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Journal of International Criminal Justice Advance Access published online on October 19, 2007
Journal of International Criminal Justice, doi:10.1093/jicj/mqm073
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© Oxford University Press, 2007, All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon

A Legal Appraisal

James G. Stewart*

*Appeals Counsel, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The views expressed in this review are personal and do not necessary reflect those of the Tribunal or the UN generally. Kind thanks to Nicole Barrett, Antonio Cassese, Marwan Dalal, Norman Farrell and Marco Sassòli for helpful criticism of an earlier version.


  Abstract

In the wake of the Second Lebanon conflict, the UN Human Rights Council established an independent body of experts to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) perpetrated by Israeli forces. The Commission's report suffers from one serious and conspicuous flaw — the Commission was not charged with simultaneously considering Hezbollah's violations of the same body of law. In some instances, this one-sided focus was not only politically unbalanced, but substantively inadequate since a full understanding of Hezbollah's command structure, strategic objectives and military operations was essential in determining whether targets destroyed by Israel were legitimate military objectives and whether consequences for civilians were disproportionate to the military advantage gained. Be that as it may, the Commission's final report testified to the excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by Israeli forces and an overall lack of respect for the cardinal principles regulating the conduct of armed conflict. The Commission's findings are particularly disquieting, given the independent nature of the investigation and, ultimately, the compatibility of much of the Commission's legal reasoning with orthodox interpretations of IHL. The legal issues raised by the Inquiry are therefore of ongoing importance, most notably for the Israeli-appointed Winograd Committee.


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