UN Watch revealed today that William Schabas, a human rights law professor who was appointed to head the United Nation Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) commission to investigate possible war crimes during Operation Protective Edge, prejudged Israel in an interview he gave in July (audio embedded below). In the interview with the BBC, Schabas said, “prima facie, there is evidence of disproportionality.”
Schabas voiced his opinions about Israeli policies vis-à-vis Gaza as recently as this summer, Neuer said. In one interview Schabas gave during the early days of Operation Protective Edge, he suggested Israel’s military response to fire emanating from Gaza was disproportionate and therefore could not be considered legitimate self-defense.
“We are filing the first formal legal request to Professor Schabas at the Human Rights Council, calling on him to recuse himself,” Neuer told Israeli journalists during a press conference in Jerusalem. In any situation where a judge or the head of a fact-finding mission has been proven to be biased, or even if there is merely “the appearance of bias, the individual is obliged to step down,” he said.
As the commission’s stated mission is to “establish the facts and circumstances of violations and crimes perpetrated,” Schabas’ statement would, in the words UN Watch’s executive director Hillel Neuer, “have a potentially deleterious impact on the international rule of law.”
Schabas’ impartiality has been called into question due to his stated desire to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prosecuted for war crimes, his refusal to call Syria’s gas attacks on its own citizens war crimes and his reluctance to label Hamas as a terrorist organization. This latest revelation is more significant, as Schabas offered his assessment of the specific case he is to be investigating.
The Schabas investigation is modeled after the discredited Goldstone commission, which was charged with investigating war crimes that may have been committed during Operation Cast Lead. In that case, all four investigators prejudged Israel’s guilt. After issuing its conclusions, the head of the earlier commission, Judge Richard Goldstone, disavowed the validity of the commission’s findings.
The UNHRC’s behavior towards Israel has been previously criticized by numerous diplomats and UN officials, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Israel is the only nation subject to a permanent agenda item at the council.