Thread by @KosciuszkoTank

IRL, I'm not just a guy who makes dumb memes- I'm an attorney with a degree in Int'l Relations. And while I don't practice int'l law, there's something I really need to get off my chest;

@amnesty's reporting on 🇺🇦, and especially the claims of @DRovera, are steaming garbage. A🧵

Geneva Convention Pt. 4 controls conduct relative to civilians in a time of war. It was adopted in 1949 in response to the experiences of WWII. The purpose is to enact policies which minimize the risks to innocent civilians during times of war.

They key word to almost all provisions of int'l humanitarian law is the concept of "proportionality", i.e., that the goal sought by the military is not out of proportion with the suffering achieving that goal will cause to civilians.

In the context of Ukraine, the clearest manifestation of this is in GCIV Article 28, which deals with civilians in danger zones. It provides that "[t]he presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."

The commentary on this section makes it clear; its talking about cases of combatants "compelling civilians to remain in places of strategic importance or to accompany military convoys, or again, to serve as a protective screen for the fighting troops."

In other words, a violation occurs when a military uses civilians as human shields or places their forces in a civilian area with the intent of thereby shielding their troops from enemy fire. The key here is, again, proportionality as well as the intent of the combatants.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has documented instances where Russian forces have used human shields. As occurred, for instance, in March in the village of Yahidne in the Chernihiv region.

There, 360 civilians including 74 children and 5 persons with disabilities, were forced by Russian armed forces to stay for 28 days in the basement of a school they had been using as their base. The deplorable conditions resulted in the deaths of 10 civilians.

The intent there was clear-- the civilians were there so the Russian base would not be attacked. See Par. 37 of report: ohchr.org/sites/default/…

No such finding of intentional placement of Ukrainian forces in a civilian position has been made at this point in the conflict.

Of note, Ukraine has consistently called on civilians near the battlefront to get out of their homes, and has committed extensive resources towards facilitating these evacuations, as has been expertly documented by @Tomthescribe

https://twitter.com/Tomthescribe/status/1556988163456999424?s=20&t=s3U5LTHiE6FTQYV7bhWbWA

The weakness of @amnesty reporting in Ukraine comes from the ignorance and outright hubris of AI’s Senior Crisis researcher, @DRovera. Rovera's reporting, which was at the heart of the Ukraine report, fundamentally misrepresented the rules of war vis a vis civilians.

More disturbing are statements today from reporter @calebmlarson about Rovera's attitude in the warzone, including, absurdly, her insistence that Ukrainian forces were required by the rules of war to abandon cities and fight in the "forests".

https://twitter.com/calebmlarson/status/1557372417386881026?s=20&t=s3U5LTHiE6FTQYV7bhWbWA

Just to be clear; nothing about GCIV or the rules of war require Ukraine to abandon legitimate military positions or objectives simply because their presence may place civilians at risk. Again, proportionality is the lodestar in this sort of an analysis.

Ukraine, unlike Russia, does not have the luxury of picking and choosing where it will be attacked. And because the main Russian objectives are major cities and urban areas, it naturally follows that defending those cities involves fighting in civilian areas.

At the heart of @amnesty's report is a fundamental misunderstanding and misapplication of this concept. For instance, Rovera reported cases where Ukrainian forces occupied schools in urban areas or allegedly loitered for too long in civilian hospitals. These are absurd claims.

Not only are they absurd, they are laughably insufficient without a showing that these decisions were made intentionally and in the face of other legitimate options. Which the Amnesty report does not even attempt to do.

Despite this, and despite the obviously threadbare nature of their reporting, @amnesty and its leadership under @AgnesCallamard continue to stand behind @DRovera and her reporting. Indeed, they go so far as to chide criticisms of the report as politically motivated.

This is, to be sure, absurd. The AI report, in its current form, is nothing more than an amateur attempt at victim blaming, divorced from the realities of war, the concept of proportionality, and the text of the Geneva Convention itself. Its a worthless, garbage report.

Please, call on your national chapter of @amnesty to retract the reporting in full, and to demand better from their leadership. I also call on @AgnesCallamard and @DRovera to resign with immediate effect. #AmnestyStandsWithTerror #UkraineWar #AgnesCallamardMustResign