Deaths as Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship

meghatronic said:
Do people not read anymore? Or is it too easy to find a source and act smug?


Countries that have not signed — Andorra, Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Eritrea, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, San Marino, Syria, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vatican City, Venezuela, Taiwan, Sahrawi Republic.
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that's what i lol'd at :p
 
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what legal basis do they have for storming the ship then?

its a Turkish flagged ship, in international waters?

care to show any international law that allows the boarding - Turkey believes it to be illegal & its their ship
 
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dowie said:
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what legal basis do they have for storming the ship then?

its a Turkish flagged ship, in international waters?

care to show any international law that allows the boarding - Turkey believes it to be illegal & its their ship
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dowie said:
well its illegal as far as the UN is concerned

can you see any way for it to be legal?
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/facepalm

They don't *need* any legal basis. That's the point. Illegal... legal... it doesn't matter.

It really is simple. It's international waters, and Israel have not signed up to the laws of the High Seas. As I said, even if they had - wtf would happen? US would veto any action taken by the UN.

Finally, Turkey were warned at all levels, the ship itself was warned multiple times. Then peacefully boarded to conduct a search.
 
meghatronic said:
/facepalm

They don't *need* any legal basis. That's the point. Illegal... legal... it doesn't matter.

It really is simple. It's international waters, and Israel have no signed up to the laws of the High Seas. As I said, even if they had - wtf would happen? US would veto any action taken by the UN.

Finally, Turkey were warned at all levels, the ship itself was warned multiple times. Then peacefully boarded to conduct a search.
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OK so we agree they had no legal basis to board the ship....

Presumably you'd also agree that a bunch of people on a ship are allowed to resist/defend against an attempted boarding?
 
I'm the one saying we won't know if it's legal or illegal for months here.

Saying it's either will not come from either side or a person on the internet but by a team of overpaid lawyers if anyone can ever be arsed to hire them over such a non event.

its a Turkish flagged ship, in international waters?
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Ironic you're using a law that turkey didn't agree to, to say it's illegal.
 
Lots of experts on maritime law in this thread. I'm going to contact my old maritime law professor, a man who has worked for the IMF and who regularly advises governments in asia on maritime security and international law and see what his opinion is.
 
Tombo said:
The point is it doesn't matter if they did or didn't have a legal basis to board.
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so does it matter if the people on the ship did or didn't have a legal basis to resist the boarding

or whether they did or didn't have a legal basis to attempt to reach gaza
 
dowie said:
OK so we agree they had no legal basis to board the ship....

Presumably you'd also agree that a bunch of people on a ship are allowed to resist/defend against an attempted boarding?
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It is moot. I will not agree with that statement as it serves no purpose. They don't need a legal basis.

And no. They do not have a right to actively resist*. A simply analogy is they want to run the blockade to get to Gaza... okay? I want to fly to the US, via Amsterdam. The Dutch search me before I get on the connecting flight. Do I have a right to resist/defend against a search? Do I bloody hell.


* I assume you mean stab commandos in the back, throw them off the deck, hit them with metal poles, chairs, stun grenades, petrol bombs etc...? Pistols were involved too apparently.
 
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meghatronic said:
It is moot. I will not agree with that statement as it serves no purpose. They don't need a legal basis.

And no. They do not have a right to actively resist*. A simply analogy is they want to run the blockade to get to Gaza... okay? I want to fly to the US, via Amsterdam. The Dutch search me before I get on the connecting flight. Do I have a right to resist/defend against a search? Do I bloody hell.


* I assume you mean stab commandos in the back, throw them off the deck, hit them with metal polls, chairs, stun grenades, petrol bombs etc...?
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completely irrelevant example tbh...

again the ship was in international waters and we've agreed the IDF had no legal basis to board it....

so why aren't the people on the ship allowed to resist a boarding that has no legal basis - yes that means hitting the boarders with sticks etc...

or to try another example - if a cruise ship gets boarded by somali pirates (who have no legal basis to board the ship) are the crew not allowed to fight them off with sticks etc... perhaps an armed somali pirate gets stabbed in the back?
 
we've agreed the IDF had no legal basis to board it....
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No you have, the rest of us are saying We don't know and won't know till a bunch of lawyers and academics trawl through the mess.


But legal or illegal it won't change anything and it won't matter.
 
To quote wiki word for word:

Ships sailing the high seas are generally under the jurisdiction of the flag state;[2] however, when a ship is involved in certain criminal acts, such as piracy,[3] any nation can exercise jurisdiction under the doctrine of hostis humani generis.
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Given the publicly acknowledged intention of running the Israeli blockade, the reasonable assumption that they could be trying to smuggle weapons, theres a very real chance the Israelis could justify the raid under one of the applicable catagories of criminal acts, its far from a cut and dried case of being outside territorial waters.
 
dowie said:
or to try another example - if a cruise ship gets boarded by somali pirates (who have no legal basis to board the ship) are the crew not allowed to fight them off with sticks etc... perhaps an armed somali pirate gets stabbed in the back?
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You're not very educated are you? Not meant as an insult.

Have a read into piracy, and international laws and treaties surrounding it. Then apologise for your example.

My analogy was apt. They want to go through an Israeli blockade - what did they expect?

MARK REGEV, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER'S SPOKESMAN

Though our naval servicemen were instructed to exercise maximum restraint, they were attacked. They were attacked with knives, with iron clubs, and also with live fire.

We have unfortunately 10 servicemen injured, one of them very, very seriously. The violence was initiated unfortunately by these activists, and this is regrettable.
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Having looked into this a bit more, especially with regards to smuggling, in this case drug smuggling inbound to the US it looks like given reasonable grounds they are within their rights to stop and search a vessel in international waters but they can't (which the video above would seem to indicate they are attempting to do) compel a vessel outside of territorial waters to head to a specific port.
 
As a few posters have mentioned, Maritime law in a case like this is very complicated, as international law and issues of jurisdiction often are, and the issue is going to be solved by maritime lawyers and academics. They are not going to be solved by people reading wikipedia and a few other sites for 45 minutes, crediting themselves with the same knowledge and experience as the above professionals (who may well be scratching their heads at this point), then declaring il/legality and definitively stating what israel can and cannot do.
 
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