Volume LV, No 9
May, 2002
It's The Law, Peacemaker
Benjamin J. Urmston, S.J.
IN THIS ISSUE
Benjamin J. Urmston, S.J., develops a "Vision of Peace" based on democratically developed world law. He argues for the necessity of international law to deal with the globalized problems of the world which is rapidly emerging.
A veteran of World War II, I emerged from the war with a passion for peace. Fifty-six years later my passion has not dimmed. Overwhelmed by a multitude of issues, I have found it helpful to form a vision of the kind of world I would like to see in 2030, ignoring all obstacles. An integral part of my vision is law.
To advance and refine my vision I interviewed my guardian angel Joseph. I got out my tape recorder and thrust the microphone in angel Joseph's direction.
What do you see as the main problem on our earth?
There are so many, it's hard to say. I would guess you earth people don't see the value of law.
But most of us see law as forcing us to pay parking tickets and even income tax.
Yes, but law protects you and your property. Law promotes the common good. Traffic laws can help you develop a sense of courtesy and consideration of other drivers. Civil rights laws helped to end racial segregation in the United States. Although law needs to be accompanied by education and conversion, law itself can teach.
Don't laws chain us down, repressing our freedom and creativity?
The purpose of law is to channel human creativity, not to repress it. Laws enacted should be clear and wisely crafted. Since it costs money to pass laws, publicize and enforce them, there should not be more civil laws than necessary.
Aren't our courts already jammed to capacity?
Since your courts are overloaded now, you need to search for other ways of solving especially smaller disputes. Trials produce winners and losers. Mediation, arbitration, and meaningful dialogue can often find a better winwin solution in workplace or landlordrenter disputes, divorces, and neighborhood disputes. Winwin solutions can then by ratified by courts.
Some feel that our present justice system needs to be replaced by what they call "restorative justice." Isn't that another name for the same unwieldy system?
There are dangerous offenders from whom you must defend yourself, but you're filling your jails with those whose needs can be met in much better ways. You need to improve your efforts toward adequate education for all, nutritious food, basic health care, full employment, a clean environment, alternative recreational opportunities for all.
Don't we need to get tough with criminals?
It's never right to countenance someone committing crimes, but the atmosphere of hatred and revenge that often permeates your criminal justice system is not the way Jesus taught you.
I'm afraid many do not look upon law in a positive light.
Although you need to rethink some of your present attitudes concerning law, your present local, state, and federal laws are better than chaos.
But why single out law as our main problem?
Even while you attempt to reform your present criminal justice system, local, state, and federal law need to be extended to world law. The human family needs an effective international authority.
Who except an angel far removed from us would make such a wild assertion?
If you have a disagreement with a friend, do you start punching one another to see who is right?
What about larger groups?
If Kentucky and Ohio have a dispute, the states don't mobilize their national guards and say "winner takes all." If there's a labormanagement conflict, you don't pass out machine guns and hand grenades and see who can make the best use of their firepower. You bring in mediation and arbitration experts, or take the dispute to court.
What do we do with nations?
A similar process should be followed between nations. It's simple. Why hasn't someone thought of it before? If nations have a dispute, they try mediation and arbitration or take the dispute to court.
But we don't have an effective international court. Even if the world court makes a decision, who would enforce it?
You earth people need an adequate international authority. There needs to be a world legislative body to make laws; a judicial body to interpret the laws; an executive body to carry out the laws; an international police body to enforce the laws.
Wow! Wouldn't that be exposing ourselves to a world dictatorship?
To protect against domination by any group, no one nation would contribute more than 3% of the international peace force. In the US you couldn't tolerate a state national guard more powerful than the Federal army. So the world couldn't tolerate a national army more powerful than the international peace force.
Would that mean the end of the army, navy, and marines?!
Present national armies need to be reduced gradually until their use is mostly for internal order and to help in cases of natural disasters. Law needs to replace war.
Would international law mean the end of national and state law?
By no means. You take to a higher level only those cases that cannot be handled at a local level.There are worldwide problems that demand a public authority that can operate on a global basis. Care of the environment is a worldwide issue that one nation cannot solve alone. Acid rain does not stop at the Canadian border as if there were some kind of invisible fence there.
I suppose international law would stop atrocities in Israel/Palestine, Columbia, the Great Lakes Region of Africa, the Sudan,_we do have our problems, don't we?
From an angelic perspective, your life there on earth is simply incredible! You need to peel off some of your encrusted thought patterns and try something really different.
Now that we have a global economy, what good are state or even federal laws? Corporations decide what kind of food we eat.
If you earth people don't have a democratic control of vital decisions that affect all of you, it's because you're too busy to stop and think. You're terminally ill, and you don't have time to go to the emergency room.
I guess we're a lost cause.
By no means. When the odds are impossible, the Spirit breaks through! Try reflecting with small values-based communities and then sharing the fruit of your discernment with all. I think you earth people are good at heart. With God's help, I think you can turn it around. Peace.
If you thought Angel Joseph had a point, you might want to consider church teaching about international law. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2307) states: "The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war."
Such a tall order requires much prayer. My own prayer makes me bold enough to propose one path to peace, both local and global peace, a search for peaceful law.
Democratic International Law
Even as we attempt to reform local, state, and federal law, we need to be equally zealous for international law. If earth were being invaded by a hostile force from outer space, the United Nations would call an emergency session and appoint a task force to work night and day, day and night to defend our planet. Cries like "The Martians are coming!" would alarm any of us.
Earth is being threatened from many directions. A member of the 86th Infantry Division during World War II, I emerged from the war certain there had to be a better way to deal with threats to our security. I chose the Society of Jesus as my way to join faith to striving for a more peaceful and just world. Fifty-six plus years later I am convinced that democratic international law is an essential ingredient of a vision for peace.
"Just as the time has finally come when in individual states a system of private vendetta and reprisal has given way to the rule of law, so too a similar step forward is now urgently needed in the international community." (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus No. 52.)
Why Global Law?
There are worldwide problems that demand a public authority that can operate on a global basis. Care of the environment is a worldwide issue that one nation cannot solve alone.
Electronic attempts to create viruses are hard to trace, inexpensive, but can cause billions of dollars of damage. The internet needs some kind of international supervision and regulation.
A biological attack of weaponized small pox, for example, could kill hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Sophisticated international surveillance could minimize the risk of biological or chemical terrorism.
Without global safeguards, infectious diseases can become pandemic. The vastly increased volume of world trade and travel must be accompanied by clean water, sanitation, vaccines and antibiotics for all.
In Peace on Earth (No. 137) Pope John XXIII said: "The moral order demands that a universal public authority be established."
Economic Law
Only an impartial international trade commission can justly handle fair trade between the wealthy and poorer nations. "We must expand our understanding of the moral responsibility of citizens to serve the common good of the entire planet. . . All economic agents must consciously and deliberately attend to the good of the whole human family. We must all work to increase the effectiveness of international agencies in addressing global problems." US Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All No. 322325.
We are citizens of the United States. We are also citizens of the world. Together we must search for the common good of the whole world. All stakeholders need to be involved in world trade. Safe food, a healthy earth, small farm agriculture, a living wage are concerns of all of us. Ordinary citizens should not be simply observers in crucial decisions that affect everyone. Openness and transparency are essential for democracy. We all need the spiritual freedom to be able to listen to one another and engage in constructive dialogue.
One way to give us a voice in global trade is by democratic international law. The common good cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces. Although the market can be a useful tool, it is not a god. Made up of all of us sinners, the market can often be motivated by greed and selfishness. (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus No's 35 and 52)
Church Teaching on International Law
Even if the world's problems were not that acute, there are positive reasons for global law. There is only one earth. There is one human family created by the same God, destined for the same goalunion with God and with one another. We are all united by common bonds of basic human rights and responsibilities.
The Second Vatican Council ("The Church in the Modern World" no. 82) pleas: "It is our clear duty to strain every muscle as we work for the time when all war can be completely outlawed by international consent. This goal undoubtedly requires the establishment of some universal public authority acknowledged as such by all, and endowed with effective power to safeguard, on the behalf of all, security, regard for justice, and respect for rights."
On Oct. 4, 1965 Pope Paul VI urged at the United Nations (No. 19) : "No more war. War never again!" "Humankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to humankind."
In The Challenge of Peace (No. 334) the US bishops state: "War is no longer viable. There is a substitute for war."
Part of Total Vision
Democratic international law needs to be complemented by economic freedom, the many forms of nonviolence, personal virtue, family and community values. On the other hand without international law, individual and even national efforts can be ineffective.
Global Democracy
We have a choice today between global dictatorship or global democracy. Indeed we need to decide whether we want a globe at all! The earth on which we live has evolved over millions of years. The economic, political, cultural, and ethical relationships we have now have been built up over hundreds, even thousands of years. Through nuclear weapons, we could destroy our globe in a few days. Or we can gradually destroy the earth on which we live and the relationships we have built.
With Victor Hugo I think there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. I hope that each day we will inch closer to global peace because we will be a tiny step closer to the idea of global democracy.
Global democracy will come through an effective system of world law. An effective system of world law will mean a world system of peace with justice.
Global Ethic
All must contribute toward a consensus of basic human rights, a global ethic. The golden rule is also valid on a national level. If there is not a common mind-set, no system of positive law will be able to be enforced. Nor can global law be legalistic. The pitfalls of local law can be the booby traps of global law. Global positive law and a global ethic work together and are mutually interdependent. A global ethic will not be effective unless it is codified into a global positive law. Global positive law cannot be effective unless it is accompanied by a global ethic.
The Spirit Matters
World War II affected people in different ways. I sometimes think we have become fixated on World War II even though everything has changed but our way of thinking. As I have said, I came away from World War II with a passion for peace. I suppose I could have tried to become an economist or a politician or a social worker. I decided to become a Jesuit priest. If we work together, our minds can form an interdisciplinary vision of a world more in accord with God's Word. But we also need the will to carry out that vision. We need to be willing to pay the price. That's a spiritual problem.
We Can Change the Structures
There has always been only one globe, one human family. Over the centuries we have built structures and relationships, more recently the nation state, a modern communications media, an economic system, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the modern corporation, advanced technology, improved methods of education, all the advancements we call civilization. All of these have been human creations, created by human persons who are sinners, thus subject to change, growth, and God's grace. The laws of physics such as the law of gravity we cannot change. We can change sinful economic and social structures as well as improve the graced structures..
Although what has happened in our world, is happening and could happen gives me nightmares, I also have dreams. As I have said, I feel that unless I have a vision I cannot see the forest for the trees. I can get so lost in details and the myriad of issues that I lose a sense of the larger picture. The companion of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, always called for clarification of thought. Ignoring obstacles, what kind of world would I like to see in 2030? Can we have global peace by 2030? Can we at least start to move in that direction?
Dreams
Without a culture of basic human rights, especially economic rights, the human family does not have the minimum essentials necessary for human life. God did not create us to be essentially frustrated. There are two Cincinnati's; the one that most of those who live here know. There is a second Cincinnati that doesn't have the minimum essentials necessary for human life; whose needs are enormous, whose frustrations are endless, whose potential is wasted, whose voice is not heard.. "We must consider humankind our family. We must strive for a just social and economic order, in which everyone has an equal chance to reach full potential as a human being. . .Without risk and a readiness to sacrifice there can be no fundamental change in our situation. Therefore we commit ourselves to a global ethic, to understanding one another, and to socially beneficial, peacefostering, and naturefriendly ways of life." ( A Global Ethic, The Declaration of the Parliament of the World's Religions, pp. 15, 16. 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions, Chicago, Illinois, USA )
But we cannot turn our attention to the second Cincinnati that lacks minimum essentials without at the same time working toward global democracy. Without democratic international law, basic human rights are not possible. Because of our fear and insecurity, we pour all of our resources into national military weapons and a police state. But a single nation state or a group of nation states are incapable of judging fairly or acting promptly. Without democratic international law and order, we do not have freedom from war, from economic oppression, or environmental pollution. If it is democratically chosen with sufficient checks and balances, an international governing body, and only an international governing body, can insure global democracy and a healthy earth for all. The present United Nations is not such a body, but it is a beginning. The US should at least support an International Criminal Court. Without common security I don't think national, regional, state, and local governments can operate properly. National governments are being asked to do what they are incapable of. This hinders their ability to do in an adequate manner what they were created for.
Economic Democracy
A companion to democratic international law and order is global economic democracy, global economic equity, global economic freedom. Without global economic democracy we will not achieve or maintain global political democracy. Global political democracy is not enough to insure basic freedom. Indeed genuine global political democracy is not possible without global economic democracy. If only a few control the means of production, those few will also control politics. In global democracy the people need to be able to make the crucial policy decisions now made by the few concerning global warming, bioengineered seed, and allocation of resources.
Global economic democracy could take many forms. At the very least it would mean that each human person would have the minimum essentials to be human. Eventually it would mean widespread local ownership of the factories and farms. I think the principle of subsidiarity needs to be followed in the economic as well as the political sphere. This would result I believe in much more local community ownership of the means of production rather than large, overly centralized conglomerates. Economies of scale would dictate regional, national, and international economic entities only when the principle of subsidiarity is followed. We don't go to a higher level of government unless that higher level is necessary. We should not go to higher economic unit unless a larger unit is appropriate. For the sake of discussion, let's say we produce our food locally, supply our energy regionally, have national health care, and the oceans, seas, natural resources of the earth owned in common internationally.
Active Non-violence
Without the many forms of active non-violence, we will not reach or maintain genuine peace, basic human rights, widespread ownership of the means of production or democratic international law. New structures and new values will work only if we work at it. Education is a key. Being intelligent, thoughtful citizens is a key. If enough people really want global democracy, it will happen. If we are lazy or fatalists, our attitude will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and nothing will happen to stop our present slide toward selfishness and indifference. We need a revolution of consciousness!
I think each element of a revolution of values is necessary. Promoting one without the other won't work. If we put the elements of a radical change together, we can have global democracy. If there's any defect in my vision, I feel it is too conservative and minimal. I think we expect too little of ourselves.
Global democracy is certainly an intellectual problem. It's also a spiritual problem. Although the forces of evil outside us and within us are enormous, nothing is impossible if we are open to God's grace. Where sin abounds, there grace does more abound. We need a vision. We also need a way to the vision. Communities of faith and action can lend support, moderation, analysis and prayer. Ignatian spirituality can help small groups to assimilate our past, be more genuinely present, and see better toward the future. These small groups can then communicate their vision to the larger community.
"Despite the opportunities offered by an ever more serviceable technology, we are simply not willing to pay the price of a more just and more humane society. . . Injustice is rooted in a spiritual problem, and its solution requires a spiritual conversion of each one's heart and a cultural conversion of our global society so that human kind, with all the powerful means at its disposal, might exercise the will to change the sinful structures afflicting our world. . . We need a sustained interdisciplinary dialogue of research and reflection, a continuous pooling of expertise. The purpose is to assimilate experiences and insights according to their different disciplines in a `vision of knowledge which, well aware of its limitations, is not satisfied with fragments but tries to integrate them into a true and wise synthesis." (Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., spiritual leader of the Society of Jesus, Address at Santa Clara University, October, 2000. to the twenty-eight Jesuit universities in the US.)
What is your own present vision of what it would take to have the minimum essentials of a global democracy? Do you have a way of proceeding toward that goal? Are you willing to pay the price of a more just and more humane global society?
Hope Against Hope
I never underestimate the will and power of God for good. Once we had kings and queens. Now democracy is the norm. Once we had slavery, later de jure and de facto segregation. Now we have civil rights legislation. Once women were not permitted to vote. Now we have the League of Women Voters. There were three major wars between France and Germany between 1871 and 1945. Now no one can imagine Germany going to war with France nor the US going to war against Japan. As St. Paul says, "Where sin abounds, there grace does more abound." (Romans 5.20) When the odds are impossible, the Holy Spirit breaks through.
About the Author
Benjamin J. Urmston, S.J. is director of peace and justice programs and administrative secretary of peace studies at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. His academic credentials are many: A.B. Classics; M.A. Philosophy; STL, Theology; M.Rel.Ed. Religious Education; Ph.D. Peace Studies. His webpage <http://www.xu.edu/peace/ben.htm> is a gold mine of resources on faith and justice.
