Taghavi vs Clark on Iran
Samira Taghavi writes:
Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark has described our Government’s response to the recent targeted strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran as a “disgrace”, arguing international law has been breached and diplomacy should have been allowed to run its course.
As someone who has lived in and suffered under that republic, I dissent from Clark’s view. In short, our Government should be commended on its principled position.
I attended Clark’s AUT talk last Thursday and left with the distinct impression that she is quite unaffected by realism. Having introduced myself there, I explained that I had practised law in Iran until the age of 24, that I had been imprisoned, tortured and lashed by Islamic Republic thugs and that I continue working in human rights advocacy now in New Zealand.
I asked what I consider to be the central question when every peaceful mechanism has failed – when UN resolutions, special rapporteurs, Human Rights Council sessions and diplomatic negotiations have not dismantled the regime’s coercive machinery: “What is left to save us?”
This is a very good question. If a country spends four decades itself breaching international law, and more recently slaughtering peaceful protesters – what should you do apart from send our press releases?
When I pressed on how international actors should weigh external legality against internal regime brutality, there was no substantive answer, but instead vague confidence expressed in the ballot box.
This is an interesting question. Let’s say Germany didn’t invade any other countries, but did embark on the Holocaust amongst German and Austrian Jews. Would the Clark position be that the US and UK could do nothing to intervene as Nazi Germany was only killing people within its own borders?
If international law is to mean anything, it must be capable of confronting the structures that violate it. Otherwise, we are not defending human rights; we are defending only the comfort of inaction – a true disgrace to the imprisoned nation of Iran.
Yep.
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