I hope your front-page headline, “Labour could back Syria action in face of UN veto” (14 October), misrepresents Labour’s new policy, which says only that in the event of a veto “we would need to look at the position again”. A veto should anyway be avoidable. If private negotiations in the UN security council on the text of a draft resolution encounter objections from one or more of the permanent members, you don’t go ahead and table it when you know it will be vetoed: you continue the negotiations, proposing amendments to the draft with a view to meeting objections until you arrive at a text that a majority in the council, including the permanent five, can accept, and only then table it. This may well mean regrettable compromises and a less than perfect resolution, but if it has at least some constructive elements it’s probably better than no resolution at all, and you can always come back to the council for more later. Tabling a resolution you know will be vetoed can only be to name and shame the wielder of the veto, which is likelier to hinder than to help the cause of eventual agreement. Above all, a veto is a veto: if a resolution authorising the use of force is vetoed, and you go ahead and start bombing anyway, you’re probably committing a war crime and certainly undermining the UN and international law. Despite its murky past on this issue (Kosovo, Iraq), new-style Old Labour should state that now loud and clear, and promise to abide by it. (So should the government.)
Brian Barder
London
• “We respectfully request the world to respect our systems and our judicial processes, and our laws and regulations, and not to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state,” says the Saudi ambassador (Mother of Saudi protester facing crucifixion urges Obama to help, 15 October). In view of the official Saudi endorsement of this principle, what, then, is this barbaric absolute monarchy – so cosy with Britain, its establishment, and indeed its own, largely irrelevant, monarchy – doing in Yemen?
Scott Poynting
Professor in criminology, University of Auckland
