LAWS
As required by many treaties, nations have incorporated many of the treaties they are party to into national laws. But there are other, non-treaty-based laws that may be relevant to war, in particular laws against murder.
A law professor once told the U.S. Congress that blowing someone up with a missile in a foreign country was a criminal act of murder unless it was part of a war, in which case it was perfectly legal. No one asked what would make the war legal. The professor then admitted that she did not know whether such acts were murder or perfectly acceptable, because the answer to the question of whether they were part of a war had been hidden in a secret memo by then-President Barack Obama. No one asked why something being part of a war or not was significant if nobody observing the action could possibly determine whether it was or wasn't warfare. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that someone has defined what a war is and made it perfectly obvious and indisputable which actions are and are not part of wars. Doesn't the question still remain of why murder should not go on being the crime of murder? There is general agreement that torture continues to be the crime of torture when it is part of a war, and that countless other parts of wars maintain their criminal status. The Geneva Conventions create dozens of crimes out of routine occurrences in wars. All kinds of abuse of persons, property, and the natural world at least sometimes stay crimes even when deemed constituent parts of wars. Some actions that are permitted outside of wars, such as the use of tear gas, become crimes by being parts of wars. Wars do not provide a general license to commit crimes. Why must we accept that murder is an exception? Laws against murder in nations around the world do not provide an exception for war. Victims in Pakistan have sought to prosecute U.S. drone murders as murders. No good legal argument has been offered for why they shouldn't.
Laws can also provide alternatives to war. Lithuania has created a plan for mass civil resistance against possible foreign occupation. That's an idea that could be developed and spread.
Updates to this document will be made at https://worldbeyondwar.org/constitutions
Please post any suggestions there as comments.
Thank you for helpful comments to Kathy Kelly, Jeff Cohen, Yurii Sheliazhenko, Joseph Essertier, . . . and you?
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