Burhan Dogus Ayparlar
INSS
20 August '10
Posted before Shabbat
The writer is a Turkish law student.
Background and Legal Analysis
On May 31, 2010, Israeli forces intercepted the Turkish flotilla ship Mavi Marmara. The ship’s crew attacked Israeli forces, which resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish citizens. The following article offers insight into the issues that have not been touched upon before.
Mavi Marmara records reveal that the ship was registered in Comoros, a small island nation with a population of 800,000. Why would a flotilla organized by a Turkish humanitarian organization – The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) – license a ship under the Comoros flag? When the IHH purchased the Mavi Marmara from the municipal authority of Istanbul, it applied to the Undersecretariat for Maritime Affairs, which specified a list of maintenance required for an international journey. However, the IHH decided that it would cost too much time and money so it registered Mavi Marmara under the Comoros flag while still flying the Turkish flag.
This is an important issue, because According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 110/d, a warship which encounters a foreign ship on the high seas can interfere if it has grounds for suspecting that the ship is without nationality, and according to Article 92 of the same convention, “A ship which sails under the flags of two or more States, using them according to convenience, may not claim any of the nationalities in question with respect to any other State, and may be assimilated to a ship without nationality.” Those laws should end the debates about intervention on international waters. Mavi Marmara was cruising under two flags and according to UN conventions Israeli forces had a right to intercept it.
(Read full article)
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