Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: In the first time I visited the work group about indigenous people at the United Nations, where we discussed the universal declarations of indigenous rights, more than 15 years ago, I was very happy to see those laws we were working on were an international declaration to protect indigenous rights. Afterwards, when I used to come back home, or come back to my indigenous community -and by this time I was working on a developing project in the “Potiguara” Community- I told the people that there was a universal declaration of indigenous rights, I felt it was quite a distant subject for them and they didn’t want to hear about it. And I was sad about this, because I was coming from a place to try to explain something and people just couldn’t understand because things are very immediate: the bread, the flour, the crab, the fish, the transportation, the woman who wants to give birth, the lady who needed a car to pick her up because she was having a heart attack and had to go to the city but didn’t have any transport. So the problems were immediate in this way, and my mind got lost, I mean, my mind couldn’t find a connection for that. And I talked the same thing to the local leaders. And today, after 15 years, we are still working on that declaration, today we have the permanent forum for indigenous people. And things still have the same needs. Because they don’t come from inside to outside, but from outside to inside. People make laws and we don’t really solve the problems in such an immediate way. It can be really worth it, because as an international right, an international law, it can benefit local people. Not that I'm underestimating the universal declaration of indigenous rights.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: Purpose of public international law is to set an ideal and to set global standards, which one strives for. The problem of course with the United States now is that the administration has said quite openly, they don’t believe in international law, they don’t believe in international treaties. They believe that the United States does what it wants, and if the other nations want to go along with it, that’s great, and if not, tough. But, clearly, we need greater international law, we need -- difficult to imagine what the public enforcement would be, but in an idealized world, the nations enter into that kind of social contract. And then, you have ways of ostracizing those nations that are not in that social contract. In the short-term, I would like to see the United States considered as a rogue nation and to use the famous formula that the other nations of the Europe world, particularly the European Union start acting, despite what the United States is doing, not waiting for the United States to lead the conservation in terms of peace in other countries and negotiations and so forth and so on, but they become a separate force for good based on the classic -– on the European ideal of what has been accomplished here in the last –- in the post-war period.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: Very good question, Maria from Nicosia. How can we have public international law if there are no effective enforcement mechanisms to apply it? You’re absolutely right that it doesn’t help much to have laws that aren’t enforceable. And that’s a big problem in the world today because in the globalizing world there’s no doubt that we need effective international law. We have of course some conventions such as the Geneva Convention and we have international treaties. And we’re trying to figure out how to govern ourselves as a global family. But it’s still very, very difficult because of the lack of ways of enforcing it. I think what has to happen is that first of all we have to get agreements more widely, more globally. My own country, the United States, is a big problem because we don’t support the International Court in the Hague. And of course that’s one effort at enforcing the laws is to have a way of trying people who violate those laws. We need something like that but we need the dominant forces in the world to participate in it. And as long as they refuse it isn’t going to work. So the question is how do we get countries like my own to support an entity like a World Court? Is there a different way of doing it? Do we have other legal systems we can look at? For instance in indigenous cultures. If we look at how did they settle their disputes. Are there alternative kinds of legal systems to the one we have now. This is a wide open question and an extremely important one for young people to think about because you can’t run a healthy family without having some internal family rules that everyone agrees to. Maybe we have to start with common values. If we could just get everybody in the world to agree to the Golden Rule from time immemorial cultures have had some version or other of do unto others as you would have them to unto you. If we could get that kind of value agreed to globally maybe we would have a stronger basis for international law. I don’t know. I hope you and everybody around you are debating these issues. I hope that students are going to research the answers to the questions that we’re trying to give today at this very international little mini U.N.--

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: The purpose of international law is to create the rule of law on the international level. If there are no effective enforcement mechanisms, they apply to it or apply it. Then it doesn’t achieve its purpose. It’s a question not of doing a very good international law, but creating effective enforcement mechanisms to apply it.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru:

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Fernando Solanas: There are international laws, there are international agreements which have not always been just and still many conflicts remain as a product of the injustice of these agreements. The problem is the authority or the instrument of application. These are the mechanisms theta have to be perfected. The paramount example of this is why the resolutions of the United Nations cannot be applied in the Middle East conflict, why this permanent violence, why this justification of the annexation of territory to [millennial] peoples, why this incapability of achieving consent? It was sought-after, agreements were reached, and as I said before, these agreements led to further deaths. The sector of the state of Israel that had agreed was practically wiped out since the assassination of the Rabin and the expansionistic and aggressive politics of the state of Israel continued to be applied. The was no authority in the world that tried to solve the conflict and all this provoked big violent conflicts in which innocent people died – war does not distinguish between innocent or not - in which innocent Israelis and innocent Palestinians died, and today innocent Lebanese die. Like always the conflict is about who applies and how he goes about applying. The world and the big international authorities are in the hands of the big powers and they are the ones to be asked.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Fred Matser: In itself, it is already good that there is international law in place. And of course, I realize with you that there is not yet enough effective enforcement. The very fact that it exists means that we are taking steps. And as long as we keep on talking about it and trying to also implement enforcement, we are on our way. Let's not forget with everything we have been discussing today and we are going to talk about this afternoon, we are in process. We are learning from one another. We have to help one another on this way and see life as process. The thing is, of course, why is it not yet in place, the enforcement, is perhaps also the lack of will or the lack of money, the lack of mobilized -- to mobilize money to this cause. But, there are on the other hand also, good signs as we see in many countries a functional police. I think of Western countries, where the police in majority works well, where it has even a preventive working and where there is because of its sheer presence and existence, there is relatively -- a relative quiet society. I think of Germany, where we are, I think of The Netherlands, I think of Scandinavian countries and many, many other examples, where law enforcement is quite well in place. And these situations that I described might be a good example for other countries to implement as well.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Galsan Tschinag: Actually: there is no purpose. Public international law that is not able to stop an aggressor or to help a victim is nothing but a name, for the time being. But I am sure that, when we, when humanity will have become a bit more mature, we will surely have a functioning institution for this purpose, because we simply need one.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Geert Lovink: Public international law, we could say, is an experiment, is a laboratory. So, if something fails in the laboratory that's in fact very interesting and we should take that up as a challenge, instead of saying, "Well, it doesn't work, just abolish it." And if we dismantle this one specific lab, we can erect others and start again with complete other premises. So -- and in fact that has already happened in the case of public international law which, by the way, is already centuries old. And the international law, for instance, concerning war and peace is 300, 400 years old. So, we could say that already in Europe of the 18th century, a very complex system of international law was in place. So, please don't give up that easily. Effective enforcement mechanisms, that's a bit too easy to expect something to be working overnight, and maybe there are mechanisms in place that it can really capture our imagination, and maybe if we scale down some of the international problems and not start for instance with very large ones like global warming, but start with very concrete small steps that can be made where we can see that this enforcement can be done.

by Geert Lovink

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Giora Feidman: Well, you see, you are right; they don’t know have international law. The law was built original to maintain us in a frame that our conduct in life will be good. But I think, as you can see, didn’t got a big success the law. Every time we build more complicate laws, more with intention they will be more effective, but we don’t have success. Always will come somebody, they find their way how to go around the law. As the conclusion is that they -- we don’t have another choice to elevate our conscious level, to be involved, to be near an environment, a society they don’t need law. It means they don’t need law to be a good person.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: The purpose of public international law cannot be served. Yes, it must have an effective enforcement mechanism. But then, it is the responsibility of our international communities to come out with an enforceable mechanism. It cannot serve the purpose unless the international community creates an opportunity for developing an enforcement mechanism. But it has to be mutually acceptable to all, it cannot be unilateral way of enforcement mechanism, because public would -- it has to be understood across our communities in a manner that all of us want to see it happen, not the way one among us want to see it happen. That is how I look at it, understand it.

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: We don’t need power to get attention. There will be no such power and if there were such a power it would be more dangerous than salutary for the process. We need procedures to clarify what is right and what is wrong and this does not mean that someone is deciding it for us. These are exactly the kinds of discussions we need if we want to solve conflicts. That we are not allowing for somebody to formulate the problem but that we pass the ability or sovereignty to define the problem on to all of us and that we pick out of these plurality of asking questions, out of these problems what they have in common, on what they can agree. A kind of process of setting up rules by finding out about these problems. These procedures have to be transparent and they have to make the sincerity of the process really clear. The dignity of such a process, which is acknowledged by everyone, will have so much publicity that people will say: This higher court, this court of nations, which is valid for all, they have come to this judgement and this is enforced in public. Because we are saying: We followed the process and we agree with it because it is in accordance with what we experience to be right in our own life anyway.

by Hans-Peter Dürr

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Harry Wu: The purpose of public international law is not always requiring an enforcement mechanism to apply it. A mechanism becomes effective usually because people believe such public international law is reasonable. Current mechanisms, such as UN, are disappointing as they did not carry out such an effective enforcement mechanism to apply the law.

by Harry Wu

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Helena Norberg-Hodge: International law at the moment is not being--public international law at the moment is not able to represent the needs and the desires of the public because the public is not aware enough of how the structures are operating. Many people are naively allowing treaties to be ratified believing the propaganda in the media that this is necessary, that it is going to increase growth, increase jobs. That naive belief is allowing a very corrupt system to grow stronger and stronger, allowing governments--pressuring governments--to flaunt and do away with many laws that have been brought in even at the national level to protect the environment, to protect labor rights, to protect human rights. So again, what is needed is a re-examination of the system and of how the legal system fits into the economic system. How we all depend in real terms on the real economy, so what is happening to our water, to our soil, to our seeds, that is what we need to nurture in terms of the economy. But we are lost in a world of derivatives, in a world of speculation, a world of meaningless trade and concentration of wealth, in a world where speed means that human beings are running faster and faster to keep up with machines. And as the consequence of this speed, there is no time for reflection. People are lost in a man-made consumer culture running out of fear just to keep up. Mother's are fearful that their child won't get into a good school before the child is even born. This is a disaster. It creates the need to sign them up for the most competitive, best school--this fear-based running is something that we have to re-examine; we have to understand why it is happening, and then we can change it. We need to see the link between what's happening in our schools, what's happening in our research institutes and what's happening in our courts, what's happening to the legal system.

by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Homero Aridjis: This is a good question. There are too many national and international laws, but we must obey one fundamental law - the law of life.

by Homero Aridjis

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Irina Yasina: Oh! But it is necessary all the same. You know, there are no effective mechanisms to apply it now, but they will appear. One mustn’t reject such positive things that are worked out by the experience of the humankind. I don’t think it is right. Yet I think that on this stage it is of course possible to say that it is absolutely useless. However it is not the reason to reject it. No.

by Irina Yasina

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Jerry Mander: Well, it’s curious that the enforcement mechanisms that exist right now are confined to very, very few large international agencies. The World Trade Organization has enforcement mechanisms. It has sanctions it can issue against countries for not following the rules. It can exclude countries from various agreements if they behave badly by WTO standards, which usually means not going along with their rules, favoring corporations, etc. But the agencies like the United Nations and other international agencies that act for the common good and not only in the interest of corporations, have no enforcement mechanisms. Still though, I think international and public law is very, very important, because I think standard setting internationally had a moral weight and brings some degree of change and is extremely useful. The International Agreement on Human Rights is a very valuable document. The United Nations may soon pass the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. We think they will pass that in November of this year, in 2006. That’s a very, very important document, and just the fact of its passage means that the countries of the world tend to agree with its principle that puts those standards of behavior to the test. It may not have enforcement mechanisms at this time. I would probably prefer that it would, but it’s still, I think, a very useful document and a useful process to establish those rules of what is considered appropriate behavior on the part of nations with respect to specific kinds of issues. I’d also rather the WTO locked this enforcement of indigenous because its enforcements are strictly based on benefiting international financial entities like banks and corporations.

by Jerry Mander

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Jesper Green: There is no purpose at all to public international law if there is no effective enforcement mechanisms to apply. Then there would be no purpose. So there would have to be some kind of international law enforcement. If someone is enforcing the international law or acts like the global policeman then there will be a lot of demonstrations and a lot of people who says no, no, no. But I think they should, there should be some kind of international policeman. Then sometimes it’s—they want to be it for their own purposes or as an excuse to go to war or to enforce or—to strengthen their own power. It’s contradictory that on the other side people get very aggressive when there is a public law enforcement, a global policeman, and they say that that’s the basis for terrorist cells, that’s the way they start. So it’s pro et contra, I think. More pro.

by Jesper Green