international library for a responsable world of solidarity ritimo

Le portail rinoceros d’informations sur les initiatives citoyennes pour la construction d’un autre monde a été intégré au nouveau site Ritimo pour une recherche simplifiée et élargie.

Ce site (http://www.rinoceros.org/) constitue une archive des articles publiés avant 2008 qui n'ont pas été transférés.

Le projet rinoceros n’a pas disparu, il continue de vivre pour valoriser les points de vue des acteurs associatifs dans le monde dans le site Ritimo.

key words index  >  conflict  > campaigns

Justice for victims of the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel

Between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, Israel’s major military offensive on the Gaza Strip, codenamed Operation “Cast Lead”, caused massive destruction and suffering. Approximately 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the Gaza conflict. Three of the Israelis and the majority of the Palestinian fatalities were civilians. Much of Gaza was razed to the ground.Both sides violated international humanitarian law. Israeli forces attacked civilian buildings and launched indiscriminate attacks which failed to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians. (...)

Petition:

I call on the UN Human Rights Council to take action to ensure international justice for all Palestinian and Israeli victims of the 2008-9 conflict in Gaza and southern Israel by adopting a strong resolution at its March 2011 session that:

* condemns the inadequacies of the investigations conducted by Israel and the Hamas de facto administration; * calls on the International Criminal Court Prosecutor to urgently seek a determination from the judges of the Court on whether his office can investigate crimes committed during the Gaza conflict; * calls on other governments to fulfil their duty to investigate and prosecute crimes committed during the conflict before their national courts by exercising universal jurisdiction; and * refers the situation of impunity to the UN General Assembly for action. Read more

The Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC)

The broad consensus among Palestinian civil society about the need for a broad and sustained Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resulted in the Palestinian Call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel that was launched in July 2005 with the initial endorsement of over 170 Palestinian organizations. The signatories to this call represent the three major components of the Palestinian people: the refugees in exile, Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the subjugated Palestinian citizens of the Israeli state.

Put a stop to "blood diamonds"

« Blood diamonds » have been used by rebel groups to fuel brutal wars in Africa. These conflicts have resulted in over 4 million deaths and the displacement of millions of people in Angola, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and now in Ivory Coast. These diamonds have been sold to international diamond dealers giving rebels profits to buy large quantities of small arms.

In 1998, the NGO Global Witness began a campaign to expose the role of diamonds in funding conflicts. As the largest grassroots human rights organization in the world, Amnesty International has been instrumental in educating the public about the problem, and pressing governments and industry to take action. Over the years, international pressure has increased from a large coalition of NGOs.

In 2003, the government-run Kimberley Process scheme was launched to stop the trade in conflict diamonds. Over seventy governments taking part in the process are required to certify that diamond shipments through their countries are conflict-free, and they are required to set up diamond control systems to ensure this is true. Governments must pass national laws implementing the Kimberley Process and they must only trade with other participants in the process.

The diamond industry agreed to police itself to support the Kimberley Process by tracking diamonds from mines all the way to retail stores - this is generally referred to as the « system of warranties » or the « system of self regulation ». But this isn’t fully implemented. Every company dealing in diamonds should have a policy in place to ensure their diamonds are conflict-free.

Amnesty International and Global Witness urge you to call for the governments to better enforce its diamond law and for all sectors of the diamond industry to develop a credible, independently-verified tracking system to make sure that conflict diamonds don’t enter diamond markets.

War crimes in Qana should be judged by the international court of justice!

As citizens of the world, attached to the universal values at the basis of civilisation and to the absolute respect for the UN Charter as well as for other international conventions stating the leading principles to be respected by all States worldwide, or human rights will suffer tragic setbacks, we do express our strong condemnation over crimes committed by the Israeli army in Qana, which resulted in the voluntary killing of dozens of civilian Lebanese, including children and babies.

Such potentially describable « war crimes » cannot and should not remain unpunished. Human justice throughout the world and the future of international relations are at stake.

Sign the petition to bring those guilty of war crimes before the International Court of Justice

© rinoceros - Ritimo in partnership with the Fph via the project dph and the Ile de France region via the project Picri. Site developed using SPIP, hosted by Globenet. Legal mentions - Contact

ritimo