The Invocation Was Given By Council Member: Fill & Download for Free

An armed attack by another nation, aiming at and resulting in killing the Head of State, is, by definition, an Act of War. The act itself is a declaration of war and thus, the UK can recognise this state through a formal statement, or not, depending on the political and military realities of the time.The potential responses by the UK are wide and varied, from a large number of nuclear strikes, a similar counter-attack, invocation of Article 5 of Nato (calling upon member states to join in collective action), to an appeal to the United Nations Security Council. The response could be any, or all of these, including many other possibilities, such as a blockade and military invasion.My guess is that any such response would be harsh. I remember well the British response to the invasion of the Falkland Islands: factories producing military supplies went into immediate, 24-hour production, ports and airports immediately came under military protection (the ex-army son of a friend was given charge of RAF Manston security, where he worked as a civilian) and those with military assets became extremely busy, an invasion fleet was assembled within hours and masses of new weapons were fitted. In the Kings Road, I watched as platoons of young infantry carrying large (dummy) shells on their shoulders, were running in formation. I’d seen nothing like it since the start of the Suez Crisis. We were quite visibly and automatically at war. As a patriot, your hackles rise and you become ready to do anything - nobody needs to say a word, it’s all just quietly - and quickly - happening across the nation. We’d been hurt and now we were going to throw a big hit back. It’s a feeling you cannot forget.

Every single article that has been written up until now about this issue is grossly misleading and inaccurate. All of them talk about a made up and imaginary “UN resolution condemning death for same-sex relationships” and that is a false thing to say.There was NO resolution on death penalty against same-sex relationships. It was just a small part of a broader resolution concerning death penalty itself.The very name of the resolution is “The Question of the Death Penalty” and if you read the four-page resolution which I have linked here, you will see that the resolution consists of fourteen points of which only point 6 speaks about the question at hand:6. Also urges States that have not yet abolished the death penalty to ensure that it is not imposed as a sanction for specific forms of conduct such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations;What about the other points then?Well, some of them talk about taking care of the racial, ethnic and gender biases while implementing the capital punishment, some ask the member nations to see to it that mentally disabled people or pregnant women are not subjected to the death penalty, some talk about the rights of foreign nationals when faced with a capital punishment and so on.And I don’t think India would have had any problems with voting in the affirmative on them.But not all of these are statements which India can agree on.For example, consider this affirmation by the Human Rights Council:Strongly deploring the fact that the use of the death penalty leads to violations of the human rights of the persons facing the death penalty and of other affected persons,And this,during which it was concluded that a significant number of States hold that the death penalty is a form of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,And also this,2. Calls upon States that have not yet acceded to or ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the abolition of the death penalty to consider doing so;No, screw the UNHRC.Our nation like, many nations around the world (including the USA) is not beholden to the lily-livered, bleeding heart, liberal fantasy of a death penalty free society. There are some people that lose the human character and start behaving like animals; and like any violent and mad animal, they are irreformable and are a danger to the society, necessitating the invocation of death.And I am talking about people like the ones who brutally raped and murdered Nirbhaya in a moving bus, I am talking about people like Ajmal Kasab and I am talking about people like Surinder Koli.Point being, endorsing a resolution that strongly and explicitly condemns the capital punishment as a “violation of human rights” doesn’t receive any iota of support from India. And neither did it from the USA.The point isn’t whether or not India supports the abolition of death penalty for same-sex relationships. The point is that in supporting such an abolition, it also has to unwillingly accede to all the above-mentioned points on the “cruelty” of the death penalty.India could not vote partially for the resolution chosing clauses it likes and leaving those it doesn’t. It was a yes or no vote as a whole. And given the strong condemnation the resolution reserved for the act of death penalty as a whole, it made complete sense for India to vote against the resolution.All the countries that either tabled the resolution or seconded it or voted in its favor have at some point in the past abolished the death penalty altogether or imposed a moratorium on it.The countries that voted against it, including the USA, China, and Japan, do not consider the death penalty as something that needs to be prohibited. There is no global consensus about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the death penalty. Only 84 nations have abolished it and that’s a minority.In conclusion, yes India did vote against UNHRC resolution on the death penalty and not against prohibiting death for homosexuals. In all likelihood, India voted against the resolution because of its general stand in relation to the sentence of the death penalty itself, which it alreay brackets under the “rarest of rare” scenarios.References:A/HRC/36/L.6 - E

That mutual defence pact - Article 5 - of NATO is not invoked automatically as an attack takes place.This is the actual text of the Article 5.The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.North Atlantic TreatyThe Article begins by saying that an attack on one is an attack on all, but the lawyer-speak after that says that the Article is not automatically invoked." if such an armed attack occurs" - The parties have to agree that indeed such an armed attack did take place sufficing the invocation of Article 5."..will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary.." -The "as it deems necessary" means that prior to NATO responding to a threat under Article 5, the members will have to meet and decide to what scale will they contribute to the war effort. It could result from sending a pulverizing army, or a small band of medevac helicopters. The Article doesn't establish anything for what the contribution to the war by a member has to be.And it also important to note that historically the Article 5 has been invoked only once and this wasn't in the Cold War era. It was right after the 9/11 attacks.Any invocation of the Article would almost certainly be preceded by a intense negotiations where it might be very well possible that certain major members of NATO, like Germany are not at all inclined towards waging a conflict and lobby very hard against the invocation. I suspect that this has occurred numerous times already given the implicit hatred Germany seems to have to band up with the rest of the NATO in waging the wars in Afghanistan. Poll wise, Europeans are some of the most skeptical people about the NATO's predisposition towards wanting to fight almost everyone (1. NATO Public Opinion: Wary of Russia, Leery of Action on Ukraine), and the fact that despite the hatred of NATO's wars in Asia, European members are still party to those wars indicates that negotiations behind the scenes in Brussels must be nothing short of blows being exchanged.We can only imagine then how Article 5 must be an absolute no go. I wish I could be in the room for those negotiations. But I digress.