Letter re: CBC 'As It Happens' coverage of UN resolution
From: Peggy Mason peggymason@on.aibn.com
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 08:10:20 –0500
To: aih@toronto.cbc.ca
Subject: UN charter requirements for use of force
Dear Sir or Madam:
In her interview last night with an American journalist, Mary Lou Finlay made the astonishing assertion that a second UN resolution on Iraq was not so much a legal issue as a political one. While she appears to have swallowed the American spin holus bolus, the requirements of the UN charter remain. Resolution 1441 does not authorize the use of force and previous resolutions cannot be relied on to this end. A second resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force (“all necessary means” in Charter language) is an absolute requirement if the action is to be sanctioned by international law. The USA game plan has been all too clear from the outset: get the UN to do what it wants and if it doesn't, then say it isn't necessary anyway.
On such an important issue, I for one expect As it Happens to maintain a little more distance from American war propaganda than this interview demonstrated.
Yours very sincerely,
Peggy Mason
P.S. I enclose a Report, of which I was the primary author, on Alternatives to War with Iraq. The summary of my presentation details the legal argument referred to above. I also testified before SCFAIT to this end.
Ms. Peggy Mason
(Former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament 1989-1994),
External Faculty Member of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre (PPC),
Senior Fellow, The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA),
Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario CANADA.
