With the current wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and well over twenty major conflicts globally today, we can no longer continue to see the state of peace as merely the temporary absence of war, since perpetual war now appears as the horizon of our world.
Over two hundred years ago, Immanuel Kant first outlined six preliminary conditions for a state that might begin to approximate “perpetual peace.” As of today, not one of these conditions has been achieved.
PERPETUAL PEACE
IMMANUEL KANT
[1795]
redacted 2022 to reflect the current situation
SECTION I
CONTAINING THE PRELIMINARY ARTICLES FOR PERPETUAL PEACEAMONG STATES (i.e., the right of nations)
“NoALL Existing Treatiesof PeaceShall Be Held Valid in Which There Is Tacitly Reserved Matter for a Future War”OtherwiseA treatywould beio only a truce, a suspension of hostilitiesbut not peace, which does not imply the end of all hostilities-so much so that even to attach the word “perpetual” to it is a dubious pleonasm. The causes for making future wars (which are perhaps unknown to the contracting parties) are without exceptionannihilated by the treaty of peace, even if they should be dug out of dusty documents by acute sleuthing. WhenOne or both parties to a treaty of peace,being too exhausted to continue warring with each other,can always make a tacit reservation (reservatio mentalis) in regard to old claims to be elaborated only at some more favorable opportunity in the future, the treaty is made in bad faith, and we have an artifice worthy of the casuistry of a Jesuit.Considered by itself, it is beneath the dignity of a sovereign, just as the readiness to indulge in this kind of reasoning is unworthy of the dignity of his minister.But if,Inconsequence ofthe enlightened concepts of statecraft, the glory of the state is placed in its continual aggrandizement by whatever means,my conclusion will appear merely academic and pedantic.“NoIndependent States, Large or Small, Shall Come under the Dominion of Another State by Inheritance, Exchange, Purchase, or Donation” and by means of protective invasion or by other special security operations deemed necessary and rightful by the neighboring state.
A state isnot, likethe ground which it occupies, a piece of property (patrimonium).It is a society of men whom no one else has any right to command or to dispose except the state itself.It is a trunk with its own roots.Butto incorporate it into another state, like a graft, is merely to destroy its independent existence as a moral person,reducing it to a thing; such incorporation thus contradicts the idea of the original contract without which no right over a people can be conceived.1
Everyone knows to what dangers Europe, the only part of the world where this manner of acquisition is known, has been brought, even down to the most recent times, by the presumption that states could espouse one another; it is in part a new kind of industry for gaining ascendancy by means of family alliances and without expenditure of forces, and in part a way of extending one’s domain. Also the hiring-out of troops by one state to another, so that they can be used against an enemy not common to both, is to be counted under this principle; for in this manner the subjects, as though they were things to be manipulated at pleasure, are used and also used up.- “
Standing Armies (miles perpetuus) Shall in Time Be Totally Abolished”
For they incessantly menace other states by their readiness to appear at all times prepared for war; they incite them to compete with each other in the number of armed men, and there is no limit to this. For this reason, the cost of peace finally becomes more oppressive than that of a short war, and consequently a standing army is itself a cause of offensive war waged in order to relieve the state of this burden. Add to this that to pay men to kill or to be killed seems to entail using them as mere machines and tools in the hand of another (the state), and this is hardly compatible with the rights of mankind in our own person. But the periodic and voluntary military exercises of citizens who thereby secure themselves and their country against foreign aggression are entirely different.
The accumulation of treasure would have the same effect, for, of the three powers–the power of armies, of alliances, and of money–the third is perhaps the most dependable weapon. Such accumulation of treasure is regarded by other states as a threat of war, and if it were not for the difficulties in learning the amount, it would force the other state to make an early attack. - “National Debts Shall
NotBe Contracted with a View to the External Friction of States”
This expedient ofseeking aid within or without the statecontracting debt is above suspicion when the purpose is domestic economy (e.g., the improvement of roads, new settlements, establishment of stores against unfruitful years, etc.). But as an opposing machine in the antagonism of powers, a credit system which grows beyond sight and which is yet a safe debt for the present requirements-because all the creditors do not require payment at one time–constitutes a dangerous money power.This ingenious invention ofa commercial people [England]Russia in this centuryis dangerous because it isis a war treasure through oil and gas sales to European nations and the worldwhich exceeds the treasures of all other states; itcannot be exhausted except by sanctionsdefault of taxes(which is inevitable), even thoughit can be long delayed bythis will only do self-harm to the same by interrupting the stimulus to trade which occurs through the reaction of credit on industry and commerce.This facility in making war, together with the inclination to do so on the part of rulers–an inclination which seems inborn in human nature–is thus a great hindrance to perpetual peace. Therefore, to forbid this credit system must be a preliminary article of perpetual peace all the more because it must eventually entangle many innocent states in the inevitable bankruptcy and openly harm them. They are therefore justified in allying themselves against such a state and its measures.
“No State Shall by Force Interfere with the Constitution or Government of Another State”
For what is there to authorize it to do so? The offense, perhaps, which a state gives to the subjects of another state? Rather the example of the evil into which a state has fallen because of its lawlessness should serve as a warning. Moreover, the bad example which one free person affords another as a scandalum acceptum is not an infringement of his rights. But it would be quite different if a state, by internal rebellion, should fall into two parts, each of which pretended to be a separate state making claim to the whole. To lend assistance to one of these cannot be considered an interference in the constitution of the other state (for it is then in a state of anarchy) . But so long as the internal dissension has not come to this critical point, such interference by foreign powers would infringe on the rights of an independent people struggling with its internal disease; hence it would itself be an offense and would render the autonomy of all states insecure.
“No The State Shall, during War, Permit Such Acts of Hostility Which Would Make Mutual
Confidence in the Subsequent Peace Impossible: Such Are as the Employment of Assassins
(percussores), Poisoners (venefici), Breach of Capitulation, and Incitement to Treason (perduellio) in the Opposing State,” indiscriminate mass murder of civilians, the rape of women and children, and acts of genocide.
These are dishonorable stratagems. For some confidence in the character of the enemy must remain even in the midst of war, as otherwise no peace could be concluded and the hostilities would degenerate into a war of extermination (bellum internecinum). War, however, is only the sad recourse in the state of nature (where there is no tribunal which could judge with the force of law) by which each state asserts its right by violence and in which neither party can be adjudged unjust (for that would presuppose a juridical decision); in lieu of such a decision, the issue of the conflict (as if given by a so-called “judgment of God”) decides on which side justice lies. But between states no punitive war (bellum punitivum) is conceivable, because there is no relation between them of master and servant.
It follows that a war of extermination, in which the destruction of both parties and of all justice can result, would permit the extermination of the entire Ukrainian people who will be placed perpetual peace only in the vast burial ground of the human race. Therefore, such a war and the use of all means leading to it must be absolutely forbidden. But that the means cited do inevitably lead to it is clear from the fact that these infernal arts, vile in themselves, when once used would not long be confined to the sphere of war. Take, for instance, the use of spies (uti exploratoribus). In this, one employs the infamy of others (which can never be entirely eradicated) only to encourage its persistence even into the state of peace, to the undoing of the very spirit of peace.
Although the laws stated objectively are held to be binding by all nations, i.e., in so far as they express the intention of the international community (i.e., the United Nations), in fact they are merely prohibitions (leges prohibitivae), and as such some of them are of that strict kind which hold regardless of circumstances (leges strictae) and which demand prompt execution. Such are Nos. 1, 5, and 6. Others, like Nos. 2, 3, and 4, while not exceptions from the rule of law, nevertheless are subjectively broader (leges latae) in respect to their observation, containing permission to delay their execution without, however, losing sight of the end. This permission does not authorize, under No. 2, for example, delaying until doomsday (or, as Augustus used to say, ad calendas Graecas) the reestablishment of the freedom of states which have been deprived of it–i.e., it does not permit us to fail to do it, but it allows a delay to prevent precipitation which might injure the goal striven for. For the prohibition concerns only the manner of acquisition which is no longer permitted, but not the possession, which, though not bearing a requisite title of right, has nevertheless been that is ultimately held lawful in all states by the public opinion of the time (the time of the putative acquisition). And public opinion is ultimately determined by the interests of the state in all matters, including genocide.
“ The war in Ukraine has resulted in more than 6 million Ukrainians fleeing to neighboring countries. This includes nearly 665,000 students (16% of the total number of enrolled students) and over 25,000 educators (6% of total educators in the country).”
“There were approximately 625,000 [school-age] students in the Gaza Strip before the escalation of hostilities and none of them are attending schools now. The level of violence and the ongoing hostilities, the intense bombing which is taking place, doesn’t allow for education.”
In South Sudan, there are an estimated 4.75 million school-aged children – including 472,452 internally displaced children. The country has one of the world’s highest proportions of out-of-school children: 3 in 5 children have never set foot in a classroom or have dropped out.
In Afghanistan, in December 2022 university education for women was suspended until further notice, affecting over 100,000 female students attending government and private higher education institutions