International Law

Hat tip to Defence

"..when a civilian casualty incident is confirmed or when a credible allegation is substantiated, Defence will issue a public statement. After the allegation or incident has been appropriately reviewed through internal and/or external mechanisms, the findings of these reviews will be publicly released.Under our new processes, all credible civilian casualty claims and incidents will be publicly reported. It is vital that in the event of an alleged or actual civilian casualty that there are transparent, consistent and robust processes in place.During the past twelve months, the ADF has investigated 13 incidents. Of these, we have held a media event or issued a media release?announcing either an inquiry, the results of the inquiry, or both?for seven of these incidents. I will now outline the remaining six for you."

And so on. One swallow and all that, but a positive step nonetheless.

By the way, the Crikey article that started this stream now includes some interesting comment, particularly from Kathleen Fisher about how the NZ Treasury is in the vanguard there on transparency and seems proud to have advice to government on public display. If you are a reader Kathleen, would love to hear from you.

Full post as published by Open and Shut on July 22, 2009 (boomark / email).