In an article in Oxford University Press’ “Academic Insights for the Thinking World,” UNCA Professor of political science Mark Gibney explores the discrepancy between international law and international opinion and consensus, noting that, “Notwithstanding the immediate international condemnation of the Putin regime following the MH17 tragedy, international law seems … totally removed from international opinion and consensus.”
Gibney writes:
Two hundred and ninety-eight passengers aboard Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 were killed when Ukrainian rebels shot down the commercial airliner in July 2014. Because of the rebels’ close ties with the Russian Republic, the international community immediately condemned the Putin regime for this tragedy. Yet, while Russia is certainly deserving of moral and political blame, what is less clear is Russian responsibility under international law. The problem is that international law has often struggled assigning state responsibility when national borders are crossed and two (or more) sovereigns are involved. The essence of the problem is that under governing legal standards, a state could provide enormous levels of military, economic, and political support to another state or to a paramilitary group in another state – even with full knowledge that the recipient will thereby violate international human rights and humanitarian law standards — but will not share any responsibility for these international wrongs unless it can be established that the sending state exercised near total control over the recipient.
Read the full article here.
Mark Gibney is the Belk Distinguished Professor at UNC-Asheville. He is also the Raoul Wallenberg Visiting Chair of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute and the Faculty of Law, Lund University (Sweden), and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Lancaster University (UK). He also authored “The Downing of MH17: Russian Responsibility?” in Human Rights Law Review.
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