Dear Editor,
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has spawned a host of analysts. Overnight, Guyana has sprouted experts in foreign affairs, military tactics, economists evaluating the effects of sanctions, etc. In fact, we have had a former president who has expressed tacit support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. His support was cloaked in his analysis of the geopolitics of the region, and his obliviousness of his patron’s threat to inflict nuclear incineration on the planet.
The world is creeping towards the nuclear precipice. Putin has threatened nuclear conflagration. I hope they [Putin and Ramotar] understand that Uncle Sam may not speak loudly; he carries a big stick. It is within the context of a possible nuclear Armageddon that I write to salute the late Dr. Mohamed Shahabuddeen.
In 1996, The International Court of Justice was tasked by the World Health Organization to write an Advisory Opinion on “whether the exercise of the right to self-defence can be taken to the point of endangering the survival of mankind.” In other word, is the use of nuclear weapons in war legal? By 11-3 votes the ICJ refused to give an answer to the question. It reasoned that the WHO does not need to know whether the use of nuclear weapons is lawful in order to properly plan for health risks arising from their use.
On 8 July 1996, Dr. Mohamed Shahabuddeen wrote his Dissenting Opinion. Noting that “the destructive power of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either space or time. They have the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet.” Furthermore, the ICJ was “not dealing with the routine of established certainties of life but must come to grips with the great unsettled issues on which the future of the world depends.” The issue to be confronted was “how to reconcile the imperative need of a State to defend itself with the no less imperative need to ensure that, in doing so, it does not imperil the survival of the human species.” Dr. Shahabuddeen confronts the majority on the panel head on for their “unwillingness to fulfil a task which is within the orbit of the functions of the Court…”
He reasons that humanitarian law does not provide an exception for States to use nuclear weapons “in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the survival of the State would be at stake.” Shahabuddeen’s dissent has its foundations in the critical study of history by the 14th Century Arab sociologist, Ibn Khaldûn, who explained that, “laws have their reason in the purposes they are to serve”. And “… injustice invites the destruction of civilization with the necessary consequence that the species will be destroyed”, and that the laws “are based upon the effort to preserve civilization” [Ibn Kaldûn, The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, edited and abridged by N.J. Dawood, 1981, p. 40.].
Shahabuddeen concluded, “Thus, the preservation of the human species and of civilization constitutes the ultimate purpose of a legal system. In my opinion, that purpose also belongs to international law, as this is understood today.” He further agreed with the Court “that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law”. Therefore, the use of nuclear weapons is illegal.
Given today’s nuclear sabre-rattling by Putin, Judge Shahabuddeen’s Dissenting Opinion was prescient. He sought to save Man from our self-destructive impulses: He was not only a Guyanese. He was a man of the world.
Sincerely,
Roger Ally
Fort Lauderdale
