Гольцева О.Ю. Международное право в официальных документах. Под ред. И.А. Горшеневой

Exercise 6. War's violent nature and controversial social effects raise troubling moral questions for any thoughtful person. Answer and debate these questions.

1.Is war always wrong?

2.Might there be situations when it can be a justified, or even a smart, thing to do?

3.Will war always be part of human experience, or can we do something to make it disappear?

4.Is war an outcome of unchangeable human nature or, rather, of changeable social practice?

5.Is there a fair and sensible way to wage war, or is it all hopeless, barbaric slaughter?

6.When wars end, how should post-war reconstruction proceed, and who should be in charge?

7.What are our rights, and responsibilities, when our own society makes the move to go to war?

OVER TO YOU

There are three traditions of thought which dominate the ethics of war and peace:

Realism, Pacifism, and Just War Theory (and, through just war theory, International Law). What do you think are the basic conceptual differences between “the big three” perspective? Read the text about just war theory in the supplementary reading section and be ready to discuss it in group.

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Exercise 7. Read the text and answer these questions.

1.What is an armed conflict?

2.What are the types of armed conflicts?

An armed conflict is defined as a political conflict in which armed combat involves the armed forces of at least one state (or one or more armed factions seeking to gain control of all or part of the state), and in which at least 1,000 people have been killed by the fighting during the course of the conflict.

The definition of "political conflict" becomes more difficult as the trend in current intrastate armed conflicts increasingly obscures the distinction between political and criminal violence. In a growing number of armed conflicts, armed bands or factions engage in criminal activity (e.g., theft, looting, extortion) in order to fund their political/military campaigns, but frequently also for the personal enrichment of the leadership and the general livelihood of the fighting forces. Thus, in some circumstances, while the disintegrating order reflects the social chaos borne of state failure, the resulting violence or armed combat is not necessarily guided by a political program or a set of politically motivated or defined military objectives. However, these trends are part of the changing character of war, and conflicts characterized more by social chaos than political/military competition are thus included in the tabulation of current armed conflicts.

In many contemporary armed conflicts the fighting is intermittent and involves a very wide range of levels of intensity. An armed conflict is deemed to have ended if there has been a formal ceasefire or peace agreement and, following which, there are no longer combat deaths (or at least fewer than 25 per year); or, in the absence of a formal ceasefire, a conflict is deemed to have ended after two years of dormancy (in which fewer than 25 combat deaths per year have occurred).

Modern armed conflicts are based on three overlapping types of intrastate war: state control, state formation and

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state failure. Additional categories of international war would include border disputes, foreign invasion and other cross-border attacks, but currently, due in significant measure to a robust array of institutions and conventions for responding to international tensions and disputes, there are no such international wars to categorize.

In civil armed conflict, state control wars obviously centre on struggles for control of the governing apparatus of the state. The power struggles in the two Congos (Kinshasa and Brazzaville) are obviously cases in point where rival factions struggle for control. State control struggles have typically been driven by ideologically defined revolutionary movements, decolonization campaigns or, as appears to be the case in Congo (Kinshasa), one set of elites seeking power in place of another. In some instances, communal or ethnic interests are central to the fight to transfer power. In other instances, as in Algeria, religion becomes a defining feature of the conflict. Examples of state control wars in the current list include Angola, Burundi, Congo (Brazzaville), Uganda, Afghanistan and Colombia, to name but a few. About half of current conflicts can be identified as being essentially about state control.

State formation conflicts centre on the form or shape of the state itself and generally involve particular regions of a country fighting for a greater measure of autonomy or for outright secession or for the right to decide in a fair and binding referendum whether or not to secede. Fewer than 20 percent of contemporary armed conflicts are exclusively state formation wars (examples include India’s three conflicts, both conflicts in Indonesia, Israel, Turkey). Ethnicity, communal identity and religion are prominent in state formation conflicts, including the Kashmir war in India, the Tamil war in Sri Lanka and regional conflicts in Indonesia and the Philippines. The wars in the former Yugoslavia were classic state formation struggles. Another 20 percent of conflicts are prominently, but not exclusively, about state formation. In the Phil-

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ippines, Iran and Iraq, for example, state formation conflicts are present, but so are state control issues.

Some countries have the misfortune of hosting all three types of wars. Sudan’s current struggles include state control conflict through fighting in the Northeast aimed at overthrowing the government in Khartoum; state formation conflict through the south’s war aimed at autonomy if not separation from the north; and failed state conflict by virtue of internecine wars among Nuer clans in the south, for example, which are armed conflicts that are fundamentally born out of the persistent anarchy and the failure of state and traditional systems to mediate traditional conflicts over cattle, grazing rights and so on.

Exercise 8. Suggest the Russian equivalents. Make sentences of your own.

Conflict

Actual conflict, political conflict, long and bitter conflict, intentional conflict, contemporary conflicts, to be involved in armed conflict, widespread conflict, current conflict, conflicting interests, latent conflict, during the course of, conflict, to bring sb into conflict over sth, civil conflict, regional conflict, the conflict between one’s duties and desires, state formation conflict, failed state conflict, conflicting views, intrastate armed conflict, to mediate conflicts over sth, to be in conflict with.

Exercise 9. Say whether these statements are true or false. Correct the wrong ones.

1.An armed conflict is defined as a political conflict in which armed combat involves the armed forces of at least one state.

2.In current intrastate armed conflicts it is rather easy to draw the distinction between political and criminal violence.

3.State control conflicts are typically driven by revolutionary movements, decolonization campaigns or one set of elites seeking power in place of another.

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4.Religion never becomes a defining feature of the conflict.

5.State formation conflicts generally involve particular regions of a country fighting for a greater measure of autonomy or for outright secession.

6.Ethnicity, communal identity and religion are prominent in state formation conflicts

7.Countries never host all three types of wars.

Exercise 10. Fill in the chart. Add more countries to the list.

Exercise 11. Debate the following questions.

1.How wars start in the modern world?

2.Do you think that wars nowadays are more dangerous and devastating then they were before? Why or why not?

3.Under what circumstances can a armed conflict bring to a war?

4.What points of tension in the world nowadays can you name? What do you know about the nature of conflict there?

Exercise 12. Read the text and answer these questions.

1.When and how did the Israel/Palestine Conflict start?

2.What was the role of the UN in the conflict?

3.How did Israel conquer the territories?

4.What is core of this continuing conflict?

5.What role did the US play in this conflict?

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Arab and Palestinian combatants combined – often by a factor of two to three. Moreover, Arab armies did not invade Israel – virtually all battles were fought on land that was to have been the Palestinian state.

Finally, it is significant to note that Arab armies entered the conflict only after Zionist forces had committed 16 massacres, including the grisly massacre of over 100 men, women, and children at Deir Yassin.

By the end of the war, Israel had conquered 78 percent of Palestine; three-quarters of a million Palestinians had been made refugees; over 500 towns and villages had been obliterated; and a new map was drawn up, in which every city, river and hillock received a new, Hebrew name, as all vestiges of the Palestinian culture were to be erased

1967 War & USS Liberty

In 1967, Israel conquered still more land. Following the Six Day War, in which Israeli forces launched a highly successful surprise attack on Egypt, Israel occupied the final 22% of Palestine that had eluded it in 1948 – the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since, according to international law it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war, these are occupied territories and do not belong to Israel. It also occupied parts of Egypt (since returned) and Syria (which remain under occupation).

Also during the Six Day War, Israel attacked a US Navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing and injuring over 200 American servicemen.

Current Conflict

There are two primary issues at the core of this continuing conflict. First, there is the inevitably destabilizing effect of trying to maintain an ethnically preferential state, particularly when it is largely of foreign origin. The original population of what is now Israel was 96 percent Muslim and Christian, yet, these refugees are prohibited from returning to their homes in the self-described Jewish state (and those within Israel are subjected to systematic discrimination).

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Second, Israel's continued military occupation and confiscation of privately owned land in the West Bank, and control over Gaza, are extremely oppressive, with Palestinians having minimal control over their lives. Over 10,000 Palestinian men, women, and children are held in Israeli prisons. Physical abuse and torture are frequent. Palestinian borders (even internal ones) are controlled by Israeli forces. Periodically men, women, and children are strip searched; people are beaten; food and medicine are blocked from entering Gaza, producing an escalating humanitarian crisis. Israeli forces invade almost daily, injuring, kidnapping, and sometimes killing inhabitants.

After years of Israel continuing to confiscate land and conditions steadily worsening, the Palestinian population rebelled. This uprising, called the "Intifada" (Arabic for "shaking off") began at the end of September 2000.

U.S. Involvement

Largely due to special-interest lobbying, U.S. taxpayers give Israel an average of $7 million per day, and since its creation have given more U.S. funds to Israel than to any other nation. As Americans learn about how Israel is using our tax dollars, many are calling for an end to this expenditure.

Exercise 13. Match the word combinations and their translation. Make up sentences with them.

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Exercise 14. Analyze the information below and compare the positions of the three parties of the peace talks. Do you think these negotiations can be fruitful? What is the way to solve this long-standing problem?

Middle East talks: Core issues

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