Impediments to Peace: Political Willpower

Benjamin B. Ferencz

" The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may have been involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

-- The North Atlantic Treaty - Article I, 4 April 1949.

Insofar as endeavoring to objectively effectuate world peace and to sustain global human survival, no country during the 20th century has explicitly claimed to "pursue peace" more rhetorically while simultaneously impeding it in its objective political foreign policy practices more than the United States of America. The evolutionary and historic development of both human rights and international criminal law demonstrates the manner in which the US has clearly lacked the political, presidential and/or moral willpower necessary to work with the rest of the civilized world community in achieving Kant's admirable goal of perpetual world peace.

Ironically, both the most dangerous, yet also the most important impediments left to attaining this aforementioned world peace which would ensure to our world's future posterity, their own human survival, are the incessant objections emanating from various key US political figures to establishing an ICC (Int'l Criminal Court). Exemplary of these US objections to establishing an International Criminal Court having compulsory international legal jurisdiction over the US as well as other countries regarding matters pertaining to international social justice, peace and security for humankind are the rather remarkable remarks recently reverberated by US Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina). Notably Senator Jesse Helm's is a member of the influential US Senate Foreign Relations Committee whose vote is only one of many required by certain US Congressman to ratify the Rome Statute. Ratification of the Rome Statute would require the US to fall under the compulsory international social and legal jurisprudence of the ICC (Int'l Criminal Court). Helm's said recently in reference to US ratification of the Rome Statute constructing an ICC that had it arrived, insofar as he was concerned, "it [the Rome Statute] would be dead on arrival!"

Such sad ironic statements emanating from key US political figures have either seriously undermined, or have permanently damaged many of the delicate diplomatic negotiations occurring insofar as human rights are concerned between the US and many other Non-western governed states such as Iraq, China, Russia and Yugoslavia. Statements such those made by Senator Helm and other US representatives resisting ratification of the Rome Statute requiring the US to uphold the same high-minded human rights standards that it demands the rest of the world to adhere to have merely made a mockery of the US human rights record.

Representative of this recent mockery the US has made of itself within the UN International Human Rights purview as we enter the 21st century is made manifest by those persons the US and its NATO counterparts have ironically accused of being war criminals themselves!

Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic is only one of many Non-western Head's of State now accusing the US and its NATO allies of committing gross war crimes, and also committing crimes against world peace as well as crimes against humanity. What is more remarkable is the wide worldwide support the Yugoslavian Government has been receiving in its efforts to accuse and hold accountable, the NATO leaders for committing their own alleged war crimes.

The Yugoslavian Government recently has received support from many of our world's most well known human rights organizations, activists, politicians and scholars. Even Republican Senator Tom Campbell (R-San Jose C.A.) recently joined in the anti-NATO bandwagon by filing a lawsuit against US President Bill Clinton for allegedly violating the 1973 War Powers Act enacted post the Vietnam War with 14 other US Senators! Along with Tom Campbell, the NY Times reported on December 29, 1999 regarding news at the Hague:

"The chief war crimes prosecutor for the United Nations is reviewing the conduct of NATO pilots and their commandants during last spring's 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia...[and that Carla Del Ponte's, Staff Prosecutor's spokesperson reported that]...Carla Del Ponte, compiled a report on the air strikes at the urging of several "interested parties" including a group of Russian lawmakers and a Canadian Law Professor."

Similarly on May 9th 1999, UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson stated that:

"people are not collateral damage [inverse to what top NATO leaders and in particular what U.K.'s, Jamie Shea had proclaimed publicly during the NATO's 78 day bombing against Yugoslavia which killed hundreds of Yugoslav civilians via NATO bombs], people are people."

And still others such as Serbian Unity Congress President, Milosh Milenkovich, South Korean Foreign Minister Hong Soon-Young, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark in addition to many other US and Canadian scholars have been cited saying akin to:

"From the beginning, NATO has acted in an imperial and uncontrolled manner. NATO has circumvented Article 2 of the UN Charter, [and] its own Charter [OAS] the Vienna Convention on the Laws and Treaties, and the Helsinki Accords of 1975."

Similar lawsuits and complaints against the NATO member states have been flooding into the Hague where the Int'l Court of Criminal Justice (IJC) is located alleging that NATO leaders be held equally accountable for their own alleged war crimes against world peace and humanity.

It is of great interest to human rights scholars that almost all the complaints being filed against the NATO member states at the Hague (ICJ) are legally being premised upon seemingly indisputable facts. The most important facts thereof being that the NATO unilaterally overstepped first obtaining UN Security Council consent before undertaking unilateral militaristic aggression for 78 days commencing March 1999 against Yugoslavia. It is most indisputable to most human rights scholars that both the UN Charter and also the Geneva Conventions governing the rules applicable to undertaking war were violated by the NATO member states in moving forward unilaterally with their military aggression against Yugoslavia. On March 24th 1999, when the NATO begun their bombing crusade against Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia had not undertaken any clear aggression against any NATO member state prior. Thus, the NATO's former Cold-War theme that "an attack on one [member of the NATO] is considered as an attack upon all NATO members", cannot account for the NATO military aggression launched against Yugoslavia for 78 days last year.

The NATO's own "aggression" against Yugoslavia as Former Nuremberg Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz suggests violated the three chief war crimes as defined at the Nuremberg Trials (against world peace, security and humanity) in stating:

"The greatest step forward in promoting the law of peace took place in Nuremberg after World War Two. The International Military Tribunal (IMT) Charter listed only three crimes that would come within the Court's jurisdiction. The first [was] war Crimes Against Peace, namely the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war."

Therefore the acts of military "aggression" that the NATO member states and their leaders undertook unilaterally against Yugoslavia last year, as defined by the Chief US Nuremberg Prosecutor are internationally recognized by all UN member states, as "cardinal war crimes" against world peace and humanity. Even if the NATO's original intent was honorable, the outcome of the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia was horrific. Furthermore, the irreversible human rights violations and blatant damage inflicted upon the civil society and ecology of Yugoslavia, is a clear violation of all international law and all legal precedents in and of itself. The NATO also entirely destabilized the entire Balkan peninsula disturbing its delicate balance leaving the entire matter of Kosovo unresolved.

Serious scholars of human rights remain both vexed and perplexed as to wherefore the US has so strongly resisted ratification of establishing an International Criminal Court merely enforcing all of the three Nuremberg Principle Crimes against world peace and humanity upon the US and every other country. The only valid reason seems that certain US officials may fear that they themselves could come under the scrutiny and suspicion of a newly established ICC. Especially in light of the fact that in:

"1996, the International law Commission composed of 34 "independent experts" completed work on the draft Code of Crimes that had first been ordered by the UN Charter in 1946. It described "aggression" as a "customary law crime" that created a "peremptory norm"---irrevocably binding on all states."

Therefore, as defined by the Nuremberg Trial precedents in undertaking unilateral military action by bombing Yugoslavia, NATO leaders could be seemingly held as accountable as they claim Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is of committing crimes against world peace and humanity. The entire matter throws an ominous shadowy figure in the form of great shame upon the United States of America and its leaders as we enter a new millennium and must be reconciled with in some official capacity and not merely left neglected. Especially in light of the NATO's latest political objectives of expanding its original mandate regarding the Warsaw Pact to transforming itself into an international and unilateral global police force unconditionally independent from any UN Security Council scrutiny.

Now more than ever the time for establishing of an ICC is vital to global human survival and establishing future world peace. Even if the US continues to refuse to ratify the Rome Statute by itself, once 60 states ratify the Treaty, the Rome Statute will become the compulsory collective international legal rule of law for the entire world in lieu of the NATO's unilateral militarism. Ironically at that point the US may have no choice left but to abide by the ICC's decisions.

To elucidate the grave primacy of this matter, in a special report published by the USIP regarding the NATO's 50th Anniversary celebration, ironically held April 23-25th (1999), the USIP reports regarding the new NATO mandate of "humanitarian intervention":

"Within the alliance, Non-Article 5 missions may vary...Such missions (backed primarily by both the US and U.K.) are described by Americans as "crisis response operations" (an activist approach)...implying that such [military] missions would only be used to [enforce coercively and to] support a peace agreement)."

What is striking and most disturbingly remarkable abut the aforementioned complaints being filed by Milosevic and others against the US and its NATO counterparts at the Hague (ICJ) is they are becoming increasingly more difficult for the U.S and their NATO leaders counter. Scholars of human rights and international criminal law have been primarily conceding with local law officials in Beograd Serbia stating:

"that NATO violated international humanitarian law...and that NATO may have breached the Geneva Convention in five areas: it conducted air attacks using cluster bombs near populated areas, attacked targets of questionable legitimacy; did not take adequate measures to warn civilians of strikes..."

Additional evidence against the NATO members and its leaders at the Hague ICJ accusing the NATO of committing war crimes can be officially viewed in color on the SUC (Serbian Unity Congress Web Site located at http://www.suc.org).

In light of the aforementioned international development of NATO expansion without UN Security Council approval of its unilateral humanitarian militarism, the dialectic tensions holding the delicate balance of world peace together are becoming increasingly undone daily. The U.S political leaders must come to terms with the idea that sharing the world's wealth with other countries is far better than obliterating Earth and all of humanity altogether! It is as sad as it is ironic that the US elite politicians cannot view this issue with the same rationality others seem to be capable of.

The world community in the 21st century will undoubtedly face many new challenges. Moreover, the growing uncertainty as to whether the future international relations purview regarding world peace, security and human rights will become better or worse than the previous century remains to be seen. In addition, the tensions existing between the duties of states to uphold and abide by the UN Charter while simultaneously trying to uphold the fundamental human rights issues and also sustaining world peace for the entire world in its diversity will continue to grow. Yet, the US has still remained strongly opposed to the idea of establishing an international criminal court and abiding by its fair rulings. Time will tell whether the world will lean towards world peace or world war in the future. Notwithstanding, the fact remains evident that unless the US will work with the rest of the world community in trying to achieve world peace, it risks the possibility of possible human destruction by way of its own nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Let us hope the US along with the rest of the world community of rational men and women chose the former and not the latter path.

Endnotes

1) Inverse to the rhetorical proclamations made by many US governmental officials, the United States has shown itself to be entirely more interested in judging the alleged human rights records of other countries more than its own. Exemplary is the US State Dept. web site (www.state.gov) on which is listed all of the alleged human rights violations committed by every country in the world, except for the US. This US brushing off of its own moral political obligation to uphold its own human right instrument, the Organization of American States, has steadily declined since World War II. This sad social historical fact is revealed when inquiring into the history of the US and its past human rights track record with respect to the world's former and present international criminal tribunals.

2) The first attempt to establish an international criminal court was in 1907 during the Second Hague Conference at the suggestion of former US President Theodore Roosevelt. He proposed an International Court of Justice would:

"Decide between nations, great or small, exactly as a judge within our own limits [US Western Courts] decides between individuals, great or small..."

The reasons for which Roosevelt's idea to establish an international criminal court died in committee are both mysterious and controversial, yet worth examining. Perhaps the idea died owing to many Non-western governed states and their associated societies composed of primarily traditional cultural communities whose governance is not premised upon Western political philosophical principles being highly skeptical of submitting themselves to a Western styled international criminal tribunal. After all, much of this same skepticism is still very prevalent today within the UN international relations purview and is manifested in the following statements given by an African Head of State:

"No one but us understands the motives upon which we act. Imperialists talk about human rights, drinking tea or sipping champagne. They can afford to--after all, they have it made. If we had slaves for 200 years to build our roads, build our homesteads, sow our fields; if we had multinationals for 300 years looting wealth from other people's lands; if we had literate, healthy, well-fed citizens---if we had a diversified economy and people had jobs---we too could talk human rights from our air conditioned offices and homes. But we can't do it; we have nothing."

In another instance a Junior Minister joined in saying:

"You know, professor, we wish imperialists could understand that the sick and hungry have no use for freedom of movement or of speech. Maybe of worship! Hunger dulls the hearing and stills the tongue. Poverty and lack of roads, trains, or buses negate freedom of movement. You know, freedom to own private property alone is demanded by less than 1% here---those who had collaborated with imperialists in robbing the poor masses. The poor are grateful and glad to share."

Whether this was the problem at that time, we will never truly know. What we do know is that two world wars have yet to teach the most powerful Superpower in the world, the US, either the lessons or legacies of strategically planning, instigating, engaging and waging aggressive war.

3) Two world wars have failed to teach many US political leaders the grave importance of working towards permanently capitulating aggressive war altogether in order to safeguard against the possible future extinction of humanity. Let's face it, the world is not getting any safer insofar as nuclear weapons are concerned and one atom bomb can ruin your whole day. Moreover, more persons have died in genocidal civil wars since 1945 than in all of both the former world wars together:

"Since 1945, some 135 wars, most of them in the developing world, have killed more than 22 million people--the equivalent of World War III..."

4) This paper is the first part of a multi-volume series of works discussing various impediments to the attainment of world peace. The clear continued lack of genuine Political Willpower on the part of the US to assist the rest of the world and in particular the European Community in establishing a permanent International Criminal Court with compulsory jurisdiction over all nation-states constitutes part one of this series. This author shares the opinion of former Nuremberg Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz regarding the primary impediment to achieving World Peace and Global Human Survival. Undoubtedly, the greatest impediment to attaining world peace is the fault of, and also falls upon those member states within the international relations purview and the UN such as Germany, the US and U.K. For these three states primary bare responsibility for stalling the establishment of an International Criminal Court. According to Ferencz:

"Every effort should be made to obtain the widest possible acceptance of the proposed International Criminal Court. Once all views have been heard, bickering must stop and decisive action taken. The number of signatories required...[to establish a treaty effectuating an international criminal court]...should be kept to the minimum needed to make the court operational; it should not exceed fifty."

5) No treaty is officially binding upon any nation-state until embedded into its domestic law such as in Europe. Both sad an ironic is that the US cannot even obtain the required two third vote from its own Senate in order to ratify a Treaty that would establish an new International Criminal Court with compulsory jurisdiction to impose its legal adjudication's upon every country equitably.

6) As read in Global Survival, unlike the US, most of Europe has already established the EEC (Court of European Communities). The EEC and its affiliated CJEC (Court of Justice of European Communities) does possess compulsory legal jurisdictions to impose its legal decisions upon its members by superceding any European domestic law. It is also accessible to individuals, states and corporation. This has been the cause of much friction now existing between European states and the United States regarding imposing political and economic sanctions against Yugoslavia, Cuba, Iraq and Iran.

7) In 1985 the US withdrew itself from the legal jurisdiction of the ICJ (International Court of Justice) after the court rendered the US guilty of committing "war like acts". Thus US Presidents and their associated political entourages seemingly prefer judging other counties rather than their own. This is clearly seen in the US clearly rejecting to be bound by the Treaty of the Laws of the Sea. Ferencz states in:

"December 1982, at Montego Bay in Jamaica, 119 delegates from 117 states signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It was an unprecedented and monumental achievement that had taken over 14 years of work by representatives of more than 150 countries...The sea-bed, the vast area not immediately contigeous to national boundaries, was declared to be "the common heritage of mankind. (Art. 136) Its resources were to be used for the benefit of mankind as a whole....[However] as in all such treatise there were some states that would not accept some of its provisions. The United States, that had the minig capacity to mine the seabed, was not inclined to accept the diktat, or controls of any independent authority regarding its actions on or under the high seas."

8) US strategic economic and political interests have often taken precedence over upholding democracy and fundamental human rights (social and economic as well as political and civic) in countries such as Iraq, Cuba and Yugoslavia. As Ferencz states:

"Sovereign states should realize that there is no danger in voluntarily accepting certain restrains for the common good [of all humanity]...States must finally summon the political courage to accept universal "rules of the road" that bind everyone for the benefit of everyone."

9) Now is the time for all UN member states (past, present and upon new admission) to concur it is wisdom to avoid war by at very least, making it mandatory for UN member states to both recognize and ratify in their domestic law, the three Nuremberg Principle war crimes. Nothing less but the immediate establishment of an International Criminal Court can guarantee that their will still be a world left for our world's future posterity so that as Ferencz states:

"Never Again would aggression, genocide, crimes again humanity and war crimes be tolerated without punishment of the perpetrators."