Such a lawsuit has been filed
I’m on the fence.
I think the donation of money to the Palestinians is so separate from the suicide bombers that liability ought not apply.
OTOH this suit is perhaps the only way the public will ever get a true accounting for how the money was handled between the EU and the Palestinians. It could be embarassing to the EU…
Anybody is, and should be, allowed to sue anybody. OTOH this suit is laughable.
A few years back some Cubans sued the USA in a Cuban court for damages and were awarded millions by the court. The USA had a hearty laugh.
This lawsuit has about the same merit and the same chance of collecting anything: exactly zero. But it will provide the EU with a good laugh.
Perhaps they should sue Sharon or the West Bank settlers for provoking the Terrorists. :rolleyes:
To answer the real question (as anyone can file a lawsuit for anything), to wit, “Will Israeli victims of terrorism prevail in a lawsuit against the European Union?”, the answer is “no”. The plaintiffs will not be able to prove either “but-for” or proximate causation.
Next question.
Sua
The key to this case is getting the facts out, rather than winning money IMHO. In that light, the next questions are:
– Will their suit go far enough that the plaintiffs will be able to conduct discovery on the EU records?
– Suppose the Israeli court lets this suit go forward. Would a right of discovery granted by an Israeli Court have any force in Europe?
– If the EU sought to keep their records secret, how could they accomplish this? How could the plaintiffs thwart them?
– In short, what can the plaintiffs hope to gain?
Thanks
Not only can they not prove their case but, even if they did, an Israeli court has no jurisdiction over the EU (not to mention effective capacity to enforce its ruling).
Spoken like a true liberal, december. Conservatives believe that the courts are for the resolution of judiciable disputes, rather than social justice.
But in any event, even if “getting the facts out” were a valid use of the courts (which it emphatically is not), it still wouldn’t work here.
While an Israeli court may be able to get jurisdiction over the EU (sailor, it’s possible that either the EU or its member states have non-diplomatic assets in Israel), an Israeli court can’t get past the judicial Ace of Spades the EU holds - sovereign immunity.
I’m not sure what the sovereign status of the EU is in international law, but at the very least it is an agent of its sovereign members and, as such, would be covered by sovereign immunity.
Any more questions?
Sua
What can the plaintiffs hope to gain by filing this suit?
First, there is quite a bit of European investment in Israel, so the situation is more like the French judge who ruled against Yahoo, where the effective club the French courts held was pointed at Yahoo’s French assets.
The question I’m curious about is the extent to which diplomatic pressure may compell the EU to co-operate with the suit, at least superficially. Israel isn’t Cuba: it’s not a banana republic that can be dismissed as having a joke of a court system. While there’s considerable public sentiment against Israel in Europe these days, Israel is still the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, and the EU has a deeper obligation to it as a fellow democracy.
I would think that, if the suit goes forward and the media picks it up, it could put some pressure on the EU to align itself more closely with the U.S. and Israel, especially if it’s found that EU money somehow bought arms for the Palestinians.
Lawsuits against nations unfortunately enough tend to take more years than they should. Frivolous lawsuits against nations thankfully enough tend to never get anywhere. On that note I think that even if it wouldn’t be as in this case it is, desperately frivolous the plaintiffs have practically zilch chance see anything close to a resolution of this suit before they are most probably very dead indeed.
If they desire to make a political statement against the EU they might as well just post their opinion on SDMB, it’s a lot cheaper and there is precedence.
Sparc
Seriously… are we going to go into this whole thing all over again? I just apologized to December for not giving him enough benefit of the doubt regarding threads not too distant to the general issue at hand. I decided to do that with this thread and cracked a wise crack instead.
Meanwhile Hansel simulposts this:
No we don’t!!!
Neither do ‘we’ have any considerable public opinion in such ant direction as far as I know (if we do I’d like to see a cite in that direction), nor do I think that Israel is well described as being a functioning anything let alone the ‘only functioning democracy in the Middle East’. Do you read the papers Hansel? The civil war in Israel is one of the bloodiest and most complicated ones in the world at the moment!
The EU Israel relation has been examined ad nauseam in previous threads started by december on this issue.
Once again: we support Israel. We agree to Israel’s right to self-protection. We do not agree to those rights being exercised and maintained at the account and cost of any other peoples. The same view is extended to the Palestinian people. I think that the US government is following a pretty similar line as the EU here.
What did we do to make us the ultimate scapegoats?
Sparc
I’d written a bunch of stuff, but decided instead that I should just apologize for boring you. I’m sorry.
Not really, hansel. It’s irrelevant whether there is European investment in Israel. Jurisdiction is not reached over a sovereign entity because of the actions of its citizens. Only if the EU itself (or, possibly, it constituent states) owns or controls assets in Israel could jurisdiction possibly be reached.
The same type of crap that Italian-American organization tried to get when they sued The Sopranos for its negative depiction of Italian-Americans - negative publicity and the application of pressure on the EU to change its policy.
But that is a political objective, not a judicial one. The proper method would be speeches, diplomatic pressure, petitions, etc. Ends do not justify means.
To take advantage of the fact that no one can prohibit you from filing a lawsuit to use the judicial machinery to exert pressure on a party, when you know you have no change of prevailing, is bad faith litigation and judicial extortion.
It’s the slave reparation case all over again.
Sua
The E.U. is not one country, remember - it is a group of nations, each with their own foreign polices. So:
The “E.U.” cannot have any non-diplomatic assets in Israel; member countries of the E.U. might, but that’s a different matter. If an Israeli court decided that the E.U. had done wrong, could they then, for instance, confiscate Swedish assets?
For all I know, the European Commission may be rabidly anti-Israel, but the countries that make up the E.U. certainly aren’t. Britain, for example, is pretty well aligned with Israel.
The money being dished out by the E.U. to anyone in no way represents what the people living in the E.U. think. Remember that this sort of decision making is far removed from the people who are actually having to pay taxes to support this sort of nonsense. Money gets doled out according to the personal vanities or various corrupt practices of the puffed-up un-elected commissioners who sit in Brussels playing with our money. :mad:
Well, strictly speaking, the EU is a supranational organisation which has an existence separate from the existence of it’s member states, so it could have both diplomatic and non-diplomatic assets in Israel, ostensibly within the reach of the Israeli courts. (I have no idea whether it does or not.) But even the non-diplomatic assets would enjoy sovereign immunity.
But this point highlights the wrong-headedness of the lawsuit. Some of the Palestininian Authority’s funding has come from the EU, an international organisation funded by its member states, but the great bulk of it comes from the UN, another international organisation funded by its member states. If individual victims of terrorism shown to have been practised by the Palestinian Authority could recover compensation from the EU, its member states or private citizens and corporations from EU states, then they could also recover compensation from the UN, its member states - including the US and Israel - and private citizens and corporations from member states of the UN.
They can’t, of course, for a variety of reasons. The necessary causal link between EU or UN funding and terrorist acts might be difficult or impossible to establish. Both the EU and the UN enjoy sovereign immunity. Their member states and the citizens of member states are not responsible for the acts of the supranational bodies. For all these reasons, as SuaSponte has already pointed out, this is a political rather than a legal issue, and court proceedings are misconceived. Unless Israeli courts are heavily politicised, this case should be dismissed at a fairly early stage as an abuse of process.
Balderdash! As of the Nice Treaty of 2001 all foreign policy is coordinated through the EU Parliament and administered by the EU Commission. Representation in the UN for all EU states and the 10 applicant states is spoken for by one of the state representatives on a rotation basis, currently Spain has the seat.
What utter fucking nonsense is this? Cite please!
What on earth? This is one of the more malignant and ill informed, opinionated, populist, pieces of utter nonsense on the EU that I have read in a good while. Who are you to pretend to know what the rest of the people of the EU think? Your whole premise of argument is moot from the start to finish, these are our democratically elected representatives. The ‘un-elected’ commissioners are appointed by our very elected representatives, hence democratically appointed. If you don’t like what they do use you goddamned vote, debate it, criticize it, but malignant dogma of this kind is not debatable even. I have no doubt there is corruption in various places in the EU as there is in many other government bodies. However, on various international democracy monitoring organization’s scales the EU does not rank as especially corrupt at all. Criticism of the openness and transparency of policy and process has been voiced against the bureaucracy in some areas, and is being addressed. You seem to be a walking example that this is a not one minute too soon.
Your blanket statements and facile populist opinions are exactly what is wrong with the democratic process in the EU at the moment and in my opinion one of the biggest threats towards our democracy as it gives room for extreme populist political parties like we have seen in all too many places the past year or so.
What really angers me is how your simple minded gibberish gives no room to debate real issues, but serves only the purpose of vilifying and lambasting an institution that indeed needs to be debated, examined and certainly deserves criticism in many areas. I take it that you as I, are a voting citizen of the EU and your location indicates that your residency is not so far from mine. As such you should be aware of the reasons for the existence of the Union. As such you should be wholeheartedly interested in maintaining the freedom, the rights and the security our Union strives to guarantee you. Had you any knowledge of the why and how of our Nation (Yep bubba you read me right) I surmise you’d be a little less certain of your opinions. It is remarkable that I being fairly non-statist by EU standards have to sit here and defend the state machinery… sheesh!
Care to debate EU policy? Care to have a round of federalist vs. anti-federalist arguments? I’d be more than willing as long as you raise your level beyond the gutter politics you so far have given voice to. What you furnished so far has neither any impact on this OP nor is it a debatable stand. Come again if you like!
Sparc
Sorry for this hijack, but I cannot let such ignorance be spread uncommented.
Errr, no actually. You might try to get your facts right before flying off the handle.
The Treaty of Nice simply removed member states’ vetos over the launch of common policy areas. Member states still maintain their own foreign and defence policies, but can act as one voice where a qualified majority agree to it. As one thing to consider, there’s a little thing called NATO which complicates your rather simplified view of the matter.
Huh? What the hell are you on about? Read the whole sentence.
You want a cite for the fact that the E.U. can hold whatever opinion it likes (clue: “for all I know” does not mean “I think that”)? Or are you questioning my assertion that the countries of the E.U. are not anti-Israel? Please specify.
Erm, I’m obviously a damn sight more qualified than you seem to be. Go an ask your average man-on-the-street who the E.U. is sending his taxes to.
And other un-elected reps are appointed by these un-elected reps, and so on and on. Don’t try to pretend that all is open, honest and accountable in Brussels. Remember that little problem with all the Commissioners having to resign due to fraud and corruption? Remember how they took their jobs back?
!!!
My God! Do you know how much money wanders off from E.U. aid programmes each year? You are aware of the charges of nepotism? You have heard of the charges of financial fiddling committed by “our” representatives? Should I mention again the forced resignation of the Commissioners?
So let me get this straight - the E.U. is unpopular and seen as out of touch with the people it is supposed to represent (check the polls), and it is our fault for daring to hold opinions? The biggest threat to our democracy is not the electorate - it is the fact that the people at the top have lost our engagement. And somehow that is our fault? Jeez, I’m beginning to suspect that you work for the E.U.; your location label makes it clear what your views on the E.U. are, anyway.
Blah blah blah - what a load of “New Labour” speak. The real issue is that the E.U. is seen as being out of touch with the electorate. But hey, such a fact is just “gibberish”, I guess.
Don’t patronise me. I know why the E.U. exists. I don’t happen to think that this is an excuse to do it badly.
Debate my arse. You are not interested in debate - you just don’t want to hear any accusations of the E.U. being out-of-touch or corrupt. Sadly, these are facts, and so more suitable for a GQ then a GD.
Ditto for the apology, and ditto for the final clause.
PS - Incidentally, Sparc, just so you can pretend to know what you are talking about next time, the Nice Treaty still isn’t in force as it has not been ratified by Ireland. So not only is your interpretation of it wrong, so is your understanding of how far this treaty has progressed. But then, I guess the voters of Ireland who rejected the treaty are irrelevant to the grand European plan, eh?
I note that we are both guilty of flying off the handle and being overtly simple in our argumentation. Had I spared you my outrage you might have noted that I didn’t even disagree with the fact that there is corruption in the EU, and I even stated that government is indeed perceived as out of touch or lacking transparency depending on the perspective. I merely hold a different opinion than you regarding the depth of these problems and possibly its solutions.
I don’t know what polls you read but the ones I read show an increasing support for the EU.
BTW you surmise correctly, I am pro EU, that doesn’t mean that I think it’s a perfect institution or even a very well functioning one. The perceived failures are far more complex and ambiguous than you portray.
As re the Treaty of Nice it is indeed pending ratification, but the policies and modus operandi it describes are already more or less in effect. I invite you to check your sources deeper before stating things as well.
Rather than continue this hijack we should take the debate to another thread. And that would NOT be in GQ since I still beg to differ with you on quite some accounts (to not say all), and I am more than willing to provide cites as base for my opinions.
Sparc
PS. Don’t Labour me anything and I do not work for the EU whatever you might mean by this. DS.
Well, it seems the thread has been hijacked with a topic which has been discussed many times before. That the EU’s government is not representative is just nonsense. Most US government officials are not elected either. It is unbelievable how people just repeat things without giving a second thought to what they are saying. From listening to those people you’d think Europeans are living under an oppresive system and can’t wait to ask for asylum in the USA. Funny how it’s always Americans who are criticizing this aspect and not the Europeans themselves who seem quite content with how they are building the EU.
At any rate, it seems the OP has been dealt with adequately.