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| Sunday, 20 July 2003 |
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by FACTOTUM The high point of the felicitation at the BMICH on Tuesday was the unveiling of the photograph of Judge C.G. Weeramantry presiding over the Lockerbie Case at the International Court of Justice. For a puny man from a small country Judge Weeramantry's record of achievement cramped into one lifetime is incredible. Ranging from Law and Jurisprudence Judge Weeramantry has dared to even encroach on the preserves of theologians and written comprehensively on every single word in the Lord's Prayer which has been chanted over and over again for over 2000 years by all those in Christendom. He seems to have got away with that too for one does not hear of a Fatwa on his head! Tracing the history of the peace movement which is so topical these days in the Sri Lankan context the learned Judges held out the hope that Sri Lanka being the repository of four major religions Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam could lead the world by example in drawing from the resources of all these religious and setting up a peaceful, blissful 'heaven' on earth in the form of a reconfigured state acceptable to all. Tracing the history of the peace movement he said. "The immense sufferings of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) stimulated the emergence of modern international law which did not outlaw war but sought to place some restraints upon its conduct as well as upon entry into a state of war. The carnage of the Napoleonic wars had an even more positive effect for it stimulated the emergence in the 19th century of around 400 peace societies all over the world. There were also eminent writers such as Kant and Tolstoy who provided a solid intellectual foundation for these peace movements. Religious groups such as the Quakers developed peace concepts in great detail. Yet the peace effort still failed to penetrate the citadels of power. Those who spoke of peace, whether religious groups or philosophers or social workers, were looked upon as visionaries who did not grapple with the realities of power and the world of realpolitik. In 1898 however a bridge was unexpectedly thrown between the worlds of idealism and of power when Czar Nicholas II issued his famous rescript calling upon the rulers of the world to attend a great peace Conference which was held at the Hague in 1899. This was the greatest advance thus far on the road to the official recognition of peace as an agreed objective of the global community. It was hailed by the philosophers and peace activists as a great step forward towards universal peace. The Peace Conference made some progress towards the peaceful resolution of disputes and stimulated a vast amount of peace oriented activity across the world. Yet it could not prevent the two disastrous World Wars which followed. If the world is to be saved from World War III a concerted effort needs to be mounted across the world to enlist the aid of peace loving citizens everywhere - and they constitute the great majority - to turn their governments away from the path of forcible resolutions of disputes, of which we have had a disastrous example recently..." Commenting on the concept of sovereignty he urged that "A new climate of opinion needs to be created among the states and peoples of the world discarding the narrow literal and formalistic view of sovereignty and giving it a more future-oriented and globally-oriented character. Popular education is the route to this, for the people of the world are largely unaware of the ways in which the future of their children and of civilisation itself is being imperiled. "The old concept of absolute sovereignty over a territorial area requires to be modified so as to meet the threats to the global community of environmental degradation, health hazards, nuclear devastation, unilateral military actions and other dangers which the limited nation state concept is unable to handle. Supra national instrumentalities whether regional or global will emerge to monitor, regulate and prescribe guidelines for an increasing range of matters now considered to be within the exclusive authority of the nation state. The current trend towards supra nationalism is the need of the hour rather than further fragmentation of the existing world order. Judge Weeramantry rounded off his views by quoting the latest issue of the 'Sunday Observer' on US cutting off military aid to 35 friendly countries for refusing to exempt US soldiers from International Court Jurisdiction. A clear instance of 'dictating to smaller states how they should act.' |
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