Israel Matzav

Another legal basis for Israel to intercept the Mavi Marmara

Here's one for the lawyers. Here's a brief legal analysis that concludes that Israel had the right to stop the Mavi Marmara on the high seas in May.

Mavi Marmara records reveal that the ship was registered in the Comoros, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, while still flying the Turkish flag. This is important because, according to the UN 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 in international waters. Mavi Marmara was sailing under two flags and, according to UN conventions, Israeli forces had a right to intercept it.

The person who wrote that is a Turkish law student. Heh.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:19 PM