Marc Weller tracks the origins & the compliance issues associated with the prohibition of the use of force in international relations
The prohibition of the use of force in international relations is mankind’s greatest achievement. For sure, the works of Aristotle and Kant, of Mozart and Beethoven, of Michelangelo and Kandinski, of Robert Koch and Einstein, were no mean feats. But ultimately, the renunciation of the use of force by states is the one advance of civilisation that has begun to transform the world in a fundamental way.
To appreciate the magnitude of this achievement, we just need to consider human history as far as it will stretch. The 5,000 or so years of recorded history are years of incessant warfare. It is only over the few decades of the 20th century that we started to overcome the assumption that war is the natural state of the human condition.
Of course, throughout there were those arguing in favour of peace. But the powerful arguments of minds like those of St Augustine, Dante, Erasmus and Kant were ignored. Even less than a century ago,
