“War is obsolete” – uphold human rights
Lack of mechanisms to penalise preparation and conduct of wars
by Thomas Scherr
(18 October 2022) There is a lot of talk about human rights. That is a good thing. There are arguments about freedom of expression, migration, poverty, and so on. There is outrage about the observance or non-observance of various human rights. All this is appropriate and important.
But human rights are still flawed in their most fundamental part, namely the right to life. The deliberate death of millions of people is still tacitly accepted. At this point, we really must get serious. How can we finally enforce the right to life?
Those who decide on the death of others have “power” over their lives – directly or indirectly. Directly, when the person gives an order to kill, for example by launching missiles. Or indirectly, by supplying weapons, preventing food deliveries or speculating on the stock market against the vital resources of others – in the knowledge that livelihoods are at stake.
It is not always obvious at first glance whether the lives of others are existentially affected. And it is not always recognisable which plans, strategies and preceding actions are ultimately the causes of deadly events. Power becomes extremely dangerous when it decides on life and death without protection of the rights of those affected.
Nuremberg Trials
After two world wars with catastrophic consequences, in which modern techniques for killing were developed and implemented, in which poisonous gases, pathogens, starvation and genocide were used as weapons, there was a legal reappraisal of these crimes for the first time after the Second World War with comprehensive trials against the perpetrators: the Nuremberg Trials.
Even if one can rightly argue that it was the victors’ justice because only one side was charged, it remains an attempt to penalise the massive injustice of a war.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki made the urgency of a worldwide ban on war abundantly clear. The mass deaths and the vegetating of tens of thousands of people over generations by just two bombs made it clear that today it is no longer a question of the survival of individuals, but of the survival of all humanity. “War is obsolete” (Doug Rokke).
Charter of the United Nations
The Charter of the United Nations was born out of the awareness that millions of innocent people were arbitrarily and massively killed in the Second World War and that the livelihoods of millions and millions of people were destroyed. Peace is its primary objective and sets out concrete goals and principles. Based on it, many treaties have been drawn up to secure peace: control and disarmament of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, treaties on mutual inspection, treaties on confidence-building measures such as the CSCE negotiations and then the establishment of the OSCE. In addition, organisations such as Unicef or the WHO, for example, are to secure and improve the lives of people worldwide. A network of different institutions for the benefit of all mankind has emerged, even if one can be divided about the implementation of their goals.
The path toward a peaceful coexistence for all has been mapped out. In the meantime, any deviation from this means accepting war and misery – and thus the death of innocent people.
How could it come about that governments presume to rule over other peoples? The fact that there are always actors who, beyond justice, law and morality, put the right to life of others at risk for profit, out of a desire for power, out of hubris or out of criminal motives – without being called accountable – is not due to human nature, but simply to a lack of awareness and a lack of will to draw supranational consequences.
Developing mechanisms for enforcement
The general realisation that mechanisms must be enforced to protect the right to life of the individual is unfortunately still lacking. In fact, it almost seems that regression has taken place and that the medieval “survival of the fittest” has regained influence since the 1980s. Does it take the use of nuclear weapons to bring us to our senses?
Although the right to life is enshrined in almost all states of the world, there still seems to be a need to catch up in the international arena. There is still a lack of general awareness and thus a lack of possibilities to enforce the law. The Nuremberg Trials could provide a broad orientation framework. There is enough legal basis for such action within the framework of international law.
Developing awareness for peace
It need not be world domination. What is needed is a general awareness of the right to life and the finite nature of human existence. Pragmatic blueprints to prevent wars and thus the mass killing of innocent people are numerous. One only has to think of the considerations of Willy Brandt, Olof Palme and Bruno Kreisky on collective security. Models of state neutrality or non-alignment can also provide important ideas. “After all paths are made by walking”.