GST as an instrument

ABOUT 70 per cent of the world’s population now lives in countries with a GST-type tax, generally referred to as a Value Added Tax (VAT). The acceptance of this tax as a revenue instrument is largely based on the fact that it has raised more revenue than the sales/turnover tax that it replaced. It is also justified on the theoretical ground that it is a neutral tax; it removes cascading (a tax on tax); and enables a zero rating of exports.

GST is a multi-point sales tax which allows a set-off for tax paid on purchases, since only the value added at each stage of manufacturing or sale is taxed at 15 per cent, compared to a pure sales tax under which the taxation of inputs also leads to vertical integration of firms, militating against ancillary industries and encouraging them to produce more and more of the inputs needed rather than purchase them from ancillary industries.

The tax is collected in instalments on each transaction in the production-distribution process. There is no cascading because of the system of deduction or credit for taxes paid. The tax is levied on consumption and, therefore, the final and total burden of the tax is fully and exclusively borne by he domestic consumers. No GST is charged on exported goods and services. This briefly is the arguments in support of GST.

The counter arguments run somewhat along the following lines. If VAT is successful somewhere there is no reason to assume that it will also succeed in Pakistan. To begin with, GST is not a neutral tax when it comes to making a choice between labour and capital because it does not tax capital and labour equally. It gives credit for tax paid on capital but not on labour-related expenses. Many would, therefore, argue that a tax policy should not be neutral but proactive in promoting development of regions or industries through appropriate incentives and disincentives, until the economy is strong enough to rely purely on free market signals.

At present our economy is characterized by administered prices (wheat, irrigation, electricity and gas), huge subsidies for irrigation, manufacture of fertilizer, scarcity of resources (credit, infrastructure), and a host of exemptions. Efficiency in resource allocation, and, by extension, the advantage of GST neutrality, cannot be exploited if many prices continue to be controlled by the government. Therefore, our markets are not really ideal for a neutral tax.

The argument that the government has generated more revenue from GST than from the earlier sales tax, conveniently ignores the rather high rate (15 per cent) that is applied as GST (and which largely explains the extent of its evasion), the reluctance of the government to process GST refund applications on a timely basis and the high rates of penalties levied on short or delayed payments.

The argument that GST provides a better audit trail than a single-stage sales tax assumes that someone is going to follow the trail or has the capability of doing so. With millions of credits being taken, it is becoming impossible to follow them. Fraudulent transactions and fake invoices (“flying invoices” having become a common feature) have made tax administration a nightmare. The problems of exaggerated refund claims through the use of bogus invoices, non-accounting of cash sales or purchases, underreporting of sales through multiple books of account, claims based on purchases from unregistered businesses or those that exist only on paper, input tax credit claimed on exempted goods, GST collected on imported goods with the tax revenue being pocketed, false export claims, barter arrangements (exchange of goods against goods), etc., will continue to be faced by the revenue authorities. For the revenue collectors the cost of administration and monitoring refunds is high (extensive administrative capabilities are required to operate the tax) and the potential for evasion is huge.

The experience in Pakistan shows that problems of costs of compliance are high because of the somewhat cozy relationship between some taxpayers and the revenue staff, the frequent audits (commonly more than one per year) of those registered for GST purposes and the endemic, and never likely to be resolved, problem of exporters being unable to get their refunds of GST paid on inputs on a timely basis.

Finally, GST requires a fairly high level of literacy and understanding among taxpayers, coupled with the need for a long period of up-front taxpayer education and for societal acceptance and successful implementation of such a tax.

It is perhaps for a combination of these reasons, and because it is a federation with highly autonomous units, that the US, the biggest and most powerful economy, has not instituted a GST-type tax and relies on a sales/ turnover tax levied by each state with its own rates of sales tax for different goods and services.

Pakistan has a highly centralized tax structure, partly owing to the constitutional division of taxation powers, partly because of the taxation system established under the IMF diktat and partly because of Islamabad’s bizarre interpretations of the constitutional provisions regarding what taxes the provinces can levy. This state of affairs has made the provinces perpetually dependent on transfers from the federal government, even when taxes lie within the provincial domain. Therefore, the tax structure, particularly that pertaining to GST/sales tax (easily the most potent revenue generating instrument wielded by provinces/states in the majority of the federations in the world), needs to be altered to enable the provinces to reduce their dependence on resource transfers from the centre’s divisible pool.

However, unfortunately, it is perhaps now too late to withdraw GST and replace it with a different taxation instrument. Therefore, the only pragmatic solution that would be feasible from the point of view of both revenue generation and empowering fiscally stressed provinces with an instrument that would generate much needed additional revenues without unduly taxing weak administrative capacities, would be a dual GST, with a GST-type tax at 10 per cent or 12.5 per cent imposed by the federal government and a destination-based consumption-type retail-stage non-adjustable sales tax at 2.5 per cent or five per cent levied by the provincial governments.

Moreover, although the share of the services sector in the national income has increased, its contribution to tax revenues has not risen commensurately. Resultantly, the commodity-producing and organized sectors have had to bear a disproportionate burden of GST. This violates the principle of neutrality in taxation between goods and services.

The assignment of taxation powers in Pakistan is done according to the principle of separation. The Constitution assigns the powers to levy a sales tax on goods to the federal government and on services to the provincial governments.

The contribution to GDP of the services sector, excluding public administration and defence, is almost 33 per cent of GDP but the GST collected from this sector is less than one per cent of GDP, less than three per cent of total tax revenues and less than four per cent of revenues from GST. The services sector is the largest and fastest growing source of income and its continued absence in the sales tax system has narrowed the tax base and made it difficult to raise the tax to GDP ratio.

The artificial distinction between goods and services has given sustenance to an uncoordinated system for GST, opening up opportunities for avoidance and evasion of taxes, and in collusion with traders the sale value of post-manufacturing services can be inflated in respect of transportation, installation, after-sale service, warranty, especially since services enter into the production of goods and vice versa and developing a non-cascading system for taxing consumption will only be possible when all services are taxed.

Relieving tax on inputs and zero-rating of taxes on exports is also not fully possible unless all the services are taxed. Therefore, for establishing a modern and rational tax system the selective approach to taxing services will have to be abandoned immediately.

The writer is former finance minister of Punjab.

Taming a brutal society

THIS is going to be an extremely unpleasant piece. But it has to be written. Readers have a right to know just what goes on in the name of law and order in a republic that calls itself Islamic, and which claims to protect the rights of the minorities.

Ten days ago the denizens of the garden city of Lahore learned of a horrendous incident which took place in the Islampura police station. The police , while investigating a theft, arrested a government sanitary worker named Rehmat Masih. In spite of calls for mercy they beat him so severely with iron bars and other metallic instruments that he died within half an hour.

A relative of the poor fellow joined a protest rally outside the civil secretariat. Under the guise of enforcing and ensuring discipline, the relative was singled out by the police and bludgeoned to death while bewildered passers-by watched the sadistic display in stunned silence. And so, in one fell swoop the law enforcement agency plunged a small, insignificant Christian family into deep tragedy.

Some of the jails of Lahore with their dreamy, druggy delirium of fin-de-siecle decadence are full of coughing consumptives, drunken vagabonds, pimps, pick-pockets, burglars, obsessive gamblers and con men. Fortunately, the suicide bomber, who is the new icon, the ultimate in logical negativism, who sends his enemy to hell because he believes it will get him to paradise, has not yet made an appearance in Lahore.

But the miserable sweeper who cleans roads and government buildings, and whose church is desecrated at regular intervals, appears to have a season ticket, for he is frequently in and out of the local jail on one charge or the other. Thrashing suspected felons is nothing new in this country. But the ferocity and calculated mendacity with which the jailers dealt with poor Rehmat Masih was enough to make one’s stomach churn.

What have the Punjab governor and the chief minister done about this latest example of police brutality ? Nothing. The fact is, in spite of an article in the 1973 Constitution which states that all citizens are equal in the eyes of the law, a poor denizen of this republic who has neither money nor connections, has no rights whatsoever. If he is arrested for an alleged offence, he is assumed to be guilty before he is proven innocent. And poor people don’t find too many lawyers willing to take up cases for free.

The poor are dispensable. They form miserable statistics in a politician’s vote bank. Zia Awan told this writer that he once met a prisoner who had spent 18 years in jail. Neither the superintendent nor the jailers knew just what his offence was. On investigation Zia Awan discovered that a magistrate had fined him for ten rupees for some minor offence. The poor fellow did not have the required amount to pay the fine. And as he belonged to Swat and did not know anybody in the city, he languished in jail until the human rights activist secured his release.

That is the way the legal system works. An ancient Greek put it rather nicely in The Republic when philosopher Plato, through the lips of Socrates, posed the question to his group of disciples, ‘What is justice ?’ Thrasymacus, the first pragmatist in recorded history, said, ‘Justice is the interest of the stronger.’ In today’s world can anybody really argue with this definition?

The Islampura incident is just one in a series of crimes committed by the police against citizens. During the country’s first martial law, there was evidence to suggest that the police were more people friendly. But in recent times, they appear to have developed a heightened awareness of human transience, and crime statistics are littered with examples of police brutality. Some of the ‘executions’ involving members of the faceless multitude, are euphemistically called ‘encounters’ — which suggest that criminals are given some sort of a sporting chance to defend themselves against a police posse. But invariably, the method used by the upholders of the law, involves the monstrous practice of obtaining confessions by attempting to break a suspect’s arm or leg.

The more sensational examples of police violence alone are reported in newspapers. Like the case of Amir Mushtaq, a third year student, who was shot down at a police picket in McLeod Road in Lahore. Or Shahid Chandio, a victim of an ‘encounter’ death in Muzaffargardh . Or the case of the mother of six who lived in a small street in Gujranwala, who was killed by the men in uniform because she protested against the house-to-house search for a proclaimed offender.

Karachi has also had its share of police brutality. Scores of cases of beating and false imprisonment have been recorded during the last decade, often to settle political scores or vendettas. Occasionally, the people were informed that after members of the public had made sufficient noise and a series of protest hunger strikes and sit-ins at the Karachi Press Club had taken place, certain policemen were transferred or suspended, as if this was sufficient punishment for inflicting torture on some poor wretch suspected of a crime.

On very rare occasions a terse message is received that certain policemen have been dismissed from service, as happened on the morning of April 11. Newspaper readers learned that the TPO of Shahrah-e-Faisal police station in Karachi had sacked three constables who had sodomized a teenage boy, who later committed suicide. Is this sufficient punishment? an opposition MPA asked this writer at a conference. We are often told that certain upholders of the law have been suspended and discover, a few weeks later, that they have resurfaced in another area. Should not the policemen in the Islampura and Shahrah-e-Faisal police stations be tried and punished so that an example can be set once and for all?

What about the members of the minority Christian community in Lahore, who on a regular basis catch sightings of cruelty, agony and desperation? They will certainly interpret the murder of the two masihs, as an example of the growing intolerance and uncertainty which is prevailing in the country. This brutal event will be duly noted by the human rights activists, who are already alarmed at the rising incidence of crimes against women.

“What can one do in a country,” one of the lawyers representing the victim of an honour killing asked this writer with a note of desperation in his voice, “when an anti-terrorist court condemns to death six men for raping a woman on the orders of a panchayat, another court allows the men bail, and the rapists are once again terrorizing the poor woman by offering her money to drop the case?”

Many of the incidents that continue to tarnish the name of the country have been brought to the attention of the authorities. The latter have repeatedly promised that inquiries would be held and strict action taken against recalcitrant policemen or those who had used excessive force in the discharge of their duties. But so far there has been no sign that anything of the sort has taken place, and nobody seems to know what has happened to the much trumpeted police reforms which were mentioned in President Musharraf’s ‘Three Years at a Glance’ as a major achievement.

The reluctance of the government to tame the police has sent a strong message to the latter that they are free to indulge in acts of highhandedness and brutality without worrying about disciplinary action. If only the president could summon some of the courage had displayed when he first took over the reins of government, a great deal can be done. So far there is not a single scandal or financial impropriety attached to his name. It is time he moved to set things right.

E-mail:a-mooraj@cyber.net.pk

The future of the UN

IN HIS speech at the UN General Assembly in September last year, President George W. Bush, called upon the United Nations to enforce its resolutions on disarmament of Iraq, failing which, he warned, the United States would act with or without the support of the Security Council.

Pursuant to this declaration, the US administration sought the authorization of the Congress for the use of military force against Iraq. In mid-October, the Congress empowered the US president to do so but on condition that diplomatic or other peaceful means to enforce the UN resolutions on Iraq had first been exhausted.

The opponents of military action against Iraq, including three of the permanent members of the UN Security Council — France, China and Russia — argued that, since Iraq was cooperating with the UN weapons inspectors and the process of inspection was working satisfactorily, the disarmament of Iraq could be achieved without recourse to war. The US president, however, insisted that the ouster of Saddam Hussein was the only way to ensure Iraq’s compliance with the UN resolutions.

Even though Mr Bush failed to convince the Security Council of the need of immediate military action, he went ahead with his planned attack on Iraq, on March 20, ignoring a joint statement by the above-mentioned three permanent members of the Security Council, that further UN approval was required for any such action, as the Security Council’s Resolution 1441 did not specifically authorize use of force in the event of non- compliance.

In attacking Iraq, President Bush also ignored the requests by Dr Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector for chemical and biological weapons, and Dr. Mohammad ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for a few more months to complete inspections. Instead, he invoked the so-called doctrine of pre-emption, enunciated by his own administration some time ago, which has no legal or moral force.

The UN Charter stipulates that the Security Council may decide what measures are to be employed to give effect to its decisions without involving the use of force and may call upon the members of the United Nations to apply those measures. However, if the Security Council decides that the use of force is necessary to get its decisions implemented, it may ask member to provide necessary armed forces for use in a particular situation. Under no circumstances, can any state or a group of states arrogate to itself the right to act on behalf of the Security Council.

There is not the slightest doubt that the US-led invasion of Iraq is designed to gain control of Iraq’s oilfields which will ensure a bonanza for the US oil companies. The Italian analyst, Alberto Negri, sees the war on Iraq as “a treasure hunt” for untold billions of dollars worth of oil reserves. Former South African President Nelson Mandela also thinks that the war is meant for the control of Iraq’s oil. Iraq is believed to have more than 300 billion barrels of oil reserves under its soil, constituting a quarter of the world’s total and equal to that of Saudi Arabia. In a recent briefing to the Pentagon, the Rand Corporation proposed that, if necessary, Washington should also seize Saudi oil fields which are also crucial to America’s energy needs. It follows from this that the claim of disarming Iraq and ‘liberating’ the people of that country from the tyranny of Saddam Hussain’s rule was nothing but a camouflage to hide its real agenda in Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition, in defiance of the UN Security Council and despite fierce opposition from the international community, is an act of aggression under the UN General Assembly’s declaration of December 14, 1974. A war of aggression is a crime against peace and humanity. No territorial acquisition or special advantages resulting from aggression can be recognized as lawful. In his Nobel lecture, the former US president, Jimmy carter, asserted that “for powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventive war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences”.

There are apprehensions that, like the League of Nations, the United Nations may also, sooner or later, go into extinction. It is admitted on all hands that the United Nations has not been able to prevent wars and other conflicts which erupted from time to time since 1945 when the organization came into existence. It must, however, be conceded that despite many failures and shortcomings it has made a significant contribution towards reducing or containing conflicts in various parts of the world. Today, the United Nations, however, flawed, is the only viable forum for reconciliation and preventive diplomacy.

Regrettably, nations have not learnt any lesson from the failure of the League of Nations as they have not renounced recourse to war as a means to achieve their national objectives. The US-led invasion of Iraq is a glaring example of this practice. The myopic attitude on the part of certain nations, particularly the big ones, has seriously constrained the UN efforts to maintain and preserve the international peace and security. Consequently, smaller nations particularly have become sceptical about the its role as a peace-maker.

It must, however, be realized that, unless the members of the Untied Nations, big or small, regulate their international relations in accordance with international law, the UN Charter and principle of sovereign equality, of states, the United Nations, by itself, may not be able to promote the purposes it was created for. Much will depend on the conduct of the member states themselves: whether they take principled stands on issues and problems or act out of expediency.

The emergence of new concerns in the international arena demands that the United Nations be strengthened as an institution, rather than making it subservient to the whims of big powers. The principle of collective decision-making must be the rule in the domain of the United Nations for the good of the entire mankind even if it sometimes this runs counter to the desires and interests of individual members of that august body.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

Iraq’s post-war regime

THE weekend before the war started, President Bush signed on to a statement with British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledging to “work in close partnership with international institutions, including the United Nations,” in postwar Iraq and to seek a Security Council resolution to “endorse an appropriate post-conflict administration.”

Yet a secretive Pentagon-led group is already far advanced in plans to unilaterally install a postwar regime dominated by Americans and Iraqi exiles — one that would effectively exclude not only the United Nations but also European and Middle Eastern allies whose support will be essential to stabilizing the country.

Even the State Department’s nominees would be shut out by Defence Department leaders who talk of leaping from military rule to an interim Iraqi government in 90 days with the help of the American officials who would run Iraqi ministries. This narrow approach could compound the diplomatic damage of the war and expose the United States and its soldiers to large and unnecessary risks.

Few dispute that a U.S. military administration will be needed immediately after the conflict, and administration officials are right that Iraq should be turned over to Iraqis as quickly as possible. The problem with the Pentagon’s emerging approach is that it would structure this supposedly limited military regime in such a way as to concentrate control over the subsequent political transition in U.S. hands, effectively limiting international participation to providing a nominal blessing or working in a subordinate technical capacity.

It would make virtually inevitable an Iraqi transitional government dominated by the small group of exiles long favoured by the Pentagon. Some administration officials appear to believe they can impose this scheme over the protests of allies but still count on UN humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping contributions that would allow an early withdrawal of most U.S. troops.

The Pentagon’s plan would surely deepen the rifts. Even a parting with Britain could not be ruled out; Mr. Blair has made UN involvement in postwar Iraq the centrepiece of his own political strategy. An isolated United States might find little help in feeding or policing Iraq’s 23 million people, while being condemned across the Middle East as an occupying power.

The Pentagon’s Iraqi friends could quickly come to be regarded as quislings and puppets. U.S. forces could find themselves the targets of resistance and terrorism, while any hope of postwar progress on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement could disappear.

A better model is readily available. Mr. Blair is proposing that the United Nations convene a conference to decide on the formation of a transitional government _ like the one that led to an Afghan administration after the ouster of the Taliban. The United States inevitably would have a major influence in shaping that administration, just as it did the Afghan regime, but the UN umbrella would give the process far greater legitimacy.

It would also open the way for international participation in reconstruction and peacekeeping, as in Afghanistan, and allow for UN as well as American technical help in rebuilding institutions. —The Washington Post

The doctrine of ‘regime change’

THE doctrine of regime change is a new and novel advance made by the United States of America in the history of modern-day international relations, aimed at openly advocating and forcibly bringing about a change in the government of sovereign and independent states through coercive external military intervention.

Iraq has been made the first target of this dubious doctrine. Notwithstanding the heavy sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations in the wake of the 1991 Gulf war and the no-fly zones in its northern and southern regions, Iraq remains a sovereign and independent state and is recognized as such by the United Nations.

Therefore, not even the Security Council has the authority under the UN Charter and international law to interfere in Iraq’s internal matters, such as the right of self-determination of the Iraqi people. When the United States intervened in Yugoslavia, American policy makers in Washington went to great lengths to emphasize that the intervention was aimed not at regime change but to bring certain war criminals to justice under international law.

That is why the United States strived for the establishment of war crime tribunals before going into Yugoslavia. But in Iraq, all pretences have been shed. there has been no talk of war crimes or trials under international law. Only the single-minded purpose of removing the Sadam regime from power underlies the whole operation against Iraq.

According to Prof. Robert Jarvis of the Nova Southeastern University in Florida, the regime change doctrine is a natural extension of the US policy of the old days, when the US regularly targeted ‘unfriendly’ world leaders for assassination with the help of the CIA. In the 1970s the US renounced the assassination of leaders of other countries as a valid, legitimate instrument of foreign policy George W. Bush’s decision to go after Osama bin Laden seemed to mark a renunciation of the prior US renunciation, though it can be argued that Osama bin Laden is not a head of state.

But Sadam Hussein is, and targeting him and his administration for regime change amounts to gunboat diplomacy in its most blatant and repugnant form and using colourful phrases like “targets of opportunity” instead of assassination cannot provide cover or justification under international law. The American invasion of Iraq relies primarily on two arguments for legitimacy: the need to disarm Iraq and destroy its weapons of mass destruction and the need to ‘liberate’ the Iraqi people from the tyranny of Sadam Hussein. Based on the principles of international law and the empirical evidence emerging from Iraq since the US invasion commenced on March 20, there seems to be no valid justification for regime change in Iraq on either of these grounds.

Thus far, all debate at the UN has focused on disarming Iraq and destroying its weapons of mass destruction if it has any. The issue of regime change has neither been debated nor sanctioned by the Security Council. The obvious answer to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is not regime change but the destruction of these weapons under the authority of Security Council resolutions.

The Bush administration claims that the legal effect of UN Security Council Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441, read together, is to authorize a pre-emptive military strike against Iraq. It is hard to imagine how resolutions aimed at collective action under the umbrella of the Security Council can authorize individual member states to initiate military action on their own. Resolution 678 authorized member states to “use all necessary means” to obtain Iraq’s compliance with UN weapons inspection requirements by January 15, 1991. The failure of Iraq to comply within the set deadline resulted in joint military action against it.

This resolution was time-specific and cannot be dragged out every time someone wants to go to war with Iraq. Resolution 687 called for a cease-fire to the 1991 Gulf war and placed certain sanctions and obligations on Iraq. Instead of authorizing another war on Iraq, this resolution guarantees the “inviolability of the above mentioned (Iraq-Kuwait) international boundary.” Resolution 1441, while reaffirming the commitment of member states to the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Iraq, threatens Iraq with “serious consequences” if weapons inspection requirements are not fulfilled, without specifying what these serious consequences would be or setting any deadlines.

It goes on to state that the Security Council decides to “remain seized of the matter”, meaning that any necessary decisions regarding further action against Iraq in the event of its continued non-compliance with weapons inspection requirements would be taken by the Security Council. Thus, far from authorizing individual member states to bring about a regime change in Iraq, these resolutions do not even authorize them to disarm Iraq or to seek out and destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction without the cover of the Security Council approval.

The American argument for unilaterally disarming Iraq without the backing of the United Nations is flawed and riddled with complications. Firstly, there is the issue of a lack of concrete evidence of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even after months and years of intensive UN inspections. Secondly, an act of forcibly disarming a sovereign and independent state on the basis of a perceived or potential security threat amounts to anticipatory self-defence or pre-emptive strike.

International law in general and the UN Charter specifically bar pre-emptive military strikes. In authorizing the military action against Iraq in 1991under Resolution 678, the Security Council did not resort to the anticipatory self-defence argument; instead, it urged member states to ensure Iraq’s compliance with the weapons inspection obligations placed on it by the UN. Article 51 of the UN Charter permits use of force only in self-defence or as authorized by the UN under Article 42.

A member state, acting under Article 51, may use force if “an armed attack occurs” against it. In other words, an armed attack must occur before the right of self-defence may be invoked. This clearly precludes any use of force in anticipatory self-defence or pre-emptive strikes against potential security threats. It is also significant to note that collective defence organizations, such as Nato, which have sprung up under Article 51, also allow for defensive action against an actual armed attack only and bar the notion of pre-emptive strikes.

That is why, during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the US did not invoke its right of anticipatory self-defence, fearing that the Soviet Union would retaliate with similar counter-action against US missile installations in Europe. Today, in the unipolar new world order, the United States is no longer confronted with such awkward situations and can freely ride roughshod over laws and conventions in pursuit of its perceived national interests.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2132, passed in 1965, states that “no state shall organize, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another state, or interfere in civil strife in another state.” This principle has been repeatedly confirmed in numerous subsequent UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions and also by the International Court of Justice in Nicaragua v USA, 1968. The court rejected the US argument of collective defence and held that the US had violated international law by aiding contra rebels in Nicaragua.

While providing aid to indigenous insurgences and national liberation movements remains a gray area in international law and a case can arguably be made for that, on moral and political if not strictly legal grounds, there has been no such popular uprising in Iraq against the Sadam regime, even after the start of US invasion of Iraq, that could possibly confuse the issue. A handful of excited people flocking around American aid vehicles carrying food and water does not amount to a popular uprising.

Even if, for the sake of argument, one concedes that the United States has the authority to disarm Iraq, although there seems to be not a shred of evidence of nuclear or biological weapons in sight, under which canon of law can the United States claim any legal, moral, constitutional or political right to effect a regime change in Iraq and impose a puppet administration on the Iraqi people? Disarmament does not have to mean regime change. These two things are not in any way inter linked.

The right of self-determination is enshrined as a basic principle of international law. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the primary criteria for determining the legitimacy of any government is the “well of the people.” The international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,which has been ratified by the United States, recognizes self-determination as a human right and declares that under this basic right people may “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

In 1974, in defining aggression, the UN General Assembly said that it is “the duty of states not to use armed force to deprive peoples of their right to self-determination”, specifying that a violation of this provision may be deemed to be an international crime.

The United States, however, has adopted the course of unilateral action in deliberate violation of international law. The requirements and obligations of International Law hold no meaning whatsoever in such a Hobbesian environment and only narrow self-interests rule supreme.