human Rights Council, critical of Israel are saying that Schabas needs to step down it’s unclear to me who Schabas’ ‘broad range of people he consulted with’ really are.”
When Schabas was first appointed to head the commission to investigate Israel by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), it was revealed that he had previously stated his hope to prosecute Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Subsequent revelations about Schabas have further undermined his credibility. Schabas has refused to call Hamas a terror organization, and declared that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s used of chemical weapons against civilians was not technically a war crime.
Schabas’ open bias against Israel prompted U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power to call the commission “wildly unbalanced.” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that the United States should defund the UNHRC if Schabas is not removed.
In Everything You Need to Know About International Law and the Gaza War, which was published in the September 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, David Daoud critiqued a statement made by Schabas that “with a bit of luck and by twisting things and maneuvering we can get [Israelis] before the courts.”
The behavior of many other jurists demonstrates that they hold these same troubling and, frankly, dangerous views, though they may not be so bold as to openly admit to it. But justice doesn’t need “twisting” and “maneuvering.” A jurist’s personal biases should play no part in a legal determination. The very idea of double standards in law is repugnant, oxymoronic and self-defeating. Law must be objective and blind. It cannot serve political ends, no matter how noble, and definitely not political power interests. In determining guilt and innocence, it cannot allow for the subjectivity exhibited by Schabas. Otherwise, countries that abide by international humanitarian law will be increasingly limited from defending their civilians against unscrupulous actors that ignore and exploit the laws of war.
[Photo: unwatch / YouTube ]