UN chief seeks legal advice on flotilla interception

Ban Ki-moon has been provided with a confidential assessment that Israel's interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla was "problematic" under global maritime rules.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has pressed for an impartial probe into the Israeli interception of an aid flotilla.

NEW YORK // UN lawyers have provided the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, with a confidential assessment that Israel's interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla was "problematic" under global maritime rules. The UN regards Mr Ban's personal legal advice as classified and refused to disclose whether in-house counsel concluded that the May 31 commando raid breached laws governing international shipping.

But a senior UN lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the raid on the Mavi Marmara was not in accordance with several articles in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The UN official described the raid as "problematic" because it took place in international waters and involved denying a humanitarian vessel the "right of passage" afforded to ships traversing the high seas.

The lawyer referred to Part VII of the treaty, which governs behaviour in international waters and enshrines such rights as the "freedom of the high seas" and the "reservation of the high seas for peaceful purposes". Mr Ban said he called upon in-house counsel for "professional legal advice on all the matters, including this case", but declined to disclose his lawyers' analysis of the Israeli raid, saying such details are an "internal" matter.

"It is standard procedure that not all advice that is provided by the legal counsel is made public," Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman, said. "It is frequently the case that he [Mr Ban] receives advice in conference from his legal counsel and that helps him analyse the events that follow." Mr Ban has pressed for an impartial investigation into Israel's interception of the six-ship convoy carrying pro-Palestinian activists and aid supplies bound for Gaza, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since Hamas seized control in 2007.

Israeli commandos rappelled on to the deck of the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara before being intercepted by a crowd of activists, sparking a clash that killed nine protesters - eight Turks and a Turkish-American. Israel says its soldiers began shooting only after they were set upon by armed activists and has released video footage of the clash, which occurred about 130km from Israel's coast. The demonstrators say Israeli commandos needlessly opened fire.

Although Israeli lawyers say the raid was part of a legally justified naval extension of its blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza, Turkish officials have described the act as "tantamount to banditry piracy" on the high seas. After the raid, Mark Regev, the chief spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel was "acting totally within our legal rights" by enforcing the three-year-old Gaza blockade, which is designed to prevent Hamas from arming.

"If you have a declared blockade, publicly declared, legally declared, publicised as international law requires, and someone is trying to break that blockade and though you have warned them ? you are entitled to intercept even on the high seas, even in international waters," he said. Mr Ban has urged Israel to build "credible international involvement" into an investigation and has proposed that Geoffrey Palmer, a maritime law expert and former New Zealand prime minister, heads a tribunal, according to officials.

"The secretary general understands that Israel is still considering how and if to bring an international element into the investigative process," Mr Haq told reporters on Tuesday. Israel's vice prime minister, Silvan Shalom, said the government was still discussing details of the investigation with the United States and the UN. Other Israeli officials have said Israel can investigate itself and expressed fears that the international community is biased against it.

The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution on June 1 calling for an "independent international fact finding mission to investigate violations of international law" during the flotilla raid that is expected to report back to the Geneva-based body. [e-mail]