Australia refuses to support Goldstone report

Australian News.Net
Friday 6th November, 2009

Australia has voted against the endorsement by the UN General Assembly of what has become known as the Goldstone Report.

Justice Richard Goldstone, a former war crimes prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, led an investigation of alleged war crimes by Israel and Hamas during the 2008/9 Gaza War. He produced a 574-page report which was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council, which referred it to the General Assembly.

On Tuesday night, on the eve of the debate of the report in the General Assembly, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 344-36 to reject the report.

Australia, which generally sides with Israel and the U.S. on matters relating to Israel, once again sided with the Jewish state voting against the UN resolution. The resolution however was won convincingly with 118 nations voting for the report’s adoption against 18 dissenters. Another 44 countries abstained from voting.

Australia’s representative said during the debate his delegation had been deeply saddened by the conflict in the Gaza Strip and Southern Israel and that it regretted how efforts to address the situation since had stalled.

Australia voted against the resolution on the Goldstone Report because of its flawed content, the representative said. However, that did not undermine the humanitarian welfare of the Palestinian people before, during and after that crisis, which remained unacceptable. Australia did support a proper investigation of any breach of humanitarian rights and laws. It was crucial for such a serious matter to be dealt with properly. He called on both parties to investigate them and to inform the UN of their results.

Have your say on this story