Book Review: A Common Sense Guide to World Peace

By Benjamin B. Ferencz

The American Journal International Law, April 1987

81 A.J.I.L. 501

BURNS H. WESTON, The University of Iowa

At a time when symptoms of major global malfunction intrude hourly and when respect for the international law of peace seems everywhere on the decline (not least in Washington), it is remarkable to hear a voice that is "cautiously optimistic" (p. xi) about the evolution of a peaceful world order under law. Yet such is the soothing essence of this small but spirited volume. Urging us to comprehend "that humankind is experiencing an erratic and turbulent evolutionary movement toward a more rational world order" and "to view the historical glass as half-full rather than half-empty" (p. xi), former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz, no Pollyanna, encourages us to believe that there is "no cause for despair" (p. 95), "no reason to lose heart" (p. 97). To the contrary, he writes, "[a]lthough the lights of progress flicker and grow dim from time to time, the trend toward an integrated, coordinated and more humane world is clearly discernable [sic] to the penetrating eye" (p. 95). We should take hope, he argues, and find inspiration in the "total picture" of the past four thousand years of human accomplishment (p. 91) -- in the "significant progress" of the past four decades especially (p. 95) -- and from this affirmative stance try to understand and act upon the "common sense" requirements of "a more enlightened international order [that] will be able to enrich all of humankind" (p. 97).

The "common sense" requirements Dr. Ferencz proposes are of two kinds. The first, "What Should Be Done" (pp. 43-70), includes the following:

(1) "Improve International Law" -- by making international legal norms at once more rigorous and more responsive to the common inclusive interest;

(2) "Increase the Judicial Role" -- and other modalities for the peaceful, third-party settlement of international disputes (including creation of an international criminal court); and

(3) "Enforce International Law" -- via UN reform, control of national arms, effectively coordinated economic and military sanctions (including a properly empowered UN peace force), and expanded "caring and sharing" relative to the world's natural and human resources.
 
The second, "What Can Be Done" (pp. 71-98), also divides three ways:

(1) "Settle by Compromise" the major tensions of contemporary international affairs—the nuclear arms race and existing rancorous conflicts in the Middle East, Iran-Iraq, South Africa, Namibia, Central America, Afghanistan, Kampuchea, Korea and Berlin;

(2) "Educate and Organize for Peace" -- by mobilizing world opinion (through formal and informal communication networks as well as through classrooms) and by creating an independent, nongovernmental "Permanent Council for Peace" composed of "dedicated, knowledgeable and distinguished world citizens" who would propose solutions to the world's most vexing problems and who "could go over the heads of governments to reach the eyes, ears, hearts and minds of people everywhere"; and

(3) "See the Total Picture" -- by understanding the essential interconnectedness of all of global life and the progressive as well as retrogressive dimensions of global history.
 
Ferencz's enthusiasm for these prescriptions is infectious. It is hard to imagine how anyone could dissent from them.

Of course, one can respond skeptically, even cynically, to everything Ferencz is about, pointing up the frailties of the international system and the formidable behavioral and structural obstacles that otherwise impede civilizational progress. The author's "common sense" assessments of "What Should Be Done," embodying a kind of wishful thinking or sense of geopolitics that -- typical of international lawyers -- tends to exaggerate the role of law and adjudication in the modern world, themselves invite no small questions about feasibility and probability even while inviting praise. Indeed, even his assessments of "What Can Be Done" do not escape major doubts of this kind. It is already bad enough that the two superpowers seem incapable of freeing the world's peoples from nuclear terror, but when a country such as the United States, with its long tradition of respect for the rule of law (at least domestically), not only turns its back on, but ridicules, the World Court, as lately it has done to the dismay of many, even reviewers as sympathetic as this one find ample room for despair.

Yet it is precisely this kind of demoralization against which Ferencz aims his principal fire. And his essential point -- the power of positive historical thinking -- is well taken. "To focus . . . on the shortcomings of nations without [acknowledging] those areas of social interaction where significant progress has been made," he asserts, "is to paint a bleak and distorted picture [that] erodes the public confidence needed to stimulate the improvements that are required . . . to make the international system more effective" (p. 95). Agreed. Unless or until this historical-reformist viewpoint is taken seriously to heart, opening the way for an aroused citizenry to secure the political credibility it needs to pursue a "common sense" world order agenda of the sort Ferencz prescribes, that agenda never will be realized -- or at least not fast enough to avert the ultimate catastrophe nobody wants.

All this said, however, one is left still to ask whether the world's leaders will take this viewpoint seriously to heart. And this question, in turn, raises two friendly criticisms -- one stylistic, the other substantive -- that suggest hurdles far larger than Ferencz appears willing to acknowledge.

First, by too frequent lapses into "man-made" language (e.g., "man" and "mankind" in lieu of, say, "humanity" or "humankind"), Ferencz inadvertently reveals not only how difficult the struggle really is, but how exclusionary even the message can be. And for a message that needs all the converts it can get, not least to resist the condescending criticism with which self-styled "realists" doubtless will greet Ferencz's idealism, surely this sort of impropriety ought to be avoided. It tends to alienate and annoy, not to persuade (as does also, it must be added, the too frequent misspellings and punctuation errors of the publisher).

Second, Ferencz's monograph, a guide in the sense of a set of laudable goals that serve to direct our thinking, but no guide in the sense of a map of how to get us from the crisis-ridden "here" to the common-sense "there," would have proved far more convincing had at least some small attention been given to the transition steps needed to make Ferencz's prescriptions reality. As those directly and indirectly associated with the erstwhile World Order Models Project have made abundantly clear, it is not enough simply to observe, however accurately, that what mainly is needed is political motivation and will. The compromises and retreats, the long and hard gives-and-takes required -- these in particular must be addressed, conscientiously and repeatedly, if a peaceful and just world order is ever to be realized.

One hopes that Ferencz will correct these deficiencies and give us the further benefit of his intrepid thinking in a "Common Sense Guide to World Peace -- Part II." In the meanwhile, for the present volume, we owe him a vote of thanks for making the dream of "world peace through world law" more credible.