Source: http://opiniojuris.org/2015/01/31/cia-violates-terrorist-bombing-convention/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 02:50:16+00:00

Document:
The United States helped build the bomb, the former official said, and tested it repeatedly at a CIA facility in North Carolina to ensure the potential blast area was contained and would not result in collateral damage.
“We probably blew up 25 bombs to make sure we got it right,” the former official said.
The extraordinarily close cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services suggested the importance of the target — a man who over the years had been implicated in some of Hezbollah’s most spectacular terrorist attacks, including those against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina.
The article touches on the legality of Mughniyah’s killing, with the US arguing that it was a lawful act of self-defense under Art. 51 of the UN Charter and Mary Ellen O’Connell claiming that it was perfidy. Regular readers will anticipate my skepticism toward the former claim, and there is simply no support in IHL for the latter claim. Perfidy is an act “inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence.” Mossad and the CIA did nothing of the kind.
Mossad and the CIA did, however, violate the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, which Israel ratified on 10 February 2003 and the US ratified on 26 June 2002. I don’t want to dwell on Mossad in this post; the analysis is the same as the one I provided here with regard to its assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. Instead, I want to focus on the US’s complicity in Mughniyah’s death.
(c) In any other way contributes to the commission of one or more offences as set forth in paragraph 1 or 2 by a group of persons acting with a common purpose; such contribution shall be intentional and either be made with the aim of furthering the general criminal activity or purpose of the group or be made in the knowledge of the intention of the group to commit the offence or offences concerned.
The language of Art. 2(3) easily encompasses the CIA’s involvement in Mughniyah’s death, given that the US admits the CIA built the bomb, helped track Mughniyah’s movements, and had the power to call off the attack.
2. The activities of armed forces during an armed conflict, as those terms are understood under international humanitarian law, which are governed by that law, are not governed by this Convention, and the activities undertaken by military forces of a State in the exercise of their official duties, inasmuch as they are governed by other rules of international law, are not governed by this Convention.
The bottom line: the CIA committed an act of terrorism — actual terrorism, not figurative terrorism — when it participated in blowing up Mughniyah. The US military has the right to kill terrorists with bombs; the CIA does not. There is no doctrine of “close enough” in the Terrorist Bombing Convention.
Quite obviously, there was no violation of the treaty if the targeting was not “unlawful.” From known facts, it appears that the targeting was not “unlawful” but, as the U.S. claims, was a lawful act of self-defense against a very high level target. Moreover, the inherent right of self-defense under UN Article 51 should have primacy over the terrorist bombing convention, although UN Article 103 technically applies to obligations under the Charter.
Yes, it was not perfidy.
And unavoidably, “[n]othing in this Convention shall affect other rights, obligations and responsibilities of States and individuals under international law, in particular the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Naitons” (Art. 19(1)).
Clearly, Article 51 of the UN Charter allows the targeting of a non-state actor who directly participates in ongoing armed attacks (who is DPAA) and there is no need for a special ad hoc consent from the territorial state (in this case Syria) and all members of the UN have consented in advance to lawful self-defense targetings ( http://ssrn.com/abstract=2459649 and http://ssrn.com/abstract=1520717 ) Further, lawful measures of self-defense against the non-state actor who is DPAA are not measures against the territorial state.
The next time Syria uses a chemical weapon to defend itself against an armed attack, I look forward to your argument that Syria’s “inherent right of self-defence” has “primacy” over its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention.
@ Jordan: Would you apply the standard that you are invoking in your comment universally? For example, it is well known that CIA backed terrorists have organized attacks against Cuba from South Florida.
One of the most popular terrorists in this regard is Luis Posada Carilles. Since he lives in Florida do you think the Cuban government is entitled to set off car bombs in Miami? By your standard this should be a just response.
The UN Charter is pretty clear that you need authorization from Security Council before attacking another country. And if it’s response to imminent attack you get authorization afterwards.
The US didn’t seek authorization before or after the assassination.
The “unlawful” language provoked some debate during the drafting, with most states arguing that it was redundant given the type of acts governed by the Convention. States that wanted to include “unlawful,” such as France, argued that the language was necessary to make clear that the use of explosives during domestic law-enforcement actions would not violate the Convention. No state, not even the US, argued during the “unlawful” debates that any act of self-defence by a state would be permitted by the Convention. Indeed, the US appears to be the only state that focused on self-defence at all during the drafting — it cited self-defence as one of the reasons why the armed forces had to be excluded from the Convention. So at no point in time did the US ever suggest the use of bombs in public places by non-military government agencies should be excluded from the Convention.
” ……. and persons acting in support of those armed forces who are under their formal command, control and responsibility” .
Everything while arguing, that those persons (C.I.A agents) were not under: command, control, and responsibility of any armed forces .
Yet, one must admit, that the U.S president, and as such , surly has given the final go ahead for such execution, and given by him, as the superior commander of the armed forces of the U.S, acting on behalf or for the purpose of national security.
May I ask , how do you settle it ??
How you can equate – as you seem to do – a terrorist organization like Lezbollah and the CIA is beyond me and reeks of fanatical beliefs. Your claim to Jordan about “how will you feel if Syria launches a chemical…” is absurd. The Syrian regime is a serial human rights abuser against their own people.
Objection, your response is unresponsive.
How would you feel if you were the victim of one of the thug’s attacks you know a Marine or a relative blown up while sleeping, or the CIA head in Beirut who was tortured to death, or one of the jews blown up in Argentina at the jewish club. Would you still be accusing the CIA/Mossad of bad conduct?
Really, KJH, you feel bad for this savage who enjoyed slaughtering people?
Anwar aA was targeted partially in self-defense. Craig: I doubt that a majority of the int’l community expected that the US had no right to target a non-state actor, esp. after 9/11. I doubt that a majority of the int’l community view the Caroline incident as one that required an unlawful use of armed force by the United States before the Canadian-Brits had a right to engage a non-state actor vessel in lawful self-defense, thought that the Brits had attacked the United States, or thought that the Brits and the US were at war.
I doubt that it is anything more than a minority viewpoint that there must be a violation of 2(4) before a state can engage in its inherent right of self-defense against a non-state actor in another state. Check the long list of textwriters in the 1520717 click-on recognizing that non-state armed attacks can trigger a right of self-defense against the non-state actors (and certainly non-state actor aremed attacks do not, by themselves, violate 2(4)).
I’m afraid I will respectfully disagree with you on the perfidy issue. While both the Law of Naval Warfare and the Law of Aerial Warfare have rules concerning the marking of warships and military aircraft (treaty law and CIL respectively), I am unaware of any such law concerning land vehicles. So why I do agree with you re the Cesna (being aerial warfare), I submit that the law of land warfare only requires belligerents to distinguish themselves and not their offensive equipment.
For completeness, I note Protocol II to the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention on Protocol on Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices. As this was not a booby trap but was an ‘other device’, and given the steps taken to limit potential injury to civilians, the act in this case does not appear to fall foul of that Protocol.
If we wish the ignore the term “unlawful” then we might as well also send a good number of bomber pilots to the Hague along with the CIA and Mossad men. After all, they discharge weapons in public places….
Treaties are meant to be comprehensible, which is why the Vienna Convention emphasizes the ordinary meaning of terms and renders the Travaux to a supplementary position.
It’s clear that class of actions being proscribed is characterized by being unlawful and does not preclude the possibility of a lawful class.
Fun things happen when we ignore the drafting history of key words in a treaty and give them the definition that we find politically desirable. Such as when we decide “unlawful” excludes any act of self-defence, an interpretation that was not even promoted by the US, the only state that dwelled on self-defence during the drafting.
Fun things happen, too, when we ignore key provisions in treaties. Such as the one that clearly exempts members of the military — ie, bomber pilots — from the Convention during armed conflict.
First, with regard to the CWC example, I was responding to Jordan’s claim that self-defence would trump the TBC even if (as I argue) intelligence agencies act unlawfully when using bombs to kill in public places. I simply pointed out that, if that’s true, the same argument would apply to Syria’s use of chemical weapons in self-defense. Do you contest that logic?
Second, using explosives to destroy buildings for various legitimate domestic reasons was precisely the kind of use most states — including the US — wanted to exclude through the “unlawfully” requirement in the TBC.
You mentioned France’s use for domestic police action, not civil use. Would be interested in seeing that.
I don’t contest your logic vis-a-vis Jordan.
As a (relevant) aside, the idea that no act of self-defense could be “unlawful” for purposes of the TBC is very difficult to reconcile with what was perhaps the key tension during the drafting: namely, the insistence by states in the Global South that the Convention not prohibit the use of bombs in the service of self-determination. Those states would have hardly agreed to the TBC if it was intended to exclude no acts of self-determination and all acts of self-defence.
It’s a bit cumbersome, but all of the account is included in the Google preview. The “unlawfully” discussion begins on p. 258.
I will be curious to know what you think!
I addressed “lawful” acts of self-defense, not “any” act of self-defense. Article 19(1) (addressing rights, etc. under the U.N. charter) is clearly relevant with respect to proper interpretation of the word “unlawful,” even if the drafting history was silent about the right to engage in lawful measures of self-defense under the U.N. Charter and customary international law reflected therein. Further, the ordinary meaning of the word “unlawful” would not exclude a meaning attentive to what is and is not lawful under the U.N. Charter or under customary international law. Additionally, customary international law is a relevant background for interpretation of a treaty.
I have now had the time to properly read through the entire article and thread. Thank you for the link.
It’s incomprehensible that perhaps the most fundamental term in legal language – unlawful – could be given such an ad hoc and strange redefinition without explicitly redefining it in the treaty.
Of course, this is a silly conversation.
We all know what unlawful commonly means. The framers of the convention understood what unlawful meant. And they understood that we would understand what unlawful means.
Rogier – please forgive me if I completely misunderstood your post.
Are you suggesting that states are restricted in how they trick, deceive and ambush their enemies?
If so, you would seem to have us believe that while all the world’s powers and framers of international law maintained clandestine operations, including carrying out hits both before, during and after the solidifation of such customary law or ratification of such relevant treaty, they in fact intended to enjoin themselves from engaging in this practice?
If so, can you please provide me some clear state practice and opinio juris?
Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation.
Of course States are limited “in how they trick, deceive and ambush their enemies”. IHL allows for ruses of war, but such ruses are only permitted to the extend they comply with IHL. Article 37 of AP I, which you quote above, says precisely that: “… but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict”.
As a side note: customary international law is not framed solely by “the world’s powers”, nor do violations of a rule of law make that rule inapplicable.
The world powers are the ones largely with intelligence agencies with the resources to engage in clandestine assassination operations. We could care less about what Kiribati thinks about the issue.
Moreover, Israel has engaged in such activities since its inception. Unless you’re showing me a customary rule prohibiting a good number of tactics used by Israel since its inception, then clearly Israel is bound to no customary rule preventing it from placing bombs in civilian cars.
We are all too familar with Cold War CIA tactics.
Protocol I is a reflection of then custom. There is no custom without state practice.
Perhaps before an assassination occurs a belligerent should send the targeted a singing telegram announcing his pending doom.
It strikes me that there is a separate issue with Kevin’s argument that nobody has raised yet.
Kevin argues that the CIA violated Art. 2(3) which (broadly speaking) governs aiding and abetting a violation of the treaty.
That, of course, requires that there be a predicate violation to aid and abet. But was there?
The device was planted and triggered by the Mossad. Assuming that the Mossad qualify as “armed forces during an armed conflict” or ” persons acting in support of those armed forces who are under their formal command, control and responsibility” – and Israel’s accession to the treaty makes clear that it believes they do – then there simply was no underlying offense, because Israel’s actions did not violate the treaty. And if Israel’s actions did not violate the treaty, nothing the CIA did could be aiding the “commission of an offense”.
A very interesting argument, one that raises two issues, neither of which I can address adequately here. First, is Israel’s declaration effective? It certainly seems like a disguised reservation — and one that is incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty, given how adamant other states were during the drafting that only the armed forces of a state were exempted from the TBC (and the Global South was not happy with even that exclusion).
Second, if Israel did not violate the TBC, does that mean the US did not? Art. 3 also prohibits attempting to commit an offence, and many jurisdictions (common law and at least some civil law) permit a defendant to be convicted of attempting to aid and abet an offence. It’s at least arguable that the US attempted to commit an offence under Art. 2, given its actions and evident intent to complete the offence. But again, it’s a difficult question that needs more discussion.
A few “adamant” states during a drafting process do not a full meaning make. VCLT arts. 31(1), (3)(b)-(c), and 32 (a)(-(b).
Why would we look to the ICRC’s definition of “armed forces” when the Convention defines the term for us? Art. 1(4): “military forces of a State” are “the armed forces of a State which are organized, trained and equipped under its internal law for the primary purpose of national defence or security.” You may know Israeli law better than I do, but I have not seen anything that would indicate Mossad is part of Israel’s armed forces.
I’m not dramatically misreading anything. Even if the acts were legal for Israel, attempting to commit an offence was not legal for the US. Cartlidge is directly on point, making clear that the actions of the principal perpetrator do not have to be criminal for the accomplice to be convicted of attempting to aid and abet an offence. Hence your second paragraph is in error — Israel did not have to be guilty of an offence under the TBC for the US to attempt to aid and abet a TBC offence, just as the undercover officer did not have to be guilty of a drug offence for the accomplice to attempt to aid and abet a drug offence.
By the way, good luck arguing that knowledge of illegality is an element of an offence under the TBC.
I see. So your position is that there is a difference between “military forces” and “armed forces” for purposes of Art. 19(2), even though “military forces” are defined as the “armed forces of a State organized… under its internal law.” Or, more precisely, you believe that “armed forces” means one thing with regard to the second clause of Art. 19(2) (the internal definition provided by Art. 1(4) concerning military forces) and something completely different with regard to the first clause (the external IHL definition).
And again, Kevin, Clause 1 of 19(2) expressly provides that it uses the term “armed forces” as “understood by international humanitarian law”.
How do you justify writing that phrase out of Clause 1?
So no, I’m not arguing that “armed forces” has one meaning in clause 1 and a different meaning in clause 2. I’m arguing that “armed forces” in clause 1 has a different meaning than “military forces” in clause 2.
I think we’ve taken this discussion as far as it can go. This will be my last comment.

References: Art. 51
 Art. 2
 Art. 2
 Art. 3
 Art. 2
 Art. 1
 Art. 19
 Art. 19
 Art. 1