Russell Tribunal
Further tribunals were also held on various other issues, including psychiatry, human rights, and the Israel-Palestine conflict and, most recently, on the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Financing for the Tribunal included a large contribution from the North Vietnamese government after a request made by Russell to Ho Chi Minh.
We also find unanimously, with one abstention, that the government of the United States of America is guilty of repeated violations of the sovereignty, neutrality and territorial integrity of Cambodia, that it is guilty of attacks against the civilian population of a certain number of Cambodian towns and villages.The question also arises as to whether or not the governments of Thailand and other countries have become accomplices to acts of aggression or other crimes against Vietnam and its populations.
We intend to examine at the next session legal aspects of the problem and to seek proofs of any incriminating facts.The three Tribunal members who voted against agree that the Japanese Government gives considerable aid to the Government of the United States, but do not agree on its complicity in the crime of aggression.Prompted in part by the My Lai Massacre, in 1969 the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation organised Citizens Commissions of Inquiry (CCI) to hold hearings intended to document testimony of war crimes in Indochina.
John Gerassi was an investigator for the Tribunal and documented that the United States was bombing hospitals, schools and other civilian targets in Vietnam.
Between its founding and April 1984, the tribunal pronounced two advisory opinions on Western Sahara and Eritrea and held eight sessions (Argentina, Philippines, El Salvador, Afghanistan I and II, East Timor, Zaire and Guatemala).
The Tribunal's 35-member panel included three Nobel Prize winners—Seán MacBride, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Professor George Wald— and ten eminent jurist, theologians, academics and political figures.
After Russell's death in 1970, Senator Lelio Basso began organizing a second tribunal in 1973[12] initially focused on human rights violations in Brazil, which then expanded to include Chile in the wake of the military coup in that country, and then to all of Latin America.
[13] The official name chosen by the constituents was "Russel Tribunal II on the Repression in Brazil, Chile and in Latin America" and was held in three sessions from 1974 to 1976 in Rome and Brussels.
[14] Basso presided over the tribunal and writer Gabriel García Márquez, historians Vladimir Dedijer and Albert Soboul, and professor of law François Rigaux served as vice-presidents.
Philosopher Jacques Derrida praised this event, stating that "to resuscitate the tradition of a Russell Tribunal is symbolically an important and necessary thing to do today.
"[20] Pierre Galand pointed out that the Cape Town session of the tribunal had a budget of €190,000; €100,000 was donated by Editions Indigene, the publisher of the book Time for an outrage.
[25] An extraordinary session was held in Brussels on 24 September 2014 in response to Israel's Operation Protective Edge launched in the Gaza Strip on 8 July 2014.
[27] It was organized by Canadian NGO Kashmir Civitas whose Secretary-General is Canadian academic Farhan Mujahid Chak, and attended by Richard Falk, Sami al-Arian, Jonathan A.C. Brown, David Hearst, and Omar Suleiman[28][29] The event had support/partnerships with the World Kashmir Awareness Forum, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, Aljazeera Balkans, Nahla, Center for Advanced Studies in Sarajevo, and International University of Sarajevo.
[3] Decolonization, settler-colonialism, crimes against humanity, genocide and nuclear threats emerging from the disputed territory of Indian-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir were marked at an inaugural tribunal in Sarajevo that sought to draw global attention to the atrocities committed in the Muslim-majority region.
[30] The tribunal did not investigate alleged war crimes by the Viet Cong; Ralph Schoenman commented: "Lord Russell would think no more of doing that than of trying the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto for their uprising against the Nazis.
Lynd's objections and criticism of the Tribunal were based on the fact that Russell planned to investigate only non-North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front conduct.
Lynd wrote that "in conversation with the emissary who proffered the invitation, I urged that the alleged war crimes of any party to the conflict should come before the Tribunal.
"[35] South African journalist and human rights activist Benjamin Pogrund, now living in Israel, described the Cape Town Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine as "It's theatre: the actors know their parts and the result is known before they start.
