July
is the month for
accepting international law
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
July 21, 2006
LONDON - It is time overdue for the
U.S. to hand back Guantánamo to Cuba, for Britain
to hand back Gibraltar to Spain, for Spain to return its
African enclaves to Morocco, for India to accept the
Pakistan compromise on Kashmir and Russia to renounce its
claim to the four southern Kuril islands. With a few step
like this we could have a lot more peace and less threats
of war, more trade, more economic growth, and we'd all be
happier all round.
This month two countries in
different continents have shown the way - Nigeria in
Africa with its dispute with neighbouring Cameroon over
ownership of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsular and
Argentina over its neighbour Uruguay's decision to build
two big pulp mills on the banks of the Uruguay river
which divides them. Both countries decided to forgo
hostilities, even war in Nigeria's case, and go to the
International Court of Justice (the World Court) and
accept whatever these judges in faraway, The Hague,
decided.
Nigeria has been in de facto
control of the Bakassi peninsular since colonial times.
For decades, until oil was discovered, it was a
non-issue, but the legality of the Nigeria-Cameroon
border has long been unclear with different maps giving
different stories. Five years ago tensions started to
rise between a country that has too much oil and one that
has too little. Neither side could afford a war but this
didn't stop the minister of defence in Nigeria arguing to
President Olusegun Obasanjo that Nigeria should prepare
itself for military action. Obasanjo overruled him and
decided to persuade their neighbour to seek arbitration
at the World Court. Finally this month the ruling in
favor of giving Bakassi to Cameroon is being implemented,
not without opposition from within Nigeria. Strangely,
human rights groups have been at the forefront of
Nigerian protests, arguing that such a decision should
have been discussed in parliament and not settled by
presidential fiat.
For Uruguay the stakes were also
high. The mill project is the country's largest
industrial investment, representing about 10% of GNP.
Uruguay, a country with few natural resources, has few
alternative 'grand projects', but Argentina's objections
to pollution of the river appeared at first sight to
breach an international treaty governing the upkeep of
the river. However, this month Uruguay appears to have
convinced the judges that the project will not damage the
environment. This is the first time that Latin American
countries have gone to the World Court over an
environmental dispute, but the case sets an important
precedent for the many shared water disputes erupting all
over the world.
There is a rarely told story of the
history of the last war-torn century. The fact is that
during that turbulent time states committed themselves to
a far more just, humane and peaceable world than their
rhetoric and practice often suggested. Dorothy Jones, in
her carefully researched book, "Codes of Peace", argues
that there is a 'hidden history' of the last century,
"the record of un-noticed breakthroughs in treaty making
when the great warrior states have adopted apparently
minor stipulations that represent agreement to
significant restraints on their sovereignty".
The League of Nations rests in a
perpetual historical cloud because of its failure to deal
with Hitler. But it did resolve the question of the
ownership of the Aaland Islands that nearly led to war
between Sweden and Finland, deploying a three-man team of
international lawyers. It also arbitrated disputes
between Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece, Greece and Italy,
Iraq and Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria, and Colombia and
Peru. Without the League of Nations' application of
international law all these disputes could easily have
flared into war.
Today we have the application of
international law in disputes between nations available
on demand from a full time World Court. Tragically, the
only permanent Security Council member that recognises
its authority without reservation is Britain. The U.S.
refused in 1986 to accept its ruling over the illegal
mining of Nicaragua's harbors and since then is only a
half signed up member, refusing to accept its compulsory
jurisdiction, although an American judge serves on its
bench. It seems that it is smaller powers that are
determined to give the court teeth by seeking its
judgement, even though, as with Nigeria and Argentina,
nationalist passions are just as difficult to deal with
as elsewhere.
But if we are seriously interested
in pre-empting war we need, to slightly misquote
Churchill, "more law law and less war war". We could
start by everyone agreeing the time has come to subject
the Israeli-Palestinian dispute over their rightful
border to the sober, detached consideration of the
justices of the World Court and insisting that whatever
they decide be implemented forthwith, with a UN-mandated
NATO force to make it work and keep the peace.
Copyright © 2006 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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