TGTE to Launch a Global Movement for New Norms and Mechanisms for Peace and Justice

Such a global campaign for peace and justice has become more urgent today due to the threat of the Israel-Palestine conflict spreading throughout Middle-East

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, October 26, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ —

The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) will take the lead in forging a global movement for peace with justice in the light of escalation of violent conflicts that have arisen in different parts of the world in recent times.

Such a global campaign for peace and justice has become more urgent today due to the threat of the Israel-Palestine conflict spreading throughout the Middle-East region, with unimaginable consequences for the entire planet.

Clearly, the need of the hour is a worldwide movement for a new mechanism and new norms for peace to ensure conflict resolution through law/dialogue/diplomacy instead of raw violence.

However, global peace can be promoted only together with a concurrent quest for global justice – as the two are inextricably linked. Violence very often arises only because of failure to effectively address various wrongs and injustices through peaceful and legal means.

It is very unfortunate that the UN security council, which was designed and endowed with a power to maintain peace and security, has become impotent due to the abuse of veto power by the permanent members of the council, as seen recently, in the case of Ukraine and also in the current Israeli and Palestinian conflict.

With respect to accountability, the only existing criminal international mechanism is the international criminal court (ICC), also seems to be applying double standards. For example, the ICC invoked jurisdiction with respect to the Myanmar’s deportation of Rohingyas but decline to invoke jurisdiction with respect to Chinas deportation of Uyghurs. With respect to Ukraine, the ICC is already involved. However, with respect to Israel’s occupation, the ICC has not acted upon it in spite of the fact that in 2015 Palestine became a state party to the Rome Statue, and in 2021 the judges of the court confirmed to the prosecutor that Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem are part of the territory of Palestine.

With respect to the current crisis, the deliberate targeting and burning of children and other inhumane acts by Hamas including the hijacking of civilians, constitute not only a brutal violation of humanity, but also a crime against humanity. Similarly, as Amnesty International concluded based on its investigation, Israel’s siege and indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, which has resulted in more than 5000 casualties including more than 1,500 children, also constitutes a crime against humanity.

Moreover, as the first ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo recently observed, Israel’s siege of Gaza could constitute as a crime of genocide under Article 2c of the Genocide Convention, creating conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction in whole or in part of a group.

Recently, we also witnessed the impotence of the UN and the international accountability mechanism with respect to the destruction of the de-facto state of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and the displacement of more than 100,000 Armenians in 24 hours.

We, the Eelam Tamils were also subjected to a similar situation. In 2009, our de-facto state of Tamil Eelam was destroyed using weapons prohibited under international law, and which resulted in the killing of more than 100,000 Tamils. The international community did nothing to stop this. Based on the UN Internal Review Report itself, that the UN was aware of the massacre and the catastrophic consequence of it but chose not to intervene. Also, it is noted that it has been more than 14 years since those atrocity crimes were committed against the Tamils, until now, not a single person has been brought to justice. In view of this ongoing international justice system failure, in 2019 the TGTE launched a Victims Driven International Justice (VDIJ) campaign to enable the victims themselves to get justice.

Like with the Tamil genocide, the current atrocities and war crimes in the Israeli Gaza conflict are not committed just by a few individuals. It has been committed by the state itself. However, to bring the state itself for accountability, in various domestic jurisdictions, the legal concept called sovereign immunity has been an obstacle. Thus, in addition to the above mentioned, VDIJ initiative, the TGTE launched a campaign to remove sovereign immunity as a defence for atrocity crimes in various domestic prosecutions.

All the above demonstrate the necessity and urgency for new mechanisms and new norms for international peace and justice. In another recent comment, former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said, “we need to keep evolving and creating other systems to create solutions to conflict.” Thus, a global campaign for new mechanisms and new norms for peace and justice is required.

* ABOUT THE TRANSNATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL EELAM (TGTE):

The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) is a democratically elected Government of over a million strong Tamils (from the island of Sri Lanka) living in several countries around the world.

TGTE was formed after the mass killing of Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government in 2009.

TGTE thrice held internationally supervised elections among Tamils around the world to elect 132 Members of Parliament. It has two chambers of Parliament: The House of Representatives and the Senate and also a Cabinet.

TGTE is leading a campaign to realize the political aspirations of Tamils through peaceful, democratic, and diplomatic means and its Constitution mandates that it should realize its political objectives only through peaceful means. It’s based on the principles of nationhood, homeland and self-determination.

TGTE seeks that the international community hold the perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Tamil people to account. TGTE calls for a referendum to decide the political future of Tamils.

The Prime Minister of TGTE is Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, a New York based lawyer.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @TGTE_PMO

Web: www.tgte-us.org / www.tgte.org

Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)
+1 614-202-3377
[email protected]
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