Tearing up the rule book
There have been more than 70 separate attacks on hospitals, ambulances and doctors in Ukraine with the number increasing on a “daily basis”, says the World Health Organization (WHO).
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Since 24 February, the WHO has reviewed and verified 72 separate attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine causing at least 71 deaths and 37 injuries.
Most have damaged hospitals, medical transports and supply stores, but the WHO has also recorded the “probable” abduction or detention of healthcare staff and patients.
“We are concerned that this number is increasing daily,” the WHO’s Ukraine country representative Jarno Habicht told the BBC.
“Health facilities should be safe places for both doctors and nurses, but also patients to turn to for treatment. This should not happen.”
Because the war in Ukraine is an international armed conflict between two states, the Geneva Conventions apply.
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Under Article 18 of the Conventions, civilian hospitals “may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected”.
A breach of that rule can be investigated by the International Criminal Court in the Hague and, if found to be a war crime, individual perpetrators can be prosecuted and punished.
The US is not part of the ICC. I guess that’s because the US wants to be free to commit war crimes. Putin withdrew Russia from the court in 2016.
Putin = Hitler lite (so far at least.)
“I guess that’s because the US wants to be free to commit war crimes.” Missing clause: “… and the US has committed war crimes”.
That really is the only believable explanation. Ostensibly, the USA has refused to be part of the treaty establishing the ICC because it would make American citizens subject to possibly unconstitutional laws–at least, that’s how it was described by the George H.W. Bush administration, as I recall. But then what recourse is there when US soldiers who have demonstrably committed war crimes, as many have (I can think of a half dozen right off the top of my head, from the Iraq war), are not held accountable by the US justice system? The sheer hypocrisy boggles the mind. One is reminded of police “investigating” themselves after yet another abuse against citizens, only to find the offenders somehow not guilty of any crime.
I think it was W – I’ll look it up in a minute, after I post a thing. But anyway yes it was always transparently “Nuh uh that’s for everybody else, not us.” Such self-serving bullshit, and so undermining of the institution.
Ya it was W.