Undermining Our Principles

Craig DalzellIn a year of countless and boundless horrors, where war crimes and crimes against humanity are now so routinely fed to us in real time on social media that we are seemingly utterly numb to those suffering them and indifferent to or even cheering on those who commit them, who had “Scottish First Minister apparently breaches international land mine ban treaty” on their list of things to watch out for?As reported by LBC’s Gina Davidson, last week, outside a primary school where he was launching a new literacy programme, FM John Swinney was asked about the then breaking news that the USA was changing its policies and giving Ukraine anti-personnel land mines to deploy during its war against Russia. Swinney stated that territorial integrity must be defended and that he “supported the actions taken”.There’s a problem with this – that statement looks very much like a breach of Article 1(c) of the 1997 Ottawa Treaty that banned the use of AP mines – and in particular banned any state signed up to the treaty from taking any action to “assist, encourage or induce” any other state (whether signed up to the treaty or not) from using such weapons. The UK – and thus Scotland – is a state party to the treaty and all aspects of government, including the devolved governments, are bound by it.One could argue that there’s a larger breach going on here. Ukraine is also a signatory of the land mine ban treaty and thus any use of AP mines by their forces would constitute a breach of the treaty. The USA is infamously not a signatory of the treaty (and nor is Russia), with their long running excuse being that they were unable to fulfil their obligations under the treaty to clean up land mines they’ve left around the world – particularly in the Korean DMZ region. Nevertheless, there was some hope recently that President Biden was softening his stance there, in 2022 changing US policy on AP mines to unilaterally stop using or exporting them but stopping short of signing the treaty in full.However, the treaty itself makes no distinction in severity between actively using the weapons and “merely” encouraging someone else to do so. It’s an obscene irony that Swinney made his statements outside a primary school since it was the sight of thousands of children being maimed and killed – sometimes due to mines left by wars that ended before their lifetimes – that spurred the world into action to ban these weapons of random and indiscriminate dread.Now, I don’t believe (and I hope) that Mr Swinney is not a personal supporter of these weapons and made his comments knowing what the result of them would be but rather he simply didn’t understand the weight of his words in the moment. This is hardly comfort. If Scotland is to be held up as a credible nation ready for independence then its government needs to understand the power of its words on the world stage. Promoting future crimes against humanity – however inadvertently – is not the way to do that.The land mine ban has implications for Scotland beyond Swinney’s words. Article 1(b) of the treaty also prohibits state parties from transferring banned weapons to another state – we already know that Scottish Government owned Prestwick airport has been used by the US to commit war crimes (albeit before it came into public ownership) and it continues to be used by them for military flights. In addition to an apology for his statement, Swinney must assure us that Scottish assets and territory has not been and will not be used to facilitate the transfer of banned mines.Looking further forward, the land mine ban treaty played an important role in informing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) especially around its prohibitions on allowing the transfer of nukes through state party territory. Despite the efforts of some in the party to undermine that treaty too, SNP policy is still that an independent Scotland would sign TPNW (and even if they then go on to apply to join NATO, the land mine treaty is used as an example of how states could do both). If Scotland can’t be shown to uphold its obligations to prevent the use of land mines then I don’t trust the government to uphold its promises to denuclearise post-independence – I fear a future where the Government proudly states that Scotland has no permanent nuclear weapons based here but turns a blind eye to the US and UK allowing their nukes to be just permanently visiting.And finally, the most important reason to be concerned about this is the undermining of the very principles of justice around breaches of international law. If we treat international law as something that only binds our enemies but can be flouted by ourselves and our allies at will then we reduce our ability bring those who commit the worst crimes imaginable to their inevitable justice.So the three things I want to hear from the FM are fairly simple and should be entirely inarguable.First, he needs to apologise for his slip of words and reiterate his commitment to international law and rules-based order. Second, he must promise that Scotland will not be used to facilitate the breach of international laws. And third, he should commit that if anyone who breaches international laws anywhere in the world arrives within Scottish jurisdiction then they will be brought to justice to the fullest extent possible and that that oath extends to everyone whether friend, foe or, indeed, First Minister.Image Credit: Matthias Kabel