Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: international law

  • Arthur N.R. Robinson and the Power of One

    I believe in the Power of One, the capacity of a single individual to make an important difference in our world. In many ways, this may seem like an article of faith, rooted in hope. But, in fact, it is more than an article of faith, for there are indeed individuals whose lives have made a significant difference in improving our world. One such individual is Arthur N.R. Robinson, who has served as both Prime Minister and President of his country. He has had a remarkable and charmed life, and he has altered the course of history by his extraordinary leadership in the creation of an International Criminal Court.

    In the 1980s, I became a supporter of the creation of an International Criminal Court, having been introduced to the idea by Robert Woetzel, a man who was also a close and long-time friend of President Robinson. I made many trips to the United Nations to encourage progress on this lofty idea of creating a court that would follow in the Nuremberg tradition of holding individual leaders to account for the commission of heinous crimes: crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Although it was clear that this was a much needed innovation to the international system of institutions, it seemed quite unlikely at that time that it would be possible to gain the requisite international support for this bold conception.

    And yet, by 1998, the countries of the world gathered in Rome and established a Treaty to create this new Court, a court that would give life to the Principles of Nuremberg as we moved into a new century. It is certain that this essential innovation in international institution building could not have occurred were it not for a single individual, Arthur N.R. Robinson, who as the Prime Minister of Trinadad and Tobago put the United Nations on track to achieve this goal. Of course, many other people played important roles as well, but without this head of government taking bold action to put the matter on the agenda of the United Nations it could not have happened.

    Some people believe that only the big and powerful countries can influence the international system and the course of history. They are wrong. Trinidad and Tobago, under the leadership of a man of vision and determination, led the way to the establishment of an International Criminal Court, an institution that holds the promise of restoring integrity to world affairs. President Robinson and Trinidad and Tobago should be justly proud of what they have accomplished. By this effort and accomplishment Trinidad and Tobago has earned a vaulted place on the international map.

    A.N.R. Robinson, even as he enters his ninth decade of life, has not chosen to rest upon his laurels, as much as he may deserve to do so. Rather, he has recently accepted the responsibility to join the distinguished five-member Board of Directors of the Trust Fund for Victims of International Crime, and in that capacity he continues to play an important role in working for justice in the international system.

    I wonder if the people of Trinidad and Tobago recognize how significant their contribution to building this new international institution has been. Perhaps they appreciate President Robinson’s efforts, but do they embrace these efforts with a sense of national pride? And, most important, do they join in the commitment to strengthening the structure of international criminal law so that the world may be spared future aggressive wars, genocides and crimes against humanity by having in place a mechanism to hold individual leaders to account for the commission of such crimes?

    There remains an important role for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago to play on this issue – both at the government level and also at the level of civil society – that is so critical for humanity’s future. I hope that the government of Trinidad and Tobago will not give up its efforts to further the system of international criminal justice represented by the International Criminal Court. Perhaps, though, the government of this country, like most governments, will need a push from below, from its citizens, if it is to rise to a higher plane.

    I would like to propose that citizens of Trinidad and Tobago create a civil society organization that will provide creative ideas and assert public pressure for strengthening the International Criminal Court. The work of such a civil society organization could connect with the United Nations and with like-minded citizens throughout the world. It could carry forward the vision of A.N.R. Robinson and build upon his work. And I would hope that for many years to come he would be a wise and patient mentor to the youthful participants in such an organization.

    There is much still to be done. Sadly, I must recognize that my country, a country of enormous economic and military power but presently lacking a sound moral foundation, has refused to join the International Criminal Court and has actively opposed it. The United States government has forced other countries throughout the world to sign bilateral agreements with it, stating that they will never turn over US citizens to the International Criminal Court, regardless of the crimes committed. This is a very different United States government than the one that supported and encouraged the Nuremburg Tribunals following World War II. It is a government that is unfortunately seeking to protect its own high authorities from scrutiny and accountability for their own wrongdoing.

    We know that changing the world is not an easy matter. There is no magic wand. It takes the determination of great leaders of vision like A.N.R. Robinson, but it also takes the commitment and persistence of many people who join together for a noble cause. I think it would be extremely significant for Trinidad and Tobago and useful for the world to establish here the civil society organization I have mentioned with the purpose of forwarding the goal of an International Criminal Court that will be universal in its jurisdiction and by its legal force will raise the moral standards of humankind. Personally, I would like to see this organization originate in Trinidad and Tobago and be called, the A.N.R. Robinson Center for International Criminal Justice. It could be an institute within the newly established A.N.R. Robinson Museum, Library and Ethics Center that will be located in Castara on the island of Tobago.

    A.N.R. Robinson’s life strengthens my faith in the power of an individual to make a difference in our world. He is a man of rock solid principles. Integrity and courage have been the hallmarks of his life and career. As a political leader, he understood clearly the need for all leaders to be held to high standards if we are to have justice. And thus, in pursuing an International Criminal Court, A.N.R. Robinson acted for the benefit of all humanity.

    The number of people of whom this can be said is not large, and includes some of the greatest peace leaders of our time. I believe that it is a high badge of honor. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we honored President Robinson with our Distinguished Peace Leadership Award in 2002, and he was kind enough to come to Santa Barbara to receive the award. This is only one of the many awards he has received for his efforts to establish an International Criminal Court.

    When a man of such great accomplishments in the world as A.N.R. Robinson is kind and humble, it reveals a nobility of spirit. I feel very fortunate to count among my friends a man of such bright and noble spirit, sterling character and significant achievements as Arthur N.R. Robinson.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.
  • Nuclear Weapon Abolition and Multilateral Negotiations

    Nuclear Weapon Abolition and Multilateral Negotiations

    In the six decades since the beginning of the Nuclear Age, despite the critical need, there have not been multilateral negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition. The closest to achieving such negotiations was the inclusion of Article VI in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which calls for “negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament….”

    On the basis of NPT Article VI, a 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion unanimously stated, “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the parties to the treaty agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament, including “[a]n unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.”

    These are clear directives and commitments to pursue multilateral negotiations for nuclear disarmament, but none have taken place. For ten years the Conference on Disarmament, the international community’s single multilateral negotiating body on disarmament issues, has been blocked by rules of consensus from making any progress.

    Even partial measures aimed at arms control have been blocked or diverted by nuclear weapons states. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), although opened for signatures in 1996, has not entered into force because all nuclear capable states must ratify the treaty for this to happen. As yet, the treaty has not been ratified by the US, China and Israel, and three nuclear weapons states – India, Pakistan and North Korea – have not yet even signed the treaty.

    A Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) has long been discussed as an important next step on the path to nuclear disarmament, and was included as one of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. In May 2006, the United States tabled a draft FMCT in the Conference on Disarmament, but one that contained no provisions for verification, making it largely meaningless. Nonetheless, it could provide a starting point for negotiations.

    In addition to their failure to negotiate nuclear disarmament in good faith, as called for by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and by the International Court of Justice, the nuclear weapons states have failed to take nearly all of the other steps called for in the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. The US scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to pursue missile defenses, and has failed to proceed with negotiating with Russia a third Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START III). In the bilateral Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) negotiated by the US and Russia, there are no provisions for transparency, verification or irreversibility as called for in the 13 Practical Steps.

    The failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations was noted in the 2006 report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, Weapons of Terror. The report stated, “The erosion of confidence in the effectiveness of the NPT to prevent horizontal proliferation has been matched by a loss of confidence in the treaty as a result of the failure of the nuclear-weapon states to fulfill their disarmament obligations under the treaty and also to honour their additional commitments to disarmament made at the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences.”

    The result of the failure of the NPT nuclear weapons states (US, Russia, UK, France and China) to pursue multilateral negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition has led to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the potential for even further proliferation. India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which never signed the NPT, have developed nuclear arsenals; and North Korea, which withdrew from the NPT in 2003, has announced its entry into the nuclear weapons club. Some 35 to 40 other countries are nuclear weapons capable and could decide in the future to develop nuclear arsenals.

    Israel does not publicly acknowledge its nuclear arsenal, but it is evident to all parties that they are a nuclear weapons state, and other Middle Eastern countries question why they should accept a second tier nuclear status. Proposals for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone have been consistently rebuffed or ignored by Israel and the US.

    In 1998, India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests and announced their nuclear weapons capacity to the world. These tests were greeted with elation in both countries, as if they were a badge of honor rather than dishonor. Both countries made clear over a long period of time that they were not prepared to be second class global citizens in a world of nuclear apartheid. Although, the nuclear tests were at first condemned, this condemnation has turned to acceptance. The US now seeks to change its own non-proliferation laws as well as the rules of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in order to provide nuclear technology and materials to India.

    Most recently, North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test, raising considerable alarm around the world. The North Korean test carries with it the potential for a dangerous nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia involving North Korea, Japan, South Korea and China. This would create a far more dangerous region and world.

    North Korea’s nuclear test should be setting off loud warning sirens. Instead of looking at their own obligations, however, the nuclear weapons states are only pointing a finger at North Korea, in effect looking only at the symptom and not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the ongoing possession and reliance on these weapons of mass annihilation by the nuclear weapons states. The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission stated what should be obvious to all: “So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.”

    Five countries of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – recently established a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (CANWFZ) in their region. They became the world’s sixth nuclear weapons-free zone, following Antarctica; Latin America and the Caribbean; the South Pacific; Africa; and Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the United States has expressed its opposition to this new treaty and is reportedly pressuring the United Nations and other international bodies to withhold their support of the treaty.

    The question that I would pose is this: What is the world to do when the governments of nuclear weapons states act immorally, illegally and dangerously in failing to fulfill their obligations for good faith negotiations to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons? This question is, of course, not easy to answer. We may seem largely powerless in the face of bad faith by the nuclear weapons states, particularly the United States. It may be difficult to see the way forward, but once we have seen the problem we have no choice but to keep trying.

    I don’t have an answer to this question. I believe it is one we must find together. I have faith that the answer will be found as we move forward, step by step. My fear is that the urgency of the situation does not seem to be recognized widely, and the many efforts that have been made to influence the nuclear weapons states seem to fall on deaf ears.

    I want to encourage us all to appreciate each other on this journey. Each of us who embrace this issue, embraces humanity. I want to express my deep appreciation to the Hibakusha of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and to the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima for their persistent efforts. And to the Mayors for Peace for their wonderful 2020 Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, as well as to my colleagues throughout the world in Abolition 2000 and the Middle Powers Initiative.

    On the barren landscape of nuclear arrogance and absurdity we must have faith that humans of goodwill will triumph over catastrophically dangerous technologies in the hands of national leaders with proven capacities to act in ways that are foolish, shortsighted and incompetent. That is a leap of faith that we have all taken. We know that we cannot trust the future of the human species to political or military leaders. We must be the leaders we have been waiting for, and we must prevail in awakening humanity to the cause of a nuclear weapons-free future. Despite the odds, we have no choice but to continue and to prevail. Given the clear record of human fallibilities, there is no place for nuclear weapons in our world, and no alternative to our efforts.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • The Holocaust and the Nuremburg Trials

    The greatest tribute we can pay to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and similar tragedies is never to stop trying to make this a more humane and peaceful world. The United Nations Charter of June 1945, expressed the determination “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Its Preamble spoke of the equality of nations large and small. It called for enhanced social justice, tolerance and respect for international law. In August 1945, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France signed another Charter – creating the International Military Tribunal (IMT) — to bring to justice some of the German leaders responsible for aggression, crimes against humanity. and related atrocities. How far have we come and what more must be done before these noble goals can be achieved?

    THE LEGACY OF NUREMBERG

    The International Military Tribunal

    Germany had surrendered unconditionally. Each of the four occupying powers assigned leading jurists to serve as judges and prosecutors for the IMT. It was agreed that the proceedings had to be absolutely fair. The situs would be in Nuremberg, the home of Nazi party rallies. Robert M. Jackson, leading architect for the trials, took leave from the US Supreme Court to serve as America’s Chief Prosecutor. In his Opening Statement, Justice Jackson set the standard: “We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow.”

    Adolf Hitler and some of his top aides committed suicide, as did Field-Marshal Hermann Goering after he was sentenced to death by the IMT. Of the twenty-four defendants, three were acquitted, nine were imprisoned and twelve were sentenced to hang. The world was put on notice that those who held the reins of power would be accountable for their crimes. The learned IMT jurists confirmed the legal jurisdiction of the court and the validity of the charges under existing law. All proceedings were open to the public. The accused were presumed innocent, given humane treatment, and guaranteed rights, which they, in the days of their pomp and power, never gave to any man.

    After the widely adopted Kellogg Pact of 1928 outlawed the use of force, it should have come as no ex-post facto surprise to Nazi leaders that their blitzkrieg against other states would no longer be tolerated. Jackson noted that international law does not stand still but gradually evolves to meet changing needs. In 1946, the Nuremberg judgment and principles were unanimously affirmed by the first General Assembly of the United Nations. The law had taken a step forward. Aggressive war, which had previously been accepted as an international right, was confirmed as a punishable international crime.

    Subsequent Trials in Nuremberg

    Subsequent trials at Nuremberg, Tokyo and elsewhere built on the IMT foundation. The Allied Powers were unable to agree on another joint international trial but each could try their own captives. Since the IMT could provide only a snapshot of Nazi criminality, the US decided to conduct a dozen “subsequent proceedings” to be directed by General Telford Taylor, a key player on Jackson’s staff. Indictments were filed against doctors who performed forced medical experiments, judges who perverted the law, industrialists, military leaders and ministers who supported illegal Nazi policies. 142 of the 185 tried in the “subsequent proceedings” were convicted.

    In April 1946, I was recruited by the Pentagon to return to Germany to assist with the “Subsequent Proceedings.” I had worked as a research assistant to a Harvard professor writing a book on war crimes before I joined the army, as a private in the artillery, in 1943. When US troops advanced into Germany, I was transferred to General Patton’s Headquarters to help set up a war crimes program. As a war crimes investigator, I dug up bodies of captured Allied flyers beaten to death by enraged German mobs. I entered many concentration camps with the liberating army and witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand. I assembled documents and data to prove the full extent of Nazi criminality. The trauma of those indescribable experiences has never left me.

    After setting up offices in Berlin to gather evidence to support the planned new prosecutions, General Taylor assigned me to be Chief Prosecutor in what was known as the Einsatzgruppen case. The defendants were leaders of SS units that followed advancing German troops into occupied Poland and the Soviet Union. Their mission was to kill, without pity or remorse, every Jewish man, woman and child they could lay their hands on. Gypsies and any other perceived threats to the Reich were to suffer the same fate. According to their secret reports, these extermination squads, totaling about 3000 men, deliberately massacred over a million innocent people. The victims were killed simply because they did not share the race, religion or ideology of their executioners.

    The Mentality of Mass Murderers

    To prevent acts of genocidal barbarism, one must understand the mentality and reasoning of the murderers. The twenty-two defendants in the Einsatzgruppen case were selected on the basis of high rank and education. Many held doctor degrees — six were SS Generals. The principle defendant, General Dr. Otto Ohlendorf, patiently explained why his unit had killed about 90,000 Jews. Killing all Jews and Gypsies was necessary, said Ohlendorf. as a matter of self-defense.

    According to Ohlendorf, it was known that the Soviets planned total war against Germany. A German preemptive strike was better than waiting to be attacked. It was also known, said Ohlendorf, that Jews supported the Bolsheviks – therefore all Jews had to be eliminated. But why did he, the father of five children, kill the little babes — thousands of them? The bland reply was that if the children learned that their parents had been eliminated, they would grow up to be enemies of Germany. Long range security was the goal. He lacked facts sufficient to challenge Hitler’s conclusions. It was all very logical — according to General Dr. Ohlendorf.

    I had not called for the death penalty, although I felt it was richly deserved. I simply asked the court to affirm the right of all human beings to live in peace and dignity regardless of race or creed. It was “a plea of humanity to law.” The three experienced American judges concluded that a preemptive strike as anticipatory self-defense was not a valid legal justification for mass murder. If every nation could decide for itself when to attack a presumed enemy, and when to engage in total war, the rule of law would be destroyed and the world would be destroyed with it. All of the defendants were convicted; thirteen were sentenced to death and Ohlendorf was hanged. I was then 27 years old and it was my first case. The ideals that I then expressed have remained with me all of my life.

    HOW FAR HAVE WE COME?

    Restitution and Compensation

    Despite having promised my bride when we were wed in New York that we would be in Germany only for a brief honeymoon, we stayed on to help obtain restitution, compensation and rehabilitation for the survivors of persecution. As a salaried employee of Jewish charities, I directed innovative programs which had no historical or legal precedent. When, by 1956, Nazi victims of all persuasions had received payments from the West German government approaching about 50 billion dollars, we decided that it was time to return home with our four children born in Nuremberg. Practicing law in New York proved uninspiring. With war and killings raging all over the globe, I decided, at the age of fifty, to spend the rest f my life trying to replace the law of force by the force of law.

    New International Criminal Courts

    My mind turned to international criminal courts to deter international crimes. In 1946 the UN had called for a code of international crimes and an international criminal court to build on the Nuremberg precedents. Accredited as a member of a non-governmental organization, I obtained access to UN archives. I learned that delegates, unable, or unwilling, to agree upon a definition of the crime of aggression, argued that without it there could be no criminal code and without a code there could be no court. In truth, powerful nations were not ready to yield cherished sovereign prerogatives to any international criminal tribunal. After a definition of aggression by consensus was finally reached in 1974, the gates were opened for further work on the criminal code and court. The problems were thoroughly explored and documented in a number of books that I published between 1975 and 1983. My 1994 book New Legal Foundations for Global Survival was a comprehensive overview that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan generously described as “remarkable.”

    It took mass rapes in former Yugoslavia in 1991 to shake the world out of its lethargy. In 1993 the UN Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), to hold accountable those responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and the genocide cloaked as “ethnic cleansing.” When – to the everlasting shame of the international community — over 800,000 people were butchered in Rwanda in fratricidal tribal rivalries, the Security Council set up another ad hoc tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), to bring some of the instigators and perpetrators to justice.

    Similar international tribunals, with limited jurisdictions, are beginning to function for crimes against humanity committed in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, East Timor and elsewhere. It should be obvious that temporary courts, created for a limited time in a limited area after the crimes have been committed, is hardly the most efficient way to ensure international justice. The missing link in the world’s legal order was a permanent court with universally binding laws that might help deter such crimes before they occurred.

    The International Criminal Court in the Hague

    After many years of difficult negotiations and compromises, the Statute for an International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted by a treaty signed in Rome on 17 July 1998. 120 delegations voted in favor and seven against. UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan called it “a gift of hope to future generations.” By July 1, 2002, the treaty went into effect with ratification by 60 nations. By the end of 2005, the number of ratification had swelled to one hundred. Ratification by some of the major powers is still outstanding. The United States, indicated its early support for the ICC, when President Bill Clinton addressed the General Assembly. He had the treaty signed at the UN on New Year’s Eve, 2000. But, in an unprecedented repudiation, the signature of President Clinton was canceled as the new Bush administration, in May 2002, notified the UN that the US had no intention of becoming a party to the ICC.

    Conservative forces in the US government argued that the uncontrolled prosecutor, might unfairly prosecute US servicemmbers. Nations were warned that US economic and military aid would be halted unless they signed agreements exempting US citizens and their employees from the reach of the new Hague tribunal. The US, that had done so much to advance the rule of law, turned its back on the Nuremberg principle espoused by Jackson, Telford Taylor and many others, that law must apply equally to everyone.

    The fears expressed by the US government are misguided and not shared by the hundred nations that support the ICC — including America’s staunchest allies and the entire European Community. Under the ICC Statute, every nation must be given priority to try its own nationals. Only when the country is unable or unwilling to provide a fair trial can the ICC exercise jurisdiction. No prosecutor in human history has been subject to more controls. The American Bar Association and leading jurists support the ICC. It is hoped that when the ICC has proved its fairness and merit, the US will end its unreasonable boycott and join the other nations seeking to uphold fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

    WHERE ARE WE GOING?

    Changing the way People Think.

    In every great democracy it is inevitable that there will be differences of opinion. There have always been those who are convinced that warfare is an unchangeable part of man’s nature. War is seen as a glorious manifestation of Divine law — “the big fish eat the little fish. Despite pretensions to the contrary, such skeptics do not really believe in international law. They reject the utility of new rules of the road or new institutions that seek to improve human behavior. They deride as “dreamers” or “idealists” those who believe that entrenched practices and values can be altered. Yet, history proves they are mistaken.

    Slavery has been abolished, women’s rights are growing, colonialism has all but ended, sovereign states are forming multinational unions bound by common rules, international criminal law and humanitarian law have come into existence and international courts are beginning to flourish. Nations are increasingly recognizing that, in this interdependent world, they must cooperate for their common welfare. The revolution in technology and communication holds forth the promise of a completely altered international and integrated human society for the enhanced benefit of all.

    To be sure, adherence to traditional cultures can enhance the quality of life and should be nourished. Loyalty to one’s neighborhood, nation or religion are cherished values that should be respected. But, as Nuremberg showed, differences of race, religion or ideology cannot be tolerated as valid grounds for destroying those who happen to be different. It is not permissible “self-defense” to slaughter “the other” — it is the crime of murder.

    Aggression, according to the Nuremberg judges and other precedents, is “the supreme international crime” since it includes all the other crimes. There can be no war without atrocities and unauthorized warfare in violation of the UN Charter is the biggest atrocity of all. The best way to protect the lives of courageous young people who serve in the military is to avoid war-making itself. One cannot kill an idea with a gun but only with a better idea. If people believe that law is better than war they must do all they can to enhance the power of law and stop glorifying war.

    There can be no real peace for anyone until there is peace for everyone. Education for peace must start at the earliest ages and be carried through all the institutions and modalities of learning, Understanding, tolerance, compassion, compromise and infinite patience hold forth more promise than the threat of nuclear annihilation or the devastating perils of modern warfare. The memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, and countless wars since then, cry out for an improved social order and a more humane and peaceful world for everyone.

    Benjamin B. Ferencz, a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council, was Chief Prosecutor in the Nuremberg war crimes trial against Nazi extermination squads. He directed postwar restitution programs for survivors of persecution, practiced law in New York, was an Adjunct Professor at Pace Law School and is the author of many books and articles. He is a frequent lecturer on world peace. See his website: www.benferencz.org.

  • The Abandonment of International Law After 9/11

    Presentation to the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference 2005, Washington Convention Center, 801 Mt. Vernon Place, Washington D.C., September 21-24, 2005.

    The US Government has long adopted double standards when it comes to respecting international law, especially in the setting of national security issues. It promotes a generalized respect for the Rule of Law in world politics, is outraged by violations of international law by its enemies, and chooses selectively when to comply and when to violate. This pattern goes far back in American history, but it is convenient to take note of American violations of international law in the setting of the Vietnam War, as well as periodic interventions in Central and South America. I would argue that this pattern has long harmed America’s global reputation and capacity for leadership, as well as worked against its own national interest.

    It seems clear that the United States, and the American people, would have benefited over the years from a foreign policy carried out subject to the discipline of international law. If the US Government had abided by international law, the dreadful experience of the Vietnam War would not have occurred. More recently, an observation that will be discussed further below, upholding international law would have avoided the fiasco of the Iraq War. Contrary to popular belief, respecting the restraints of international law better serves the national interest than does an attitude, so prevalent since 9/11, that international law poses inconvenient obstacles on the path toward national security.

    It is important to understand that the restraints of international law have been voluntarily developed by sovereign states to protect their interests and values. Their intent is practical. It reflects the wisdom of centuries of diplomacy. International law is of particular importance in relation to uses of force in the course of foreign policy, and more generally issues relating to security, especially war and peace. The US Constitution declares in Article VI(2) that duly ratified treaties are ”the supreme law of the land.” This puts the key rules and principles of international law on a par with Congressional acts. The Supreme Court has ruled that in the event of an unavoidable clash between these two sources of legal authority, the last in time should prevail.

    Let me make the general point more strongly. In a globalizing world of great complexity it is in the interest of all states, large and small, that their relations be reliably regulated by international law. This observation underpins the daily operations of the world economy and many other aspects of international behavior, including maritime safety, environmental protection, tourism, immigration, disease control. The stability of international life depends on a closely woven fabric of law as the basis for almost all activity beyond the borders of a sovereign state.

    What is a cause for deepest current worry is that the United States has seemed to abandon this understanding of the relevance of law to the establishment of world order. This concern is not entirely new. It runs throughout the entire course of American history, but it has taken a serious turn for the worse during the Bush presidency, especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Even prior to the attacks, the foreign policy of the Bush administration disclosed its disdain for widely respected international treaties. The Bush White House contended that existing and pending treaties limited its military and political options. In the early months of the Bush presidency it announced its opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons testing, its unwillingness to submit the Kyoto Protocol regulating greenhouse gas emissions, defiantly withdrawing its signature from the Rome Treaty seeking the establishment of the International Criminal Court, and its intention to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Such a pattern of unilateralist hostility to international treaties and multilateral cooperation was unprecedented in American history. It led to a strong negative reaction at home and abroad. Normally friendly governments were clearly alarmed by this internationally disruptive behavior of the new American president. The repudiation of widely endorsed multilateral treaty arrangements that were generally viewed as important contributions to a peaceful world seemed contrary to common sense, as well as to the general wellbeing of the peoples of the world. These expressions of unilateralist approach did not involve violating existing international law, but rather expressed the ultra neoconservative attitude that multilateral cooperation in the security area was undesirable, limiting the capacity of America to take advantage of its status as the sole remaining superpower in the aftermath of the Cold War.

    Congress is also not exempt from blame on these counts. It was in Congress even before George W. Bush came to Washington that militarist pressures were brought to bear in such a way as to oppose beneficial multilateral treaty constraints on United States policy. The Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban in the Clinton years, as well as being so strongly opposed to the ICC and Kyoto Protocol that there was no prospect for such treaties to be approved by the required 2/3s vote if submitted for ratification. What mainly distinguished the Bush approach to international law from that of its predecessors were two developments: its alignment of the Executive Branch with an anti-internationalist set of policies that seemed oblivious to the benefits of international cooperation; and its avowedly ideological and emphatic repudiation of treaty instruments and the restraints of international law in order to express its own approach to foreign policy premised on military dominance and interventionary diplomacy. It was this posture by the Bush leadership that frightened world public opinion. Before 9/11 a rising crescendo of domestic and international opposition to the Bush policies led to mounting criticism, especially given Bush’s dubious electoral mandate in 2000.

    This concern and opposition has dramatically intensified outside the United States since 9/11 because the Bush White House has moved from its earlier hostility to multilateralism to its unwillingness to abide by fundamental international legal rules and standards that this country, along with other constitutional democracies, had previously accepted as a matter of course. These rules include humane treatment of prisoners taken during armed combat, unconditional prohibitions on torture and assassination of political opponents, and the duty to protect civilians in any foreign territory under occupation. The most important of all these legal restrictions on foreign policy is the rule of international law prohibiting non-defensive uses of force without a mandate from the UN Security Council. In his 2004 State of the Union Address President Bush told the Congress that the United States would never seek ‘a permission slip’ in matters bearing on its security. But it is precisely a permission slip that international law, and the UN Charter, requires. Such a requirement was written into the Charter largely at the behest of the US Government after World War II, seeking to bind the states of the world to a legal framework that forbade wars of aggression, what more fashionably has been recently called ‘wars of choice.’ German and Japanese leaders were sentenced to death at war crimes tribunals because they had recourse to aggressive wars, and acted without a permission slip.

    The Iraq War is a notorious example of a war of choice that violates this fundamental rule of international law. As such, according to the Nuremberg Principles embodied in general international law after the conviction of German leaders for their criminal conduct, constitutes a Crime Against Peace. The American prosecutor at Nuremberg, Justice Robert Jackson, famously said to the tribunal, “..let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn, aggression by other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.”

    This pattern of illegality continues to shock the conscience of humanity. American officials have strained to redefine ‘torture’ so as to permit what the rest of the world, and common sense, understand to be ‘torture.’ The abuse of prisoners detained in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere has severely damaged America’s reputation in the world, as well as undermined its struggle against those extremist enemies engaged in terrorism. Government lawyers and their supporters in society have argued in favored of assassinating suspects in foreign countries, and justified under the terminology of ‘rendition’ handing over suspects to foreign governments notorious for their reliance on torture as their preferred mode of interrogation. The detrimental impact of such American lawlessness on the protection of human rights has been documented in great detail by such respected organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.

    This record of abuse has badly tarnished America’s reputation as world leaders and limited the capacity of the government to get support for and cooperation with its anti-terrorist policies.

    It is notable to observe that the events of 9/11 produced a patriotic surge that has endowed the Bush administration with the freedom to embark on a foreign policy aimed at ‘geopolitical preeminence,’ and only incidentally concerned with the defeat of Al Qaeda and transnational terrorism. Such a priority was stated clearly before 9/11 in the report of the Project for a New American Century. And it was acknowledged subsequent to 9/11 in the important White House document entitled “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” (2002) In other words, violating international law, especially embarking on wars of aggression, has been integral to the realization of preexisting American global ambitions that were politically non-viable before 9/11. To sustain a climate of acquiescence within the United States it has been necessary to rely upon a manipulative politics of fear that has largely led to a suspension of criticism, including from the US Congress. In this crucial respect, the Congress is failing in its constitutional duties by not seeking to exert pressure on the Executive to uphold the Rule of Law by insisting on compliance with international law. Perhaps, the public outrage associated with the derelictions of governmental duty in the setting of Hurricane Katrina have finally opened a space for challenging the legitimacy of the present government, and holding the leaders to account. If the political will can be mobilized in Washington the blank check on government policy issued after 9/11 can at last be voided.

    But the neoconservatives in and around the White House seem unchastened. Despite the ongoing draining experience of the Iraq occupation, these foreign policy super-hawks are making belligerent noises that suggest the possibilities of further military adventures in the Middle East, targeting Syria first, and then menacing Iran. It is a sign of untamed and lawless militarism that the rightist columnist, Max Boot, writing in the LA Times on September 21, 2005, can argue that it is only targeting difficulties that make it impractical to strike at North Korea’s nuclear facilities from the air. Boot writes as if there are no legal or moral inhibitions on such aggressive uses of force at the whim of American leaders. If other governments were to adopt such a logic the world would quickly become an inferno of violence and extremism.

    It is and should be a requirement of a constitutional democracy in the 21st century that a government’s foreign policy, as well as its domestic behavior, be made subject to the discipline of law. In a globalized world the extension of law to international activity is in the national interest. It keeps our leaders from embarking on geopolitical ventures that are not supported by the citizenry if fully informed. American failures to abide by international law gives others a reciprocal right to violate their legal obligations, including in relation to Americans detained abroad as prisoners. What we see instead during the Bush presidency is a refusal to uphold the most fundamental obligations of international law that are binding on all sovereign states. We also believe that the willingness of American lawmakers and media to tolerate such illegality and criminality is a byproduct of the atmosphere that has followed from the 9/11 attacks. Because these attacks enabled the White House and Pentagon to pursue policies that their leadership favored before 9/11, but could not implement due to political obstacles, it becomes of immense practical importance to determine the authenticity of the official version of the 9/11 attacks and response. The readiness to plan the Iraq War as early as September 12, 2001 and the availability of the legislative draft that was to become the Patriot Act give every right for a vigilant citizenry to be suspicious. As suggested, in the aftermath of Katrina, and given the continuing ferocity of the Iraqi resistance to the American occupation, new political possibilities exist to challenge the Bush White House, and revamp American foreign and domestic policy, attending to the needs of the people, especially those who suffer in poverty while those around them wallow in obscene wealth.

    Finally, adherence to international law in matters of war and peace is in the interest of the American peoples and the peoples of the world. There may be humanitarian emergencies or dangerous threats of attack that might justify recourse to war as the UN Secretary General and the UN High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change both conclude, but recourse to war is only legally valid if it is authorized by the Security Council. America and the world will be better off when non-defensive warfare requires in every instance ‘a permission slip.’

    Let hope that American lawmakers can learn from Iraq and Katrina to work for the security and wellbeing of the citizenry and of the world, to reassess priorities, and to reaffirm the importance of adhering to international law and of respecting the human rights of all persons, both citizens and non-citizens, whether in detention within the country or beyond its sovereign borders.

    Richard Falk, chair of the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is the author of Religion and Humane Global Governance (Palgrave) and, most recently, The Great Terror War (Olive Branch). He is currently visiting professor of global studies at UC Santa Barbara.

  • A Higher Duty

    Iraq war resister Navy sailor Pablo Paredes has been sentenced to three months of hard labor for refusing deployment to the Persian Gulf. He was also demoted from petty officer third class to seaman recruit, the lowest rank in the Navy. His lawyers call it a victory for war resisters around the country.

    Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Paredes to nine months of confinement and a bad conduct discharge.

    Paredes refused to board the USS Bonhomme Richard as it was preparing to sail from San Diego with 2,000 Marines in December. He surrendered to military authorities a few days later and applied for conscientious objector status. The Navy has denied his request but that ruling is being appealed.

    Paredes was convicted in a court-martial on May 11th on a charge of missing his deployment. Prosecutor Lt. Brandon Hale said “He is trying to infect the military with his own philosophy of disobedience.”

    On Thursday, May 12th, before sentencing, Paredes spoke to the court about his decision not to go to Iraq. He said “I feel in my mind and heart that this war is illegal and immoral.”

    The following statement was made by Pablo Paredes during his military court-martial in San Diego, California on May 12, 2005.

    Your Honor, and to all present, I’d like to state first and foremost that it has never been my intent or motivation to create a mockery of the Navy or its judicial system. I do not consider military members adversaries. I consider myself in solidarity with all service members. It is this feeling of solidarity that was at the root of my actions. I don’t pretend to be in a position to lecture anyone on what I perceive as facts concerning our current political state of affairs. I accept that it is very possible that my political perspective on this war could be wrong. I don’t think that rational people can even engage in debate if neither is willing to accept the possibility that their assertions, no matter how researched, can be tainted with inaccuracy and falsehoods. I do believe that accepting this in no way takes away from one’s confidence in their own convictions.

    I am convinced that the current war in Iraq is illegal. I am also convinced that the true causality for it lacked any high ground in the topography of morality. I believe as a member of the Armed Forces, beyond having duty to my Chain of Command and my President, I have a higher duty to my conscience and to the supreme law of the land. Both of these higher duties dictate that I must not participate in any way, hands-on or indirect, in the current aggression that has been unleashed on Iraq. In the past few months I have been continually asked if I regret my decision to refuse to board my ship and to do so publicly. I have spent hour upon hour reflecting on my decision, and I can tell you with every fiber of certitude that I possess that I feel in my heart I did the right thing.

    This does not mean I have no regrets. I regret dearly exposing the families of marines and sailors to my protest. While I do not feel my message was wrong, I know that those families were facing a difficult moment. This moment was made in some ways more difficult by my actions, and this pains me. That day on the pier, I restrained myself from answering the calls of coward and even some harsher variations of the same term. I did so because I knew this wasn’t the time to engage these families in debate. I thought that I became in many ways a forum in which to vent their fears and sadness. And I didn’t want to turn that into a combative situation in which the families were distracted more by our debate than simply empowered by their ability to chastise my actions. All that being said I still feel my actions made some people very unhappy and made others feel that I was taking away from their child’s or their husband’s goodbye, and I regret this.

    I also regret the pain and stress I have caused those near and dear to me. I know that my lawyers feel that it is ill advised of me to say these things, and I am aware of that. My lawyers have had a very difficult time with me. They also thought that it was ill advised me for me to plead not guilty. It is this I truly want to explain, both to them and to the court. I realize I did not board the Bonhomme Richard on December 6 and that I left after the ship personnel and Pier Master-at-Arms refused to arrest me. Given these confessions one may find it hard to understand why would anyone admit to the action but not plead guilty to the crime. It is this question that has also been the topic of much reflection for me.

    I never deny my actions nor do I run from their consequences. But pleading guilty is more than admission of action. It is also acceptance that that action was wrong and illegal. These are two things I do not and cannot accept. I feel, even with all the regrets and difficulties that have come as a result of my actions, that they were in fact my duty as a human being and as a service member. I feel in my mind and heart that this war is illegal and immoral. The moral argument is one that courts have little room for and has been articulated in my C.O. application. It is an argument that encompasses all wars as intolerable in my system of morals. The legal argument is quite relevant, although motions filed and approved have discriminated against it to the point it was not allowed into this trial.

    I have long now been an ardent reader of independent media, and, in my opinion, less corrupted forms of media, such as TruthOut.org, Democracy Now!, books from folks like Steven Zunes, and Chalmers Johnson, articles from people like Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein. These folks are very educated in matters of politics and are not on the payroll of any major corporate news programming, such as CNN or FOX News network. They all do what they do for reasons other than money, as they could earn much more if they joined the corporate-controlled ranks. I have come to trust their research and value their convictions in assisting me to form my own. They have all unanimously condemned this war as illegal, as well as made resources available for me to draw my own conclusions, resources like Kofi Annan’s statements on how under the U.N. Charter the Iraq War is illegal, resources like Marjorie Cohn’s countless articles providing numerous sources and reasons why the war is illegal under international, as well as domestic law. I could speak on countless sources and their arguments as to the legality of the war on Iraq quite extensively. But again, I don’t presume to be in a position to lecture anyone here on law. I mean only to provide insight on my actions on December 6.

    I understood before that date very well what the precedent was for service members participating in illegal wars. I read extensively on the arguments and results of Nazi German soldiers, as well as imperial Japanese soldiers, in the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, respectively. In all I read I came to an overwhelming conclusion supported by countless examples that any soldier who knowingly participates in an illegal war can find no haven in the fact that they were following orders, in the eyes of international law.

    Nazi aggression and imperialist Japan are very charged moments of history and simply mentioning them evokes many emotions and reminds of many atrocities. So I want to be very clear that I am in no way comparing our current government to any of the historical counterparts. I am not comparing the leaders or their acts, not their militaries nor their acts. I am only citing the trials because they are the best example of judicial precedent for what a soldier/sailor is expected to do when faced with the decision to participate or refuse to participate in what he perceives is an illegal war.

    I think we would all agree that a service member must not participate in random unprovoked illegitimate violence simply because he is ordered to. What I submit to you and the court is that I am convinced that the current war is exactly that. So, if there’s anything I could be guilty of, it is my beliefs. I am guilty of believing this war is illegal. I’m guilty of believing war in all forms is immoral and useless, and I am guilty of believing that as a service member I have a duty to refuse to participate in this war because it is illegal.

    I do not expect the court to rule on the legality of this war, nor do I expect the court to agree with me. I only wish to express my reasons and convictions surrounding my actions. I acted on my conscience. Whether right or wrong in my convictions I will be at peace knowing I followed my conscience.

  • Costs of the Iraq War

    Key Findings

    1. U.S. Military Casualties Have Been Highest During the “Transition”: U.S. military casualties (wounded and killed) stand at a monthly average of 747 since the so-called “transition” to Iraqi rule on June 28, 2004. This contrasts with a monthly average of 482 U.S. military casualties during the invasion (March 20-May 1, 2003) and a monthly average of 415 during the occupation (May 2, 2003- June 28, 2004).

    2. Non-Iraqi Contractor Deaths Have Also Been Highest During the”Transition”: There has also been a huge increase in the average monthly deaths of U.S. and other non-Iraqi contractors since the “transition.” On average, 17.5 contractors have died each month since the June 28 “transition,” versus 7.6 contractor deaths per month during the previous 14 months of occupation.

    3. Estimated Strength of Iraqi Resistance Skyrockets: Because the U.S. military occupation remains in place, the “transition” has failed to win Iraqi support or diminish Iraqi resistance to the occupation. According to Pentagon estimates, the number of Iraqi resistance fighters has quadrupled between November of 2003 and early September 2004, from 5,000 to 20,000. The Deputy Commander of Coalition forces in Iraq , British Major General Andrew Graham, indicated to Time magazine in early September that he thinks the 20,000 estimate is too low; he estimates Iraqi resistance strength at 40,000-50,000. This rise is even starker when juxtaposed to Brookings Institution estimates that an additional 24,000 Iraqi resistance fighters have been detained or killed between May 2003 and August 2004.

    4. U.S.- led Coalition Shrinks Further After “Transition”: The number of countries identified as members of the Coalition backing the U.S.-led war started with 30 on March 18, 2003, then grew in the early months of the war. Since then, eight countries have withdrawn their troops and Costa Rica has demanded to be taken off the coalition list. At the war’s start, coalition countries represented 19.1 percent of the world’s population; today, the remaining countries with foces in Iraq represent only 13.6 percent of the world’s population.

    HUMAN COSTS TO THE U.S. AND ALLIES

    U.S. Military Deaths: Between the start of war on March 19, 2003 and September 22, 2004, 1,175 coalition forces were killed, including 1,040 U.S. military. Of the total, 925 were killed after President Bush declared the end of combat operations on May 1, 2003. Over 7,413 U.S. troops have been wounded since the war began, 6,953 (94 percent) since May 1, 2003.

    Contractor Deaths: As of September 22, 2004, there has been an estimated 154 civilian contractors, missionaries, and civilian worker deaths since May 1, 2004. Of these, 52 have been identified as Americans.

    Journalist Deaths: Forty-four international media workers have been killed in Iraq as of September 22, 2004, including 33 since President Bush declared the end of combat operations. Eight of the dead worked for U.S. companies.

    SECURITY COSTS

    Terrorist Recruitment and Action: According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, al Qaeda’s membership is now at 18,000, with 1,000 active in Iraq . The State Department’s 2003 “Patterns of Global Terrorism,” documented 625 deaths and 3,646 injuries due to terrorist attacks in 2003. The report acknowledged that “significant incidents,” increased from 60 percent of total attacks in 2002 to 84 percent in 2003.

    Low U.S. Credibility: Polls reveal that the war has damaged the U.S. government’s standing and credibility in the world. Surveys in eight European and Arab countries demonstrated broad public agreement that the war has hurt, rather than helped, the war on terrorism. At home, 52 percent of Americans polled by the Annenberg Election Survey disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq.

    Military Mistakes: A number of former military officials have criticized the war, including retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, who has charged that by manufacturing a false rationale for war, abandoning traditional allies, propping up and trusting Iraqi exiles, and failing to plan for post-war Iraq , the Bush Administration made the United States less secure.

    Low Troop Morale and Lack of Equipment: A March 2004 army survey found 52 percent of soldiers reporting low morale, and three-fourths reporting they were poorly led by their officers. Lack of equipment has been an ongoing problem. The Army did not fully equip soldiers with bullet-proof vests until June 2004, forcing many families to purchase them out of their own pockets.

    Loss of First Responders: National Guard troops make up almost one-third of the U.S. Army troops now in Iraq . Their deployment puts a particularly heavy burden on their home communities because many are “first responders,” including police, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel. For example, 44 percent of the country’s police forces have lost officers to Iraq . In some states, the absence of so many Guard troops has raised concerns about the ability to handle natural disasters.

    Use of Private Contractors: An estimated 20,000 private contractors are carrying out work in Iraq traditionally done by the military, despite the fact that they often lack sufficient training and are not accountable to the same guidelines and reviews as military personnel.

    ECONOMIC COSTS

    The Bill So Far: Congress has approved of $151.1 billion for Iraq. Congressional leaders anticipate an additional supplemental appropriation of $60 billion after the election.

    Long-term Impact on U.S. Economy: Economist Doug Henwood has estimated that the war bill will add up to an average of at least $3,415 for every U.S. household.

    Oil Prices: U.S. crude oil prices spiked at $48 per barrel on August 19, 2004, the highest level since 1983, a development that most analysts attribute at least in part to the deteriorating situation in Iraq.

    Economic Impact on Military Families: Since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , 364,000 reserve troops and National Guard soldiers have been called for military service, serving tours of duty that often last 20 months. Studies show that between 30 and 40 percent of reservists and National Guard members earn a lower salary when they leave civilian employment for military deployment. Army Emergency Relief has reported that requests from military families for food stamps and subsidized meals increased “several hundred percent” between 2002 and 2003.

    SOCIAL COSTS

    U.S. Budget and Social Programs: The Bush administration’s combination of massive spending on the war and tax cuts for the wealthy means less money for social spending. The $151.1 billion expenditure for the war through this year could have paid for: close to 23 million housing vouchers; health care for over 27 million uninsured Americans; salaries for nearly 3 million elementary school teachers; 678,200 new fire engines; over 20 million Head Start slots for children; or health care coverage for 82 million children. A leaked memo from the White House to domestic agencies outlines major cuts following the election, including funding for education, Head Start, home ownership, job training, medical research and homeland security.

    Social Costs to the Military: In order to meet troop requirements in Iraq, the Army has extended the tours of duty for soldiers. These extensions have been particularly difficult for reservists, many of whom never expected to face such long separations from their jobs and families. According to military policy, reservists are not supposed to be on assignment for more than 12 months every 5-6 years. To date, the average tour of duty for all soldiers in Iraq has been 320 days. A recent Army survey revealed that more than half of soldiers said they would not re-enlist.

    Costs to Veteran Health Care: About 64 percent of the more than 7,000 U.S. soldiers injured in Iraq received wounds that prevented them from returning to duty. One trend has been an increase in amputees, the result of improved body armor that protects vital organs but not extremities. As in previous wars, many soldiers are likely to have received ailments that will not be detected for years to come. The Veterans Administration healthcare system is not prepared for the swelling number of claims. In May, the House of Representatives approved funding for FY 2005 that is $2.6 billion less than needed, according to veterans’ groups.

    Mental Health Costs: The New England Journal of Medicine reported in July 2004 that 1 in 6 soldiers returning from war in Iraq showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, or severe anxiety. Only 23 to 40 percent of respondents in the study who showed signs of a mental disorder had sought mental health care.

    COSTS TO IRAQ

    HUMAN COSTS

    Iraqi Deaths and Injuries: As of September 22, 2004, between 12,800 and 14,843 Iraqi civilians have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion and ensuing occupation, while an estimated 40,000 Iraqis have been injured. During “major combat” operations, between 4,895 and 6,370 Iraqi soldiers and insurgents were killed.

    Effects of Depleted Uranium: The health impacts of the use of depleted uranium weaponry in Iraq are yet to be known. The Pentagon estimates that U.S. and British forces used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of weaponry made from the toxic and radioactive metal during the March 2003 bombing campaign. Many scientists blame the far smaller amount of DU weapons used in the Persian Gulf War for illnesses among U.S. soldiers, as well as a sevenfold increase in child birth defects in Basra in southern Iraq.

    Rise in Crime: Murder, rape, and kidnapping have skyrocketed since March 2003, forcing Iraqi children to stay home from school and women to stay off the streets at night. Violent deaths rose from an average of 14 per month in 2002 to 357 per month in 2003.

    Psychological Impact: Living under occupation without the most basic security has devastated the Iraqi population. A poll conducted by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies in June 2004 found that 80 percent of Iraqis believe that coalition forces should leave either immediately or directly after the election.

    ECONOMIC COSTS

    Unemployment: Iraqi joblessness doubled from 30 percent before the war to 60 percent in the summer of 2003. While the Bush administration now claims that unemployment has dropped, the U.S. is only employing 120,000 Iraqis, of a workforce of 7 million, in reconstruction projects.

    Corporate War Profiteering: Most of Iraq ‘s reconstruction has been contracted out to U.S. companies, rather than experienced Iraqi firms. Top contractor Halliburton is being investigated for charging $160 million for meals that were never served to troops and $61 million in cost overruns on fuel deliveries. Halliburton employees also took $6 million in kickbacks from subcontractors, while other employees have reported extensive waste, including the abandonment of $85,000 trucks because they had flat tires. Iraq ‘s Oil Economy: Anti-occupation violence has prevented Iraq from capitalizing on its oil assets. There have been an estimated 118 attacks on Iraq ‘s oil infrastructure since June 2003. By September 2004, oil production still had not reached pre-war levels and major attacks caused oil exports to plummet to a ten- month low in August 2004.

    SOCIAL COSTS

    Health Infrastructure: After more than a decade of crippling sanctions, Iraq ‘s health facilities were further damaged during the war and post-invasion looting. Iraq ‘s hospitals continue to suffer from lack of supplies and an overwhelming number of patients.

    Education: UNICEF estimates that more than 200 schools were destroyed in the conflict and thousands more were looted in the chaos following the fall of Saddam Hussein.

    Environment: The U.S-led attack damaged water and sewage systems and the country’s fragile desert ecosystem. It also resulted in oil well fires that spewed smoke across the country and left unexploded ordnance that continues to endanger the Iraqi people and environment. Mines and unexploded ordnance cause an estimated 20 casualties per month.

    HUMAN RIGHTS COSTS

    Even with Saddam Hussein overthrown, Iraqis continue to face human rights violations from occupying forces. In addition to the widely publicized humiliation and torture of prisoners, abuse has been widespread throughout the post-9-11 military operations, with over 300 allegations of abuse in Afghanistan , Iraq and Guantánamo. As of mid-August 2004, only 155 investigations into the existing 300 allegations had been completed.

    SOVEREIGNTY COSTS

    Despite the proclaimed “transfer of sovereignty” to Iraq , the country continues to be occupied by U.S. and coalition troops and has severely limited political and economic independence. The interim government does not have the authority to reverse the nearly 100 orders by former CPA head Paul Bremer that, among other things, allow for the privatization of Iraq ‘s state-owned enterprises and prohibit preferences for domestic firms in reconstruction.

    COSTS TO THE WORLD

    HUMAN COSTS

    While Americans make up the vast majority of military and contractor personnel in Iraq , other U.S.-allied “coalition” troops have suffered 135 war casualties in Iraq . In addition, the focus on Iraq has diverted international resources and attention away from humanitarian crises such as in Sudan.

    DISABLING INTERNATIONAL LAW

    The unilateral U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq violated the United Nations Charter, setting a dangerous precedent for other countries to seize any opportunity to respond militarily to claimed threats, whether real or contrived, that must be “pre-empted.” The U.S. military has also violated the Geneva Convention, making it more likely that in the future, other nations will ignore these protections in their treatment of civilian populations and detainees.

    UNDERMINING THE UNITED NATIONS

    At every turn, the Bush Administration has attacked the legitimacy and credibility of the UN, undermining the institution’s capacity to act in the future as the centerpiece of global disarmament and conflict resolution. The efforts of the Bush administration to gain UN acceptance of an Iraqi government that was not elected but rather installed by occupying forces undermines the entire notion of national sovereignty as the basis for the UN Charter. It was on this basis that Secretary General Annan referred specifically to the vantage point of the UN Charter in his September 2004 finding that the war was illegal.

    ENFORCING COALITIONS

    Faced with opposition in the UN Security Council, the U.S. government attempted to create the illusion of multilateral support for the war by pressuring other governments to join a so-called “Coalition of the Willing.” This not only circumvented UN authority, but also undermined democracy in many coalition countries, where public opposition to the war was as high as 90 percent. As of the middle of September, only 29 members of the “Coalition of the Willing” had forces in Iraq , in addition to the United States . These countries, combined with United States , make up less than 14 percent of the world’s population.

    COSTS TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

    The $151.1 billion spent by the U.S. government on the war could have cut world hunger in half and covered HIV/AIDS medicine, childhood immunization and clean water and sanitation needs of the developing world for more than two years. As a factor in the oil price hike, the war has created concerns of a return to the “stagflation” of the 1970s. Already, the world’s major airlines are expecting an increase in costs of $1 billion or more per month.

    UNDERMINING GLOBAL SECURITY AND DISARMAMENT

    The U.S.-led war and occupation have galvanized international terrorist organizations, placing people not only in Iraq but around the world at greater risk of attack. The State Department’s annual report on international terrorism reported that in 2003 there was the highest level of terror-related incidents deemed “significant” than at any time since the U.S. began issuing these figures.

    GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS

    U.S.-fired depleted uranium weapons have contributed to pollution of Iraq ‘s land and water, with inevitable spillover effects in other countries. The heavily polluted Tigris River , for example, flows through Iraq , Iran and Kuwait.

    HUMAN RIGHTS

    The Justice Department memo assuring the White House that torture was legal stands in stark violation of the International Convention Against Torture (of which the United States is a signatory). This, combined with the widely publicized mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military and intelligence officials, gave new license for torture and mistreatment by governments around the world.

    Prepared by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy In Focus

  • Seeking Peace in the Nuclear Age

    Seeking Peace in the Nuclear Age

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982 by a small group of citizens who believed that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age – that our powerful technologies, particularly nuclear weapons, have brought us to the stage in human development when we must put an end to war before war puts an end to us. We created the Foundation in the belief that citizens can make a difference by influencing other citizens and government officials.

    The Foundation began with only a handful of individuals and now reaches millions of people annually through our programs, publications and websites. We operate internationally and are on the Roster in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The Foundation has been named a United Nations Peace Messenger organization, and among our advisors are many Nobel Peace Laureates from throughout the world.

    The work of the Foundation is based upon a commitment to achieve a more secure and decent future for humanity. We have three principal goals: to abolish nuclear weapons; to strengthen international law and institutions; and to inspire and empower a new generation of peace leaders. We seek these goals by means of education and advocacy.

    Abolishing nuclear weapons may seem like an impossible goal, but it is critical to pursue because these weapons can destroy cities, civilizations and even the human species. The stated purpose of nuclear weapons has always been deterrence, to prevent others from using nuclear weapons by threatening to retaliate with massive force. But now that the Cold War has ended there are no nuclear weapons states that remain enemies, excepting possibly India and Pakistan , and even they are attempting to work out their differences.

    Nuclear weapons are not needed to deter friends, and they cannot deter terrorists who cannot be located. Thus, our most practical and safest course of action is the phased and verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons. To succeed in this endeavor, the US must take the lead, for without the US it will not happen. The Foundation works with other organizations around the world on these issues. We helped form a network of over 2000 organizations working for a nuclear weapons-free future. We have also initiated a national campaign to chart a new course for US nuclear policy. The campaign is called Turn the Tide and it allows citizens to learn about US nuclear policies and to play a role in changing them.

    Each year the Foundation hosts a symposium on international law that looks at strengthening some aspect of the global legal structure. One of our symposiums focused on creating a United Nations Emergency Peace Service – a small UN rapid deployment force that could be used to stop genocides and crimes against humanity from occurring by moving rapidly to prevent them. Another symposium focused on the importance of supporting an International Criminal Court that will hold all individuals, including national leaders, accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

    The Foundation is also active in reaching out to young people. We are working to create a new generation of peace leaders. Michael Coffey , our Director of Youth Programs, travels around the country speaking to and working with youth on high school and college campuses. In 2005, the Foundation will host a conference of 50-60 young nuclear activists from around the country to learn from each other and from a team of experienced activists about being more effective in creating a nuclear weapons-free future. We are very excited about the potential of this youth conference to have a multiplier effect in reaching a broad audience of young people and influencing them to play a role in shaping their future.

    We do much more at the Foundation, which you can find out about at our principal web site, www.wagingpeace.org. You can also visit our other web sites,www.nuclearfiles.org and www.ucnuclearfree.org.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is an organization that works daily to build a peaceful and nuclear weapons free world. It is a persistent voice for peace in our troubled world. We invite you to add your voice and help support our efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, strengthen international law and reach out to young people. Help us create a world we can be proud to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. This is an edited version of remarks made at the kick-off event for the Foundation’s 20th Anniversary Campaign.

  • You Scare Us: Bush Is Giving Latin America the Willies

    The United States is strong. Latin America is weak. This is the basic truth that shapes their relationship. There is no irrational animosity toward the U.S. in Latin America. There is a measure of suspicion balanced by enormous admiration for the culture of Herman Melville to Walt Whitman to William Faulkner, of Hollywood and jazz, of Eugene O’Neill to Arthur Miller. Nor is there envy of the United States. Latin America is deeply aware of its cultural values. Our personality is not assailed by gringo fashions. We absorb and adapt to the cultures of the world, including that of the U.S.

    The problem lies in foreign policy. Too often, the United States is seen as a benevolent Dr. Jekyll at home and a malevolent Mr. Hyde abroad. The wars against Mexico (1846-1848) and Spain (1898), Teddy Roosevelt’s “big stick,” Woodrow Wilson’s well-intentioned but counterproductive intervention in Mexico during its revolution, incessant and arrogant meddling in Central America. Not an easy menu to swallow. One moment shines through, however: Franklin Roosevelt’s “good neighbor” policy, his decision to win Latin American support during World War II through negotiation rather than confrontation.

    And after that war, a limpid admiration for the Roosevelt and Truman policies of international cooperation through organizations based on the rule of law. “We all have to recognize,” Harry Truman said in 1945, “[that] no matter how great our strength – we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.” The United Nations was a creation of U.S. diplomacy. Its principles were clearly stated and universally accepted. Even when the U.S. violated them in practice during the Cold War, the principles were never renounced.

    This brings us to what Latin Americans find so shocking about the Bush administration. Instead of multilateralism, unilateralism. Instead of diplomacy and negotiation and a search for consensus and the use of force only as a last resort, the barbaric principle of preventive war.

    U.S. support for brutal dictatorships in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay in the name of anti-communism caused great suffering. The overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile. The Central American wars in the 1980s and their high body counts. These Latin American grievances were balanced by a perception that the U.S. never formally renounced the principles of international law and the hope that it would reaffirm them again.

    What is alarming about the Bush administration is its formal denunciation of the basic rules of international intercourse. With us or against us, President Bush declares starkly and simplistically. The U.S. acts according to its own interests, “not those of an illusory international community,” asserts national security advisor Condoleezza Rice.

    Is it strange that many Latin Americans should see in these statements an aggressive denial of the only leverage we have in dealing with Washington: the rule of law, the balance obtained through diplomatic negotiation?

    Not only out of self-interest, but also as participants in the global society, many Latin Americans worry that U.S. unilateralism is incompatible with the multilateralist nature of globalization. This was the warning issued by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo at last year’s Harvard commencement. Add Chilean President Ricardo Lagos’ perception that the world community is postponing the urgent global agenda of creating an adequate social-program fund, strengthening human rights and overcoming the chasms between haves and have-nots. And top it with former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s plea to the French National Assembly: Fight vigorously against terror but also against the underlying causes of terror: hunger, ignorance, inequality and distorted perceptions of other cultures.

    Fortunately, these composite voices of Latin American statesmen found a powerful echo in North America, when former President Clinton warned that you do not defeat terror if you do not figure out how to work with an interdependent world.

    These voices, these warnings, these hopes have been disowned by the Bush administration. “With us or against us,” Bush has said. It hardly matters. Offensive as these words are to the international community, I believe that Latin America, in particular, will not forget the outright deceptions of the Bush era: the shifting rationales for an unnecessary war and a disastrous postwar occupation; the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; the targeting of one tyrant (Saddam Hussein) among many (Kim Jong II, Robert Mugabe, Moammar Kadafi); the utter lack of foresight that an occupied Iraq would rise against the foreign occupiers and try to fashion its own political future out of its complex religious, tribal and cultural realities, all of them ignored by the neoconservatives in Washington.

    But while not forgetting these mistakes and deceptions, we would put the accent on the restoration of the rule of law, the thrust of cooperation and the attention due to 3 billion human beings living in poverty, ignorance and illness. When Bush and his bellicose minions are gone, these problems will still be around. We in Latin America should try to bring them forward as the real agenda for this troubling century.

    Carlos Fuentes is the author, most recently, of “Contra Bush,” which will be translated into seven languages. Originally published in the Los Angeles Times on September 26, 2004.

  • Global Genocide Is Not an Option

    Dear Editor:

    President Bush violated the sacred dreams and goals of the servicemen and women of previous wars who fought and gave their lives that their children and grandchildren would never, ever have to go to war. Preemptive war guarantees the continuation of war as the way to settle differences.

    International law must be the basis for settling the differences between nations just as national laws are used within nations.

    The Bush administration must be replaced by an administration that will honor the goals and dreams of the heroes of World War II especially by substituting international law for international anarchy.

    The existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction has outlawed war forever, because Global Genocide is not an option.

  • Support for Wall Mocks International Law

    What is most remarkable about the International Court of Justice decision on Israel’s ”security barrier” in the West Bank is the strength of the consensus behind it. By a vote of 14-1, the 15 distinguished jurists who make up the highest judicial body on the planet found that the barrier is illegal under international law and that Israel must dismantle it, as well as compensate Palestinians for damage to their property resulting from the barrier’s construction.

    The International Court of Justice has very rarely reached this degree of unanimity in big cases. The July 9 decision was even supported by the generally conservative British judge Rosalyn Higgins, whose intellectual force is widely admired in the United States.

    One might expect the government of Ariel Sharon to wave off this notable consensus as an ”immoral and dangerous opinion.” But one might expect the United States — even as it backed its ally Israel — at least to take account of the court’s reasoning in its criticisms. Instead, both the Bush administration and leading Democrats, including Senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, mindlessly rejected the decision.

    Even the American justice in The Hague, Thomas Buergenthal, was careful in his lone dissent. He argued that the court did not fully explore Israel’s contention that the wall-and-fence complex is necessary for its security before arriving at its sweeping legal conclusions. But Judge Buergenthal also indicated that Israel was bound to adhere to international humanitarian law, that the Palestinians were entitled to exercise their right of self-determination and, insofar as the wall was built to protect Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, that he had “serious doubt that the wall would. . .satisfy the proportionality requirement to qualify as legitimate self-defense.”

    The nuance in Buergenthal’s narrow dissent contrasts sharply with, for instance, Kerry’s categorical statement that Israel’s barrier “is not a matter for the ICJ.”

    To the contrary, Israel’s construction of the wall in the West Bank has flagrantly violated clear standards in international law. The clarity of the violations accounts for the willingness of the U.N. General Assembly to request an advisory opinion on the wall from the court, a right it has never previously exercised in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The clarity also helps to explain Israel’s refusal to participate in the ICJ proceedings — not even to present its claim that the barrier under construction has already reduced the incidence of suicide bombing by as much as 90 percent.

    Significantly, the court confirms that Israel is entitled to build a wall to defend itself from threats emanating from the Palestinian territories if it builds the barrier on its own territory. The justices based their objection to the wall on its location within occupied Palestinian territories, as well as the consequent suffering visited upon affected Palestinians.

    If Israel had erected the wall on its side of the boundary of Israel prior to the 1967 war, then it would not have encroached on Palestinian legal rights. The court’s logic assumes the unconditional applicability of international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, to Israel’s administration of the West Bank and Gaza (a principle affirmed by Judge Buergenthal). That body of law obliges Israel to respect the property rights of Palestinians without qualification, and to avoid altering the character of the territory, including by population transfer.

    The decision creates a clear mandate. The ICJ decision, by a vote of 13-2, imposes upon all states an obligation not to recognize ”the illegal situation” created by the construction of the wall. This is supplemented by a 14-1 vote urging the General Assembly and Security Council to “consider what further action is required to bring an end to the illegal situation.”

    Such a plain-spoken ruling from the characteristically cautious International Court of Justice will test the respect accorded international law, including U.S. willingness to support international law despite a ruling against its ally. The invasion of Iraq and the continuing scandals have already tarnished the reputation of the United States as a law-abiding member of the international community. When U.S. officials dismiss the nearly unanimous ICJ decision without even bothering to engage its arguments, America’s reputation suffers further. In fact, elsewhere in the world, U.S. repudiation of this decision can only entrench existing views of America as an international outlaw.

    Richard Falk is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University, and is chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.