Upholding the Rule of Law

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - In the years-long campaign to tie a web of sanctions around Iran and stall its nuclear programme, the European Union may just have met its biggest obstacle: its own law courts.

Fearing Tehran is seeking the means to make bombs, Europe's governments have been combing through Iran's political elites and businesses to find people and companies linked to the financing and technical aspects of its nuclear work.

They have frozen their assets, refused visas and banned companies in the European Union from doing business with them. But dozens of those targeted have challenged the restrictions in court and some are beginning to win, embarrassing Europe's policymakers and causing alarm in the United States.

None of the court judgments are yet final. But with Israel brandishing threats against a nuclear programme that Iran insists has no military purpose, Washington worries that any weakening of sanctions may raise the risk of war.

At the heart of the issue is the refusal by EU governments to disclose evidence linking their targets to Iran's nuclear work. Doing so in court, they say, may expose confidential intelligence, undermining efforts to combat the programme.

The courts have effectively rejected that argument, saying that if a case is to be made, evidence must be presented. Lawyers for the Iranians argue there simply is no evidence that proves any link to the nuclear programme - a view supported by British judges who did review some secret material this year.

"It is very clear there is no evidence," said Sarosh Zaiwalla, senior partner at Zaiwalla & Co, a London law firm which has successfully represented Iran's Bank Mellat in litigation against sanctions imposed by the EU.

The bank, one of the biggest private lenders in Iran, won a case in January in the European Union's Luxembourg-based second-highest court. It had challenged an EU move in 2010 to freeze its assets, saying the EU had failed to prove the bank provided banking services for the nuclear programme. The court agreed.

"The chairman of the court asked the EU lawyers, 'can you show me the evidence?'. And they said 'no, it's Iran, and you must presume there is evidence'," Zaiwalla said.

"The judge was very upset and said 'this is a court of law and you cannot assume things'."

In its January 29 judgment, using dense legal language, the General Court said the council of EU governments was "in breach of the obligation to state reasons and the obligation to disclose to the applicant ... the evidence adduced against it".

SECRECY DILEMMA

The lifting of sanctions against Bank Mellat is postponed for now, pending an appeal by EU governments to Europe's highest court. But the case illustrates the dilemma facing the European Union in its push to stop Iran from advancing the atom work.

Government lawyers are telling the courts to trust them and the courts are refusing. To safeguard its sanctions policy and its economic pressure on Iran, the EU may have to present evidence - including sensitive intelligence - in court.

But because of rules governing pan-European courts, all evidence would then become public which may damage clandestine operations and unravel the process of devising sanctions.

"There is nothing in the current rules to enable us to consider sharing information without it becoming public," said one European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"This is the crux of the issue. We cannot just be handing information around."

In Washington, anxiety over court rulings is mounting.

"It's a real concern of ours that the EU is having difficulties sustaining some of its designations," David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, told Reuters.

Lawyers for the Iranian plaintiffs paint the conflict as a human rights issue, praising the Luxembourg court for decisions they say amount to taking a stand against government abuse.

"It may be politically embarrassing," said Maya Lester, a London-based lawyer who represents companies and individuals in litigation concerning European sanctions, including the Iranian central bank and the country's main tanker company, NITC.

"But in terms of upholding the rule of law, what the European court has done is impressive and quite brave. It shows it to be a court upholding human rights ... which is not easy given how political Iranian sanctions are." More

 

EU takes dramatic measures on Israeli settlements in occupied territories

The European Union is to start treating Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as separate from Israel and exclude them from all kinds of cooperation.

Catherine Ashton

According to Tuesday's edition of Haaretz newspaper, the "binding" decision is expected to take effect on the ground this Friday.

"The European Union has published a binding directive to all 28 member states forbidding any funding, cooperation, awarding of scholarships, research funds or prizes to anyone residing in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem," Haaretz said.

The newspaper reported anonymous officials in the Israeli foreign ministry calling the move an "earthquake." The reason, he explained, is that "understandings and quiet agreements that the Union does not work beyond the Green Line were turned into formal, binding policy."

Haaretz also reported that the decision included a demand by the EU for Israel to make clear when it signs any agreement with Brussels that the Israeli settlements are not part of the state of Israel.

Israeli Radio said in the morning that the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is also included in the decision based on the EU position which does not recognise Israeli occupation after 1967.

Europe has long opposed much of Israel's policy in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It said in a statement issued in December its "longstanding position is that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law," and it does not recognise Israel's sovereignty over the occupied territories.

In March EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton called for implementing the labelling of products produced in the settlements for sale in Europe. More

 

US Drone Strikes Putting 'Global Order At Risk', Warn European Politicians

The United States is putting "global stability and international order at risk" by pursuing a policy of targeted extrajudicial drone strikes against suspected terrorists, European politicians have warned.

At least to 3,000 people, including a large number of civilians, are said to have been killed by controversial CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen since 2004.

This week members of the European Parliament said they were "deeply concerned about the legal basis, as well as the moral, ethical and human rights implications" of the drone attacks and urged European Union member states to "contest the US attempt to pervert international law".

In a statement the MEPs said: "We cannot remain silent. The European Union and its Member States must speak up against a practice that will set a dangerous and unwelcome precedent for International Law."

British MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford, the Liberal Democrat European justice and human rights spokeswoman, said on Friday: "US drone killings operate in disregard of the long-established international legal framework about when it is lawful to kill people. This sets an extremely dangerous precedent and risks a destabilising effect on international relations. It could even furnish Al-Qaida with a licence to kill in return."

"European complicity in the ‘War on Terror’ after 9/11, in defiance of legal norms whereby terrorist criminals must be brought to justice through due process, still haunts Europe as well as the US. It is incredible that the US is making renewed and reckless attempts to rewrite the international legal code, and we could get hurt again too."

"Without agreed law the international community cannot hope to justify military action and prevent human rights abuses. As leaders of that community along with the US, the EU and its Member States must boldly state their opposition to this programme, which disregards our common international legal heritage. Silence will be taken as European acquiescence, with potentially disastrous results."

The condemnation came after a briefing in Brussels from United Nations Special Rapporteur for Counter Terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson QC, who is conducting a UN investigation into the UK and US policy of targeted killings.

Senior British parliamentarians have also raised concerns in Westminster over president Obama's use of drones in Pakistan. Former British Foreign Office minister Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead has warned "action must be taken to ensure that there is accountability and reparations when a drone attack goes wrong".

And Lord West of Spithead, the former head of the Royal Navy and a security minister in the last Labour government, told the House of Lords last month: "War is horrible. Death is horrible. Being involved in the risk is horrible. When one does this remotely from a leafy suburb in your own country and killing people that does make it remote and that does have huge implications and is very worrying and needs a lot of control."

The House of Commons defence committee announced it would conduct an investigation into the British military's use of drones after the RAF decided to expand its use and number of Unmanned Ariel Vehicles.

Pressed by MPs and peers, the UK government has insisted it has only used its own drones inside Afghanistan as the British military's presence there is at the request of the Afghan government. However British intelligence agencies have been accused of passing information to the CIA to help the Americans carry out strikes in Pakistan.

And last month it was reported the UK had a policy of stripping British citizens of their passports on national security grounds - two of who were then killed by US drones.

President Obama's use of drones has recently climbed up the American news agenda following the controversial confirmation of John Brennan as head of the Central Intelligence Agency and Republican senator Rand Paul's thirteen hour senate filibuster against extrajudicial drone killings.

Brennan has previously claimed that no civilians have been killed by drones, based on the Obama administration's decision to designate every military-age male in the target area as a combatant.

On Thursday the White House tried to shut down the debate over whether, as had been initially suggested, Obama had the power to order a drone strike on US soil.

A series of HuffPost/YouGov surveys showed that while a majority of Americans support their use to kill people suspected of being "high-level members of al Qaeda", this is reversed if they are told civilians are at risk of being killed. More