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Abdülhamid II, 80–81 Abjection, 251, 494 Abolitionism, 74, 83, 85
Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-10358-0 — The Problems of Genocide A. Dirk Moses Index More Information INDEX Abdülhamid II, 80–81 Britain and, 152, 506 abjection, 251, 494 civilian destruction and, 1, 151–152, abolitionism, 74, 83, 85–86, 88–89, 167–168, 230–232, 236, 238, 91–92, 124–125 439, 504–506 in American colonies, 69–70 collateral damage of, 1, 238 as birth of human rights justice, 72 colonialism and, 506 British, 68–73, 125–127 debate on, 18 Christianity and, 86–87 desensitization to, 432–433 colonialism and, 69–70, 87–88 drone strikes, 1, 3–4, 439–440, humanitarianism and, 68–73 490–491 imperialism and, 71–72, 87–88 erosion of distinction between as justification of imperial mission, combatants and civilians and, 71–72 503–507, 511 language of transgression and, 70–71 excluded from definition of genocide, Aborigines, 76–77, 87–88, 264–267 18–20 Aborigines Protection Society, 87–89 France and, 152 Abrahams, Elliot, 461–462 international law and, 503 Abyssinia, Italian invasion of, 167–168 liberal permanent security and, 506 Academic Liaison against Renewed missile strikes, 1–2, 439–440 Militarism, 458–459 Nazi regime and, 505 Acadians, 398–399 principle of distinction and, 503, accountability, 425–426, 428–430, 506–507 432–438, 451–452, 471–472, See terrorization of civilians by, 164–166 also responsibility United States and, 1–2, 36, 232, 237, Aceh, Indonesia, 114–116 396–397, 416–418, 424, Ache people, 445–447 430–433, 438–439, 457–458, 506 Aden, 391–392 Vietnam War and, 424 administrative separation, 335–336, See World -
Ethics and Evolution
ETHICS AND EVOLUTION John Scales Avery December 1, 2017 Introduction In October, 2017, one of the Danish state television channels, DR2, broad- cast two programs about current religious opposition to Darwin’s theory of evolution1. Much of this opposition originated in the United States, and was aimed at preventing the teaching of evolution in schools. The attacks on Darwin’s theory (by now, not a theory but a well-established scientific fact) were twofold. First the claim that it is not true, and secondly, pointing out that historically, Social Darwinism has led to horrible consequences. One of the arguments against the truth of Darwinian evolution is that it violates the second law of thermodynamics, according to which the disorder of the universe always increases with time. How then can life on earth, with its amazing order, be possible? The answer is that the earth is not a closed system. A flood of information- containing free energy reaches the earth’s biosphere in the form of sunlight. Passing through the metabolic pathways of living organisms, this informa- tion keeps the organisms far away from thermodynamic equilibrium, which is death. As the thermodynamic information flows through the biosphere, much of it is degraded to heat, but part is converted into cybernetic infor- mation and preserved in the intricate structures which are characteristic of life. The principle of natural selection ensures that when this happens, the configurations of matter in living organisms constantly increase in complex- ity, refinement and statistical improbability. This is the process which we call evolution, or in the case of human society, progress2. -
Nuclear Weapons: an Absolute Evil
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: AN ABSOLUTE EVIL John Scales Avery November 19, 2017 Introduction The threat of nuclear war is very high today This book is a collection of articles and book chapters that I have written advocating the abolition of nuclear weapons. Some new material has also been added, for example a discussion of the Nuclear Weapons Convention which has recently been adopted by an overwhelming majority vote at the United Nations General Assembly. Today, because of the possibility that U.S. President Donald Trump will initiate a nuclear war against Iran or North Korea, or even Russia, the issue of nuclear weapons is at the center of the global stage. I strongly believe that the time has come for all countries to take a united stance on this issue. Most of the world’s nations live in nuclear weapon free zones. This does not give them any real protection, since the catastrophic environmental effects of nuclear war would be global, not sparing any nation. However, by supporting the Nuclear Weapons Convention and by becoming members of NWFZ’s, nations can state that they consider nuclear weapons to be morally unacceptable, a view that must soon become worldwide if human civilization is to survive. We must take a stand, and state clearly that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil; that their possession does not increase anyone’s security; that their continued existence is a threat to the life of every person on the planet; and that these genocidal and potentially omnicidal weapons have no place in a civilized society. Nuclear warfare as genocide On December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a con- vention prohibiting genocide. -
Lives in Physics
LIVES IN PHYSICS John Scales Avery July 28, 2019 2 Contents 1 THE ATOMISTS 9 1.1 Leucippus, Democritus and the concept of atoms . .9 1.2 Opposition from Plato and Aristotle . 11 1.3 Epicurus and Lucretius . 11 2 ARCHIMEDES 15 2.1 Heiron's crown . 15 2.2 Invention of differential and integral calculus . 17 2.3 Statics and hydrostatics . 20 2.4 Don't disturb my circles! . 21 3 GALILEO 25 3.1 Experimental physics . 25 3.2 The telescope . 29 3.3 Still it moves! . 33 4 NEWTON 37 4.1 Descartes . 37 4.2 Newton . 39 4.3 Huygens and Leibniz . 46 4.4 The Bernoullis and Euler . 51 4.5 Political philosophy of the Enlightenment . 52 5 GALVANI AND VOLTA 57 5.1 Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment . 57 5.2 Galvani's argument with Volta . 60 5.3 Ørsted, Amp`ereand Faraday . 63 6 FARADAY AND MAXWELL 65 6.1 Maxwell and Hertz . 69 6.2 History of the electrical telegraph . 72 6.3 The transatlantic cable . 75 6.4 Marconi . 78 3 4 CONTENTS 6.5 Alexander Graham Bell . 79 6.6 A revolution in communication . 82 7 EINSTEIN 83 7.1 Family background . 83 7.2 Special relativity theory . 85 7.3 General relativity . 87 7.4 Einstein's letter to Freud: Why war? . 88 7.5 The fateful letter to Roosevelt . 90 7.6 The Russell-Einstein Manifesto . 94 8 THE CURIES 99 8.1 X-rays . 99 8.2 Radioctivity . 101 8.3 Marie and Pierre Curie . 102 9 THOMS0N 109 9.1 Sir William Crookes . -
Civil War, Humanitarian Law and the United Nations
Civil War, Humanitarian Law and the United Nations Stefan Oeter I. Introduction Emer de Vattel, in his classical treatise "Le Droit des Gens ou Principes de la Loi Naturelle", introduced his observations concerning civil war with some famous remarks that urged for caution in dealing with the topic: "It is a much-discussed question whether the sovereign must observe the ordinary laws of war in dealing with rebellious subjects who have openly taken up arms against him. A flatterer at court or a cruel tyrant will immediately answer that the laws of war are not made for rebels, who deserve nothing better than death."' Vattel, however, reminded his readers to "proceed more temperatelyn and to argue the matter upon the "incon- testable principles" of reason and of natural law. The warning against precipitate conclusions that was formulated by Vattel still has its justification, even nowadays. This is not only due to the Martens clause: which in its modernized version in the Additional Pro- tocols of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 provides that "... in cases not covered by the law in force, the human person remains under the protection of the principles of humanity and the dictates of the 1 E, de Vattel, The Law of Nations or the Principles ofNatural Law Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nattons and of Soveretgns, Translation of the Edition of 1758 by C.G. Fenwick, 1916,336 para. 287. 2 Concerning the Martens Clause cf. R. G. Allen/M. Cherniack / G. J. An- dreopoulos, "Refining War: Civil Wars and Humanitarian Controls", HRQ 18 (1996), 747 et seq., (751-752); H. -
Terrorism: a False Threat
TERRORISM: A FALSE THREAT John Scales Avery December 15, 2019 Introduction Terrorism, a pseudothreat This book consists mainly of chapters and articles that I have previously pub- lished, although a considerable amount of new material has been added. The book deals with the terrible consequences of the so-called “War on Terror” which followed the 9/11 attacks. Is the threat of terrorism real? Or is it like the barking of a dog driving a herd? The threat of catastrophic climate change is very real indeed. The threat to future global food security is real too. Already 11 million children die every year from malnutrition and poverty-related causes. The threat to human civilization and the biosphere posed by a possible Third World War is real. The threat of exhaustion of non-renewable resources and economic collapse is real. The dangers associated with our unstable fractional reserve banking system are also real. Beside these all too real threats to our future, the threat of terrorism is vanishingly small. Millions starve. Millions die yearly from preventable diseases. Millions die as a consequence of wars. Compared with these numbers, the total count of terrorist victims is vanishingly small. It is even invisible compared with the number of people killed yearly in automobile accidents. The official story of 9/11 is untrue There is strong evidence, available to everyone who is willing to look at it on the Internet, which shows that the official version of 9/11 is untrue, and that the US government made the disaster worse than it otherwise would have been in order to justify not only an unending “War on Terror”, but also the abridgement of civil liberties within the United States. -
Martens Clause Tyler D
Hofstra Law Review Volume 41 | Issue 3 Article 8 2013 At War with the Robots: Autonomous Weapon Systems and the Martens Clause Tyler D. Evans Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/hlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Evans, Tyler D. (2013) "At War with the Robots: Autonomous Weapon Systems and the Martens Clause," Hofstra Law Review: Vol. 41: Iss. 3, Article 8. Available at: http://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/hlr/vol41/iss3/8 This document is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hofstra Law Review by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Evans: At War with the Robots: Autonomous Weapon Systems and the Martens NOTE AT WAR WITH THE ROBOTS: AUTONOMOUS WEAPON SYSTEMS AND THE MARTENS CLAUSE I. INTRODUCTION '[A] robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' - Isaac Asimov, The First Law of Robotics' The Three Laws of Robotics ("Three Laws")2 are an elegant set of hierarchical rules that ethically and physically govern Isaac Asimov's science fiction robots.3 The Three Laws are programmatically embedded in the robots' "positronic brains,"4 and control their behavior and reasoning primarily to safeguard the human beings they were built to serve. 5 The Three Laws-successful in fiction for their simplicity, 1. ISAAC ASIMOV, Runaround, in I, ROBOT 25, 37 (Bantam Dell 2008) [hereinafter I, ROBOT]. 2. -
The Juridical Status of Irregular Combatants Under the International Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict, 9 Case W
Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Volume 9 | Issue 1 1977 The urJ idical Status of Irregular Combatants under the International Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict W. Thomas Mallison Sally V. Mallison Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil Part of the International Law Commons Recommended Citation W. Thomas Mallison and Sally V. Mallison, The Juridical Status of Irregular Combatants under the International Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict, 9 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 39 (1977) Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol9/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Journals at Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law by an authorized administrator of Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. 1977] The Juridical Status of Irregular Combatants under the International Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict by W. Thomas Mallison* and Sally V. Mallison** CONTENTS 1. The Law of Armed Conflict: Participants, Process and Purposes .............................. 40 II. The Brussels Declaration (1874) ................................ 43 III. The Hague Conventions on the Law of Land Warfare (1899 and 1907) .............................................. 45 IV. The Geneva Prisoners of War Convention (1949) ............... 47 A. The Influence of the Second World War .................. 47 B. Criteria for Irregulars to Have Privileged Status ............ 49 1. Being Organized ..................................... 49 2. "Belonging to a Party to the Conflict" . ............... 50 a. Being Associated with a State Party to the Conflict ...................................... 50 b. The Organized Resistance Movement as a Party to the Conflict ............................... -
The Rules Governing the Conduct of Hostilities Under International Humanitarian
INTERNATIONAL EXPERT MEETING 22–23 JUNE 2016 – QUEBEC THE PRINCIPLE OF PROPORTIONALITY IN THE RULES GOVERNING THE CONDUCT OF HOSTILITIES UNDER INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW REPORT This meeting was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada INTERNATIONAL EXPERT MEETING 22–23 JUNE 2016 – QUEBEC THE PRINCIPLE OF PROPORTIONALITY IN THE RULES GOVERNING THE CONDUCT OF HOSTILITIES UNDER INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW Report prepared and edited by Laurent Gisel Legal adviser, ICRC TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD ..................................................................................................................................... 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 8 The principle of proportionality ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Challenges in the application of the principle of proportionality ............................................................................ 8 Purpose of the meeting and scope of the discussions ................................................................................................... 9 The importance of policies for the protection of civilians during armed conflicts .........................................10 Background -
The Legal Situation of “Unlawful/Unprivileged Combatants”
RICR Mars IRRC March 2003 Vol. 85 No 849 45 The legal situation of “unlawful/unprivileged combatants” KNUT DÖRMANN* While the discussion on the legal situation of unlawful combatants is not new, it has nevertheless become the subject of intensive debate in recent publications, statements and reports following the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan. Without dealing with the specifics of that armed conflict, this article is intended to shed some light on the legal protections of “unlaw- ful/unprivileged combatants” under international humanitarian law.1 In view of the increasingly frequent assertion that such persons do not have any pro- tection whatsoever under international humanitarian law, it will consider in particular whether they are a category of persons outside the scope of either the Third Geneva Convention (GC III)2 or the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV) of 1949.3 On the basis of this assessment the applicable protections will be analysed. Before answering these questions, a few remarks on the ter- minology would seem appropriate. Terminology In international armed conflicts, the term “combatants” denotes the right to participate directly in hostilities.4 As the Inter-American Commission has stated, “the combatant’s privilege (...) is in essence a licence to kill or wound enemy combatants and destroy other enemy military objectives.”5 Consequently (lawful) combatants cannot be prosecuted for lawful acts of war in the course of military operations even if their behaviour would consti- tute a serious crime in peacetime. They can be prosecuted only for violations of international humanitarian law, in particular for war crimes. Once cap- tured, combatants are entitled to prisoner-of-war status and to benefit from the protection of the Third Geneva Convention. -
The Enduring Legacy of the Martens Clause: Resolving the Conflict of Morality in International Humanitarian Law
Mitchell Stapleton-Coory* THE ENDURING LEGACY OF THE MARTENS CLAUSE: RESOLVING THE CONFLICT OF MORALITY IN INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW ABSTRACT The true meaning of the Martens Clause has bewildered legal scholars for centuries. There are multiple and competing views as to how the legal effect of this Clause should be correctly defined, each with sufficient credible support in case law, treaty provisions and academic commentary. This article explores three of the most commonly advanced interpretations of the Martens Clause, including the ways in which the Clause is used to nullify a contrario arguments, reference to the Clause in aid of judicial interpretation, and finally the perspective that the operative content of the Clause has acquired the status of a peremptory norm of customary international law. Rather than attempting to analyse each position in order to find the one true meaning of the Clause, this article instead takes a holistic view of the history of the Clause in an attempt to understand why it has been so difficult to agree on its meaning definitively. In doing so, specific attention is paid to the intractable moral dilemmas that are brought about during times of armed conflict and, with reference to such extreme circumstances, it is concluded that the ambiguity of this Clause is what allows it to be so useful. There is something subtle and nuanced about the intention of the Martens Clause which has been impossible to distil for over a century, yet it continues to provide a moral safe harbour that we are evidently loath to forego. I INTRODUCTION here is an inescapable discomfort that exists within international humanitarian law (‘IHL’). -
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Volume 90 Number 870 June 2008 Address by General Jean-Rene´ Bachelet General Jean-Rene´ Bachelet (2nd Son) was General Inspector of the Armed Forces of the French Republic. In 1995 he commanded the Sarajevo sector in the former Yugoslavia for UNPROFOR, during the paroxysm of the siege until its lifting. Between 1999 and 2004 he led a study to draw up an ethical and behaviour framework for the army and initiated an ambitious reform of the initial training of officers at Saint Cyr, the foremost French military academy. He gave the following opening address at the Interregional Meeting on the Role of Sanctions in Ensuring Greater Respect for International Humanitarian Law, held in Geneva on 15–17 November 2007. When I was invited to introduce this subject, my initial fear was that you were taking a risk in giving the floor to someone who has spent 42 years in uniform and in the infantry at that. This is a meeting of experts and I am obviously no expert on international law, let alone on the sanctions which are intended to reinforce it. However, my impression that, in asking me to speak, you had picked the wrong person was dispelled when, having read your documentation, I realized that the backdrop for the subject was in fact wartime behaviour, a topic with which I am not exactly unfamiliar. The least I can do is to start by setting the scene. It is important and even crucial to appreciate the atmosphere surrounding wartime events if one wishes to understand what prompts people’s behaviour.