Section III Effort for Unitary Action of Humanity
After we have made clearly the attitude we should have on science and technology and the conclusion that concerted action should be taken to restrict on the development of science and technology, if to avoid humanity extinguish, the next issue is to discuss how to fulfill the target of concerted action by all humanity.
People have ever done and are being done a series of efforts in the respects of harmony of stand for each country and unification of action for humanity. The efforts include politics, economy, society, environment, military and so on. But the focal point is mainly centered about the issue as how to prevent war. It’s because the most bloody and terrible self-destruction for humanity have always been the war. The harm to us from a war can be recognized most clearly by humanity. However, in the present epoch of the development of society, things have changed dramatically. At the back of he most terrible various disasters, the direct source is science and technology. Especially, the disaster led by science and technology has not been simply destruction of wide scope, but the annihilation of the human race. If so, it requires us to renovate hundredfold, thousandfold and even millionfold efforts to restrict the development of science and technology. Because we will have no chance to regret or make a new start, if the extinguish come into truth for our own lapse.
It deals with whole existing for humanity. All the other value seems to be insignificant in front of such value. The incomparable importance required concerted action for all humanity to be absolutely thorough, coherent and permanent.
The past human endeavor on unity and coordination of the world can not be called no persistence. Among them, the most comprehensive and the heaviest two effective efforts are the foundation of the international alliance and the United Nations.
I. The international alliance
The international alliance is the first universal international organization of history for humanity and the first system to be organized to coordinate world-wide action and guarantee collective security for the whole earth. The reason for the unprecedented foundation of the international alliance at the beginning of the 20th century is the result by recalling the past with pangs in the heart after coming through the situation of dog-eat-dog.
World war I which broke out in 1914 lasted for more than 4 years. It is the first extremely miserable war upon a world wide scale that all the major powers then were involved in the war. More than 10 million people are dead and more than 20 million people are wounded. The direct and indirect cost of war came to $ 43.6 million which is 10 times more than the total sum of cost for all those wars in the past 200 years.
It was astonishing and apprehensive to face with such great destruction. Someone had advocated building up a universal international organization during the war and using the international organization to unite and coordinate issues of the world to make for the peace and to prevent other major wars. At the meeting of the Paris Peace Conference for solution of the problems after the war, the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suggested fourteen plans, in which he injected greatest enthusiasm and desire is the foundation of the international organization. It had been put in as the first section in the Treaty of Versailles.
The foundation of the international organization made people all over the world hopeful, especially some small and medium-sized country that was always being put upon deeply by huge countries. They had seen the international organization as their umbrella for their national security and sovereign equality. President Woodrow Wilson who was also known as a scholar believed in that the international organization is a reliable guarantee for world peace.
The international organization aimed at playing a positive role in international affairs since its foundation. With expectation from people all over the world, a series of work had been carried out. But this proved that the international alliance often contained no active substance and the effectiveness is very limited as an international organization.
The first severe challenge encountered by the international alliance is Japanese Aggression upon Taiwan. On September 18, 1931, the Japanese Army stationing in northeast China attacked suddenly the core city of Shenyang and without warning. Then it occupied major cities and towns along the South Manchuria Railway lines. After the Incident, for ceasing such blatant aggression from Japan, the Nanjing government then had great expectations of the international alliance and made a decision that whole power for solving the problem is to be devolved to the international alliance. So, the Chinese government raised appeal to the international alliance council soon with the requirement of action by the international alliance to reset the state to that before September 18th Incident.
The international alliance council conducted a study to it for complaint of Chinese Government and passed the resolution. But Japan did not pay attention at all. Under the circumstances, the international alliance council passed the resolution a second time only to meet opposition. So, the international alliance council decided to combine into a specialized fact-finding mission to carry out the enquiry to the Far East.
Wrapping up 6 months of investigation, the fact-finding mission of international alliance completed International Alliance Fact-finding Mission Statement related to the situation of China. After some discussion, the resolution about fact-finding mission statement was adopted by the international alliance. The resolution announced that the occupation of Chinese territory by Japanese Invaders was unlawful and asked Japanese to withdraw all its troops from northeast China. At the same time, the statement declare d the puppet regime set up by the Japanese was unlawful, either. But there was no crackdown on Japan and the special benefits for Japan in northeast China was admitted. It is a resolution with some compromise for Japan actually.
But even such resolution with compromise was still refused to accept by Japan. The representative of Japan went out suddenly. And the Japanese government declared formally to withdraw from the international alliance later. The international alliance could do nothing in front of arrogant ways by Japan. They could only denounce Japan under a moral obligation to end the issue.
The second severe challenge encountered by the international alliance since Japan launched the invasion into China is Italian Aggression upon Abyssinia.
Under the pretext of a border incident happened in the area located between Italian Somaliland and Abyssinia on December 5, 1934, the Italian troops occupied the area and forced to sue for compensation for the losses from Abyssinia. The unreasonable request was met with a flat refusal by Abyssinia. As a small country, it had no power to fight against Italian in terms of military. So Abyssinia rested hopes in the international alliance. On January 3, 1935, Abyssinia lodged a complaint with the international alliance to appeal them to step in and help stop the invasion.
The international alliance was actually controlled by England and France at that time. The international alliance should not stands aside for the invasion of Italy whether in the light of the tenet of maintaining League of Nations or in the light of standing up for behalf of England in North and East Africa. However, England and France treated the act of invading by Italian with caution then. They did not consider how to maintain justice and League of Nations but to be afraid of offending Italy so as to force Japan allied with Germany. So, its attitude is quite ambiguous.
The compromise of England and France fed the ambitions of Italian invaders. On October 3, 1935, Italy attacked Abyssinia formally. All things considered, the international alliance had to give sharp reaction to declare that the action from Italy is aggressive act for its so flagrant aggressive acts. And they also decided to impose economic sanctions on Italy which did not contain important products as oil, coal, steel and so on. That was simply due to the attitude of non-cooperation from France. Of course, sanctions like that were doomed to failure.
Italy troops used chemical gas against Abyssinia defenders who put up a strong resistance. Then, Addis Ababa, the capital city of Abyssinia, was captured and the nation was swallowed up.
What’s worth thinking deeply about is that emperor Haile Selassie for Abyssinia went to Geneva in person. He spoke at the meeting of international alliance on June 30 to accuse Italy of the crime of aggression and ask for intervention by the international alliance to check the aggression of Italy. He also appealed the international alliance to extend loans to Abyssinia for resistance to Italy troops to purchase firearms. However, there were 25 abstentions, and 23 against the pitiful request. The only one affirmative vote is from Abyssinia itself. The international alliance gave up its sanctions against Italy on July 4. It is visible how insignificant the strength from the international alliance was. How weak the sense of justice from countries all over the world is in face of power.
Daring not to be a champion of justice, League of Nations gave in to power. Its feeble made all countries disappointed deeply, at the same time, led a convenient way to aggression of fascists.
It was the weakness of the international alliance in the attitude towards Italian aggression to Abyssinia that stimulated the ambition of aggression of German and England. On July 7, 1937, Japan made war extending throughout China. The important reason led to this result was the result of the thorough understanding to the international alliance by Japan.
It was Hitler who made the international alliance lose its function. Encouraged by Mussolini who pulled off aggression to other countries, Hitler decided to challenge the Treaty of Versailles according to which German, the failure of World WarⅠ, could not quarter his troops inside 50 km of the east bank of the Rhine. This are should be a non-military zone.
The existing of non-military zone of the Rhine was viewed as eyesore, because it finished military expansion by German and made a space of German in the West for defense to France. Hitler had wanted to have the nail out all that time. But German was only just beginning to reorganize to arm its troops then. So, its strength of military could not fight against UK and France. If the International Social stepped in to limit its rights, German impossibly achieved the goal he wanted.
However, the appearance of maintaining justice by the international alliance, UK and France as well as the attitude of appeasement policy toward strong power encouraged Hitler to tempt fate. On March 7, 1936, 35 thousand Germany troops moved towards non-military zone of the Rhine by order of Hitler and built line of military. At the same time, they occupied a few important cities and towns along the west bank of the Rhine.
Such an open violation to the treaty of Versailles made France at risk directly. The France government then advocated to sending armies to the Rhineland. The voice for forcing German to withdraw its troop was truly high. But when it came to ask for British opinion, the Great Britain who was not willing to run the risk of war opposed both the tenets from France and sanctions against German. The French government missed the chance to send armies to the Rhineland and put a brake on expansion of Hitler’s ambition due to its daring not take action alone. What needed to emphasize is that the international alliance then were controlled by UK and France actually at that time. Their attitude made the international alliance only accuse German of violation to the treaty of Versailles instead of taking any effective measures to the problem of German’s sending armies to the Rhineland.
For that caught on by fascist Germany, Italy and Japan, Hitler realized the international alliance played a jerkwater role actually and could be put aside thoroughly to do what ever he wanted.
So, German annexed Austria on March, 1938. And then it occupied and annexed Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia on October the same year. Then again, it fished in troubled waters to divide Czechoslovakia and made the country die.
Hitler German openly tore up the German-Poland non-aggression treaty to attack the sovereign state Poland. That forced the UK and France to declare war on Germany. World WarⅡbroke out so.
Since World WarⅡ, the international alliance hade existed only in name. After the war, the international alliance declared dissolved formally.
From preparation to establish, the international alliance has devoted so much passion of wide awake people and political leaders. A powerful lot of liberty-loving people were looking forward to it. They even imaged the foundation of international alliance may bring permanent peace to humanity. However, all those expectation and hopes existed only in short fancy. During the 26 years of its existence, the international alliance did not stop even a great conflict.
The international alliance had managed in another important affair which was the organization and coordination of international disarmament. Then, under all kinds of effort from the international alliance, the international alliance made no substantive advances in the international disarmament, either. In fact, the whole contribution from the international alliance was only to offer a false hope and certain experience for later foundation of the United Nations.
II. The United Nations
Humanity is a kind of animal that will never learn from the experience. They begged peace, but the hope of which will always be a mere shadow. World WarⅡwhich was more tumultuous broke out only less than 20 years after World WarⅠ. World WarⅡproduced more disaster than that of World WarⅠ. The number of wounded and death caused by the war is 100 million population, among which 55 million were died. The economic loss produced by the war was countless.
Experienced the great disaster of the two World Wars in person, the expectation of people for peace was greater. They hoped that there would be an organization to control the world and ensure its peace truly. Birth of the United Nations is the result of people’s strongly appealing for peace.
(1) Weakness of safeguarding world peace
The main aim of the United Nations was to safeguard world peace and build collective security system, which was also the purpose for its foundation. The United Nations was founded for 60 years. Though World War Ⅱhas not broken out, Local wars have been incessant. Various armed conflict still happens from time to time. The number of death population caused by those wars and armed conflict were more than 20 million which was double as much as that in World WarⅠ. As counted, there were about 200 great conflict happened. The scale of some of them was very large and the number of countries involved in was large, too. For example, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, Middle East Wars, the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraq war and so on. The United Nations showed the ability at its command inadequate to achieve the goal of safeguarding world peace and dealing with the local conflict.
The basic factor for influencing the United Nations to safeguard world peace is the difference on country interests. As an international organization, its authority was entrusted by the states. The interests of sovereign state had always been above that of the United Nations. All decisions from the United Nations will be necessarily boycotted by some countries, as long as they collided with their interests. If those are countries with strong strength, or supported by huge countries behind, the decision made by the United Nation must not be carried out. So, on the aspect of interference to the United Nations for safeguarding world peace, the interests of huge countries are especially more important among interests of countries. All the important decisions made by the United Nation can be carried out only when according with interests of huge countries or not greatly colliding.
As far as UN peacekeeping, from the first time taken such an action of the first Middle East War on June, 1948 to the time Cold War ended in 1988, there were only 13 UN peacekeeping. But the situation turned since 1989, there were peacekeeping every year. Sometimes, times of the peacekeeping may over ten. It was because the interests of the two camps led by the two super huge countries as the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R during the Cold War were hard to balance. It is difficult to reach an agreement on one action of peacekeeping. Never had one country would like to discuss one problem standing in the side of benefits for the all human beings instead of its own benefits, there were always phenomenon like that the decision one country approved must be disapproved by the other one on the stage of UN or vice versa. So many farces staged made the world disappointment. Since the end of the cold war, contradictions among huge countries has tended to relax with the disintegration of the Soviets, competition among countries turned to the aspects of social development and economy more. Each country hopes to have a peaceful and stable international environment. They have common hopes for peacekeeping. So, times for action of peacekeeping are much more than before.
But, with the formation of basic configuration of the world as one super country and many huge countries since the Cold War, America who is the only one super country pays more attention to control the UN to take action of its expanding in the name of peacekeeping and counter-terrorism. Of course, the UN will not take orders of the USA everywhere. So the USA takes action without agreement of the UN alone, once they do not agree with each other.
In the year of 2003, the USA planned to overturn regime of SADAM in the name of anti-terrorism. The behavior of American was clearly visible by people all over the world. The so-called anti-terrorism is just an excuse. The substance is to pursue hegemonism for oil in the Middle East. So, most countries were set their faces against such behavior of the USA. The broad and forceful wave of demonstration parade lasted for a long time. The spontaneous behavior in common of people the world over was unprecedented since the cold war. The traditional main ally as France and Germany all took strong stand against it. The USA had ever attempted to get the authorization of the United Nations' Security Council. But except American and England, all the other three permanent members had expressed disapproval of the war. They even said to take exercise of veto power. A small number of countries as the American and England used force with Iraq by one-sideda bypassing the United Nations, and launched the overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam regime without authorization.
Open affront to the UN or acts of aggression bypassing the United Nations happened frequently during the 60 years of the existing for the UN in defiance of strong opposition by the international community. For instance, Israel seized the area of Arab to prevent foundation of Palestine. The UN has ever passed its resolution many times to stop the action by Israel. But Israel got behind the agreement depending on the support of the USA. The UN could not manage it, especially when it came to the actions that were participated in by huge countries. Sometimes, the UN even dared to air it. Such as the cases following: the Warsaw pact states launched an invasion into Czechoslovak, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Nato War Against Yugoslavia, the U.S. Decision making about Invading Grenada, American invasion of Panama and so on. The most greatest local war since World War Ⅱ as the Korean War and the Vietnam war were not well treated by the UN on the aspects of settling a dispute and avoiding killing, for the support behind them are all huge countries.
(2) The rocky road to disarmament
The United Nations Charter pointed out that the UK will aim to cut expenses of military for Human resources and economic resources as much as possible. Under the Charter, the UN General Assembly and the Council will be in charge of disarmament and readjusting arms.
In order to promote the process of disarmament, the UN has built up a series of organizations for talks on disarmament, for instance, threat for humanity in relation to Nuclear Weapons. The Atomic Energy Commission was established by the UN under its council earlier than the day of January 24, 1946. However, the long road of disarmament for 60 years made the UN suffer a loss of prestige. The result of its action for disarmament is even ironic.
The Soviet Union planned to set out on an experiment for H-bombs with a yield of 56 million TNT in Novaya Zemlya. Such tremendous force of explosion equals nearly 3000 times the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Such a nuclear test did not adapt to the expectation of nuclear disarmament then. So, on October 27, the United Nations Genera1 Assembly ratified the agreement of imposing a moratorium on nuclear test of Soviet by a vote of 87 to 11, with one abstention. But in defiance of strong opposition by the international community, Soviet carried out its experiments on time 3days later.
The entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty needed endorsements of the 44 nuclear-capable countries and the approval from the authority concerned of these countries. But until now, there were ten more nuclear-capable countries without approval or endorsements of the Treaty, especially the USA that is the hugest nuclear states country. The American vetoed to ratify the treaty in the vote of the Senate in 1999. Furthermore, the now U.S. President Bush has decided not to send the treaty to the Senate to be voted again.
As an international organization, the authority of the UN was given by states. If the states do not give the authority to the UN, it can do nothing. Especially when it comes to the action from the USA, there will be nothing the UN can do.
The verified agreement of the Biological Weapons Convention has a long process of negotiation for 6 years. They finally came to an agreement basically on July, 2001. The treaty seemed to be signed until the USA declared to refuse to sign the agreement suddenly on July 25, which made all effort from the UN useless and the fruit of the negotiation for 6 years ended up in nothing.
Outer Space Treaty passed by the UN in 1976 sets down prohibition of deploying and using weapons of mass destruction in outer space as well as foundation of military base in the other stars. But the United States, Russia and other countries had launched the plan called Space Military formally. The Space Troops of the two countries had been raised.
It is to be regretted most that the USA withdrew from the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty was signed between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. in 1927 to ensure nuclear deterrence for each other by forbidding the development of anti-ballistic-missile system nationally. The purpose of the treaty is to muzzle nuclear war through balance of nuclear terrorism. The strength of the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. after the Cold War had not been that 30 years before to be similar. American ambition was to have a lead over the rest of the world in military for long and dominate the whole world. All the other countries have realized the possibilities that the America would go its own way to withdraw from ABN Treaty early. In order to avoid such situation, the 54th Session of the UN General Assembly ratified the agreement of Preservation of and Compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by a vote of 82 to 5 on November 29, 2001. It was the third year that similar resolution was passed by the general assembly of the united nation. But in defiance of strong opposition by the international community, president of the United States declared to withdraw the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The ABM treaty is backbone of system for international arms control. In the area of international disarmament, there are 30 more treaties linked to it. The revocation of the ABM treaty had shaken system of international disarmament actually. The result is conceivable.
In retrospect, all the work that the UN done on disarmament is as follows. In the year 1945, the USA was the only one country that had atomic bomb. And then in 1946, it began to work at international nuclear disarmament. The actual results for its talks on disarmament were that types of nuclear weapons as well as the number of countries had nuclear weapons and nuclear warhead were increasingly rising so that now the number of countries had nuclear-weapon states openly have been 8. And the actual number should be more than that. The total amount of global nuclear weapons had been 70 thousand when it came to the top. Even now, nuclear warhead could be counted in the number of 10 thousand. Besides the bomb, there is Hydrogen Bomb, neutron bomb, high-pressure shock-wave bomb and so on produced. And a fourth generation nuclear-weapon has been in the plan for its study and Manufacture secretly.
The UN seemed to pass many revolution of disarmament after the Cold War. But the American without restraint is marginalizing the UN more and more. Any resolution may not restrict countries like the USA substantially. In fact, the affect on the other huge countries is limited, too.
(3) Dilemma for coordinating contradiction of economy and society
Different from the international alliance, the UN has duty of coordinating international economy, society, culture, education, health and so on. Then, compared with maintaining peace of the world and international disarmament, it will be much easier for the UN to pass a resolution about statement, declaration, treaty, term and protocol. That is because the problem of economy and society has always been right for common in moral and interest. But, the resolution of the UN would settle for a lot less when to be carried out. The resolutions with common interests are easy to be carried out. But they are hard to be carried out, when the interests of each country are different, conflicts occurred between the long-term and short-term interests or between the national and international interests.
In term of war and disarmament, the attention that paid by the world of problems of economy and society are less and the sense for urgency is weaker, either. So, the strength of the surveillance dynamics for the resolution passed by the UN is weaker. This gives the action of refusing to catch on the resolution made by the UN no real appreciation under the circumstances of its overflowing.
The UN held the eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offender in capital and largest city of Cuba. The congress had passed 46 previous resolutions within only 10 days. The record is impossible to be broken on war and disarmament. That is because the problem of deterring lawlessness is the common interests of all countries. The treatment of offenders is ethical question that be recognized. Even though some countries would not like to increase benefits for offenders, they will never show their disapproval openly.
The drug-dealing together with drug-addiction is social effects of pollution. Any country will see that as monsters. The topic about drug control can be welcomed naturally by the world. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and a series of resolutions are easier to be passed. Hundreds of programs against drugs made by the UN are easy to be carried out relatively.
The terrorism is also social effects of pollution. So the revolution as Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents, International Convention Against Taking Hostages and so on can not be denied certainly.
The problem of environment and sources are great events concerns sustainable development for us mankind. Only from the convening of the first international conference of mankind environment in 1972 to convening of the first international conference of mankind environment in 1992, 180 more terms, treaties and agreements were on environment and source had been signed under the intervention of the United Nations during those 20 years. But those terms, agreements and treaties are hard to be carried out. For example, excessive use of fossil fuel and organic fuels together with pouring a large volume of smoke to the air makes the temperatures of the earth increase and natural disasters frequently taken place. So regulation of emissions of greenhouse gases became common cries of the world. The amount of Fossil fuels used by the USA is the largest, so the America refused to ratify the Kyoto accord on emissions of greenhouse gases and emphasized the function of forests-protecting and planting more than the responsibility it should shoulder for its excessive use of fossil fuel.
Another example is that protection of forests is an important means for protecting biodiversity, preventing land desertification, and controlling global warming. In September 1991, the UN had passed Proclamation of Paris to appeal to the world for protecting forests and rebuilding green vegetation of the earth. Then the Statement of Principles about Forests, Convention on Biological Diversity and Convention on Combating Desertification were passed. But the poor developing countries were not able to improve productivity by developing industry together with science and technology. So, they killed the goose that lays the golden egg. They cut forests, sold sources and grazed excessively in order to solve the problem of food and clothes.
Consequently, it is not so easy to pass the resolutions above of the UN. Even though they are passed, it is still a difficulty for dealing with the problems fundamentally. By and large, the issue is that the contents concerned in those resolutions do not fit interests of some countries well. When there is conflict between long-term interests and partial interests, the nations usually choose the latter. And when there is conflict between country interests and individual interests, the nations must choose the former.