This is an appallingly ignorant article and I am concerned that On Line Opinion should lend its space for the propagation of such ill-informed nonsense.
Has Mr Brown any concept at all of international law? Plainly not as he manifestly has not read the terms of not only SCR 1973 but also SCR 1970 which preceded it and which specifically prohibits the arming of any party to the Libyan civil conflict.
Regime change is also contrary to international law.
There is at the least a respectable argument that SCR 1973 is itself contrary to the UN Charter and thus has no validity in international law.
We now have evidence that US special forces and CIA forces were in Libya before the SCR resolution, as were British special forces. That also is contrary to international law.
It seems to have become fashionable in at least the circles that Mr Brown inhabits to pretend the rule of law is merely a convenience to be used when it suits and discarded when it does not. If that is inddded the way of the future (and Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that it is) then the futre is very bleak inded.

Ok.....your really going to rub it in.................my advice to Bob Brown, would of consisted of, "with keeping your nose out of World Views. So the greens will have to bare that cross, and the bloody normalizes of what continuable assets this party rep,s.

Bob Brown. When some are born, some sit well with the drivers seat, as it comes with its territorial grounds.......Put simply.....some have got it and some do not...........sorry, you did start out well.

With the topic.........Not well thought about friend, not at all.

LEAP

James: Without intervention that thug Gadaffi would already have massacred who-knows-how-many in Benghazi and elsewhere in Libya. When you'd finished with your international law textbooks, you could have gone there and helped count the bodies. Then you could come home and pontificate about Gadaffi's violations of international law. Win-win for a sanctimonious theorist... pity about the Libyan people, though.

Quantum Leap: against whom or what is your incoherent diatribe directed? Bob Brown is not the author of this piece.

"incoherent diatribe........just what it is.

Leap

Sorry, wrong thread, but right intentions.

Graffiti/moron is one of those 19th century out-of-date Murders, thats not being equal with the New World what has already begun. Look the world, its in the middle of a shake up, and the man beast, is having some codifications ( on this small and tiny planet ):) In time, all will come together:)

LEAP

James, do you have a link to "International Law" it seems an abstract term?

You might want to post just what International Laws are being broken here, and by whom, how they can be prosecuted (and by whom).

"Has Mr Brown any concept at all of international law?" should he?

Your outrage at Gary's article appears somewhat confected, and you use the term international law as some sort of vapish pillar to your outrage.

You might disagree with Gary,I frequently do, but this just smacks of made up anger at something else. Hopefully it is not that you want to see the rebels massacred. If the rebels are not armed, and given some assistance, they are all going to die, badly and Gaddafi will go on in an ever more brutal regime (but according to the fabled, International Law, perfectly within his rights to massacre people)

"Regime change is also contrary to international law.", really ? There is law that prohibits, exactly that? Or am I going to get some obscure definition now of "contrary" .. is it against the law or not .. what law is it specifically against.

I suspect people who point to International Law, fall into Clausewitz's reference to "those who wield political instruments" (or would like to?)