Saturday, July 08, 2006
The United Nations and the preservation of particular states
David Kopel writes in today's Wall Street Journal about the United Nations Review Conference on Small Arms (more Kopel at Volokh, via Glenn). The United Nations and NGO activists around the world are, protestations notwithstanding, trying to eliminate the private ownership of firearms in the world. The core of the debated and thankfully defeated proposal would have been to ban the transfer of small arms to "non-state" actors. Sounds great, right? After all, al Qaeda is a non-state actor, as are the insurgencies in Iraq, Thailand, Kashmir, half of Africa and the uglier parts of Latin America. We've all seen, or seen the trailers for, Lord of War.
Unfortunately, you, me, and (according to the United Nations) Taiwan are all non-state actors too. So are the Kurdish peshmerga, who defended their people against Saddam Hussein, and countless other people in the world who are less successful in their struggle against tyranny. So were the many peoples who resisted colonialism during the 20th century.
In other words, this is really an attempt to end the subversion of states. This should not surprise us, since states are the United Nations' only constituency. This is, in fact, the great weakness of the United Nations as a concept. It is a gathering of states, for states. Since many states are brutal fascist, communist or theocratic dictatorships or clownish monarchies with no legitimacy beyond the say-so of some family that achieved dominant thuggishness in centuries past, the United Nations often finds itself on the side of tyrants.
Of course, if an international "law" banning the transfer of small arms to non-state actors would actually disarm al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations around the world, the price might be worth paying. It certainly would be a reasonable trade for Westerners, who would buy security at the expense of ordinary people living inside dictatorships. It would not succeed, however, because the only real enforcement mechanism would be the internal legal system of the signatory states. Dictatorships, which prevent their own legal systems from undermining their authority, would continue to do what they would do, and only lawful countries would stop supplying small arms to "non-state" actors. Kopel points to one compelling example of just this sort of unintended -- or perhaps not so unintended -- consequence:
Nevertheless, the U.N. does not talk about the extreme human rights violations being perpetrated on behalf of U.N. gun control. In the borderlands of Kenya and Uganda, joint military operations are burning villages, confiscating cattle from the pastoral tribes, torturing, murdering, pillaging and turning over 100,000 people into refugees, many of them starving. These atrocities are being perpetrated pursuant to the Nairobi Protocol, a U.N.-led regional treaty which obligates the signatory governments to eradicate unlicensed gun possession.
In practice, the Nairobi Protocol has been a justification for ethnic cleansing. On June 26, after five years of such atrocities, the United Nations Development Program itself finally cut off funding for Ugandan disarmament (the U.N. was funding voluntary gun surrender, not the military campaign). So far no steps have been taken regarding disarmament abuses in Kenya.
Similarly, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has under U.N. leadership banned the import of all firearms, except those for government use. Although human rights groups have warned that two Ecowas countries -- Ivory Coast and Guinea -- are on the brink of genocide, the U.N. seems determined to keep the potential genocide victims as helpless and defenseless as the genocide victims in Darfur.
As a practical matter international law only binds lawful countries. Today, there are very few lawful countries that are willing to do anything on behalf of the oppressed peoples of the world, and only one -- the United States -- that acts outside of its own local area. Iran would continue to supply arms to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iraqi insurgency, but if the United States were to arm Kurdish or Arab resistance in Iran the party out of power and the Washington press corps would call for a Congressional investigation or special prosecutor to pursue the criminals in the White House who ordered the violation of "international law."
The Review Conference on Small Arms failed to take action because of the intransigence of the United States, led by John Bolton. The dictators of the world and their allies, the misguided people who think that if one side disarms the killing stops, will try again. They can hardly wait for 2009.
MORE: Heh.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Jul 08, 02:15:00 PM:
Oh, good post! Good post. Yes, it's precisely so.
The United Nations *should* have been called the United States, but the name was already taken. So they settled for a euphemism.
A quibble though ... I think most states take international law at the letter and not the spirit. And the US is no exception.
Andorra probably sticks to the spirit, because it has no sticks to toss, come to think of it ...
By 
Purple Avenger, at
Sat Jul 08, 06:05:00 PM:
The link between gun control and genocides has been well established. Tyrants have always preferred disarmed serfs.
By , at
Mon Jul 10, 06:06:00 AM:
'Of course, if an international "law" banning the transfer of small arms to non-state actors would actually disarm al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations around the world, the price might be worth paying.'
The west is not really in danger from terrorists with small arms except maybe in Northern Ireland. Against us their tactics have predominantly involved explosives such as Semtex or ANFO or aircraft loaded with fuel.
JLW III
