BOOK REVIEW: 'When the World Outlawed War': 83-Year-Old Treaty Signed by U.S., France, Dozens of Other Nations, Actually Did That!
Reviewed by David M. Kinchen — Huntington News
Wouldn't it be great if war was a crime? If it could be prosecuted like murder, rape, child abuse and other crimes against humanity?
Actually, 83 years ago the U.S. signed a treaty that did that, writes David Swanson in "When the World Outlawed War" (David Swanson self-published paperback, no index, 174 pages, ordered from 100Fires, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powells, other sellers, or your local independent bookstore, which can order it through Ingram., $15.00 -- bulk discounts available).
Swanson, a peace advocate who has been arrested for his beliefs, says in his very readable book that when he asks students if they've ever heard of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty of 1928, ratified by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 27, 1928, he rarely sees a hand raised. Named for U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg (1856-1937) and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, the treaty is still in force, the law of the land, according to the State Department.
It's been honored or dishonored more in the breach than in the observance, unfortunately for the tens of millions of people who've been murdered in wars since it was passed.
Swanson's account of the "Outlawry" peace movement in the wake of the meaningless slaughter of the First World War -- called the World War or Great War at the time of the treaty's passage -- is vital as endless wars bedevil the human species.
I get a chuckle when I loudly proclaim to all and sundry that my beautiful shelter cat Greta belongs to a higher species than humans, but quite a few people agree with me when I ask them to point to ONE WAR that cats -- or dogs or horses -- started.
Erik Larson writes in his masterful "In the Garden of Beasts" (reviewed on this site, link: www.huntingtonnews.net/13224) that Nazi Germany had strict laws against abusing horses and dogs -- the happiest creatures in the Third Reich -- but ended up slaughtering or causing to be slaughtered 60 million people in the second "Great War" because there was no law against killing people in the guise of war.
In fact, as Swanson points out, the Nuremburg War Crimes tribunals that followed the war -- as well as similar trials against Japanese militarists -- had their legal roots in the Kellogg-Briand Treaty, also known as the Pact of Paris, where it was signed. Japan and Germany -- the Weimar Republic democratic version -- were among the many nations that signed it.
