Jeanne Mirer, president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, hands President Nguyen Minh Triet the verdict that found the US guilty of crimes of aggression and ecocide

An international tribunal that heard the testimonies of Vietnamese Agent Orange victims last month in Paris was just the beginning of an ongoing battle for justice, a lawyer and activist said Wednesday.

At a meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet in Hanoi Wednesday, Mirer handed over to Triet the recent ruling of the International Peoples’ Tribunal of Conscience which IADL held May 15-16 in Paris.

The tribunal ruled that the US war in Vietnam was an illegal war of aggression against a country seeking national liberation. Those who manufactured Agent Orange and the government that allowed its use were guilty of ecocide and must fully compensate the victims of Agent Orange and their families, according to the ruling.

IADL also has plans to meet US President Barack Obama and hand over the ruling to him personally.

Mirer told Triet that the IADL would continue the fight for justice for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims as it has in the past.

Double standards

Triet thanked IADL for its support and said Vietnam had hard words for those who lecture others about democracy and human rights while trampling such rights.

Mirer’s own testimony on the issue in front of the US House of Representatives last year pointed out that the US had in fact violated its own laws, not just international norms, when it dropped the toxic chemicals on Vietnam.

The US government had considered using defoliants against Japan in 1945, but decided against the move as it would have violated the Hague Convention of 1907, which outlawed the use of poison and poisoned weapons in war, said Mirer.

She said that because the US ratified the Hague treaty, it meant the convention was a domestic law under Article VI, Section 2, of the US Constitution.

“It is not just international law; it is domestic law,” she said.

Agent Orange, named after the color of the stripe on the barrels in which the defoliant sprayed by American forces during the Vietnam War was stored, contained tetrachlorodibenzop dioxin (known as TCDD), one of the most poisonous chemicals ever made by man.

Agent Orange has caused reproductive problems, birth defects, cancer and other diseases in affected people on both sides of the war.

Between 1961 and 1971, the US Army sprayed some 80 million liters of the defoliant, containing 366 kilograms of the highly toxic dioxin, over 30,000 square miles of southern Vietnam.

By the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people had been exposed to Agent Orange, causing 400,000 deaths. Millions more have suffered devastating long-term health effects, including cancer and genetic defects.

Source: TN, Agencies