WAR AND INTERVENTION

INRODUCTION:

War, in international law, armed conflict between two or more governments or states. When such conflicts assume global proportions, they are known as world wars. War between different parts or factions of the same nation is called civil war.
Any action undertaken in order to change what is happening or might happen in another’s affairs, especially in order to prevent something undesirable is known as intervention. Economic action that is designed to counter a trend in a market, especially in order to stabilize a country’s currency.


ECONOMIC CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR:

Operation Of The twentieth century:

When the major powers become involved in armed conflict, whether Operation Restore Hope or Operation Desert Storm, these conflicts are presented as a temporary measure, necessary to restore 'peace.' Each time political leaders expect support for their wars it is always with the subtly implied promise that all will be well eventually. It was the same in the nineteenth century as it is now. Yet, at the start of this century, they never requested working class support for another hundred years of 'temporary' conflicts that have since caused so much destruction.
The twentieth century has been the era of truly world wars that have been the most destructive unnatural events this planet has ever seen. But were they, and the dozens of conflicts that have followed, necessary. The socialist answer is no, not even the Second World War, a war above all others allegedly fought to bring lasting peace and democracy to the world but which left death, tyranny and fresh antagonisms in its wake.




The Economic Causes of World War II:

The basic cause of modern war is the international rivalries inseparable from capitalism and the capitalist class's domination of the world's resources. World War Two was no exception.
The particular background to this, the most destructive war ever, was the formation of the German-Italian-Japanese alliance in the 1930s and their concerted effort to expand at the expense of weaker neighbours and the older colonial powers, notably Britain, France and Holland. Italy and Germany had long before 1914 entered into the colonial scramble but they developed late and found all the best territories, strategic positions and trade routes already dominated by the 'older and fatter' bandits. The line-up before 1914 was, on the one side, the 'Triple Alliance' of Germany, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and arrayed against their expansionist ambitions the 'Triple Entente' of Britain, France and Russia.
The First and Second world wars were directly linked in that the settlement imposed on the defeated states after the former succeeded in deepening the antagonisms which led to the latter. The background to the First World War was the clash in the Balkans. Germany aimed to move through the Balkans across the Dardanelles and onwards, taking in the Middle East with its oil resources and strategic importance. It was given dramatic expression in the planned Berlin-Baghdad railway. Such a thrust meant cutting off Russia from its Balkan proteges and an outlet to the Mediterranean, and meant severing the British Empire life-line through the Suez Canal to India and beyond. France with its African interests was as vitally concerned as Britain to stop this German dream of world power.
When the war came in 1914 Italy deserted the Triple Alliance while Turkey joined it. Part of the Allied bribe to Italy was the secret promise of a rich share in the spoils of victory a promise which Italy claimed was never kept. Later on, in the early 1920s, with Germany prostrate and Russia weakened by the civil war and Allied intervention, Europe was dominated by France and the French system of alliances with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania, a system aimed both against the revival of Germany and against Russia. The British Government, following its traditional European balance of power policy, saw the need—in the interest of British capitalism of helping Germany recover to offset French preponderance. A new factor, however, came into being after the world slump which followed on from the Wall Street Crash of 1929: the coming to power in Germany of the Hitler dictatorship.
The slump led in 1931 to a major breakdown in the system of international payments. Production fell in country after country and trade plummeted. Gold became concentrated in the hands of the dominant capitalists in the USA, Britain, France and the countries associated with them. These states also had a monopoly of access to most of the sources and raw materials in the world. The world thus became divided into two groups; those countries which had the gold and raw materials and those which lacked them. Germany, Japan and Italy were in the second group and in a bid to solve the problems this presented, the governing parties organised on an aggressive totalitarian basis and resorted to policies which challenged the other, dominant group.
To get gold and currencies to buy essential raw materials the totalitarian states tried 'dumping', i.e. selling their products below cost. In their trade with other countries they used devices which avoided gold, such as barter and bilateral trade agreements and credits which had to be used to buy their goods. All these devices tended to tie their trading partners to them and thus take them out of the world market.
This decline in the use of gold threatened the financial centres of London and New York. London was also threatened as the centre of dealings in raw materials. Pursuing these aggressive economic policies Germany had considerable success in Southern Europe and Latin America, while Japan made headway in the markets of Southern Asia. In 1931 Japan used armed force in Manchuria to set up a trading monopoly there. In the past the imperialist powers had decided on an open door policy for trade with China as none of them was strong enough to exclude all the others. Now Japan was trying to do just this, a policy which inevitably led to conflict with America and Britain. Italy similarly used force to get an overseas market in Abyssinia in 1935.
By way of response, the dominant powers decided on a determined campaign to regain the markets lost to the totalitarian countries. German, Japanese and Italian goods were boycotted. Credits were offered to the countries of Southern Europe to win them away from dependence on Germany. The more successful these policies were the more desperate became the economic position of German capitalism. Without the funds to give credits, force appeared to be the only way. Hence the annexation of Austria in 1938, the breaking up of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
At this point the conflict of economic interests was coming to a head. Germany was trying to keep its gains in Southern Europe by all means, including force, and Britain and France were using credits to undermine German influence. There was no backing down on either side. War would break out as soon as Britain and France decided to resist force with force. This was delayed as long as possible, particularly because of the vague anti-war feelings of British and French workers; but in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland the Second World War began. In a few years Russia and the USA were drawn in also. It was a war which blazed over all Europe and Asia and parts of Africa. It was a war fought between rival groups of capitalist states over markets, trade routes and sources of raw materials. It was not about democracy or fascism.
Nothing illustrated this more than the resultant carve-up between the victorious capitalist states in 1945 which left the totalitarian regimes in Spain and Portugal intact while delivering half of Europe into the hands of Stalin and Russian imperialism.



Arms Race:

Intense competition between nations to accumulate technologically advanced and militarily strategic weapon systems.

Atomic Arms Race:

The development of the atomic bomb by the United States toward the end of World War II brought with it the capability of devastating whole civilizations . While the United States still maintained a monopoly on nuclear weapons, it made overtures in the UN for the control and elimination of atomic energy for military purposes. In June 1946, American representative Bernard Baruch presented a plan to the UN Atomic Energy Commission, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, international control over the processing of nuclear materials, full sharing of all scientific and technological information concerning atomic energy, and safeguards to ensure that atomic energy would be used only for civilian purposes. The government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) vetoed the Baruch Plan in the Security Council, objecting to the UN's authority over disarmament and citing the domination of that body by the United States and Western Europe.
In 1949 the USSR exploded an atomic weapon of its own, ending the U.S. monopoly. The possibility of a nuclear war was now present, because relations between the USSR and the West were tense . Both the United States and the USSR were engaged in a race to develop thermonuclear (hydrogen) devices, which have many times the destructive power of atomic bombs. These weapons raised the possibility of ending all life on earth in all-out war. After 1954, when the USSR exploded its first hydrogen bomb, the primary concern of arms control was to reduce nuclear arsenals and prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.


Nuclear Weapons:

Explosive devices designed to release nuclear energy on a large scale, used primarily in military applications. The first atomic bomb (or A-bomb), which was tested on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo, New Mexico, represented a completely new type of explosive. All explosives prior to that time derived their power from the rapid burning or decomposition of some chemical compound. Such chemical processes release only the energy of the outermost electrons in the atom.
Nuclear explosives, on the other hand, involve energy sources within the core, or nucleus, of the atom. The A-bomb gained its power from the splitting, or fission, of all the atomic nuclei in several kilograms of plutonium. A sphere about the size of a baseball produced an explosion equal to 20,000 tons of TNT.

Agreements Limiting Nuclear Weapons:

In 1957 the International Atomic Energy Agency was established to oversee the development and spread of nuclear technology and materials. Two years later a treaty was negotiated to demilitarize the Antarctic and to prohibit the detonation or storage of nuclear weapons there. Both the United States and the USSR were among the signatories.
In 1961 the UN General Assembly passed the Joint Statement of Agreed Principles for Disarmament Negotiations. It was followed in 1963 by a treaty that bound the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union not to test nuclear weapons in space, in the atmosphere, or under water. In 1967 another treaty between the same nations limited the military use of outer space to reconnaissance only. The deployment of nuclear weapons in orbit was expressly prohibited. A second treaty in 1967 banned nuclear weapons from Latin America.
One of the most important agreements on arms control was the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968. Signatories pledged to restrict the development, deployment, and testing of nuclear weapons to ensure that weapons, materials, or technology would not be transferred outside the five countries that had nuclear weapons (Great Britain, France, China, the United States, and the Russia). In 1995 more than 170 countries agreed to permanently extend the treaty.
In the late 1960s the United States and the Russia initiated negotiations to regulate strategic weapon arsenals. These negotiations became known as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. The SALT I negotiations produced two important agreements in 1972: the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. That same year the two superpowers also signed a treaty barring the testing of nuclear weapons on the ocean floor. The SALT II negotiations, which began in 1972, produced another treaty in 1979 that would limit the total number of U.S. and USSR missile launchers. After the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, relations between the United States and the USSR rapidly deteriorated, and the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty.

Nonnuclear Weapons Agreements:

Agreements to restrict or eliminate the production and use of biological and chemical weapons date back to the Geneva Convention of 1925. In 1972 the United States, the Russia, and most other nations signed a convention prohibiting development, production, and stockpiling of biological and chemical weapons. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians during the Iran-Iraq War, and in subsequent attacks on its own Kurdish population, prompted renewed international efforts to ban the use of such weapons. In 1993 representatives from 160 nations approved the Chemical Weapons Convention. This agreement banned production, use, sale, and storage of all chemical weapons. It also mandated destruction of existing stocks of weapons by the year 2005. The United States ratified this convention in 1997, despite concerns about the proliferation of chemical weapons among nations such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, and North Korea that were not signatories to the agreement.

COUNTRIES HAVING CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS (CBW):
The following is a list of some of the countries commonly cited by experts as having probable or known involvement in chemical and/or biological weapons. However, many other countries are suspected of having such programs.
U.S.A:
The United States said it does not maintain a stockpile of biological weapons although it does pursue defensive biological research. It has what it is believed to be the world's second largest stockpile of chemical weapons, which it has committed to destroying by 2004.
ISRAEL:
Israel does not disclose details about its alleged chemical and biological weapons program.
LIBYA:
Libya is believed to possess a chemical weapons stockpile and is researching biological weapons capability. The scope of its program is unknown.
RUSSIA:
During the past decade, Russia has committed to dismantling its chemical and biological weapons program and destroying its stockpiles of such weapons, believed to be the largest in the world. The breakup of the Soviet Union and Russia's economic crisis have raised fears that scientists who formerly worked in the Soviet chemical and biological weapons program would sell supplies or expertise to other countries.

SYRIA:

Syria is believed to have a stockpile of chemical weapons and is thought to be pursuing biological weapons capability. The scope of its program is not known.

IRAN:

Iran is believed to have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

CHINA:

China has acknowledged the existence of former chemical weapons production and facilities but not a chemical weapons stockpile. It denies the existence of a biological weapons program although some international intelligence sources said they have evidence to the contrary.




NORTH KOREA:

North Korea is suspected of possessing a large stockpile of biological and chemical weapons. The program is run by the country's Nuclear-Chemical Defense Bureau, established in 1981.

SOUTH KOREA:

South Korea has declared the existence of a chemical weapons stockpile and has committed to dismantling its production facilities. It is not known to have biological weapons capability.

TAIWAN:

Taiwan is suspected of pursuing chemical weapons capability. It is also suspected of proliferating biological weapons technology, but there is no conclusive evidence.






International System:

Modern international law emerged as the result of the acceptance of the idea of the sovereign state, and was stimulated by the interest in Roman law in the 16th century. Building largely on the work of previous legal writers, especially Spanish precursors, the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius, sometimes called the father of modern international law, published his celebrated treatise De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Laws of War and Peace) in 1625. (Prior to that time he had published his pioneering tract on freedom of the sea, Mare Liberum, 1609.) Grotius based his system on the law of nature and propounded the view that the already existing customs governing the relation between nations had the force of law and were binding unless contrary to natural justice. His influence on the conduct of international affairs and the settlement of wars was great. His ideas became the cornerstone of the international system as established by the Peace Treaties of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War.
Other scholars and statesmen further developed the basic rules of international law, among them the Dutch jurist Cornelius van Bynkershoek and the Swiss diplomat Emmerich de Vattel whose Le droit des gens (1758; Law of Nations) exercised great influence on the framers of the U.S. Constitution. By the end of the second half of the 19th century the literature on the subject had reached vast proportions. The Institute of International Law, a private organization for the study of international law composed of outstanding scholars from various countries, was established in 1873. One of its founders was the American David D. Field, who in the same year had authored Outlines of an International Code.

International law stems from three main sources: treaties and international conventions, customs and customary usage, and the generally accepted principles of law and equity. Judicial decisions rendered by international tribunals and domestic courts are important elements of the law-making process of the international community. United Nations resolutions now may also have a great impact on the growth of the so-called customary international law that is synonymous with general principles of international law.

The present system of international law is based on the sovereign state concept. It is within the discretion of each state, therefore, to participate in the negotiation of, or to sign or ratify, any international treaty. Likewise, each member state of an international agency such as the UN is free to ratify any convention adopted by that agency.

Treaties and conventions were, at first, restricted in their effects to those countries that ratified them. They are particular, not general, international law; yet regulations and procedures contained in treaties and conventions have often developed into general customary usage, that is, have come to be considered binding even on those states that did not sign and ratify them. Customs and customary usages otherwise become part of international law because of continued acceptance by the great majority of nations, even if they are not embodied in a written treaty instrument. “Generally accepted principles of law and justice” fall into the same category and are, in fact, often difficult to distinguish from customs.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, international conferences have played an important part in the development of the international system and the law. Noteworthy in that respect was the Congress of Vienna which, through its Final Act of 1815, reorganized Europe after the defeat of Napoleon and also contributed to the body of international law. For example, it established rules for diplomatic procedure and the treatment of diplomatic envoys. On the urging of Britain, it included a general condemnation of the slave trade. Another important step in the development of international law was the Conference of Paris (1856), which was convened to terminate the Crimean War but at the same time adopted the Declaration of Maritime Law that abolished privateering and letters of marque, modernized the rights of neutrals during maritime war, and required blockades to be effective. The Declaration of Paris also initiated the practice of providing for the subsequent accession by nations other than the original signatories. In 1864 a conference convened in Geneva at the invitation of the Swiss Federal Council approved a convention for the protection of wounded soldiers in a land war; many nations subsequently acceded to this convention.

The avoidance or mitigation of the rigors of war continued to be the subject of other multilateral treaties. The peace conferences held in 1899 and 1907 in The Hague, the Netherlands, resulted in a number of conventions of that type. The 1899 conference adopted a Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which created the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Although it was not a veritable court with a fixed bench of judges, it served as an important instrument of arbitration.

At the end of World War I the League of Nations was established by the covenant signed in 1919 as part of the Treaty of Versailles. Pursuant to provisions in this covenant, the Permanent Court of International Justice was established in 1921. The League of Nations was created as a permanent organization of independent states for the purpose of maintaining peace and preventing war. During its existence 63 countries were members of the League at one time or another. The USSR joined in 1934, but Germany and Japan withdrew in 1933. The U.S. never became a member of the organization, which was powerless to forestall World War II. Equally unsuccessful in preventing hostilities was the Pact of Paris for the Renunciation of War (1928) the so-called Kellogg-Briand Pact although it was ratified by more than 60 nations, including Germany and Japan. After the termination of World War II in 1945 the UN Charter created a new organization with elaborate machinery for solving disputes among nations and for the further development of international law.

Normally, every nation is expected to obey international law. Some nations, for example the United Kingdom, have incorporated into their municipal law the provision that international law shall be made part of the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution empowers Congress “to define and punish ... Offences against the Law of Nations.”(Article I, Section 8). In cases involving international law, American courts tend to interpret American law in conformity with international law; such an attitude has consistently been urged by the U.S. Supreme Court.

If each nation were free to declare unilaterally that it is no longer bound by international law, the result would be anarchy. A test was provided in the conduct of Germany under Nazi rule. The Nordberg tribunals held that the German government regulations that ordered, for example, the killing of prisoners of war in contravention of the generally valid rules of warfare were null and void and that the persons responsible for issuing and executing such orders were criminally responsible for violations of international law.


IMPACT OF THE UN ON INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM:

The UN began its life with a membership of 50 nations. In the 1990s, because of the growth of newly independent nations, that number had reached 180. The aims and purposes of the organization encompass the maintenance of peace and security and the suppression of acts of aggression. The Charter also expressly includes among its objectives the maintenance of respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law. For that reason the Charter established the International Court of Justice as one of the most important UN organs and specifically charged the General Assembly with the progressive development and codification of international law. To carry out this task, the General Assembly has created two subsidiary organs: the International Law Commission and the Commission on International Trade Law. The International Law Commission, on assignment by the General Assembly, has prepared drafts of treaties codifying and modernizing a number of important subjects of international law, such as various aspects of the law of the sea (1958), diplomatic relations, consular relations, law of treaties between nations, succession of states in respect to treaties, law of treaties between nations and international organizations, and immunity of states from the jurisdiction of other states. Upon acceptance by the General Assembly, these drafts are submitted to international conferences convoked by the UN for the negotiation of the respective conventions.

In some instances, the UN has convoked conferences to negotiate treaties without prior proposal by the International Law Commission. The most important example was the third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea which terminated its work in 1982 with the draft of a convention for a comprehensive regime governing all aspects of the peaceful use of the oceans. Another example is the text of the convention governing the activities of nations on the moon and other celestial bodies, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1979 and went into effect in 1984.

Since the UN Charter bans the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, the UN has refrained from addressing aspects of the law of war and neutrality. Nevertheless, the four Geneva conventions of 1949 the so-called Red Cross Conventions formulated improved agreements relative to the amelioration of the condition of wounded and sick members of the armed forces in the field and at sea, the treatment of prisoners of war, and the protection of civilian persons in wartime, thereby instilling new life into the humanitarian principles of international law.

International law regulates intercourse among nations in peacetime and provides methods for the settlement of disputes by means other than war. Apart from procedures made available by the UN, these methods include direct negotiation between disputants under the established rules of diplomacy, the rendering of good offices by a disinterested third party, and recourse to the International Court of Justice. Other peacetime aspects of international law involve the treatment of foreigners and of foreign investments; the acquisition and loss of citizenship; and status of stateless persons; the extradition of fugitives; and the privileges and duties of diplomatic personnel.
Since World War II international law has become increasingly concerned with the protection of human rights. It has provided improved procedures for that purpose within the UN. This new emphasis has also been manifested in the adoption by the UN of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the conclusion of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948, the signing of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1966, and the adoption in 1975 of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture or Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. These measures have been supplemented by regional conventions, such as the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950) and the American Convention on Human Rights (1969). In 1945 an international convention for the prosecution of the major war criminals of the European Axis powers provided for the punishment of crimes against humanity and established a special International Military Tribunal for that purpose.


CONCLUSION:

It is evident from the following facts and figures that international wars like World War I and World War II were fought on the basis of economic factors. The countries which had strong economy did cherish in warfare. But the counties who got economical strong built weapons of mass destruction which started arms race in the world. This sort of arms race of increasing weaponry system is still going on and on. Many agreements have been signed but it’s still not enough. Many amendments in international laws have been made and are still being made due to rapid increment in world’s technology warfare.