Fighting Enemies of All Humanity

Gary Weaver is a co-author

Pirates, terrorists, distributors of weapons of mass destruction, tyrants who engage in genocide -- all are certainly what Elizabethan English jurist Edward Coke, echoing Cicero’s ringing phrase hostis humani generis, would call “enemies of the human race.”

For over 2,000 years, piracy has been recognized as a crime against civilization and thus pirates could be captured by anyone, anywhere, and brought to justice.

Shortly after the US achieved independence, American ships were preyed upon by North African pirates, who had been terrorizing Mediterranean shipping for centuries. Unable to defend itself adequately and no longer under British navy protection, the young nation paid ransom for seized ships and crews.

Upon assuming the US presidency in 1801, Thomas Jefferson rejected Barbary Pirate demands for tribute to guarantee safe passage for American shipping and dispatched American frigates that raided and blockaded the Barbary Coast. Jefferson refused to yield to blackmail because he knew that it would only whet the pirates’ appetite and cripple trade not only for the United States, but all other nations engaging in maritime commerce. He viewed piracy as an attack against all nations.

Today, piracy around the Horn of Africa and the Straits of Malacca is estimated to cost at least $15 billion per year, in both excess costs for re-routed ships and ransom for captured ships and crews.

While the pirates’ goals involve monetary gain, their methods are similar to those of terrorists, the main difference being motives. Terrorists, unlike pirates, have stated or implicit ideological and political objectives. Pirates are ordinary criminals who murder innocent civilians but also seek to blackmail shipping companies or governments for ransom. Both, however, are threats to the core of international social and commercial order, and both should be subject to collective sanctions under international law.

Few countries possess, individually, the resources to tackle maritime pirates, or radical Islamist or other fundamentalist terrorist organizations. But the use of terror is not the exclusive preserve of non-state actors. Tyrants and dictators have in the past and continue to this day to murder ethnic minorities inside or outside their borders. The Holocaust, Stalin’s liquidation of the kulaks, Cambodia’s and Uganda’s massacres, Serbian-directed ethnic cleansing, and the Darfur genocide are only some of the more recent cases in point.

A giant step in the direction of defining terrorism, creating a legal and institutional framework to deal with it, and providing for a coordinated global response to it is the draft UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, currently stymied by arguments over the distinctions between terrorists and insurgents or “freedom fighters.” Ironically (in light of the November terrorist attack on Mumbai), sustained UN attention to this topic began in 1998 when India submitted a draft proposal to the General Assembly.

A wider definition of crimes against humanity, beyond genocide, piracy and terrorism, should include the willful proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the technologies that enable them, first-use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, the destruction of the environment, and wanton depletion of finite natural resources. Such collective threats to humankind require systemic responses that transcend traditional and often competitive policies and actions by individual governments.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attack, most of the world expected that the US would join with other nations to fight terrorism wherever its home and whatever its targets. But President George W. Bush moved further toward unilateralism. In addition to launching regime change in Iraq, he withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaties and the Kyoto Accords and kept America’s distance from the International Criminal Court now operating at The Hague. Some, mostly neoconservatives, have argued that this was a natural turn of events following the self-induced collapse of the Soviet bloc, which left America as the sole superpower. Regardless, the effect has been to isolate the US, dilute its moral leadership, and diminish its worldwide stature.

Incoming President Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to return the US to the position of global leadership it gained after World War II by promoting systemic and multilateral solutions to the problems threatening the global commons. That enlightened American leadership helped establish and nurture the global and regional institutions that kept the peace and laid the foundations for unprecedented development and prosperity over the last six decades.

Renewed focus on issues that bedevil an interdependent world – whether financial, security, environmental, human rights, economic development – and the promotion of systemic and multilateral solutions that benefit all can lead to a new understanding of “enlightened self-interest”appropriate for the new circumstances of the 21st Century rather than the post-World War II conditions. And not only for the US, but for many other nations who are or can be its partners.

Arguably, we are beginning to see the first steps toward this sort of concerted action in the coordinated responses of the major economic powers to the current challenges of financial collapse and economic recession. The same sort of analysis and linkage of disparate elements of broadly defined issues can and should be applied to other global problems as we work toward broader understanding and achievement of collective interests and how that supports what we have traditionally thought of more narrowly as national interests.

Global problems require multinational solutions. No nation – not even the US -- can “go-it-alone” when these issues are so interrelated and the world is so interdependent.

Regional security and economic organizations, such as NATO and ASEAN, must continue to be strengthened -- but not in ways that isolate Russia from Europe or antagonize Iran and China. The intent of such regional organizations should be to promote peace and strengthen the economies of member nations. If economies are strengthened, and economic disparities within countries and regions are reduced, the appeal of extremism will be diminished, the illegal flow of desperate people across borders will decrease, and the security of all will be enhanced.

Joining and strengthening the International Criminal Court would allow it to bring to trial pirates, terrorists, tyrants and others who commit crimes against humanity. Together with closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, this will do more than anything else to restore the image of America as a nation that respects the rule of law and international justice and give legitimacy to America’s resolve to promote human rights globally—returning the US to one of its founding values: “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind. …”

The just-finished UN Conference on Climate Change suggests reinvigorated and practical action on key issues will be possible, despite concerns about the current economic slowdown. A global premium is being placed on pragmatic steps, a welcome change from both American intransigence and the too often over-heated rhetoric of the past.

Needless to say, in times of clear and present danger, forceful actions may be necessary to stop piracy, terrorism or genocide. But they should embrace “smart power” - a combination of coordinated non-military actions supported by credible military force - in close collaboration with allies and other willing partners. A coordinated drive might well mobilize enough support to complete the stalled UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, providing a legitimizing framework for both international collective and individual national action against this global scourge.