War and the Path of Peace
Rev. Fr. Ranhilio C. Aquino
CNN and BBC both carried reports that after several contrapuntal overtures, the US and Russia had struck a deal on the Syrian crisis. There is now no doubt that the Assad Government of Syria did use chemical weapons. Even Russia, known to be friendly to the Syrian government, has admitted as much in agreeing with the US on a timetable for disclosure, inspection, and destruction of chemical weapons and the means of their manufacture. The question is legal—and the irony should not be lost to us that war, the depth that lawlessness can take man and nation into, is nevertheless hemmed in by law. So it is that while the planning and prosecution of war used to be the preserve of military strategists, that team must now include lawyers and legal scholars who must advise governments and commanders on the legality or criminality of planned courses of action. So, what exactly, is the law on chemical weapons?
Rev. Fr. Ranhilio C. Aquino
CNN and BBC both carried reports that after several contrapuntal overtures, the US and Russia had struck a deal on the Syrian crisis. There is now no doubt that the Assad Government of Syria did use chemical weapons. Even Russia, known to be friendly to the Syrian government, has admitted as much in agreeing with the US on a timetable for disclosure, inspection, and destruction of chemical weapons and the means of their manufacture. The question is legal—and the irony should not be lost to us that war, the depth that lawlessness can take man and nation into, is nevertheless hemmed in by law. So it is that while the planning and prosecution of war used to be the preserve of military strategists, that team must now include lawyers and legal scholars who must advise governments and commanders on the legality or criminality of planned courses of action. So, what exactly, is the law on chemical weapons?
First, a general principle of international law. A treaty binds only parties to it. That follows from the nature of a treaty. However, when one or the other treaty provision articulates a norm of customary international law, then it is binding on all, including non-State parties except, perhaps, the “persistent objector”, the State that, from the inception of the customary norm, consistently objected to its normative character. The same rule applies when what commenced as a treaty provision is received with near if not complete unanimity and with consistency such that it becomes part of the corpus of customary law. Such are most of the provisions of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions in effect proscribes chemical weapons when Section 35 lays down the basic rule that “it is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” Two problems attended this provision, however. First, there were not as many States that accepted the Protocol as those that accepted the Conventions. Second, the Protocol applied principally to international armed conflicts and, by explicit extension, to “armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination…”. Internal strife seemed to be beyond the ambit of the law.
Things became clearer with a decision of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in the case officially captioned: “Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic a/k/s ‘Dule’” (1995). In the Jurisdiction Phase of the judgment, the Court held: “Indeed elementary considerations of humanity and common sense make it preposterous that the use by States of weapons prohibited in armed conflicts between themselves be allowed when States try to put down rebellion by their own nationals on their own territory. What is inhumane, and consequently proscribed, in international wars, cannot but be inhuman and inadmissible in civil strife.” The judgment then went on to particularly deal with chemical weapons. And the Court prefaces this doctrinal assessment by reiterating what is generally admitted in international law: that since the 1930s the lines that have separated international armed conflict from internal armed conflict have blurred particularly in respect to the rules binding the conduct of hostilities and holding offenders accountable. Quoting the court’s jurisprudence is necessary: “This fundamental concept has brought about the gradual formation of general rules concerning specific weapons, rules which extend to civil strife the sweeping prohibitions relating to international armed conflicts…It is therefore clear that, whether or not Iraq really used chemical weapons against its own Kurdish nationals—a matter on which this Chamber obviously cannot and does not express any opinion —there undisputedly emerged a general consensus in the international community on the principle that the use of those weapons is also prohibited in armed conflicts.” Whether or not Syria is a party to any of the conventions or protocols that ban the use of chemical weapons and make of their employment in armed conflict an international delict is not now relevant, since the prohibition has become, as the Tadic Case clearly declares, a matter of customary international law.
Oceans away from Syria, we, in Tuguegarao City, did what we could to quiet the clangor of strife, as we celebrated the 70th birthday of Archbishop Sergio Utleg with a piano and a choral concert. Archbishop Serge played the second and third movements of Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique and the 18th Variation of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, assisted by invited members of the University of Santo Tomas Orchestra conducted by the gem of a musician and music pedagogue, Dr. Herminigildo Ranera, a personal friend, and a friend of the Archbishop too. Archbishop Serge is able to combine mountain-climbing, a passion that sends him as far off as Kilimanjaro, with piano practice. Bishop Camilo Gregorio played in his own enchanting manner Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Minimahal, What I Did for Love and—his favorite—Estrellita. With the orchestra, he played in very relaxed fashion “Young at Heart”. I played the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor and my own rendering of Bato sa Buhangin, both with the orchestra. The geniuses Hermie Ranera and Dom Benildus Maramba orchestrated where no orchestration was available. The Coro de San Jacinto, the choir I direct, resplendent in new choral outfit, sang Pipit, the lovely Nahan of Ernani Cuenco, the rousing Funiculli, Funiculla and ended with the rousing Paean of Promise. I am very proud of this choir. Only a few members of the UST Orchestra were invited, most of them, young, talented musicians I had earlier worked with in musical ventures. They included friends like Mickey Jacinto, Nina Canizares, Orlando de la Cruz and Atong Halili—but with Hermie wielding the baton, they produced music that enthralled the people of Tuguegarao and made Bishop Camilo and Archbishop Utleg raring to play with them again for the forthcoming concert of San Pablo Seminary in Baguio City. The favorites of the night, however, were the priests of the Archdiocese who had formed themselves into a Priests’ Chorale, singing, as the opening number, “A Blessing of Love” and later on dishing out “Sway” with Hermie Ranera himself leading the swaying, and the audience wildly applauding. It was not perfect singing to be sure, but it was our own way of assuring our archbishop that he mattered to us.
Except for the UST musicians, none of us is engaged in full-time music work but this was our own way not only of wishing Archbishop Utleg happiness and length of days as he turned seventy, but also of guiding hearts and feet along the paths of peace in these troubled times!
Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions in effect proscribes chemical weapons when Section 35 lays down the basic rule that “it is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” Two problems attended this provision, however. First, there were not as many States that accepted the Protocol as those that accepted the Conventions. Second, the Protocol applied principally to international armed conflicts and, by explicit extension, to “armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination…”. Internal strife seemed to be beyond the ambit of the law.
Things became clearer with a decision of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in the case officially captioned: “Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic a/k/s ‘Dule’” (1995). In the Jurisdiction Phase of the judgment, the Court held: “Indeed elementary considerations of humanity and common sense make it preposterous that the use by States of weapons prohibited in armed conflicts between themselves be allowed when States try to put down rebellion by their own nationals on their own territory. What is inhumane, and consequently proscribed, in international wars, cannot but be inhuman and inadmissible in civil strife.” The judgment then went on to particularly deal with chemical weapons. And the Court prefaces this doctrinal assessment by reiterating what is generally admitted in international law: that since the 1930s the lines that have separated international armed conflict from internal armed conflict have blurred particularly in respect to the rules binding the conduct of hostilities and holding offenders accountable. Quoting the court’s jurisprudence is necessary: “This fundamental concept has brought about the gradual formation of general rules concerning specific weapons, rules which extend to civil strife the sweeping prohibitions relating to international armed conflicts…It is therefore clear that, whether or not Iraq really used chemical weapons against its own Kurdish nationals—a matter on which this Chamber obviously cannot and does not express any opinion —there undisputedly emerged a general consensus in the international community on the principle that the use of those weapons is also prohibited in armed conflicts.” Whether or not Syria is a party to any of the conventions or protocols that ban the use of chemical weapons and make of their employment in armed conflict an international delict is not now relevant, since the prohibition has become, as the Tadic Case clearly declares, a matter of customary international law.
Oceans away from Syria, we, in Tuguegarao City, did what we could to quiet the clangor of strife, as we celebrated the 70th birthday of Archbishop Sergio Utleg with a piano and a choral concert. Archbishop Serge played the second and third movements of Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique and the 18th Variation of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, assisted by invited members of the University of Santo Tomas Orchestra conducted by the gem of a musician and music pedagogue, Dr. Herminigildo Ranera, a personal friend, and a friend of the Archbishop too. Archbishop Serge is able to combine mountain-climbing, a passion that sends him as far off as Kilimanjaro, with piano practice. Bishop Camilo Gregorio played in his own enchanting manner Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Minimahal, What I Did for Love and—his favorite—Estrellita. With the orchestra, he played in very relaxed fashion “Young at Heart”. I played the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor and my own rendering of Bato sa Buhangin, both with the orchestra. The geniuses Hermie Ranera and Dom Benildus Maramba orchestrated where no orchestration was available. The Coro de San Jacinto, the choir I direct, resplendent in new choral outfit, sang Pipit, the lovely Nahan of Ernani Cuenco, the rousing Funiculli, Funiculla and ended with the rousing Paean of Promise. I am very proud of this choir. Only a few members of the UST Orchestra were invited, most of them, young, talented musicians I had earlier worked with in musical ventures. They included friends like Mickey Jacinto, Nina Canizares, Orlando de la Cruz and Atong Halili—but with Hermie wielding the baton, they produced music that enthralled the people of Tuguegarao and made Bishop Camilo and Archbishop Utleg raring to play with them again for the forthcoming concert of San Pablo Seminary in Baguio City. The favorites of the night, however, were the priests of the Archdiocese who had formed themselves into a Priests’ Chorale, singing, as the opening number, “A Blessing of Love” and later on dishing out “Sway” with Hermie Ranera himself leading the swaying, and the audience wildly applauding. It was not perfect singing to be sure, but it was our own way of assuring our archbishop that he mattered to us.
Except for the UST musicians, none of us is engaged in full-time music work but this was our own way not only of wishing Archbishop Utleg happiness and length of days as he turned seventy, but also of guiding hearts and feet along the paths of peace in these troubled times!