Biden Justice Department, in Filing in Federal Court, Sides With the UN Against Victims of October 7

While the Department of Justice has been working overtime to pierce President Trump’s immunity, Attorney General Garland’s lawyers are busy seeking to establish immunity for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency from a lawsuit by the victims of the massacre of Jews on October 7.That stunning stand is emerging in filings in federal court in the Southern District of New York, where Hamas’s victims are seeking some quantum of justice. The suit, brought this summer by 101 victims of Palestinian Arab terror, seeks a billion dollars from UNRWA and its leaders, including the current commissioner-general, Philippe Lazarrini.The plaintiffs argue that the defendants “are liable for aiding and abetting Hamas’ genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture.” UNRWA’s own investigation found nine of its employees “may have been involved” in the October 7 attacks. Israel contends there was a greater degree of complicity in the murders and kidnappings. One plaintiff, Gadi Kedem, lost his daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren on October 7. He tells an Israeli publication, Ynet: “There is no pain in the world that compares to burying your children and grandchildren who were murdered and strangled in their own home.”The United Nations, though, maintains that it is untouchable under a treaty called the “Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations” that dates from 1946. The DOJ has taken the same position in a letter filed to the presiding judge, Analisa Torres. The letter comes “at the request of the United Nations and in accordance with the United States’ treaty obligations to respect the immunities of the United Nations.”The DOJ and the UN argue that the Geneva Conventions mandate that the “United Nations, its property and assets wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall enjoy immunity from every form of legal process except insofar as in any particular case it has expressly waived its immunity.”The problem comes, though, from language in the 1946 treaty adding that the “Secretary-General shall have the right and the duty to waive the immunity of any official in any case.” Secretary-General Guterres, who has come under criticism for waffling over October 7, refuses to do the duty of waiver that is marked in the treaty. The Second United States Appeals Circuit has held that “the United Nations enjoys absolute immunity from suit unless it has expressly waived its immunity,” and the Department of Justice argues here that as “an integral part of the United Nations, UNRWA enjoys the privileges and immunities of the United Nations.”The DOJ further contends that Mr. Lazarrini and the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, enjoy a related species of diplomatic immunity. It’s a freighted question, as treaties are, under the Constitution, part of the “supreme law of the land,” as authoritative as federal law and the constitutional parchment itself.The DOJ argues that the reason it has come in on UNRWA’s side, is that “the U.N. has not waived immunity in this case, its subsidiary, UNRWA, retains full immunity, and the lawsuit against UNRWA should be dismissed.” The UN has waived immunity in the past, notably for crimes related to the “Oil for Food” scandal in Iraq in 2005. The lawyers for the victims, though, contend that “the Government is wrong” and that UNRWA is not free “to aid and abet genocide, mass murder, mass rape, and commit other violations of fundamental human rights with impunity.” The victims argue that immunity covers only the United Nations itself, not an affiliate like UNWRA, whose employees “cloaked their heinous acts in the drapery of the United Nations.”Then there is the notion of jus cogens — a “peremptory norm” — or rules so basic that to facilitate their violation would strike at morality’s quick. The Second United States Appeals Circuit also reckons that norms like these “may not be violated, irrespective of the consent or practice of a given State.” Hamas’ crimes, the plaintiffs allege, are a paradigmatic example of acts for which immunity ought to be unavailing.Neither the attorneys for the plaintiffs nor the United Nations responded to the Sun’s request for comment by the time this article went to press.

Biden Justice Department, in Filing in Federal Court, Sides With the UN Against Victims of October 7

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