Let's Call Ahmadinejad to Account....

Irwin Cotler writes about using existing statutes against genocide to call the Iranians to account...

SIMPLY PUT, the Genocide Convention authorizes a panoply of international legal remedies which Israel could invoke or support others in invoking.

Specifically, an application to hold Iran - also a state party - to account should be submitted to the UN Security Council pursuant to Article 8 of the Genocide Convention; an inter-state complaint can be launched against Iran before the International Court of Justice; and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should be asked to refer the danger of a genocidal and nuclear Iran to the Security Council as a threat to international peace and security.

Given their genocidal incitement, the cases of President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders can be referred to other UN agencies as well. What is so astonishing is that this criminal incitement by a nuclear weapon-seeking Iran has yet to be addressed by any agency of the UN-thereby nurturing a culture of impunity that itself is driving a culture of hatred. And what is no less disturbing - considering that indifference and inaction are also what made prior genocides possible - is that no state party has invoked any of these mandated initiatives.

The legal remedies to counter state-sanctioned incitement exist, but the leadership has thus far been wanting. This is why I am releasing a petition entitled "The Danger of a Genocidal and Nuclear Iran: The Responsibility to Prevent" - endorsed by legal scholars, genocide experts and even genocide survivors from around the world - that extensively presents the factual and legal case against Ahmadinejad's Iran, and that calls upon the international community, and state parties to the Genocide Convention, to act.

Calling Ahmadinejad's Iran to account - and directly linking its nuclear ambitions to its genocidal incitements - is not simply an option. It is a responsibility - a responsibility to prevent - a responsibility envisaged by the Genocide Convention 60 years ago.