United Nations: You Have No Right To Self-Defense
Glenn Reynolds points to a UN report that attempts to minimize the most basic and premier human right of all: self-defense -
20. Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defence is a basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defence is sometimes designated as a “right”. There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another.
If a guy breaks into your house with a gun, and you shoot him, you are 'violating his rights' according to the UN, not engaging in your right to self-defense. The UN's notion that there is "inadequate legal support" for the idea that self-defense is a human right is an agenda-driven wilful misreading of texts on the issue. The right to self-defense is the first among all human rights. Even Thomas Hobbes recognized that "summe of the Right of Nature" is "by all means we can, to defend our selves." Enlightenment literature and legal thought is replete with the concept of self-defense as the cornerstone of all natural rights. As an example, the Pennsylvania Declaration of 1776 stated that "the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state." In criticizing the UN report, the Claremont Institute points out that the very founders of international law itself, who would count for something at the UN one would think, Grotius and Emmerich de Vattel both recognized the concept.
The UN is most eager to deny that self-defense is a right, because this would obligate the UN to defend the concept of individual self-defense. Since unarmed self-defense in a world full of weapons is too often meaningless, this puts the UN in the position of having to defend the individual right to bear arms. Quelle horror! Is there anything more vulgar to a silk-suited euroweenie diplomat than individual gun ownership? This should not baffle you - the UN and its supporters are proponents of a single world government, under the ludicrous belief that a unitary government would hold a monopoly on all arms throughout the world, thus abolishing violence. Then, once violence is abolished the UN may disarm itself and the glorious new age of peace, love and rainbows can ensue.
The report goes out of its way to clear up any silly confusion about self-defense for States, including totalitarian regimes, as somehow also applying to lowly individual human beings:
"Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations applies to the States acting in self-defence against armed attacks against their State sovereignty. It does not apply to situations of self-defence for individual persons."
How ironic, that the preeminent human rights organization in the world, the UN, gives the full panoply of protections and immunities under international law to someone like Kim Jong-Il, whereas if you engage in self-defense you are 'violating the rights of another.' This goes to the heart of an entire belief system rampant in the world today that thinks that all violence is bad regardless of circumstances and context, and that the problems of violence are caused by weapons and not those that wield them. We saw this in the 80's with the unilateral disarmament movement. They believed that reducing nuclear arsenals somehow reduced the chance of war breaking out. If we have an arsenal of 10,000 warheads and we reduce that arsenal to 5,000 warheads - voila! - we have reduced the chance of war by 50%! As if each warhead was just itching to detonate itself, so the fewer the better. And so it is with guns. Every gun is just waiting to go off, and so reducing the number of guns will somehow reduce violence. And as we all know, the mere possession of a gun causes the urge to violence in otherwise perfectly sane and law-abiding owners. So, if everyone just put their guns down, and put their full faith in sovereign government instead to protect them, we can begin to initiate the Reign of Peace.
Anyone see any holes in this logic?
P.S. As for the unilaterial disarmament argument, proponents of the argument that fewer warheads make war less likely get it exactly backwards. Fewer warheads makes it easier for an enemy to destroy those warheads, thus actually inviting attack. Shrinking nuclear arsenals can actually be destabilizing. Is this, then, an argument for more weapons?
An armed society is a polite society.
Glenn Reynolds points to a UN report that attempts to minimize the most basic and premier human right of all: self-defense -
20. Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defence is a basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defence is sometimes designated as a “right”. There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another.
If a guy breaks into your house with a gun, and you shoot him, you are 'violating his rights' according to the UN, not engaging in your right to self-defense. The UN's notion that there is "inadequate legal support" for the idea that self-defense is a human right is an agenda-driven wilful misreading of texts on the issue. The right to self-defense is the first among all human rights. Even Thomas Hobbes recognized that "summe of the Right of Nature" is "by all means we can, to defend our selves." Enlightenment literature and legal thought is replete with the concept of self-defense as the cornerstone of all natural rights. As an example, the Pennsylvania Declaration of 1776 stated that "the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state." In criticizing the UN report, the Claremont Institute points out that the very founders of international law itself, who would count for something at the UN one would think, Grotius and Emmerich de Vattel both recognized the concept.
The UN is most eager to deny that self-defense is a right, because this would obligate the UN to defend the concept of individual self-defense. Since unarmed self-defense in a world full of weapons is too often meaningless, this puts the UN in the position of having to defend the individual right to bear arms. Quelle horror! Is there anything more vulgar to a silk-suited euroweenie diplomat than individual gun ownership? This should not baffle you - the UN and its supporters are proponents of a single world government, under the ludicrous belief that a unitary government would hold a monopoly on all arms throughout the world, thus abolishing violence. Then, once violence is abolished the UN may disarm itself and the glorious new age of peace, love and rainbows can ensue.
The report goes out of its way to clear up any silly confusion about self-defense for States, including totalitarian regimes, as somehow also applying to lowly individual human beings:
"Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations applies to the States acting in self-defence against armed attacks against their State sovereignty. It does not apply to situations of self-defence for individual persons."
How ironic, that the preeminent human rights organization in the world, the UN, gives the full panoply of protections and immunities under international law to someone like Kim Jong-Il, whereas if you engage in self-defense you are 'violating the rights of another.' This goes to the heart of an entire belief system rampant in the world today that thinks that all violence is bad regardless of circumstances and context, and that the problems of violence are caused by weapons and not those that wield them. We saw this in the 80's with the unilateral disarmament movement. They believed that reducing nuclear arsenals somehow reduced the chance of war breaking out. If we have an arsenal of 10,000 warheads and we reduce that arsenal to 5,000 warheads - voila! - we have reduced the chance of war by 50%! As if each warhead was just itching to detonate itself, so the fewer the better. And so it is with guns. Every gun is just waiting to go off, and so reducing the number of guns will somehow reduce violence. And as we all know, the mere possession of a gun causes the urge to violence in otherwise perfectly sane and law-abiding owners. So, if everyone just put their guns down, and put their full faith in sovereign government instead to protect them, we can begin to initiate the Reign of Peace.
Anyone see any holes in this logic?
P.S. As for the unilaterial disarmament argument, proponents of the argument that fewer warheads make war less likely get it exactly backwards. Fewer warheads makes it easier for an enemy to destroy those warheads, thus actually inviting attack. Shrinking nuclear arsenals can actually be destabilizing. Is this, then, an argument for more weapons?
An armed society is a polite society.
