sarah field

@fromsaltintears.com

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on public international law’s Yes to humanity through stories that echo its meaning fromsaltintears.com plus radical (root) justice for children and cahtreaty4kids.org #hope-walking

Excerpt of interview quoted below 👇 Feiglin: We need to encourage them to leave, because whoever doesn't leave will murder you. Newman: That's not what I asked. I asked, what will you do to someone you wanted to leave and doesn't leave. Feiglin: You'll make him leave. Newman: What does "make" mean? Feiglin: Every way possible. We'll shut off his water pipes, for example. Just an example.
From Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) wildlife, and man himself. Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life. There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits. It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. When the
Rather than rising in one bright wave in the mid 20th-century, then, public international law's Yes to humanity rose up from many bright waves, a steady succession of sources, carried along by the music of what happens. Each source emanating from a quivering of the republic of conscience and revealing what Edith Wharton calls a republic of spirit. FROM THE REPUBLIC OF CONS CIENCE I| -ROM SALI IN TEARS snippets
x The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and... The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse ••• "What do you think success is?" asked the boy "To love," said the Mole Aa Pages 18-19 of 135
Introducing From Salt In Tears citing Seamus Heaney’s From the Republic of Conscience
Like disremembered earlier sources, public international law's iteration of our claim to possess rights, its Universal Yes to humanity, is proved from salt in tears. The salt in tears we weep when it becomes clear our solitude might be endless reveals its essential elements. 'Something we hadn't seen revealed. / Only the meaning lits radical intent and inherent limits! wasn't revealed. Though upheld as unwritten law (custom), authorised as written law (treaty law), it is still unspeakably fragile... FROM THE REPUBLIC OF CONS CIENCE I| FROMSALTIN rAppels
In the morning they were found dead. / Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history. But her feet were held against his breastbone. / The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her. - FROM EAVAN BOLAND'S QUARANTINE How many love stories come to this threshold? To the point of international human rights law's 'merciless inventory? - FROM SALT IN TEARS
becomes the now. When a time and place in which human cruelty and dignity existed in extreme parallel is referred to as Gwangju, that name ceases to be a proper noun unique to one city and instead becomes a common noun, as l learned in writing this book. It comes to us-again and again across time and space, and always in the present tense. Even now. From Han Kang's Light and Thread
Like Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, the darkness in which our claim to possess rights is proved is a persistent and disturbing presence, Ghosts linger, Ghosts walk-again. These are not disembodied souls whose loneliness cannot be rocked like Beloved, or whose consciousness will not rest, claiming Justice, urging vigilance. These are the source of this roaming: the bearers of its proving darkness, the fabula (where / the rift is, the break is), WHERE / THE RIFT IS, THE BREAK IS | FROM SALT IN TEARS snippets
Introducing From Salt In Tears’s The Journey citing Eavan Boland’s poem: fromsaltintears.com/the-journey
Like the Greek gods of old, the darkness in which this body of law is proved has many guises. Seldom is it Grendel-like. More often it's Kafka-like, obscured by suggested fact, presumed justice, beguiling benevolence and inferred common good. What Frederick Douglass called 'a gross fraud, Mary Wollstonecraft a 'mockery and Janusz Korczak a 'lie'. WHERE / THE RIFT IS, THE BREAK IS | FROM SALT IN TEARS snippets
Introducing my blog post on the crime against humanity of age persecution of children: fromsaltintears.com/the-time-to-choose/the-ghost-crime-against-humanity-waiting-to-be-seen
An invitation to explore the source of From Salt In Tears citing Seamus Heaney’s From The Republic of Conscience fromsaltintears.com#the-source
An invitation to explore the ‘unacknowledged’ art or method of blending storytelling with international law’s Yes to humanity: fromsaltintears.com/the-art And why sometimes ‘poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world’ (Percy Byshhe Shelley).
Is there a fissure in the human soul which is 'not constructed to belong / entirely to life? To regard its worth? Up from its breach comes the question: who belongs to this earth? So many know its faulting-lines and the threat they carry. When 'the dark god bore Persephone away to the underworld, did she have a claim to belong? When the slave catcher dismounted at 124, did Toni Morrison's Beloved? WHERE / THE RIFT IS, THE BREAK IS | FROM SALT IN TEARS snippets
Suffered injustice in its totalising form, therefore, seen and accounted for, brought a core group of states back to 'our beginnings / in which we have an origin like water. To crystallising in treaty law everyone everywhere's emerging customary claim to possess rights. To accepting the state's artifice and yielding its power to say Yes to humanity: the individual and Universal. ' WHERE / THE RIFT IS, THE BREAK IS | FROM SALT IN TEARS snippets
Unlike Pain, our susceptibility to needless suffering carries an added pain. A pain that emanates from our sensibility to injustice and consciousness of justice. A pain that is suffered first in the body as rage and only later grief. A pain that again and again reveals what François de Menthon called at Nürnberg the dignity or intrinsic worth of 'each and all' and with it the intelligence of emotions WHERE / THE RIFT IS, THE BREAK IS | FROM SALT IN TEARS snippets
You will not be spared, warns Louise Glück at the Roman portal to the underworld, 'nor will what you love. Our susceptibility to Pain, Martha Nussbaum explains in The Fragility of Goodness, is immanent not only within the temporality of our existence but in the contingency and mutability of everything close to our hearts. The awe we hold for the earth that holds us. The tenderness we feel for a sleeping child. WHERE / THE RIFT IS, THE BREAK IS | FROM SALT IN TEARS snippets
How many love stories come to this threshold? To the point of international human rights law's 'merciless inventory? In its bones, as the jurist Hersch Lauterpacht suggests citing Sophocles's Antigone, international human rights law holds a story that has been retold again and again over millennia. Each story is unique, its details vary but its fabula or bones remain the same. WHERE / THE RIFT IS, THE BREAK IS | FROM SALT IN TEARS snippets
There is no Grendel in El Fasher or Gaza City or 'captain of evil' in Yangon or Donetsk targeting children without cause or explanation. There is however a Ghost crime waiting to be seen. Day-after-day Rohingya, Palestinian, non-Arab Darfuri (Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa) and other children wake up under threat of being persecuted because they are young. Yet the crime of age persecution of children, and the value it protects, the prohibition on young age discrimination, appear as Ghosts in our reflective conscience, felt more than known, present more than said. THE GHOST CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY || THE TIME TO CHOOSE snippets
274. The Commission finds that the conduct of the Israeli security forces is part of a wider attack that falls under article 7 of the Rome Statute, the chapeau elements of which the Commission has already established (see para. 266). Based on this, the Commission has reasonable grounds to conclude that the crime against humanity of persecution has been perpetrated based on age intersecting with gender, nationality, ethnicity, culture and religion.330 These acts manifested in two distinct manners: (i) deliberate killing by sniper, drone and quadcopter of Palestinian children, from newborns to adolescents, targeted by head and upper body shots, across different areas of Gazal; and ii) arbitrary arrests 32 of adolescent boys systematically labelled as "terrorists", "suspects" or "fighters", even after age-verifying identity cards were presented.
Read the Slavery Convention (1926) and you acquire knowledge, but read Toni Morrison's Beloved and you will feel its radical or root meaning. A roaming that will not stop until it is seen and heard. A roaming that resonates before it's apprehended and lingers long after, urging us when the time comes to choose to arc the music of what happens towards radical (root) justice. THE ART FROM SALT, IN TEARS snippets
Let us be clear about what this means. These children were not killed in a warzone. They were killed in their homes. In their schools. Playing football. Fishing. They were shot, bombed, and struck by quadcopters.
In the case of the Minab school strike, it is appropriate and expected that the Pentagon has announced a formal investigation. However, it is also important to consider the command environment created by senior military leaders. Secretary of Defense Hegseth has famously denounced "stupid rules of engagement." He has spoken of giving "no quarter" in Iran, an approach that is specifically prohibited under international humanitarian law. In the context of the Minab strike, he has repeatedly made comments stressing that the United States does not target civilians. However, deliberately targeting civilians should not be the threshold for serious concern and inquiry into civilian harm events, nor is it required for an incident to constitute a violation of IHL or war crime. Recklessly doing so, or killing civilians through gross negligence, could also rise to that level.
The strike on Minab primary school is particularly concerning. On February 28, Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, Iran, was struck, resulting in the deaths of at least 175 people, many of them children, according to Iranian officials. Based on easily accessible online information and commercially available satellite imagery, it appears the building had been used as a school for a decade. President Trump denied U.S. responsibility, falsely stating that "It was done by Iran." However, a preliminary investigation by the Department of Defense reportedly determined that the U.S. conducted the strike, and the targeting had been based on outdated intelligence. The strike likely violates international humanitarian law, and if evidence is found that those responsible were reckless, it could also be a war crime. The strike is among the deadliest single attacks by the U.S. military on civilians in recent decades.
From Patrick Geoghegan’s Liberator Daniel O’Connell
From ICRC Study on Customary Humanitarian Law
Heath milkwort Na deirfiúiríní (blue flower) & Tormentil Néalfartach (yellow flower)
Snake’s head fritillary blowing in the wind and rain
From Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
Picture of tree with two moss built nests
Can the past help the present? Can the dead save the living?
becomes the now. When a time and place in which human cruelty and dignity existed in extreme parallel is referred to as Gwangju, that name ceases to be a proper noun unique to one city and instead becomes a common noun, as l learned in writing this book. It comes to us-again and again across time and space, and always in the present tense. Even now.
99. The cumulative effect of deliberate starvation, denial of medical care, restriction of movement, and targeted violence to life and physical integrity rendered survival increasingly impossible. Taken together, these deliberate acts imposed conditions of life incompatible with the continued existence of the targeted communities, particularly the Zaghawa and the Fur, and were calculated to bring about their physical destruction, in whole or in part.
This is what Ammar Jadid looks like by the summer of 2024. The land their homes sat on is now blackened and scarred by fire and their farmland has dried up where it was abandoned. Fields Oct 2020 Houses Jun 2024 Oct 2020 Jun 2024 This is the result of repeated attacks by the Rapid Support Forces, the successor to the Janjaweed who are now powerful enough to be locked in a war with the Sudanese army. At this point they control most of Darfur and have set their sights on El Fasher.
The question is whether the U.S. military failed to take the necessary precautions - some required by the laws of war - to ensure that civilians were not unintentionally attacked, and to sufficiently minimize harm to nearby civilians. Was the school supposed to be on a no-strike list? Was the military working with long outdated maps? Did the munitions have an unforeseeable failure? Did Hegseth's gutting of the Defense Department's professionals and the budget dedicated to ensuring reduction in civilian harm contribute to the outcome?
A picture I took in Geneva following a G8 protest in 2003.The picture is of a boarded up shop on Geneva’s main shopping street. The yellow board is alive with graffiti including that of a dove with the words ‘poetry not bombs’. Ghosts linger and walk-again.
In this respect, the failure of key western States to condemn the strikes on Iran is extremely alarming for the health of the international legal order. International law is, by definition, applicable to all States. If certain States continue to condemn violations of international law only by States they see as adversaries or less powerful, while giving (particularly their more formidable) allies a free pass to commit brazen aggression, international law will ultimately cease to function altogether.
This view finds support in the Statute itself. Article 10 of the Rome Statute states that nothing "shall be interpreted as limiting or prejudicing in any way existing or developing rules of international law for purposes other than this Statute."84 Similarly, Article 22 notes that while a person cannot be held criminally liable before the ICC unless their act was a crime as defined by the Rome Statute, this determination "shall not affect the characterization of any conduct as criminal under international law independently of this Statute." 85 Hence, even though the Rome Statute does not provide for accountability in cases where civilians are killed recklessly, that does not mean that they are not obliged to do so under customary international law.
From Mahvesh Sabet’s Prison Poems
Long Strand at sunset today
Long Strand at sunset today