International Law

Although social conventions regarding a nation's

conduct in war have no doubt been around for as long

as civilization itself, the present era of formal

conventions may be traced back to the first Geneva

Convention signed in 1864. With each major war, a new

set of conventions were signed that prohibited the

most flagrant atrocities committed, whether these be

pillage, poison gas, or torture. The term human rights

has evolved from these conventions and will be used to

refer to all conventions regarding the treatment of

individuals by a state. The extent to which these

conventions, as well as later ones drafted by the UN

and other organizations, have force of law has been

debated endlessly. The current violations of human

rights on the part of the United States in its war

against Iraq and radical Islamist groups are just the

latest permutation of this debate.

Three fundamental views on human rights may be

identified, both generally and in an international

context. Those who subscribe to the realist view might

say that human rights are a fiction with no basis in

reality. A state may choose to protect or violate

human rights as it chooses, and there may be occasions

where it must violate human rights for

self-preservation, which is seen as the primary driver

of all actions on the part of the state. This position

is closely linked to the beliefs of the current

administration, as well as to survival-of-the-fittest

Social Darwinist ideology.

A second view assumes the primacy of human rights.

This is the liberal view, which is based on the idea

of natural law, which humans (and institutions) must

obey whether we like it or not. In this view, human

rights conventions merely encode an unwritten law that

exists regardless, and when such a law is violated,

the violator will be punished in one way or another,

either by the governing international body, or by a

consortium of states, or by other states individually,

or by fortune and divine retribution. The underlying

belief, however, is that the law exists and has

meaning even if no one obeys it. Since time

immemorial, Realists have criticized this belief as

naпve, and Liberals have replied that Realism is

heartless and inhuman. No doubt the debate will

continue.

The third view is termed Constructivist. It takes the

slightly more modern position that while there is no

inherent right or wrong, there are laws which are

defined by the relationships between states and their

cultural backgrounds. These laws exist because the

pattern of relationships makes it in everyone's

interest to obey them. However in a different

environment, different laws might