iKibbitz collectively giving unwanted commentary

Louise Arbour, former justice in the Supreme Court of Canada and a former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In 2005, Arbour was awarded the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights, along with Justice Richard Goldstone, in recognition of her work on the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS BRIEFS HUMAN RIGHTS
COUNCIL ON RECENT ACTIVITIES (29 November 2006):

In my meeting with President Abbas I stressed the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority to employ every means of law enforcement – and to be seen to do so – to ensure that the firing of Qassam missiles, a breach of international humanitarian law, ceases and that those who launch them are held accountable. Every effort must be made to enable the Palestinian Authority to discharge that responsibility.

At the same time, I stressed that as long as the rockets continue to hit its territory, Israel has the right and indeed the duty to defend its population and to ensure the protection of its citizens and of all those who are within its jurisdiction, control or power. However, this must be done in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law.

When asked by the Jerusalem Post if there was a distinction under human rights law between missile attacks aimed at killing civilians and military strikes in which civilians are unintentionally killed, Arbour said the two could not be equated.

In one case you could have, for instance, a very objectionable intent – the intent to harm civilians, which is very bad – but effectively not a lot of harm is actually achieved,” she said. “But how can you compare that with a case where you may not have an intent but you have recklessness [in which] civilian casualties are foreseeable? The culpability or the intent may not sound as severe, but the actual harm is catastrophic.

You can read UN Watch’s review of Arbour’s tenure as High Commissioner here. It contains both praise and critic.

Bonus Material
Since the birth of UNHRC in 2006, this Council has had 12 special sessions, as easily seen on its home page. Half of them were solely about Israel, one about Darfur, one about the Congo, one about Sri Lanka, one about Myanmar, and the other two were about the food, economic and financial crises.