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e) Avoidance of war and institution of peace
The application system described here as the only opportunity
It is of utmost importance to clearly comprehend that the contemporary law-applying system of international law is the only opportunity to implement the rules of law in the horizontal framework of the interstate system.
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e) Avoidance of war and institution of peace
war and peace Eurocentric third world war co-operation in various fi elds negative peace positive peace Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace sacred right to peace
The mission of international law
The main concerns for international law are war and peace, whereas the primary aim of national law is to avoid the conficts between humans and establish civil peace.
The great thinkers who contributed to the establishment and development of modern international law intended precisely such a mission (the avoidance of war and institution of peace) for international law. Moreover, across the centuries, when the world appeared to be principally Eurocentric, the law of nations emerged mostly in the form of peace treaties. Meanwhile, Europe is the birthplace of the ‘law of nations’. Accordingly, the legacy of that period and its European roots are easily recognisable in contemporary international law.
Avoidance of a third world war
The mission of avoidance of war and institution of peace fuelled the development of the entirety international law, as well as its particular areas.
Meanwhile, after the Second World War, the main concern was the avoidance of a third world war and the survival of humanity. Consequently, a collective security system was developed, in which the superpowers hold the qualitatively different and privileged responsibility of maintaining international peace and are equipped with respective legal instruments in the UN Security Council.
Co-operation in various fi elds
At the same time, the idea that co-operation in various fi elds is necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security is embodied in international law. Thus, the
accomplishment of this idea fourished with the creation of a web of multilinked international institutions with corresponding developments of the interstate system.
The meaning of peace
Traditionally, peace and war were interlinked notions. Peace was defned in terms of the absence of war or military hostilities. Such understanding was usually referred to as ‘negative peace’ (absentia belli).
However, in parallel with this understanding of peace, a more all-encompassing notion was developed, which included the elimination of all or at least the major preconditions/ causes of war. Such introspection was expressed in a well-known work, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay, by one of the most famous thinkers of all times – Immanuel Kant (1724–1804).
In the Kant’s opinion, ceasing of the military activities represents only a temporary truce while the reservations and underlying causes for war, including latent causes for the future confict have not been eradicated. Only when all the underlying causes for war are eliminated, including those on which parties are silent but which have the potential to materialize into a war at the later stage, can the perpetual peace be realized . . . . Consequently, Immanuel Kant diverts into offering a positive def nition of peace, whereby in his analysis peace is presented as the condition where all the reservations and potential points for infaming a confict are settled and the incentives for starting a war between the parties concerned becomes obsolete.91
Over time, the meaning of positive peace was developed. It ‘aimed at the creation of conditions of equity and social justice preventing recourse to violence. Positive peace requests measures to prevent and put an end to deprivation of rights and liberties, domination of peoples by other peoples.’92
Such an understanding of peace gradually covered both the direct underlying causes for war as well as numerous indirect motivations, i.e. the factors which potentially could stipulate instability in the interstate system and, therefore, challenge international peace, as was stressed concerning the COVID-19 pandemic by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his statement mentioned earlier.
The right to peace
The Charter of the United Nations proclaimed the basic principles necessary for an enduring international peace. However, in 1984, the UN General Assembly adopted the Resolution and its annex, the Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace. 93 According
91 Pataraia (n 8) 108. 92 Djacoba Liva Tehindrazanarivelo and Robert Kolb, ‘Peace, Right to, International Protection’ (2006)
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law < https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law: epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e858 > accessed 16 March 2021. 93 A/RES/39/11 of 12 November 1984. All UN General Assembly resolutions are available at the off cial website of the UN < www.un.org/en/sections/documents/general-assembly-resolutions/ >. In this book, materials from the website are used according to applicable legal rules.
