Operation Ostrava: Month 17, Week 2, Day 6.

To the surprise of no-one Russia and China have today (19/7/12) vetoed Britain's Chapter 7 resolution on Syria at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). As such the resolution has not passed. What will be more interesting though is to find out which nations voted in favour of the resolution. That's because I think they need to go off and actually read chapter 7 of the United Nation's charter specifically the second sentence of article 40 which clearly states; "Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned." The International Committee of the Red Cross' (ICRC) decision to classify the conflict in Syria as a civil war gives all parties the right to use reasonable force to achieve legitimate military objectives. Therefore a chapter 7 resolution calling on Syria to ceasefire would be completely unlawful and Britain should never have tabled it.

Later today the UNSC is expected to vote on a Russian resolution that will extend the United Nations Supervision Mission In Syria (UNSMIS) mandate for a further 90 days. So it'll be interesting to see which UNSC members actually have any interest in improving the situation in Syria. After all extending the UNSMIS mandate doesn't stop the UNSC meeting again tomorrow to discuss further measures.

Also just before the UNSC vote a British Court acquitted Police Constable Simon Harwood of the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson at the anti-G20 protests in London in April 2009. This of course is the case where everybody including the Jury has seen the video of PC Harwood striking the fatal blow. So it seems Britain is opposed the police killing unarmed protesters unless of course it's the British police doing the killing.