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This is from Zaman. I think they should take this to the ICJ. The Turks inundated the International Center for Transnational Justice with mountains of bullxxxx, and they still found them guilty of genocide. This Eledag guy is insane though for thinking the Armenian Genocide "thesis" will utterly collapse due to the shocking fact that the UN convention for genocide only came into effect in 1948, and thus, cannot be applied retroactively.
Elekdağ: ICJ involvement will deal a blow to Armenian thesis
It is time for Ankara to bring new perspective, organization and dynamism to the Armenian issue, according to veteran Turkish diplomat Şükrü Elekdağ.
Elekdağ, a deputy for the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), insists that Ankara should take the first step in this new direction by asking France to jointly take an almost decade-old French parliamentary decision recognizing the controversial World War I-era killings of Anatolian Armenians as genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to determine whether the century-old incidents can accurately be categorized as acts of genocide according to a related UN convention.
Elekdağ's first remarks on the issue came last week in the French capital following talks at the French parliament as part of a Turkish parliamentary delegation.
The controversial decision bluntly stating that "France publicly recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915" was made in January 2001, leading Ankara to lodge strong protests with Paris, including the cancellation of a number of major projects with actual or potential French involvement.
"We can go to the ICJ with France and ask whether the law adopted in France in 2001 is in compliance with the agreement in 1948 and whether the 1915 incidents constitute genocide," Elekdağ was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency, in an apparent reference to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. He noted that the delegation had shared this view with French lawmakers during their talks.
Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey categorically rejects these claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians, along with at least as many Turks, died in civil strife that emerged when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with the Russian troops who were invading Ottoman territory.
Elekdağ, a former Foreign Ministry undersecretary and also a former ambassador to the US, speaking with Today's Zaman on Monday, elaborated on his remarks. First of all, he made clear that it was not possible to try the Ottoman Empire under the 1948 UN Convention, since a convention could not be implemented for incidents that took place prior to its adoption and the controversial killings referred as the incidents of 1915 took place long before the adoption of the convention.
"What would the authorized court rule if we assume that the UN Convention could be implemented retrospectively?" Elekdağ asked. He answered by referring to a ruling back in February 2007 in which the ICJ exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility for the mass slaughter of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, but ruled that it failed to prevent a genocide. Key to the court's findings was its conclusion that no one in Serbia, or any official organ of the state, could be shown to have had the deliberate intention to "destroy in whole or in part" the Bosnian Muslim population -- a critical element in the 1948 Genocide Convention.
"According to this landmark ruling, a state cannot be held responsible for genocide if it had used the means it had in hand to prevent the genocide incident via showing the utmost effort and good will. … On the other hand, the party that makes the genocide allegations must prove with 'absolute and undisputable' evidence that the perpetrator had not implemented necessary precautions with due diligence and that it committed the crime with the specific intent [dolus specialis]," Elekdağ continued.
"In light of these facts, the French parliament's decision in 2001 is a typical sample of execution without trial," he added.
What Turkey and France should ask the ICJ is whether the French parliament has the authority to make a decision about the Ottoman Empire according to the UN Convention and to ask whether the 1915 incidents constituted genocide according to the same convention, he said.
"It is obvious that the court will rule that the French parliament is not authorized to make such a decision, and it will also have to announce that the UN Convention cannot be implemented retrospectively due to the principle of legality. This means that the 1915 incidents cannot be described as genocide. If the ICJ makes such a ruling, then Armenia's genocide allegation will entirely collapse," Elekdağ said.
"If France avoids a joint application to the ICJ -- which is a big probability -- then a heavy blow will be dealt to the political and moral superiority of the Armenian thesis … in the international arena. Such a development will also constitute a factor that will prevent or at least make more difficult conviction of our citizens on charges of denial of genocide and the making of parliamentary decisions about the 1915 incidents."
Elekdağ: ICJ involvement will deal a blow to Armenian thesis
It is time for Ankara to bring new perspective, organization and dynamism to the Armenian issue, according to veteran Turkish diplomat Şükrü Elekdağ.
Elekdağ, a deputy for the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), insists that Ankara should take the first step in this new direction by asking France to jointly take an almost decade-old French parliamentary decision recognizing the controversial World War I-era killings of Anatolian Armenians as genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to determine whether the century-old incidents can accurately be categorized as acts of genocide according to a related UN convention.
Elekdağ's first remarks on the issue came last week in the French capital following talks at the French parliament as part of a Turkish parliamentary delegation.
The controversial decision bluntly stating that "France publicly recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915" was made in January 2001, leading Ankara to lodge strong protests with Paris, including the cancellation of a number of major projects with actual or potential French involvement.
"We can go to the ICJ with France and ask whether the law adopted in France in 2001 is in compliance with the agreement in 1948 and whether the 1915 incidents constitute genocide," Elekdağ was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency, in an apparent reference to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. He noted that the delegation had shared this view with French lawmakers during their talks.
Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey categorically rejects these claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians, along with at least as many Turks, died in civil strife that emerged when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with the Russian troops who were invading Ottoman territory.
Elekdağ, a former Foreign Ministry undersecretary and also a former ambassador to the US, speaking with Today's Zaman on Monday, elaborated on his remarks. First of all, he made clear that it was not possible to try the Ottoman Empire under the 1948 UN Convention, since a convention could not be implemented for incidents that took place prior to its adoption and the controversial killings referred as the incidents of 1915 took place long before the adoption of the convention.
"What would the authorized court rule if we assume that the UN Convention could be implemented retrospectively?" Elekdağ asked. He answered by referring to a ruling back in February 2007 in which the ICJ exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility for the mass slaughter of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, but ruled that it failed to prevent a genocide. Key to the court's findings was its conclusion that no one in Serbia, or any official organ of the state, could be shown to have had the deliberate intention to "destroy in whole or in part" the Bosnian Muslim population -- a critical element in the 1948 Genocide Convention.
"According to this landmark ruling, a state cannot be held responsible for genocide if it had used the means it had in hand to prevent the genocide incident via showing the utmost effort and good will. … On the other hand, the party that makes the genocide allegations must prove with 'absolute and undisputable' evidence that the perpetrator had not implemented necessary precautions with due diligence and that it committed the crime with the specific intent [dolus specialis]," Elekdağ continued.
"In light of these facts, the French parliament's decision in 2001 is a typical sample of execution without trial," he added.
What Turkey and France should ask the ICJ is whether the French parliament has the authority to make a decision about the Ottoman Empire according to the UN Convention and to ask whether the 1915 incidents constituted genocide according to the same convention, he said.
"It is obvious that the court will rule that the French parliament is not authorized to make such a decision, and it will also have to announce that the UN Convention cannot be implemented retrospectively due to the principle of legality. This means that the 1915 incidents cannot be described as genocide. If the ICJ makes such a ruling, then Armenia's genocide allegation will entirely collapse," Elekdağ said.
"If France avoids a joint application to the ICJ -- which is a big probability -- then a heavy blow will be dealt to the political and moral superiority of the Armenian thesis … in the international arena. Such a development will also constitute a factor that will prevent or at least make more difficult conviction of our citizens on charges of denial of genocide and the making of parliamentary decisions about the 1915 incidents."