Kommentarer:
‘Is the plague of war slowly becoming a thing of the past, despite its occasional outbreaks? Stepping back from the here and now, this colossal work shines a light on the big picture of all the armed conflicts that have taken place, but also the conflicts that have been settled without bloodshed, since the Second World War. A huge task, fulfilled successfully and argued plausibly, this is a ray of hope in these bleak times in international relations.’
Beatrice Heuser – University of Glasgow
‘For some seventy years, Hans Blix has contributed significantly to the study and practice – and practical application – of international law. For decades, he served as Sweden’s most senior international legal official in its Foreign Ministry, eventually as Foreign Minister, as Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and as the chief of the international inspectorate surveying Iraq’s armaments. A pre-eminent preoccupation has been substituting the rule of law for recourse to international warfare. His study, A Farewell to Wars, while hopefully entitled, comes as Europe has reverted to being the field of major aggression and embattled self-defence. Its timeliness is all the greater.’
Judge Stephen Schwebel
Boken avrundas med:
Role of the Public Mind to Strengthen the Restraints on the Interstate Use of Force? This study has sought to establish what is the role and what are the trends of interstate use of force in today’s world – not to look for ways of increasing restraints through reforms of the UN or otherwise, a subject on which there is a vast amount of knowledgeable analysis and proposals. Nevertheless, after the speculations about the future action of governments, it needs to be said that the public mind will continue to be of the greatest importance for what forms of competition between states will be accepted and practiced by the international community. It has been behind the positive changes in state conduct for nearly two hundred years. It helped to abolish the slave trade, and it waged successful public campaigns against particularly cruel and indiscriminate weapons and in favour of arbitration and other peaceful means of settling disputes. It was the force that after WWI stood behind President Wilson’s introduction in the League Covenant of the first legal ban on the use of force between states. That public mind, globally better connected than ever before, can and should now assert itself to demand diplomacy, disarmament and détente and the use of released resources to help defend and preserve an environment and develop an order that will sustain human civilization. 1 See above, Chapter 17, p. 256. Läs presentationen