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LAW PROFESSOR SAYS U.S. HAS LONG-STANDING OBLIGATION TO PROTECT KURDS, WON'T ALLOW THE KURDISH CAPITAL TO FALL TO ISIS
Newswise
Aug 8 2014
Michael J. Kelly J.D.
Professor of Law
Michael J. Kelly is associate dean and professor of Law at Creighton
University. An expert on genocide and the Kurds, Kelly has consulted
with the Kurdish government on their constitution and is the author of
the book "Ghosts of Halabja: Saddam Hussein & the Kurdish Genocide"
(2008) and the article "The Kurdish Regional Constitution within
the Framework of the Iraqi Federal Constitution: A Struggle for
Sovereignty, Oil, Ethnic Identity, and the Prospects for a Reverse
Supremacy Clause" in vol. 114:3 of the Penn State Law Review (2010)
http://www.pennstatelawreview.org/articles/114/114%20Penn%20St.%20L.%20Rev.%20707.pdf
Professor Kelly can discuss several areas on international law,
genocide and the Kurds:
U.S. airstrikes against ISIS and air drops for trapped Yazidi and
Christian minorities in northern Iraq today are legal under the 1948
Genocide Convention, which obligates member states to prevent and
punish genocide. U.S. military actions to protect these minority groups
are in furtherance of the "prevent genocide" prong of that multilateral
treaty. Over 200,000 members of these groups are now fleeing into
Iraqi Kurdistan as ISIS advances on Erbil, the Kurdish capital city.
· The U.S. has a long-standing obligation to protect the Kurds, and
it will not allow the Kurdish capital to fall to ISIS. Ever the U.S.
encouraged the Kurdish uprising of 1991 but then failed to support
them when Saddam Hussein's forces crushed it, American foreign policy
has been focused on protecting and supporting the Kurds. The Kurdish
government and people are the most ardent non-Jewish supporters of
the U.S. in the Middle East.
· It is time for the U.S. and the international community to make good
on a 95-year old promise that the Kurds have their own state. Like
the Armenians, the Kurds were promised a homeland in the aftermath of
World War I, but the Western powers failed to make that happen and
renegotiated the peace in the Middle East after the rise of Ataturk
and the consolidation of power by Lenin. Consequently, their dreams
of a Kurdish state evaporated.
· The Kurdish people are a population of 30 million spread over an
area the size of France, but they still do not have a country of their
own. The Kurds of northern Iraq have functionally been a state since
the U.S. established a "no-fly" zone over their territory to exclude
Saddam Hussein's forces from massacring them after the 1991 uprising.
While a de facto state with an independently functioning government,
economy, border control, military, and educational and healthcare
system, the Kurds remain formally part of the Iraqi federation.
· Last month, the Israeli Prime Minister called for the establishment
of an independent Kurdish state. Israel and Kurdistan are natural
allies against various combinations of Arab Sunni and Shiite factions
that have long been arrayed against them. Kurdistan has recently
begun shipping petroleum through a pipeline out of Turkey from the
reserves it controls, and Israel has received four of these shipments.
· Located in the mountainous convergence of Iran, Turkey, Syria and
Iraq, and independent Kurdistan would be a strategically important
platform for U.S. foreign diplomatic and defense policy in the
Middle East and would establish a new player in the region on the
international stage that could alter the formula in favor of stability
in that region. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. policy has
favored a unified Iraqi state with a federal power-sharing structure;
not independence for Kurdistan. The time has come to abandon this
outmoded idea. Facts on the ground have dramatically shifted and
American foreign policy on Iraq must catch up to this new reality. The
Maliki government is collapsing and Iraq is reforming itself into a
new configuration now. The U.S. needs to be ahead of this reformation,
not behind it trying to support the preservation of what is quickly
becoming a failed state.
· Territorial guarantees must be made reassuring Turkey and
Iran that the Kurdish areas in those states would not join a new
Kurdistan state. Turkey and Iran have traditionally been opposed to
an independent Kurdish state carved out of northern Iraq for fear
of losing part of their own territory. Yet both have developed
lucrative cross-border trade relationships during the past 20
years with Kurdistan and have come to view the area as stable and
reliable. Syria has also opposed an independent Kurdistan for the
same reasons, but that is irrelevant at this point.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/law-professor-says-u-s-has-long-standing-obligation-to-protect-kurds-won-t-allow-the-kurdish-capital-to-fall-to-isis
From: Baghdasarian
Newswise
Aug 8 2014
Michael J. Kelly J.D.
Professor of Law
Michael J. Kelly is associate dean and professor of Law at Creighton
University. An expert on genocide and the Kurds, Kelly has consulted
with the Kurdish government on their constitution and is the author of
the book "Ghosts of Halabja: Saddam Hussein & the Kurdish Genocide"
(2008) and the article "The Kurdish Regional Constitution within
the Framework of the Iraqi Federal Constitution: A Struggle for
Sovereignty, Oil, Ethnic Identity, and the Prospects for a Reverse
Supremacy Clause" in vol. 114:3 of the Penn State Law Review (2010)
http://www.pennstatelawreview.org/articles/114/114%20Penn%20St.%20L.%20Rev.%20707.pdf
Professor Kelly can discuss several areas on international law,
genocide and the Kurds:
U.S. airstrikes against ISIS and air drops for trapped Yazidi and
Christian minorities in northern Iraq today are legal under the 1948
Genocide Convention, which obligates member states to prevent and
punish genocide. U.S. military actions to protect these minority groups
are in furtherance of the "prevent genocide" prong of that multilateral
treaty. Over 200,000 members of these groups are now fleeing into
Iraqi Kurdistan as ISIS advances on Erbil, the Kurdish capital city.
· The U.S. has a long-standing obligation to protect the Kurds, and
it will not allow the Kurdish capital to fall to ISIS. Ever the U.S.
encouraged the Kurdish uprising of 1991 but then failed to support
them when Saddam Hussein's forces crushed it, American foreign policy
has been focused on protecting and supporting the Kurds. The Kurdish
government and people are the most ardent non-Jewish supporters of
the U.S. in the Middle East.
· It is time for the U.S. and the international community to make good
on a 95-year old promise that the Kurds have their own state. Like
the Armenians, the Kurds were promised a homeland in the aftermath of
World War I, but the Western powers failed to make that happen and
renegotiated the peace in the Middle East after the rise of Ataturk
and the consolidation of power by Lenin. Consequently, their dreams
of a Kurdish state evaporated.
· The Kurdish people are a population of 30 million spread over an
area the size of France, but they still do not have a country of their
own. The Kurds of northern Iraq have functionally been a state since
the U.S. established a "no-fly" zone over their territory to exclude
Saddam Hussein's forces from massacring them after the 1991 uprising.
While a de facto state with an independently functioning government,
economy, border control, military, and educational and healthcare
system, the Kurds remain formally part of the Iraqi federation.
· Last month, the Israeli Prime Minister called for the establishment
of an independent Kurdish state. Israel and Kurdistan are natural
allies against various combinations of Arab Sunni and Shiite factions
that have long been arrayed against them. Kurdistan has recently
begun shipping petroleum through a pipeline out of Turkey from the
reserves it controls, and Israel has received four of these shipments.
· Located in the mountainous convergence of Iran, Turkey, Syria and
Iraq, and independent Kurdistan would be a strategically important
platform for U.S. foreign diplomatic and defense policy in the
Middle East and would establish a new player in the region on the
international stage that could alter the formula in favor of stability
in that region. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. policy has
favored a unified Iraqi state with a federal power-sharing structure;
not independence for Kurdistan. The time has come to abandon this
outmoded idea. Facts on the ground have dramatically shifted and
American foreign policy on Iraq must catch up to this new reality. The
Maliki government is collapsing and Iraq is reforming itself into a
new configuration now. The U.S. needs to be ahead of this reformation,
not behind it trying to support the preservation of what is quickly
becoming a failed state.
· Territorial guarantees must be made reassuring Turkey and
Iran that the Kurdish areas in those states would not join a new
Kurdistan state. Turkey and Iran have traditionally been opposed to
an independent Kurdish state carved out of northern Iraq for fear
of losing part of their own territory. Yet both have developed
lucrative cross-border trade relationships during the past 20
years with Kurdistan and have come to view the area as stable and
reliable. Syria has also opposed an independent Kurdistan for the
same reasons, but that is irrelevant at this point.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/law-professor-says-u-s-has-long-standing-obligation-to-protect-kurds-won-t-allow-the-kurdish-capital-to-fall-to-isis
From: Baghdasarian