weapons used contrary to int'l humanitarian law

[peace in middle east]

www.counterpunch.org/2024/05/17/follow-the-missiles/
May 17, 2024
Follow the Missiles
by Jeffrey St. Clair

U.S. law, regulations, and its Conventional Arms Transfer policy require withholding military assistance when our weapons transfers are used contrary to international humanitarian law, including:

+ The “Leahy law” (22 U.S. Code § 2378d) requires an automatic cutoff of U.S. security assistance to foreign military units credibly implicated in gross violations of human rights.

+ Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act bans the United States from providing security assistance to any government that engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights.

+ Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act “… prohibits the United States from providing security assistance or arms sales to any country when the President is made aware that the government ‘prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”

+ The Biden administration’s Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy, issued in 2023, stipulates that the United States will not transfer weapons when it is “more likely than not” that those weapons will be used to commit, facilitate the commission of, or aggravate the risk of serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law, among other specified violations.

+ In 2022, the Biden Administration, along with more than 80 other nations, signed a joint statement on Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (EWIPA), which declared the signatories “strongly condemn any attacks directed against civilians, other protected persons and civilian objects, including civilian evacuation convoys, as well as indiscriminate shelling and the indiscriminate use of explosive weapons,” which are incompatible with international humanitarian law.