By the recognized indiscriminate destructive nature of your current weaponry, you are pointing your nuclear WMD at us in the Global Commons thereby threatening our lives as well as future generations of humans.
Moreover, the launching of this weaponry in our world community risks to annihilate not only our species but other species co-inhabiting the planet.
In the name of justice, world law and the teachings of all of humanity's wisdom sages throughout history, we, of the living, cannot permit this suicidal madness.
According to the statute of the International Criminal Court, this constitutes a
GLOBAL FELONY
not to mention a violation of innumerable United Nations' General Assembly resolutions** as well as articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically 1, 3, 5, 28, and 30. (See www.worldservice.org/udhr.html)
What then is our global civic and legal recourse to prevent this potential holocaust?
With reference to the Nuremberg Principles*** in accordance with the statute of the ICC at The Hague, as heads of state directly responsible for your nuclear policy, you personally are criminally liable, therefore indictable.
A class-action suit will be filed at the ICC citing you, defendants, as "war criminals," and we, the world citizen constituency, plaintiffs, as potential victims.
Why then are we advising you beforehand of this action?
It is to clarify for the general world citizen public the fundamental difference between treaties of allegedly sovereign states and enforceable law agreed-upon by the sovereign world citizenry.
When, as a timely example, the president of the United States comments in a recent speech at the United Nations that "treaties must be enforced," he inadvertently is confessing to a flagrant yet common error in political/legalistic thinking which must be publicly exposed as a prelude to our legal action.****
In brief, treaties, by definition, are static documents between equally sovereign states; enforceable law, on the contrary, is dynamic agreement between equally sovereign citizens under a representative government. (Ref., Declaration of Independence, 1776).
Furthermore, wars between states are a result of the lawless condition between them-so-called international law to the contrary notwithstanding-despite innumerable treaties between them condemning war*****.
Examples of broken treaties between sovereign states are scattered historically throughout the wreckage of our war-torn planet.
Your national mandate, therefore, proven time and time again at the expense of the people of the world, is to preserve illegally that anarchic condition in the name of "national security" which has led to world wars beginning 95 years ago at an incalculable cost in human lives and money.
In the name of humanity,
Yours, in one world,
Garry Davis
World Coordinator
World Government of World Citizens
*World Service Authority. (www.worldservice.org)
**The General Assembly of the United Nations, November 24, 1961; Resolution 1653 (XV)
"Any State using nuclear or thermonuclear weapons is to be considered as violating the Charter of the United Nations, as acting contrary to the laws of humanity, and as committing a crime against mankind and civilization."
Resolution 33/71:December 14, 1978; Resolution 35/152-0D, December 21, 1980
"The use of nuclear weapons would be a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and a crime against humanity."
Genocide Convention, Article I
"..genocide committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they (contracting Parties) undertake to prevent and to punish."
Article IV
provides that
"Persons committing genocide shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals."
Resolution 96(I), December 11, 1966
"Genocide is a crime under international law.."
"Genocide" Definition:
"The deliberate and systemic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group."
Webster's College Dictionary, 1991.
***Nuremberg Decisions of 1945: Principle I:
"Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment."
Principle VI:
"Crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity are punishable as crimes under international law."
**** Chapter IX: TREATY OR LAW, The Anatomy of Peace, Emery Reves:
"We have had thousands and thousands of peace treaties in the history of mankind. None of them has survived more than a few years. None of them could prevent the next war, for the simple reason that human nature, which cannot be changed, is such that conflicts are inevitable as long as sovereign power resides in individual members or groups of members of society, and not in society itself..If we seek peace between sovereign units, based on treaty agreements, then peace is an impossibility and it is childish even to think of it..Treaties are essentially static instruments. Law is essentially a dynamic instrument. Wherever we have applied the method of law to regulate human relationship, it has resulted in peace. Whenever we have applied treaties to regulate human relationship, it has inevitably led to war....Agreements and treaties between national governments of equal sovereignty can never last because such agreement and treaties are the products of mistrust and fear. Never of principles.."
*****The Geneva Conventions of 1949: "The Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War" updated and strengthened the 1907 Regulations particularly with regard to requiring belligerents "to ensure the essential requirements for the health, safety and sustenance of the civilian population."
The Hague Convention of 1907 Regulations, No. IV Prohibits "wanton and indiscriminate destruction;" Forbids "the attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings or buildings that are undefended."
"..the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the laws of nations as they result from the usage established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of public conscience."
Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928
Art 1 Art 2 Art 3
"Treaty between the United States and other Powers providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. Signed at Paris, August 27, 1928; ratification advised by the Senate, January 16, 1929; ratified by the President, January 17, 1929; instruments of ratification deposited at Washington by the United States of America, Australia, Dominion of Canada, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Great Britain, India, Irish Free State, Italy, New Zealand, and Union of South Africa, March 2, 1929: By Poland, March 26, 1929; by Belgium, March 27 1929; by France, April 22, 1929; by Japan, July 24, 1929; proclaimed, July 24, 1929."
And etc.