Firing on Iranian vessels justified?

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 4

Firing on Iranian vessels justified?

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DAVID CLARKSON

Firing on Iranian vessels found laying mines in international waters may well be justified under the United Nations Charter, said a law lecturer at the University of Canterbury, Mr Rupert Glover, at an antinuclear meeting in Christchurch yesterday. He told a meeting of Scientists Against Nuclear Arms that placing mines in international waters was “clearly an,illegal act” fi ■

It may well be legal under the United Nations Charger for American or other allied vessels in the Gulf to open fire on Iranian vessels found doing that, as a form of self-defence,” he said. He had been asked about the legal questions involved in Monday’s attack by a, United States warship on an Iranian vessel claimed to be laying mines round the anchorage of Bahrain. Under the United Nations Charter, the only

instances where armed force was justified were in self-defence or when the United Nations itself decided to take action, he said. One of those attending, Dr Neil Cherry, the Labour candidate for Fendalton who had stood on a strong anti-nuclear policy, said, "Probably most people do not realise that the majority of American warships in the Gulf are carrying nuclear weapons of one form or another.” Mr Glover said it was “widely recognised”

that the British destroyer Sheffield, hit and set alight by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands war in 1982, had been carrying nuclear weapons. The presence of the weapons on board was the reason the British went to so much trouble to salvage it when it sank, he said. International agreements over the last century had established the principle that “all is not fair in love and war,” he said. Under the HaguSFßegu-

lations of 1907, and the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, countries involved in wars did not have unlimited rights to harm their opponents. The 1977 Protocols included a provision which banned weapons which caused “superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering,” as well as widespread, longterm, severe damage to the natural environment. This appeared to ban nuclear weapons, except that the United States and

Britain had made it plain to the diplomatic conference that produced the protocols that if the provision was taken to refer to nuclear arms they would withdraw from the conference. Mr Glover said that if having nuclear weapons as a deterrent implied a threat to use them in certain circumstances, it was arguable that they were illegal. Soldiers had a duty to disobey an unlawful The American

Army had legal advisers available in the field. The use of nuclear weapons carried their own sanctions. Because their effects did not respect international boundaries, they would inflict damage on innocent parties as well as those involved in the conflict. This breached international law, and survivors of a nuclear war would be justified in finding those responsible for using the weapons and dealing with them as war criminals, he said.