Norman Paech

Norman Paech (12 April 1938 Bremerhaven) is a retired German professor and politician of The Left (Germany).

Career

After taking his Abitur exam in Hamburg, Norman Paech studied history and law at the University of Tübingen, as well as in Munich and Paris. From 1959 to 1962, he studied in Hamburg, where he took his first legal state examination in 1962. He then worked as a researcher at the University of Hamburg. In 1965, he received his doctorate for his thesis collective bargaining and state intervention - a contribution to the problem of compulsory arbitration of labor disputes. He then completed the internship and, in 1967, passed the second legal state examination.

After postgraduate studies at the German Development Institute in Berlin, he joined the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation in 1968 as a research assistant. In 1972, he joined the research centre of the Federation of German Scientists as a research associate in Hamburg. In 1974, he began teaching political science at the Faculty of Law II at the University of Hamburg.

In 1982, he became a professor of public law at the University of Economics and Politics (HWP; since 2005: Department Wirtschaft und Politik der Universität Hamburg). Paech is professor emeritus since 2005. After the war in Yugoslavia, he emerged as a critic of the nature of the legal aspects by the Hague War Crimes Tribunal; in particular, he criticized the proceedings against former Serbian President Milosevic. From 1976 to 1985, he was chairman of the Association of Democratic lawyers and 1985-1993 Chief Editor of the legal-political quarterly democracy and law.

Paech is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of ATTAC.^[1][2]

Policy

In 1969, Paech became a member of the SPD and, from 1972 to 1973, was the state executive of the Young Socialists in Hamburg. However, in 2001 he resigned from the SPD after the Red-Green majority in the Bundestag passed a resolution to deploy the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan.^[3]

In 2000, following a ruling by the Areios Pagos (Greek Supreme Court), Paech said that Germany ought to pay wartime reparations to Greece for the 1941-44 Nazi occupation and the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the country during World War II. One event noted at the time, for which German president Johannes Rau laid a memorial wreath, was the Massacre of Kalavryta. Paech had also represented survivors and relatives of the Distomo massacre, saying in 2000, "It is not only the money that the victims are concerned about, but also the German side's acknowledgement of its responsibility for the crimes committed. The SS executioners, who executed 218 villagers (of Distomo) in retaliation against an attack by Greek guerrillas, still celebrate each year in Marktheinfeld (a town in Bavaria) their adventures in Greece and have still not given account for their deeds...."^[4]

Paech was also well known in 2000 for his studies on the Kurdish issue -- championing the Kurdish people's right to self-determination and even secession from Turkey.^[4]

Paech pulled 2005 on the open Hamburg Linkspartei. PDS the first time in the German Bundestag and one was a long term (until 2009) Member of the Bundestag. Since 2007, official member of the Left party, and was foreign affairs spokesman of the left group, represented in the organ and its litigation against the Tornado missions in Afghanistan (Tornado-action) before the Federal Constitutional Court. The Left party voted against an Afghanistan deployment extension in 2010.^[5]

Gaza flotilla

At the end of May 2010, together with Inge Höger and Annette Groth, he accompanied an international relief convoy in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli government justifies the raid because they were attacked. This is absolutely not the case, This was not an act of self-defence...We had not prepared in any way to fight. We didn't even consider it, No violence, no resistance -- because we knew very well that we would have absolutely no chance against soldiers like this. This was an attack in international waters on a peaceful mission ... This was a clear act of piracy.^[6]

Criticism

Eike Geisel : "the right-wing propaganda about the guilt of the Jews on anti-Semitism in a slightly toned down form."^[7] Since then, Norman Paech has been criticized by "anti-Germans". Paech holds that talks with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas (since their election victory in 2006) to be necessary to bring the conflict between Israel and Palestinians closer to civil solution.^[8]

The Federal Working Group Shalom accused Paech, to have made anti-Zionist remarks at a panel discussion revealing the unchecked alliance with Hamas and asked him to resign.^[9]

Also of BAK Shalom in April 2008, he was accused of denying the right of existence of Israel. Paech had said:

In fact, international law does not know the concept of a right to exist. Nevertheless, I consider the recognition of Israel's right politically necessary because of German history. Israel must also say what should be accepted exactly are the boundaries of what territory.^[10]

His speech on the 2008–09 Gaza War was criticised, where Paech asserted for Palestinians a right of resistance, without a definition of where this right of resistance ends (for example, terrorism).^[11] The journalist Jan-Philipp Hein accused Paech, of seeing resistance to oppression, and ignoring the anti-Semitic currents in the Arab world totally. According to Hein's statement, Paech said at the height of the Lebanon war of 2006, there is no anti-Semitism in the Middle East.^[12] Paech denied that he had made this remark ever.^[13]

He was criticized by the Greens and his own party, for his implied antisemitism in the resolution of the Left party for the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, where he was not present, with ten other members of his party.^[14] The deputies explained their absence, among other things, that the CDU would degrade the resolution into a campaign rally.^[15][16]

Publications

• With Gerhard Stuby: International law and power politics in international relations. Bielefeld 2005
• Ed: international law instead of power politics - contributions for Gerhard Stuby. Hamburg 2004
• The social, economic and cultural human rights in the legal system of international economic and trade order. Bonn 2003
• Action field world affairs - international foundations of a global governance. Hamburg 2003
• Democracy - where and how?, Hamburg 2002.
• When it comes to war in Afghanistan, Army deployment and international law. Frankfurt am Main 2001.
• With Gerhard Stuby and Joachim Hösler: International law and power politics in international relations - a study book. Hamburg 2,001
• John Block (ed.): The just war? NATO's new strategy, international law and the Europeanization of the Western Balkans. Bremen 2002
• With Martin Kucha: censuses. 1986

References

External links

• Politician's website
• "German activist gives his account of the attack on Flotilla", Norman Paech, Shia TV 2 June 2010
• "Norman Paech", German Wikipedia