YK täytti 80 - katso tästä kooste juhlavuoden kiinnostavista puheista ja tapahtumista

TALK AT UN 80 – HELSINKI CATHEDRAL. 

Martti Koskenniemi

Academician of Science, Professor (Emeritus)

We read of on-going wars in Ukraine. Of the massive killing of the innocent in  Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere. According to the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, there is more state-to-state war today than ever since 1946.  And still, 80 years ago, leading statesmen promised, in the UN Charter, to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. What to make of that promise? It is true, as the cliché goes, that the United Nations is only as successful, as its member states allow it to be. And those member states fail, over again, to meet our expectations. It would be wrong to think that war results from evil politicians, or that it is some sort of historical necessity. War is there because people everywhere struggle for a better life. But disagree on what that means. Peace, we know, is not just the absence of war. It is above all the presence of just conditions of living, equal opportunity to welfare and happiness. To oneself and one’s children. The absence or poverty, hunger, the ability to learn and work in conditions of equality in communities that one feels are one’s own. 

According to the Charter, the UN was not only set up to prevent war. It was also – I quote the Charter again – “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”. The objective of justice is the substance of UN’s sustainable development goals, the 17 tasks to complete by 2030. These tasks range from the eradication of extreme poverty to the realization of gender equality, decent work and economic growth, sustainable agriculture, the prevention of climate change. And many more. There has been some progress.  Maternal and child health has improved, less people die of infectious diseases, electricity and digital communication are available to much larger populations than earlier. Nevertheless, extreme poverty persists, as does lack of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services. Public debt weighs on the most vulnerable countries. The charter also speaks of “respect for obligations under …international law”. Because this is the field where I professionally work, let me report some recent, encouraging developments. 

One of the four principal organs of the UN is the International Court of Justice, in The Hague. The court is actually older than the UN, having been established already under the League of Nations in 1922. Although it has no police force to implement its decisions, the Court’s authority is greater than any other global institution, especially in the UN context. In recent years, the Court has begun to consolidate itself as a real global conscience. Never in its history has its docket been as full of cases as today. Never in my professional life, have students and lawyers and diplomats across the world followed its pleading with the intensity they do today. We were all glued to the screens as the pleadings in South Africa’s case against Israel on the Gaza War were screened live in early 2024 and when the Court gave its opinion on climate change just a few months ago. The Court has become an important outlet and speaker for values and ideals spreading among a new generation. In two cases, among others, the Court opinions have been received as instances of progressive and hopeful development, one had to do with Palestinian self-determination, the other on climate change.

In an opinion on the legality of Israeli occupation of Palestine 2024, the Court observed, I quote, that the “right of all peoples to self-determination” is “one of the essential principles of contemporary international law”. What this meant, it continued, was that “such occupation must at all times be consistent with the rules concerning the prohibition of the threat or use of force, including the prohibition of territorial acquisition … as well as with the right to self-determination” (para 109). After scrutinizing Israel’s settlement policy and legislation, it concluded that “[t]he sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.” (261). It called upon Israel to arrange “the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements… as well as allowing all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their original place of residence.” (270). 

The Gaza war has been a generational experience across the world. Students and activists have seen it crystallize the inequality and injustice in the world. It has provided energy for public engagement in a way that few events have. It has become the symbol of the desire for freedom and self-determination not just for the Palestinians, but everywhere, as an aspect of just life in a community. 

A second declaration was made by the Court only last summer in the case concerning the obligations of States regarding Climate Change. The case had been raised in the General Assembly by small island states, especially vulnerable to the environmental crisis resulting from continued production of greenhouse gases – especially by fossil fuels, a fact that has been almost impossible to recognize within the diplomatic negotiations around the Climate Change Treaty. As the opinion was read out on the 23 July, those present at The Hague were struck by the clarity and power of the Court’s declaration. Let me quite from its actual text – “Failure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from GHG emissions — including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies — may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State”. And it went on to speculate about the preventive action that states engaged in continuing fossil production and consumption would need to take and the reparations they might have to pay for those suffering from continued emissions. 

Alongside the Gaza war, Climate change is a formative experience for a new generation. Of all the UN bodies, it has been the International Court of Justice that has seized that experience and the related sentiment of urgency. When others fail, international law has spoken the language of justice to the world. That is both surprising and encouraging. The Court has no police to enforce its decisions. But its statements, largely unanimous, provide everyone, all of us, a language to use in our struggles in our own communities for a just world. For a world where our communities enjoy self-determination and a liveable climate offers the context for daily lives. To restate these objectives – self-evident as they should be – loud and clear is to re-open the struggle for justice, and therefore also for a peace that is other than the peace of the grave.