In 1888, the United States Congress ratified the Geneva Convention on the insistence of Clara Barton, an American who had become a one woman national and international lobby for the fair treatment of prisoners of war. She persuaded Congress through the force of her own bright personality and because the American Civil War had made many realize that the humane treatment of prisoners was essential to forging any lasting peace.
The United States respected the Geneva Convention through two World Wars and in turn enjoyed the respect of its opponents with defeated ‘enemies’ preferring Allied prison camps to Stalin’s interpretation of the Geneva Convention. Clara Barton’s work and the American signature on the Geneva Convention was the beginning of a long, slow journey the United States Congress began towards becoming a world leader in international governance designed to create norms of civility and justice between nations.
American men and women continued to distinguish themselves in this way. Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the U.N. committee which created and piloted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNHR) through working and standing committees to the floor of the U.N.’s General Assembly. On December 10th 1948, the first ever world agreement on fundamental human rights was achieved.
The 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) were quickly accepted as a summary of the basic freedoms, rights and obligations citizens of all nations should enjoy, and just as importantly how the relations between nations should be ordered. Article 28 states: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration can be fully realized.”
In 1961, for this and many other accomplishments, Eleanor Roosevelt was nominated by President Kennedy for the Nobel Peace Prize. Eleanor Roosevelt would not become a Nobel laureate but just five years later Martin Luther King would for his crusade ‘to fully realize’ the principles the Universal Declaration of Human Rights espoused.
A more just and caring world has been a tapestry created by many hands and many of them have been American. The American people and their national leaders have exhibited a yeasty combination of battle toughness, generosity and fairness rarely seen among the community of nations. A succession of Presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Kennedy were respected and admired around the world.
What the hell happened? The temptation is to play the blame game, but it isn’t useful. We need to search more profoundly to understand the American transformation from a world leader of a new ‘civil’ international order to the world leader of a new military order – with troops, not diplomats leading the charge. A good place to start would be the transformation of the United Nations from the final arbiter of international justice into a Worldwide Welfare Agency, (WWA) specializing in refugee camps.
The extent of the American withdrawal from the U.N. as an international justice agency should be more frequently in the press if for no other reason than it is so astonishing. The United States now runs prisoner of war camps in contravention of the Geneva Convention using legalese to defeat both the letter and the spirit of that essential convention. President Bush frequently describes himself as a ‘war’ President, but with whom is he at war? How can only one ‘side’ be at war and the other ‘side’ not? Through what logical alchemy can this occur?
Consider that the United Nations was created after World War II to prevent the bully aggression of any state against another state from exploding into a more generalized, unregulated conflict as both the First and Second Wars had. Yet, both the bombing of Yugoslavia and the invasion of Iraq were unleashed without U.N. agreement or sanction. In fact, it was the United States which led both invasions. Consider that the United States will not recognize the jurisdiction of the World Court or sign the Kyoto Accord.
I could go on, but the point worth emphasizing is: ‘What impetus can there be for nations to search out accommodations when disagreeing over religion, justice, boundaries, the sharing of resources or the reduction of greenhouse gases if there is no governance structure in place that is respected by the most powerful nations? We are back to Jean de la Fontaine’s prescription for social order, ‘might makes right’. This is where the strongest nation on the planet is pushing humanity today. It is back to a medieval concept of government.
Kurt Vonnegut must be looking down and smiling for he would affirm again that there is nothing written in the sky that says the 21st century will be any better than the 20th. Indeed, it may be much worse. But let us imagine for a moment that we will be moving forward and when I say ‘we’ I mean all the nations of the planet. Surely this advance must start with the strongest, richest nations respecting and supporting the rule of international law?
Recent Comments