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Colleagues, Carla del Ponte may be right. George Robertson has a letter in today's Guardian defending the NATO actions in Kosovo and Serbia. Like some of his critics, he (perhaps deliberately) confuses the legal, the moral and the criminal in his defence. That the war itself was illegal no competent scholar denies; this was confirmed by the recent U. K. Parliamentary Committee. Whether it also involved war crimes is a narrower question. It may be that no aerial attacks however misguided or cruel, including even nuclear explosions, can count as indictable war crimes. The TV station, the far away bridges, the power stations, attacks on the civil infrastructure all designed to punish Serbia, were probably illegal in the broad sense. They may still not technically be criminal like the cutting of an individual throat upon the ground. Moral justification is clearly a matter of opinion. But there is still no law in Kosovo, as the weekend attack by UK forces upon a civilian hospital there shows. That sort of thing might conceivably be closer to del Ponte's remit than the bombing. But her range of action is clearly limited by political power. Thomas Fuller and Lord Denning may be as much idealists as the Faslane campers. I am not sure, in these matters, whether they are even right. What we need is an independent ongoing enquiry involving respected figures from law and politics. Ramsey Clark was to have established one but after a single(?) hearing in New York he seemingly abandoned it. Yours sincerely, Peter Nicholls. Peter Nicholls, Department of Biological Sciences, Central Campus, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, England. Tel.: +44-1206-873776 (office) +44-1206-873333 (ex. 3015) (Lab) Fax : +44-1206-872592 e-mail : pnicholl@essex.ac.uk http://www.essex.ac.uk/bcs/staff/nicholls/
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