In the face of genocide and global inaction, the Tribunal recognizes that the challenge of justice falls to people, to legitimate resistance, to acts of solidarity, to civil society, to social movements, and to people of conscience everywhere.
Almost sixty years ago, the world watched in horror as the US carried out brutal aggression and serial atrocities against the people of Vietnam. Those atrocities, and the apparent impunity afforded to the US in their commission, was, for many, too much to bear.
Because no state, no group of states, or international institution was coming to rescue the Vietnamese people, it quickly became clear that freedom would come only from popular resistance inside Vietnam, and a global solidarity movement outside.
It was in that context that Bertrand Russell, the prominent British philosopher and public intellectual, launched the first “people’s tribunal” as an organized expression of moral outrage.
In 1967, he stood before the Russell Tribunal and declared: “We are not judges. We are witnesses. Our task is to make mankind bear witness to these terrible crimes and to unite humanity on the side of justice.”
Today, another people’s tribunal is following in the footsteps of Russell, this time to confront the Israeli regime’s genocide in Palestine, the racist ideology that underpins it, and the complicit western powers and corporations that enable it. (more...)
The People vs. The Abyss: The Sarajevo Declaration of the Gaza Tribunal
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