international

What Constitutes a War Crime?

On March 2, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague announced that it would open an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

The International Criminal Court has announced that it will open an investigation into possible war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine. There are specific international standards for war crimes.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, its troops have increasingly hit civilian sites with airstrikes and artillery, raising concerns that war crimes are being committed.

Amnesty International said Russia’s military was conducting “indiscriminate attacks” in Ukraine.

And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Russia’s missile strikes in civilian areas as war crimes, most recently on Tuesday, when the Russian army launched airstrikes on Kharkiv’s Freedom Square.

On Wednesday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague announced that it would open an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine. In a statement, the prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan QC wrote that there was a “reasonable basis” to open an investigation and that the collection of evidence has now commenced.

‘Laws of war’

There are specific international standards for war crimes, which are not to be confused with crimes against humanity.

War crimes are defined as serious violations of humanitarian laws during a conflict. The definition, established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is derived from the 1949 Geneva Conventions and is based on the idea that individuals can be held liable for the actions of a state or its military.

The UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect separates war crimes from genocide and crimes against humanity. War crimes are defined as occurring in a domestic conflict or a war between two states, while genocide and crimes against humanity can happen in peacetime or during the unilateral aggression of a military towards a group of unarmed people.

There is a long list of acts that can be considered war crimes. The taking of hostages, willful killings, torture or inhuman treatment of prisoners of war, and forcing children to fight are some of the more obvious examples.

But, in practice, there is a lot of gray area within that list.

Also Read: ICC Says May Investigate Possible War Crimes After Russian Invasion of Ukraine

“The laws of war do not always protect civilians from death,” Dr. Mark Kersten, of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, told DW. “Not every civilian death is necessarily illegal.”

Raids on a cities or villages, bombing residential buildings or schools, and even the killing of groups of civilians do not necessarily amount to war crimes — not if their military necessity is justified. The same act can become a war crime if it results in unnecessary destruction, suffering and casualties that exceed the military gain from the attack.

Distinction, proportionality, precaution

To decide whether an individual or a military has committed a war crime, international humanitarian law lays down three principles: distinction, proportionality and precaution.

Proportionality prohibits armies from responding to an attack with excessive violence. “If a soldier is killed, for example, you cannot bomb an entire city in retaliation,” Kersten said.

It is also illegal to target objectives that are “expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objectives, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Precaution requires parties to a conflict to avoid or minimize the harm done to the civilian population.

Finally, “the principle of distinction says that you have to be constantly trying to distinguish between civilian and belligerent populations and objects,” Kersten said, adding that this can be difficult.

“For example, attacking a barrack where there are people who have said they no longer participate in the conflict can be a war crime,” he said. “The same goes for bombing a military base where there are generators that supply hospitals with electricity.”

Civilian and military populations have become increasingly hard to distinguish.

“You have saboteurs, you have plainclothes officers,” Kersten said.” Combatants disguise themselves in wars all the time. These are very common tactics.”

Race against time

When ICC prosecutors have reason to believe that a war crime has been committed, they start an investigation to find evidence that could point to specific individuals responsible for those crimes.

“That’s the kind of moments we’re heading to now, with regards to the war crimes conducted in Ukraine,” Kersten said.

Time is crucial though as evidence can degenerate or disappear. It is very difficult for prosecutors to successfully investigate suspected war crimes after the fact, when one party to a conflict may have tampered with evidence or witnesses are no longer around.

This article was originally published on DW.

Meena Kandasamy, Madhuri Vijay Longlisted for Swansea Uni Dylan Thomas Prize

The annual Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, worth £30,000, was launched in 2016 and celebrates English-language writers below the age of 40.

New Delhi: Two Indian authors – Meena Kandasamy and Madhuri Vijay – have been longlisted for the annual Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize.

Poet, fiction writer, translator and activist Kandasamy has been longlisted for her novel Exquisite Cadavers, and Pushcart Prize recipient Vijay for her debut novel The Far Field.

A total of 12 authors are on the longlist for the £30,000 prize.

The annual Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize was launched in 2016 and celebrates English-language writers below the age of 40. All forms of fiction – poetry, novels, short stories and drama – come under its purview. The prize is named after the Swansea-born writer, Dylan Thomas. “One of the most influential, internationally-renowned writers of the mid-twentieth century, the prize invokes his memory to support the writers of today and nurture the talents of tomorrow,” the prize committee said in a statement.

Also read | Interview: Meena Kandasamy on Writing About Marital Violence

Exquisite Cadavers is a novel about a young couple navigating love in London. The prize committee describes it as “a literary hall of mirrors about an author navigating the inspirations behind her work”. In addition to the story of the young couple, the author’s own notes are in the margins – what she was thinking about when she wrote a section, how an idea came to her, and so on.

“As the story progresses, we see that the life and experiences and inspirations of the author begin to either find parallels, or inverse representations in the story of the characters as well. Sometimes, the margins remain silent (as during the portrayal of the fathers) – and allow the characters to forge a world all of their own,” Kandasamy told Scroll.in in an interview.

Kandasamy has challenged the traditional format of novel-writing in Exquisite Cadavers. “This spiky, argumentative book is the novel as protest, as polemic, as dark comedy, as game,” a reviewer for The Guardian wrote.

Vijay’s The Far Field, according to the prize committee, “is an elegant, epic novel that follows one young woman’s search for a lost figure from her childhood, a journey that takes her from Southern India to Kashmir and to the brink of a devastating political and personal reckoning.”

The book won the 2019 JCB Prize for Literature. “The Far Field is an impressively ambitious novel of stunning emotional and psychological acuity. This deeply introspective story, located in troubled Kashmir, is also a panoramic exploration of our ideas and assumptions about nationhood. Rendered in visually evocative, lucid prose, and driven by a fragile but compelling narrator-protagonist, this tragic novel teems with unforgettable characters. We are proud to celebrate the arrival of a luminous new talent in Indian literature,” the jury for that award said.

Other longlisted books include Surge by Jay Bernard, Flèche by Mary Jean Chan, Things we say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan, Black Car Burning by Helen Mort, Virtuoso by Yelena Moskovich, Inland by Téa Obreht, Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodrigues Fowler, If All the World and Love were Young by Stephen Sexton, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong and Lot by Bryan Washington.

The shortlist will be announced on April 7 and the winner on May 14.

Israel Heads for Third Election in a Year After Months of Political Impasse

A third visit to polling stations carries a heavy economic price: it will be well into 2020 before a new budget is passed, which will mean months of cutbacks that will weigh on growth.

Jerusalem: Israel headed on Wednesday towards a third national election in less than a year with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing the fight of his life for political survival after a criminal indictment.

A midnight deadline, the last of a series of set to allow for the formation of a new government after a September election, passed unmet. That triggered another election within three months. Under an earlier agreement between the two main parties, March 2 was the date to be set for the new election.

A map which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed as he delivered a statement is pictured in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, Israel September 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Amir Cohen

What had once seemed nearly impossible to many Israelis – a third visit to polling stations after the inconclusive ballots of April and September – carries a heavy economic price: it will be well into 2020 before a new budget is passed, which will mean months of cutbacks that will weigh on growth.

Neither Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party nor the centrist Blue and White party led by his main rival, former military chief Benny Gantz, won enough seats in the Knesset for a governing majority in the previous two contests.

Both men were delegated the task of forming a coalition, but failed. Each has blamed the other for the impasse, in which neither could agree on the terms for a “rotating” premiership.

Wednesday’s deadline marked the end of a final three-week period in which Israel’s president gave Knesset lawmakers an opportunity to find a new candidate from within their ranks.

In the two previous national elections, Netanyahu’s opponents focused on the three corruption investigations against him that included allegations he dispensed favours to media barons in a push for more favourable media coverage.

Also read: In Run up to Election, Banners of Modi-Netanyahu Make an Appearance in Israel

But this time, Israel’s longest-serving leader is running under the cloud of a criminal indictment announced last month.

Denying any wrongdoing, Netanyahu, 70, has accused legal authorities of attempting a “coup” aimed at ousting a popular right-wing leader. Critics alleged that Netanyahu was trying to undermine the rule of law and set an election campaign theme portraying himself as the victim of “deep state” conspiracy.

As prime minister, Netanyahu is under no legal obligation to resign as a result of the indictment, and while in office he can ask the legislature to grant him immunity from prosecution.

As caretaker premier, Netanyahu would remain in the post until a new government is formed – a process that could stretch months past a March ballot if what is likely to be tortuous coalition-building is taken into account.

“There are only three reasons for this election – bribery, fraud and breach of trust,” Blue and White lawmaker Yair Lapid told the Knesset, alluding to the charges against Netanyahu.

Vowing to “win big” at the polls, Netanyahu has described himself as best-placed to deal with Israel’s many security threats. He has cited US backing for proposed Israeli annexation of occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood as a reason for Gantz to partner up with him in government.

Also read: Will Election-Weary Israelis End Benjamin Netanyahu’s Rule?

“They (Blue and White) want to hide the fact that they did everything to avoid creating a national-unity government that would have annexed the Jordan Valley and applied Israeli sovereignty to the settlements of Judea and Samaria (West Bank),” Netanyahu said in video statement on social media.

“It was they who imposed a new election on us.”

An opinion poll on Israel’s Channel 13 news on Tuesday forecast Blue and White would win 37 seats to Likud’s 33 in the 120-member parliament, increasing the one-seat advantage it gained in the last election.

But it also indicated that both parties could still struggle to secure enough allies for a majority coalition.

(Reuters)

Why the Prime Minister and I Are Kindred Yoga Spirits

We both do the lotus pose or padmasana though frankly, we prefer the half padmasana. Why cross your legs and place both feet on both thighs when you can close your eyes and look equally meditative with half the effort?

I’m convinced Prime Minister Narendra Modi and I have one thing in common: we both practise our version of yoga regularly and desperately want to be yogis. Sure, the prime minister encouraged the United Nations to declare June 21 as International Yoga Day and millions of Indians watch videos of Modi’s animated self perfectly executing various asanas, while I haven’t even managed to convince the husband to join me in a surya namaskar (sun salutation). Still, I believe Modi and I are kindred yoga spirits.

After perusing many videos and images of the prime minister doing yoga these past few years, I’m convinced we have the same favourite asanas (all beginner level – though who knows, he might show us a few new moves today). Like the prime minister, I can hold the thunderbolt pose or vajrasana as long as you need me to, though the prime minister is always better accessorised than me when he sits on his knees (think all white with an Indian tricolour scarf). From here we can fall back and execute a fairly competent supta vajrasana, but when we try a forward bend from this position, our bodies invariably lift off our heels of their own accord.

We both do the lotus pose or padmasana though frankly, between you and me, we prefer the half padmasana. Why cross your legs and place both feet on both thighs when you can close your eyes and look equally meditative with half the effort?

Modi and I both find it easy enough to go from the mountain pose or tadasana to the tree pose or vriksasana where we stand on one leg and raise our hands high over our head. This looks great in pictures too, and makes viewers believe we really know what we are doing.

I once executed this pose on a big rock near the edge of a cliff in the hill station of Matheran. My cousin, an ace photographer, ensured he positioned me so the setting sun fit perfectly between my raised arms.

Also read: ‘International Day of Yoga’ Will Not Solve Climate Change. Here’s Why

The prime minister and I struggle at the finish line in the spinal twist pose of ardha matsyendrasana (how on earth do people look all the way back there?); and our knees rarely touch the ground when we do the butterfly pose or the baddha konasana.

We can both do a mean cobra pose or bhujanasana and find it easier to do poses where you need to bend back rather than forward. We can even carry off a competent camel pose or ustrasana.

My ability to bend forward is impeded by my extremely stiff hamstring muscles and after years of practising yoga, I am still unable to touch my toes. My forehead has never made contact with my knees. Now that I think about it, have you ever seen the prime minister touch his toes?

The similarities go beyond favourite asanas. I’m convinced the prime minister and I both have body issues. Mine would require a separate column to discuss and as far as the prime minister goes, there are enough clues in the public domain. As any woman will tell you, wearing all black when you exercise – as the prime minister did in the slickly choreographed exercise and yoga video he released one year ago that became the source of countless memes – serves one purpose only. When Modi visited the Guruvayur Temple earlier this month, he sidestepped the bare chest (with a towel-if-you-must) dress code for men and wrapped his upper torso in yards of fabric.

The prime minister’s animated videos show a taller, fitter, younger, more muscular version of himself. His “improved” alter ego executes difficult asanas easily and with perfect posture.

Both the prime minister and I would do well to learn a lesson or two about body positivity from Dolly Singh, a plus-sized Mumbai woman who started practising yoga a few years ago and whose spectacular yoga videos feature her real, unfiltered self. Follow her on her Instagram account Yogaforall. “Your body is not your limit,” Singh is fond of saying. Dolly’s is as perfect a yoga body as I have ever seen.

Also read: The Good, Bad and the Ugly of Trapping ‘Pranayama’ Within Scientific Speak

The prime minister and I are both surrounded by more accomplished practitioners. Modi has a saffron-clad younger colleague who once said those who want to avoid yoga should leave India; I have a same-age pal whose display picture shows her executing the perfect crow or kākāsana pose. Though Modi’s colleague has the title of yogi, my friend could pip his moves any day. I would like to say more here but this gent has a proclivity to arrest journalists who dare to comment about him.

My yoga ideal is any woman, above the age of 60, who breezes through her daily quota of surya namaskars. The prime minister’s idol? I would guess it’s his close acquaintance, Baba Ramdev. In one video posted on YouTube, Ramdev accepts a dance challenge from actor Ranveer Singh at an Aaj Tak event. His accelerated “surya namaskar dance” is followed in quick succession by handstands, lunges, the scorpion pose and headstand – after which Ramdev flings Singh over his shoulder and twirls him around easily.

If the prime minister didn’t have the habit of making himself the face of every idea his government generates, he could have nominated a real yoga professional to execute his asana videos.

Still need more similarities to be convinced? No aerial yoga, equine yoga or cannabis yoga for us. The prime minister and I like our yoga old-fashioned and handed down to us from the pre-Vedic age. Both of us wouldn’t bat an eyelid if yoga was declared compulsory in schools.

Finally, you’ve seen that black-and-white picture of a former prime minister doing a headstand on a lawn, clad only in a pair of shorts? Yes, you guessed right: both the prime minister and I envy Jawaharlal Nehru.

Priya Ramani has been a writer and editor with Reuters, India Today, Indian Express and Mint.