March 4, 2025 • 41 mins
On Inside Geneva this week, we take a step back from the breaking news and talk to the authors of two books about the better side of humanity.
“The defence of human rights is not a matter of holding a candle and singing Kumbaya. The defence of human rights is about playing hardball. It's about putting pressure on governments, making them realise that repression isn't paying because the consequences are so severe,” says Kenneth Roth, author of Righting Wrongs.
Those consequences apply to violations of the laws of war – laws that are much stricter than you might think.
“One can speak about the leaders of a war of aggression as having individual criminal responsibility. If it’s illegal for the leader, maybe it’s illegal also for the soldiers who participate in it. And maybe it’s a violation not just to kill civilians on the other side, but Ukrainian soldiers,” continues Andrew Clapham, author of War.
Defending human rights doesn’t always make you popular.
“I made sure that Human Rights Watch was bringing facts to the table that the governments didn’t know. That was part of my job. My father fled the Nazis as a young boy. I grew up Jewish. I am Jewish. So I feel a certain responsibility to take on not just the duty of criticising Israeli abuses, but also to address the misuse of anti-Semitism,” says Roth.
And while some governments are pushing back, international law is robust.
“You might think that by changing the lawyers or creating facts on the ground, you’re going to get away with it. But those war crimes allegations stick to you for life. There’s no statute of limitations on war crimes, and you could easily find yourself prosecuted in ten or 20 years’ time,” says Clapham.
Join host Imogen Foulkes for in-depth interviews on two thought-provoking books.
Get in touch!
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- Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en
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Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Inside Geneva .
I'm your host, imogen Foulkes,and this is a production from
Swissinfo, the internationalpublic media company of
Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
In today's program, the defense of human rights is
not a matter of holding a candleand singing Kumbaya.
The defense of human rights isnot a matter of holding a candle
and singing kumbaya.
The defense of human rights isabout playing hardball.
It's about putting pressure ongovernments, making them realize
that repression isn't payingbecause the consequences are so
severe.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
The only time you can use force is if you're
responding to an armed attack,and even then it doesn't create
the idea that you then enter astate of war.
You're only entitled to do whatis necessary and proportionate
to repel that attack.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva.
I'm Imogen F, and it's oneshort week since our last
episode, when we talked aboutWashington's bilateral talks
with Moscow over the future ofUkraine, talks to which Ukraine
and Europe were not invited.
A lot has happened since then,and I bet many of our listeners
(01:21):
have been glued to the newsfollowing every often
disappointing and sometimesfrightening development.
So today we're going to take alittle step back from the
headlines and hear about twobooks which reflect some of the
better parts of our commonhumanity.
We'll hear from Ken Roth, wholed Human Rights Watch for three
(01:43):
decades and whose new bookWriting Wrongs gives us an
inside look into how to defendhuman rights, even though it
sometimes means offendinggovernments.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I made sure that Human Rights Watch was bringing
facts to the table that thegovernments didn't know.
That was part of my job.
My father fled the Nazis as ayoung boy.
He lived in Germany and fled inJuly 1938 to New York.
I grew up Jewish, I am Jewish,so the idea that I'm
anti-Semitic is ridiculous, andI feel, as a result, a certain
(02:15):
responsibility to take on notjust the duty of criticizing
Israeli abuses, but also to takeon the misuse of anti-Semitism.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Then later we talked to Andrew Clapham, professor of
international law at Geneva'sGraduate Institute, whose book
simply called War has just wonthe prestigious Paul Reuter
Prize for outstandingcontributions to the study of
international law.
His explanations of what'sallowed and not allowed in
(02:46):
wartime may surprise you.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
One can speak about the leaders of the war of
aggression as having individualcriminal responsibility.
And the book starts to questionwell, if it's illegal for the
leader, maybe it's illegal alsofor the soldiers who participate
in it.
And maybe it's a violation notjust to kill civilians on the
other side but Ukrainiansoldiers.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But first we'll talk to Ken Roth, who I caught up
with when he was visiting Genevalast week.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I didn't want to write just a traditional memoir.
I wanted, with this book, totake on the people who look at
human rights activists and say,oh, isn't that nice.
You know, I stand for humanrights too, but you can't really
get anything done, can you?
And I wanted to show theskeptics that, in fact, the
(03:39):
defense of human rights is not amatter of holding a candle and
singing Kumbaya, that thedefense of human rights is about
playing hardball to use inAmericanism.
It's about putting pressure ongovernments and forcing them to
change the cost-benefit analysisof repression, making them
(04:00):
realize that repression isn'tpaying because the consequences
are so severe.
And I run through example afterexample in the book and I want
the reader to end by seeing oh,my goodness, you can get things
done.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
One of the cases towards the beginning of the
book that really struck a chordwith me was writing about Syria,
and that's because I reportedon every single UN Commission of
Inquiry report on Syria.
I read them all, which is, asyou can imagine, it's pretty
harrowing, but I did thinkthere's nothing to stop this lot
(04:43):
.
They don't care.
And yet you found ways to tryand get some pressure exerted on
Syria.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, I deliberately opened the book with Syria, and
I obviously wrote this beforeAssad was toppled.
I chose Syria precisely becauseit was such a difficult case,
because Assad was so despicablehe did everything imaginable to
his people that this was a manwho was beyond shaming, and one
(05:14):
of the major tools of the humanrights movement is to shame
governments.
Most governments, at least,pretend to respect human rights
when the human rights movementcan show that they fall short.
That is stigmatizing andultimately delegitimizing, which
is why governments hate it somuch.
But in the case of Syria'sAssad, he essentially had no
(05:34):
reputation left to lose, and sowe had to figure out how do you
make a difference, and the mainstrategy we pursued was to
target Vladimir Putin, becauseat that stage, he still cared
about his reputation.
This was before Ukraine, and weknew that the Assad government
(05:56):
would fall in two seconds if theRussian government withdrew its
military.
So Putin had leverage on Assad,and we felt that we had
leverage on Putin if we couldhighlight the right issues.
But I opened the book with theRussian-Syria military campaign
in Idlib, the northwestern partof Syria, which at the stage,
(06:19):
was the only area still held bythe armed opposition, where
principally Russian bombers, butalso Syrian, were deliberately
targeting hospitals, schools,marketplaces, apartment
buildings, doing everything theycould to drive out the
civilians, with the hope that itwould then be easier to retake
the territory on the ground.
(06:39):
And Human Rights Watchcarefully documented those war
crimes, as did institutions likethe UN Commission of Inquiry,
and we used that information tothen generate pressure on Putin,
and this was during the earlydays of the Trump administration
.
So we couldn't rely on the USgovernment and we decided to
focus on the French, german andTurkish governments.
(07:03):
So I personally met with GermanChancellor Angela Merkel, with
French President Emmanuel Macron.
I repeatedly visited Ankara andspoke with senior officials in
Erdogan's government, and overthe course of two to three years
, we gradually persuaded them toput sufficient pressure on
Putin that, as of March 2020,the bombing stopped, and it
(07:30):
stayed stopped completely.
For about three years it pickedup a little bit, but in essence
, it never resumed at anywherenear the same level until
finally the rebel group that wasoperating in Idlib overthrew
Assad, and now no one's gettingbombed.
And so this you know.
I thought it was a goodillustration, because it showed
the power of the information,but also the necessity of
(07:52):
deploying that information withinfluential, potentially allied
governments who could make adifference.
And with the right strategy, inthis case focusing on Putin, we
were able to stop the bombingof civilians in Italy.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Something else that struck me and which maybe lots
of people who think they knowabout human rights work.
It would not occur to them.
You talk about going to theWorld Economic Forum in Davos.
You talk about going to theMunich Security Conference.
Do you really have leverage atthese kinds of venues?
Well, take the Munich SecurityConference, which is really have
leverage at these kinds ofvenues?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, take the Munich Security Conference, which is a
funny conference because itcollects the defense ministers
and foreign ministers, and oftenprime ministers and presidents
of all of the leading Westerngovernments, as well as a
smattering of others, and putsthem in this relatively small
ballroom of a very old hotel inMunich and they are together for
(08:49):
two days.
And I have to say, the MunichSecurity Conference treated me
well because at various stagesthey put me on the stage,
including at one key moment withSyria, where they gave me 10
minutes of a plenary talk to theentire audience.
And I found you know Munich aswell as the World Economic Forum
(09:12):
useful because it was so easyin those settings to speak to
heads of state and relevantministers.
You know, once you're in thedoor you're deemed okay.
And I made sure that HumanRights Watch was bringing facts
to the table that thegovernments didn't know, but
also that we were bringingstrategies that they didn't
necessarily think of and we wereultimately seen as value-added.
(09:35):
And so, although it may seemodd for me to go from speaking
with victims of human rightsabuse in some country to one of
these highfalutin conferences,but that was part of my job.
It was to really translate thereality on the ground to people
in influential capitals thatcould help us make a difference
(09:57):
to stop human rights violations.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You have annoyed particular governments.
China doesn't want to see youanymore, russia doesn't want to
see you anymore.
Russia doesn't want to see youanymore, but particularly Israel
, because of human rightswatches, examination and
critical view of human rights inthe occupied territories and so
on.
They've accused you even ofanti-Semitism, and you're Jewish
(10:22):
yourself.
Does that upset you?
Well, you're of anti-Semitism,and you're Jewish yourself.
Does that upset you?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Well, you're right to single out Israel, because,
while I've been personallysanctioned by the Chinese
government and the Russiangovernment, there is no country
out there that has as dedicateda group of activists to defend
Israel, to criticize any critic,to try to pretend that Israel
does no wrong, and the criticsare all anti-Semitic and biased.
(10:47):
Israel stands alone in thatrespect.
Now I have been accused ofanti-Semitism.
That's almost a standard slurthat is sent for anybody who
criticizes Israel.
Now, I personally don't let itbother me because it's just so
ridiculous.
I mean, my father fled theNazis, you know, as a young boy.
(11:11):
He lived in Germany and fled inJuly 1938 to New York.
I grew up Jewish, I am Jewish,you know.
So the idea that I'manti-Semitic is ridiculous and I
feel, as a result, a certainresponsibility to take on, you
know, not just the duty ofcriticizing Israeli abuses, but
also to take on the misuse ofanti-Semitism.
(11:32):
Because this is a very cynicalapproach that the defenders of
the Israeli government use, inthat if anti-Semitism is a
serious problem around the world, jews face anti-Semitism around
the world, but if charges ofanti-Semitism are understood to
be just an excuse to defendIsrael, that cheapens the
(11:56):
concept of anti-Semitism.
It leaves Jews less able todefend themselves from real
instances of anti-Semitism.
And so I have called that outrepeatedly and in many ways, you
know, I feel that it almostcomes back to you know, first of
all, the Israeli governmentstrategy, which is they've kind
of given up on Jews around theworld to support them.
(12:18):
You know, in the United Statesin particular, which is most
important for these purposes,there are conservative groups
like AIPAC.
But most American Jews areliberal, they vote Democratic,
they believe in rights.
The Israeli government hasgiven up on them and is largely
banking on Christianevangelicals who view Israel as
a prelude to the second comingof Christ, at which point the
(12:42):
Jews who don't convert willpresumably go to hell.
So you know this is a verycynical strategy.
It also, I think, reflects verydifferent understandings of the
Holocaust, because the Israeligovernment's view of the
Holocaust is that Jews wereslaughtered because they were
weak, because they didn't have astate of their own, and there
(13:04):
is some truth to that.
But the Israeli government hasdecided then to defend that
state, not just throughlegitimate means but through
atrocities, you know, by beingthe toughest guy on the block,
even if that means war crimesand crimes against humanity and,
arguably genocide.
I take a very different lessonfrom the Holocaust, which is
(13:29):
that Jews were also persecutedbecause human rights standards
were so weak and that what weneed to do is to build up human
rights standards to make massatrocities unthinkable.
But you can't do that ifthere's a Palestinian exception
to human rights, because ifPalestinians are exempted today,
jews will be exempted tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
How do you think the rest of us are doing on this?
No exceptions to human rights,I mean.
Obviously events are movingvery fast.
They may change again beforeeven this podcast goes out, but
we are seeing some pretty for meanyway dismaying attacks on
(14:10):
what I thought were ourfundamental rights and
principles.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Well, the most outrageous thing that has
happened, you know, since theceasefire, is Trump's call for
mass forced deportation of twomillion Palestinians from Gaza.
You know this would be ablatant war crime, arguably a
crime against humanity.
The fact that he would proposethis suggests an utter
(14:35):
indifference to internationalhuman rights norms, and that's
deeply troubling.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
We're moving that way , aren't we, though?
With Ukraine as well, you know,it now seems that the future of
a sovereign country is going tobe decided without the
sovereign country in the room, Imean.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Trump is being quite outrageous by proposing to
negotiate with Putin one-on-one,without Ukraine and without
Europe, whose security is verymuch at stake, and he clearly,
you know, has this view ofhimself as a master negotiator.
(15:10):
In fact, we realize that he canbe quite naive.
It'll be easy for Putin to lieto him, it'll be easy for Putin
to flatter him, to stroke hisego to, you know, to play games
with him that Trump is verysusceptible to, and so I worry
that Trump will give away thestore.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
In your book and obviously a good part of it was
written probably before theNovember election, before the
ceasefire in Gaza, before thissupposed deal making over the
future of Ukraine.
But you say you see China asthe biggest threat to rights,
fundamental freedoms.
Do you still feel like that, ordo you think those threats are
(15:53):
coming at us from every anglenow, including the United States
?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
The reason I single out China as the greatest threat
to human rights is that manygovernments violate human rights
.
That's not that unusual.
China violates human rights.
Is that many governmentsviolate human rights?
You know, that's not thatunusual.
China violates human rights ina big way, particularly if you
look at the treatment of theUyghurs, where it detained a
million of them, essentiallytrying to force them to abandon
their religion, their cultureand their language and become,
(16:19):
you know, chinese CommunistParty Mandarin-speaking Han
Chinese.
But what makes China dangerousis that it has the world's
second largest economy and it isdevoting seemingly infinite
resources to not simplysilencing critics of China's
repression but also trying torewrite what international human
(16:42):
rights law is all about.
And if you look at what XiJinping and Chinese diplomats
say, they would reduce the verydetailed, complex human rights
treaties to, in essence, threethings If they are expanding GDP
per capita, if they areproviding security and if
(17:03):
they're keeping people happy andobviously security and
happiness are imposed, and so itreally comes down to can they
keep the economy growing?
Now, xi Jinping is having a hardtime doing that because he's so
intent on control, but I thinkwe have to focus on what a
radical effort it is to reducehuman rights to just.
Is the economy growing?
(17:25):
It should be no surprise thatChina rejects civil and
political rights because itdoesn't dare hold an election,
it doesn't allow free press, itdoesn't allow civic groups or
free association, and that's whyhe wants to, in a sense, dumb
human rights down to just.
Are you growing the economy?
That is a radical proposition.
(17:45):
It basically rips up the humanrights down to just.
Are you growing the economy?
That is a radical proposition.
It basically rips up the humanrights treaties.
We have nothing, if that's allthere is.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So you still feel China is the biggest threat?
I mean, we're just fresh fromthe US Vice President JD Vance's
speech to the Munich SecurityConference, where I mean people
were flabbergasted.
He talked about the biggestthreat to Europe was the enemy
from within.
Yet his concept of free speechI mean America is banning books
right now.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So this shows, you know, where his top priority is.
Ironically, you know he saidthis the day after visiting
Dachau, the concentration campjust outside of Munich.
So he knows full well thehorror that Germany is trying to
ensure never comes back.
And he basically says don'tworry about that.
We want to stop migration.
(18:33):
And this, you know, isindicative of the Trump
administration.
I don't think JD Vance wassaying this you know because he
wrote it on the plane.
This was a vetted speech wassaying this, you know because he
wrote it on the plane, this wasa vetted speech.
And the Trump administrationessentially is saying you know
our values, which is stoppingmigration, which is stopping DEI
, which is, you know, attackinggays, which is trying to put
(18:54):
women back in their traditionalplace.
That's more important than anyof this worry about democracy or
, you know, or the possiblerevival of mass atrocities.
And it's a very short-termmemory and it's one where the US
doesn't have the experiencewithin people's lifetimes of
(19:17):
having lived through the horrorsof the Second World War.
So this, sadly, is theleadership of the United States
today.
It is a threat to human rights.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
We started this interview thinking, saying that
perhaps your book was a toolkitfor human rights defenders and
trying to uphold standardsaround the world.
Do you think there's hope?
I mean, people feel very, veryconcerned right now that the
kind of things we thought we'dput in place after 1945 are
(19:50):
being ripped away also bycountries we thought were allies
.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
frankly, this is obviously a difficult time, but
I don't think we shouldoverstate it.
We've lived through a priorTrump administration and one
thing I note in the book is thatother governments stepped up.
You know Trump withdrew theUnited States from the UN Human
Rights Council and othergovernments stepped in, and that
was a positive movement.
(20:17):
You know I talked about what wewere able to do on.
Idlib withdrew the United Statesfrom the UN Human Rights
Council and other governmentsstepped in, and that was a
positive movement.
You know I talked about what wewere able to do on Idlib.
You know, tiny Iceland, whichreplaced the United States on
the Human Rights Council, ledthe effort to condemn the former
Philippine President Dutertefor his summary execution of
supposed drug dealers.
So we still got a lot donedespite the absence of the
United States.
(20:37):
The other point I want to makeis that there's much talk of
this global contest betweenautocracy and democracy and
certainly with Trump's arrivalit looks like the autocrats have
had a big boost.
But when you look around theworld, the people who live under
autocracy or are threatenedwith autocracy have shown time
(20:57):
and time again that they standfor accountable government.
They want democracy and if youlook at just the large numbers
of demonstrations they've beenin Hong Kong, in Thailand, in
Myanmar, iran, belarus, russia,uganda, nicaragua, cuba I mean
you can go around the world,russia.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Uganda.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Nicaragua, cuba, I mean you can go around the world
, and when people are livingunder autocracy, they are
willing to stand for democracy,even if it shows you know, even
if they risk being arrested orshot.
So I don't think that'ssurprising, because when you
look at how autocrats rule, theyrule for themselves, they don't
rule for the people, and we seethis over and over, including
(21:42):
the most prominent examples ofVladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Where the challenge doespresent itself today is in the
more established democracies,where they are not adequately
delivering to all members oftheir society.
With the result, the people whofeel left behind, who feel that
they're not being served by thegovernment, they're not even
being respected by thegovernment, have become ripe for
(22:04):
the far right, the autocraticappeal, and so I think an
important challenge for theWestern democracies is to
improve their own governance asthe best way to fend off the
autocratic threat at home, andthen to do what they can to help
people in other countries whoclearly do want to avoid
(22:25):
autocracy themselves.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Ken Roth there on his new book Writing Wrongs and his
long career as a human rightsdefender.
Just before we go to our nextinterview with international law
professor Andrew Clapham,here's a heads up that next time
, on Inside Geneva, we'll bereturning to the topic of
(22:54):
artificial intelligence, socialmedia, the big tech industry and
the defence of democracy.
We explored that almost exactlya year ago in the big election
year of 2024.
In just 12 months, things havedeveloped not necessarily in a
good way, with some social mediaplatforms becoming vehicles for
(23:14):
misinformation and hate speech.
What can we do to protectourselves and our democratic
systems?
Join us with Expert Insight onMarch 18th.
And if you're a podcast fan andlooking for more to listen to,
here's some news about a newpodcast series from.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
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Speaker 2 (24:29):
That does sound pretty interesting.
Do join Angela Saini with LostCells.
Now, it's an old saying, but itturns out a wrong one that all
is fair in love and war.
In fact, we have strict rulesabout how we're allowed to wage
(24:50):
war.
Though at the moment it's notclear, those rules are very
often respected.
Professor Andrew Clapham haswritten a fascinating book
called Simply War, examiningexactly what those rules are and
how they are being tested.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I started noticing that people were using the
concept of war to do all kindsof things, as if it
automatically justified youraction just by calling something
a war, and I thought I shoulddig down a bit and see if war
really did give you rights inthe way that people were
suggesting give you rights inthe way that people were
(25:31):
suggesting.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Is it your idea, then , that people are bending the
laws of war or just using theword war to do things that don't
fit in the rules?
Or are we more civilized, sincethese rules were introduced
mostly after the Second WorldWar?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I definitely don't think we're particularly more
civilized now.
I think atomic weapons and massdestruction of cities, that's
not more civilized.
But to answer the bulk of yourquestion, I think it's that
people are reverting back to oldideas about war, which you can
trace back millennia, to dothings which today, as you say
(26:07):
since 1945, are no longerappropriate.
So wars have been around for along time and the law of
chivalry and the laws of warhave been around, and indeed in
the past if two princes or twostates had a quarrel they would
settle it through a war and youwere entitled to do all kinds of
things.
But since the UN and since theGeneva Conventions you're no
longer entitled to do thosethings.
(26:29):
But still you find peoplesaying oh, but I've captured
these people, they're law of wardetainees, I can do this or I
can bomb that because it's enemyproperty and I can do whatever
I want with enemy property.
But those are old ideas fromalmost medieval times and I was
really challenging states toadmit that in the post-second
world World War era some ofthese things are no longer
(26:50):
appropriate Blockade, siege,ransoming prisoners and so on.
It's not appropriate anymore.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
When is it legal, then, to actually have a war?
Because, reading your book, I'mcoming to the conclusion that
you think under the modern lawsof war, it's illegal to start a
war.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Well, I think it is.
Yes, it's interesting.
The Charter doesn't even usethe word war like that.
It says it's illegal to use orthreaten the use of force, if
you like.
They abolished the idea of warand they said that the only time
you can use force is if you'reresponding to an armed attack.
And even then it doesn't createthe idea that you then enter a
(27:34):
state of war.
You're only entitled to do whatis necessary and proportionate
to repel that attack.
So the whole institution of waris, in my view, no longer
appropriate.
Even though we continue to useit day after day and politicians
continue to use it as if itentitles them to do things,
people suggest that things canbe destroyed because it's a war,
(27:55):
and that's no longerappropriate.
You have to only use as muchforce as is necessary to repel
the attacker.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So it's illegal to start an aggressive war.
That makes Russia's invasion ofUkraine illegal.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
That's correct.
And I think what's particularlyinteresting now is that we even
have the crime of aggression, soone can speak about the leaders
and the instigators of the warof aggression as having
individual criminalresponsibility.
So it's not just illegal for thestate to do it, but it's
illegal for individuals tocommand their forces to do it.
(28:31):
And the book starts to questionwell, if it's illegal for the
leader, maybe it's illegal alsofor the soldiers who participate
in it and maybe it's aviolation not just to kill
civilians on the other side butUkrainian soldiers civilians on
the other side but Ukrainiansoldiers.
Now that's a very radical ideabecause historically you think
(28:54):
in war soldiers kill othersoldiers and there's nothing
wrong with that.
But we now have somethingcalled human rights law and
there is a complaint ongoing nowbefore the UN Human Rights
Committee here in Geneva by thefamilies of Ukrainian soldiers
to say those lives were taken ina war of aggression and
therefore it's a violation ofthe right to life.
Now that's a very modern,radical way of thinking about
(29:15):
human rights that if you start awar of aggression and you kill
soldiers on the other side,you've taken away their human
right to life and we'll have tosee what the UN Human Rights
Committee says.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It's really fascinating.
It's kind of upending my viewof war as well, because I mean,
if you conclude that claimingyou're at war doesn't give you
the right to kill people ordestroy things or take land or
property, well that's what waris.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, and I think that's why, after the Second
World War, war was abolished Imean it was decided that this is
not a good way to resolvedisputes it was accepted that in
some exceptional circumstances,if you've been attacked you
might have to use force to repelthe attacker.
But the idea that two statesand two peoples go to war and
the other side become all theenemy and you can keep what you
(30:07):
seize from the other sidebecause that's the spoils or
booty of war, that idea I thinkshould be abolished.
It hasn't yet been abolished.
In all the books there's stillthis underlying idea that if
there's a major naval warfareyou can seize enemy goods on the
high seas and keep it as prize.
But that's an old idea from theera of pirates.
We shouldn't be continuing tobuttress the idea of war in this
(30:31):
way.
We should accept that theinstitution of war has been
abolished.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I want to come back to that idea of seizing property
on the high seas or wherever ina moment.
But we're here in Geneva,obviously, the International
Committee of the Red Cross ishere.
It's the guardian of the GenevaConventions.
They don't say war is actuallyabolished, it's basically
illegal if it's waged.
(30:55):
They just say even war hasrules.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
You're right.
But that's not because theybelieve that war hasn't been
abolished in the way I've beendescribing it.
It's because they have alimited mandate.
So they choose to focus on thevictims of war and not the
causes of war and not who isguilty for starting the war.
Because under their logic theywould say, if we start to say
who was guilty of starting thiswar and who has committed the
(31:20):
crime of aggression, then thatside won't work with us anymore.
They'll say we're biased and wewon't get access to any
prisoners that they hold.
So they say to both sides look,you've started a war.
We're not interested in whostarted it and who's in the
right and who's in the wrong,just give us access to the
victims of war.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
OK, let's come back to this concept of seizing
property.
I'm assuming you'll also meanterritory with this, because
we're looking at two conflictsat the moment One is Gaza and
one is Ukraine, and in both ofthem there do appear to be
(31:57):
victors' spoils, if you like,against the will of the
inhabitants.
It's being couched, ascertainly by President Trump, as
a way to get peace, but even ifpeople signed on to this, would
these deals be illegal in yourbook?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
They would be in my book and I think they would be
in the book of international law.
And you're right that this isone of the points of the book.
It says you cannot seize andacquire territory through war.
That was decided after theSecond World War.
Of course you could do itbefore and that's how a lot of
states did acquire territorythrough war.
That was decided after theSecond World War.
Of course you could do itbefore and that's how a lot of
states did acquire territory.
But the UN General Assembly hasbeen quite clear explicitly
(32:37):
since 1970 that you cannotacquire territory through the
use of force.
So even a deal which gave Russiathis bit of territory, unless
it is accepted by the Ukrainiansunder no form of duress, is
illegal in the sense that youcannot recognise that territory
that's been seized.
So the Security Council hassaid in the past that states
(33:00):
must not recognise territorywhich has sought to be acquired.
So as a matter of internationallaw, the title of the territory
doesn't pass.
Somebody could say it's nowmine and they could be there,
but it doesn't belong to them.
So an attempt to acquire bitsof Gaza or an attempt to acquire
bits of Ukraine cannot work asa matter of international law,
(33:20):
because we no longer accept thatyou can seize and keep things
through the law of war which youcould in the past, through the
law of war which you could inthe past.
That was one of the points ofgoing to war was to expand your
territory, but since the SecondWorld War it was decided by the
whole world.
That was a bad idea.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Let's turn back to what if there is a war and sadly
there will be wars what armiesthink they can do?
What armies think they can doNow we know that the British
Army, the French, the Germans,the Americans, they have lawyers
, they have classes on theGeneva Conventions, their
soldiers are all supposed to beinstructed in that.
We have heard that the new USDefence Secretary, pete Hegseth,
(34:07):
has fired the US Army'smilitary advisers, their lawyers
.
Does that give you a bit of anuncomfortable feeling?
He says he wants a new warriorethos or something like that.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yes, I think it's disastrous.
I mean, it's true that allthese major armies have legal
advisers who advise what islegal and what is not and, most
importantly, they will beinvolved in issues of military
discipline.
So a breach of the militarycode or the commission of a war
crime under international lawwould be in their department and
they might be in charge ofprosecuting.
(34:39):
And the idea that somehow theGeneva Conventions or the
international law related to warcrimes is too generous to those
it seeks to protect andtherefore one needs to change
the lawyers and ensure thatpeople will not prosecute you.
It is a disaster because in allof these campaigns there have
been civilians who have beenkilled, there have been
disproportionate attacks, therehave been mistreatment of
(35:01):
prisoners and from time to timethere are some prosecutions, and
that makes people feeluncomfortable and angry.
To time there are someprosecutions and that makes
people feel uncomfortable andangry, but the number of
prosecutions that there are ispretty small and the idea that
that can't be tolerated makes mevery, very uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
We live in a very, very unstable world right now
and it seems to get worse by theday.
Four military leaders who areall locked in deep, deep
meetings and concerns at themoment across Europe United
States, russia, ukraine.
What lessons should they takefrom your book?
(35:39):
People who are thinking ofputting soldiers into the field
or thinking they might have to?
Speaker 3 (35:44):
I think they should realise that you can't acquire
territory through the use offorce, even if it looks, as you
put it before, as though you canassume that by putting boots on
the ground and looking asthough you've acquired it, the
legal title does not pass.
It doesn't become yours.
I think they should also beaware that the law of war crimes
(36:05):
is not just about what your ownlawyers are prepared to tell
you not to do.
It's international law, andwhen you travel abroad you risk
being arrested and prosecuted,even if your own side doesn't
want to deal with it.
There are prosecutors nowaround the world who are
prosecuting people using what'sknown as universal jurisdiction.
I've just come back fromwatching a war crimes trial in
(36:27):
Sweden where a Swiss nationaland a Swedish national are being
prosecuted for complicity inwar crimes in Sudan because of
the way in which their companygot involved, allegedly, with
the government of Sudan and itsrepression of the militias in
the area of the oil fields.
I don't think when they wereoperating in Sudan it ever
occurred to them that they couldbe prosecuted for war crimes,
(36:49):
and I think it doesn't occur toa lot of Western military or
Russian military that they canbe prosecuted for war crimes.
But one day they will betravelling in Switzerland or the
south of France or GreatBritain and they will find
themselves arrested andprosecuted for war crimes.
So you can think that bychanging the lawyers or creating
facts on the ground that you'regoing to get away with it.
But those war crimes,allegations, they stick to you
(37:11):
for life.
There's no statute oflimitation on war crimes and you
could easily find yourselfprosecuted in 10 or 20 years'
time.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Andrew Clapham, with some wise words of warning to
those who are or who are temptedto violate the laws of war.
That brings us to the end ofthis edition of Inside Geneva.
We hope you enjoyed thisepisode.
My thanks to both Andrew andKen Roth for their time.
Writing Wrongs is published byPenguin Random House and War is
(37:51):
from Oxford University Press andit's also available open source
Reminder.
You've been listening to InsideGeneva, a Swiss Info production
.
You can email us oninsidegeneva at swissinfoch and
(38:12):
subscribe to us and review uswherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our previous episodeshow the International Red Cross
unites prisoners of war withtheir families, or why survivors
of human rights violations turnto the UN in Geneva for justice
.
I'm Imogen Folks.
(38:32):
Thanks again for listening.
This is Inside Geneva .
I'm your host, imogen Foulkes,and this is a production from
Swissinfo, the internationalpublic media company of
Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
In today's program, the defense of human rights is
not a matter of holding a candleand singing Kumbaya.
The defense of human rights isnot a matter of holding a candle
and singing kumbaya.
The defense of human rights isabout playing hardball.
It's about putting pressure ongovernments, making them realize
that repression isn't payingbecause the consequences are so
severe.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
The only time you can use force is if you're
responding to an armed attack,and even then it doesn't create
the idea that you then enter astate of war.
You're only entitled to do whatis necessary and proportionate
to repel that attack.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva.
I'm Imogen F, and it's oneshort week since our last
episode, when we talked aboutWashington's bilateral talks
with Moscow over the future ofUkraine, talks to which Ukraine
and Europe were not invited.
A lot has happened since then,and I bet many of our listeners
(01:21):
have been glued to the newsfollowing every often
disappointing and sometimesfrightening development.
So today we're going to take alittle step back from the
headlines and hear about twobooks which reflect some of the
better parts of our commonhumanity.
We'll hear from Ken Roth, wholed Human Rights Watch for three
(01:43):
decades and whose new bookWriting Wrongs gives us an
inside look into how to defendhuman rights, even though it
sometimes means offendinggovernments.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I made sure that Human Rights Watch was bringing
facts to the table that thegovernments didn't know.
That was part of my job.
My father fled the Nazis as ayoung boy.
He lived in Germany and fled inJuly 1938 to New York.
I grew up Jewish, I am Jewish,so the idea that I'm
anti-Semitic is ridiculous, andI feel, as a result, a certain
(02:15):
responsibility to take on notjust the duty of criticizing
Israeli abuses, but also to takeon the misuse of anti-Semitism.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Then later we talked to Andrew Clapham, professor of
international law at Geneva'sGraduate Institute, whose book
simply called War has just wonthe prestigious Paul Reuter
Prize for outstandingcontributions to the study of
international law.
His explanations of what'sallowed and not allowed in
(02:46):
wartime may surprise you.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
One can speak about the leaders of the war of
aggression as having individualcriminal responsibility.
And the book starts to questionwell, if it's illegal for the
leader, maybe it's illegal alsofor the soldiers who participate
in it.
And maybe it's a violation notjust to kill civilians on the
other side but Ukrainiansoldiers.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But first we'll talk to Ken Roth, who I caught up
with when he was visiting Genevalast week.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I didn't want to write just a traditional memoir.
I wanted, with this book, totake on the people who look at
human rights activists and say,oh, isn't that nice.
You know, I stand for humanrights too, but you can't really
get anything done, can you?
And I wanted to show theskeptics that, in fact, the
(03:39):
defense of human rights is not amatter of holding a candle and
singing Kumbaya, that thedefense of human rights is about
playing hardball to use inAmericanism.
It's about putting pressure ongovernments and forcing them to
change the cost-benefit analysisof repression, making them
(04:00):
realize that repression isn'tpaying because the consequences
are so severe.
And I run through example afterexample in the book and I want
the reader to end by seeing oh,my goodness, you can get things
done.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
One of the cases towards the beginning of the
book that really struck a chordwith me was writing about Syria,
and that's because I reportedon every single UN Commission of
Inquiry report on Syria.
I read them all, which is, asyou can imagine, it's pretty
harrowing, but I did thinkthere's nothing to stop this lot
(04:43):
.
They don't care.
And yet you found ways to tryand get some pressure exerted on
Syria.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, I deliberately opened the book with Syria, and
I obviously wrote this beforeAssad was toppled.
I chose Syria precisely becauseit was such a difficult case,
because Assad was so despicablehe did everything imaginable to
his people that this was a manwho was beyond shaming, and one
(05:14):
of the major tools of the humanrights movement is to shame
governments.
Most governments, at least,pretend to respect human rights
when the human rights movementcan show that they fall short.
That is stigmatizing andultimately delegitimizing, which
is why governments hate it somuch.
But in the case of Syria'sAssad, he essentially had no
(05:34):
reputation left to lose, and sowe had to figure out how do you
make a difference, and the mainstrategy we pursued was to
target Vladimir Putin, becauseat that stage, he still cared
about his reputation.
This was before Ukraine, and weknew that the Assad government
(05:56):
would fall in two seconds if theRussian government withdrew its
military.
So Putin had leverage on Assad,and we felt that we had
leverage on Putin if we couldhighlight the right issues.
But I opened the book with theRussian-Syria military campaign
in Idlib, the northwestern partof Syria, which at the stage,
(06:19):
was the only area still held bythe armed opposition, where
principally Russian bombers, butalso Syrian, were deliberately
targeting hospitals, schools,marketplaces, apartment
buildings, doing everything theycould to drive out the
civilians, with the hope that itwould then be easier to retake
the territory on the ground.
(06:39):
And Human Rights Watchcarefully documented those war
crimes, as did institutions likethe UN Commission of Inquiry,
and we used that information tothen generate pressure on Putin,
and this was during the earlydays of the Trump administration
.
So we couldn't rely on the USgovernment and we decided to
focus on the French, german andTurkish governments.
(07:03):
So I personally met with GermanChancellor Angela Merkel, with
French President Emmanuel Macron.
I repeatedly visited Ankara andspoke with senior officials in
Erdogan's government, and overthe course of two to three years
, we gradually persuaded them toput sufficient pressure on
Putin that, as of March 2020,the bombing stopped, and it
(07:30):
stayed stopped completely.
For about three years it pickedup a little bit, but in essence
, it never resumed at anywherenear the same level until
finally the rebel group that wasoperating in Idlib overthrew
Assad, and now no one's gettingbombed.
And so this you know.
I thought it was a goodillustration, because it showed
the power of the information,but also the necessity of
(07:52):
deploying that information withinfluential, potentially allied
governments who could make adifference.
And with the right strategy, inthis case focusing on Putin, we
were able to stop the bombingof civilians in Italy.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Something else that struck me and which maybe lots
of people who think they knowabout human rights work.
It would not occur to them.
You talk about going to theWorld Economic Forum in Davos.
You talk about going to theMunich Security Conference.
Do you really have leverage atthese kinds of venues?
Well, take the Munich SecurityConference, which is really have
leverage at these kinds ofvenues?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, take the Munich Security Conference, which is a
funny conference because itcollects the defense ministers
and foreign ministers, and oftenprime ministers and presidents
of all of the leading Westerngovernments, as well as a
smattering of others, and putsthem in this relatively small
ballroom of a very old hotel inMunich and they are together for
(08:49):
two days.
And I have to say, the MunichSecurity Conference treated me
well because at various stagesthey put me on the stage,
including at one key moment withSyria, where they gave me 10
minutes of a plenary talk to theentire audience.
And I found you know Munich aswell as the World Economic Forum
(09:12):
useful because it was so easyin those settings to speak to
heads of state and relevantministers.
You know, once you're in thedoor you're deemed okay.
And I made sure that HumanRights Watch was bringing facts
to the table that thegovernments didn't know, but
also that we were bringingstrategies that they didn't
necessarily think of and we wereultimately seen as value-added.
(09:35):
And so, although it may seemodd for me to go from speaking
with victims of human rightsabuse in some country to one of
these highfalutin conferences,but that was part of my job.
It was to really translate thereality on the ground to people
in influential capitals thatcould help us make a difference
(09:57):
to stop human rights violations.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You have annoyed particular governments.
China doesn't want to see youanymore, russia doesn't want to
see you anymore.
Russia doesn't want to see youanymore, but particularly Israel
, because of human rightswatches, examination and
critical view of human rights inthe occupied territories and so
on.
They've accused you even ofanti-Semitism, and you're Jewish
(10:22):
yourself.
Does that upset you?
Well, you're of anti-Semitism,and you're Jewish yourself.
Does that upset you?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Well, you're right to single out Israel, because,
while I've been personallysanctioned by the Chinese
government and the Russiangovernment, there is no country
out there that has as dedicateda group of activists to defend
Israel, to criticize any critic,to try to pretend that Israel
does no wrong, and the criticsare all anti-Semitic and biased.
(10:47):
Israel stands alone in thatrespect.
Now I have been accused ofanti-Semitism.
That's almost a standard slurthat is sent for anybody who
criticizes Israel.
Now, I personally don't let itbother me because it's just so
ridiculous.
I mean, my father fled theNazis, you know, as a young boy.
(11:11):
He lived in Germany and fled inJuly 1938 to New York.
I grew up Jewish, I am Jewish,you know.
So the idea that I'manti-Semitic is ridiculous and I
feel, as a result, a certainresponsibility to take on, you
know, not just the duty ofcriticizing Israeli abuses, but
also to take on the misuse ofanti-Semitism.
(11:32):
Because this is a very cynicalapproach that the defenders of
the Israeli government use, inthat if anti-Semitism is a
serious problem around the world, jews face anti-Semitism around
the world, but if charges ofanti-Semitism are understood to
be just an excuse to defendIsrael, that cheapens the
(11:56):
concept of anti-Semitism.
It leaves Jews less able todefend themselves from real
instances of anti-Semitism.
And so I have called that outrepeatedly and in many ways, you
know, I feel that it almostcomes back to you know, first of
all, the Israeli governmentstrategy, which is they've kind
of given up on Jews around theworld to support them.
(12:18):
You know, in the United Statesin particular, which is most
important for these purposes,there are conservative groups
like AIPAC.
But most American Jews areliberal, they vote Democratic,
they believe in rights.
The Israeli government hasgiven up on them and is largely
banking on Christianevangelicals who view Israel as
a prelude to the second comingof Christ, at which point the
(12:42):
Jews who don't convert willpresumably go to hell.
So you know this is a verycynical strategy.
It also, I think, reflects verydifferent understandings of the
Holocaust, because the Israeligovernment's view of the
Holocaust is that Jews wereslaughtered because they were
weak, because they didn't have astate of their own, and there
(13:04):
is some truth to that.
But the Israeli government hasdecided then to defend that
state, not just throughlegitimate means but through
atrocities, you know, by beingthe toughest guy on the block,
even if that means war crimesand crimes against humanity and,
arguably genocide.
I take a very different lessonfrom the Holocaust, which is
(13:29):
that Jews were also persecutedbecause human rights standards
were so weak and that what weneed to do is to build up human
rights standards to make massatrocities unthinkable.
But you can't do that ifthere's a Palestinian exception
to human rights, because ifPalestinians are exempted today,
jews will be exempted tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
How do you think the rest of us are doing on this?
No exceptions to human rights,I mean.
Obviously events are movingvery fast.
They may change again beforeeven this podcast goes out, but
we are seeing some pretty for meanyway dismaying attacks on
(14:10):
what I thought were ourfundamental rights and
principles.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Well, the most outrageous thing that has
happened, you know, since theceasefire, is Trump's call for
mass forced deportation of twomillion Palestinians from Gaza.
You know this would be ablatant war crime, arguably a
crime against humanity.
The fact that he would proposethis suggests an utter
(14:35):
indifference to internationalhuman rights norms, and that's
deeply troubling.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
We're moving that way , aren't we, though?
With Ukraine as well, you know,it now seems that the future of
a sovereign country is going tobe decided without the
sovereign country in the room, Imean.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Trump is being quite outrageous by proposing to
negotiate with Putin one-on-one,without Ukraine and without
Europe, whose security is verymuch at stake, and he clearly,
you know, has this view ofhimself as a master negotiator.
(15:10):
In fact, we realize that he canbe quite naive.
It'll be easy for Putin to lieto him, it'll be easy for Putin
to flatter him, to stroke hisego to, you know, to play games
with him that Trump is verysusceptible to, and so I worry
that Trump will give away thestore.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
In your book and obviously a good part of it was
written probably before theNovember election, before the
ceasefire in Gaza, before thissupposed deal making over the
future of Ukraine.
But you say you see China asthe biggest threat to rights,
fundamental freedoms.
Do you still feel like that, ordo you think those threats are
(15:53):
coming at us from every anglenow, including the United States
?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
The reason I single out China as the greatest threat
to human rights is that manygovernments violate human rights
.
That's not that unusual.
China violates human rights.
Is that many governmentsviolate human rights?
You know, that's not thatunusual.
China violates human rights ina big way, particularly if you
look at the treatment of theUyghurs, where it detained a
million of them, essentiallytrying to force them to abandon
their religion, their cultureand their language and become,
(16:19):
you know, chinese CommunistParty Mandarin-speaking Han
Chinese.
But what makes China dangerousis that it has the world's
second largest economy and it isdevoting seemingly infinite
resources to not simplysilencing critics of China's
repression but also trying torewrite what international human
(16:42):
rights law is all about.
And if you look at what XiJinping and Chinese diplomats
say, they would reduce the verydetailed, complex human rights
treaties to, in essence, threethings If they are expanding GDP
per capita, if they areproviding security and if
(17:03):
they're keeping people happy andobviously security and
happiness are imposed, and so itreally comes down to can they
keep the economy growing?
Now, xi Jinping is having a hardtime doing that because he's so
intent on control, but I thinkwe have to focus on what a
radical effort it is to reducehuman rights to just.
Is the economy growing?
(17:25):
It should be no surprise thatChina rejects civil and
political rights because itdoesn't dare hold an election,
it doesn't allow free press, itdoesn't allow civic groups or
free association, and that's whyhe wants to, in a sense, dumb
human rights down to just.
Are you growing the economy?
That is a radical proposition.
(17:45):
It basically rips up the humanrights down to just.
Are you growing the economy?
That is a radical proposition.
It basically rips up the humanrights treaties.
We have nothing, if that's allthere is.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So you still feel China is the biggest threat?
I mean, we're just fresh fromthe US Vice President JD Vance's
speech to the Munich SecurityConference, where I mean people
were flabbergasted.
He talked about the biggestthreat to Europe was the enemy
from within.
Yet his concept of free speechI mean America is banning books
right now.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So this shows, you know, where his top priority is.
Ironically, you know he saidthis the day after visiting
Dachau, the concentration campjust outside of Munich.
So he knows full well thehorror that Germany is trying to
ensure never comes back.
And he basically says don'tworry about that.
We want to stop migration.
(18:33):
And this, you know, isindicative of the Trump
administration.
I don't think JD Vance wassaying this you know because he
wrote it on the plane.
This was a vetted speech wassaying this, you know because he
wrote it on the plane, this wasa vetted speech.
And the Trump administrationessentially is saying you know
our values, which is stoppingmigration, which is stopping DEI
, which is, you know, attackinggays, which is trying to put
(18:54):
women back in their traditionalplace.
That's more important than anyof this worry about democracy or
, you know, or the possiblerevival of mass atrocities.
And it's a very short-termmemory and it's one where the US
doesn't have the experiencewithin people's lifetimes of
(19:17):
having lived through the horrorsof the Second World War.
So this, sadly, is theleadership of the United States
today.
It is a threat to human rights.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
We started this interview thinking, saying that
perhaps your book was a toolkitfor human rights defenders and
trying to uphold standardsaround the world.
Do you think there's hope?
I mean, people feel very, veryconcerned right now that the
kind of things we thought we'dput in place after 1945 are
(19:50):
being ripped away also bycountries we thought were allies
.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
frankly, this is obviously a difficult time, but
I don't think we shouldoverstate it.
We've lived through a priorTrump administration and one
thing I note in the book is thatother governments stepped up.
You know Trump withdrew theUnited States from the UN Human
Rights Council and othergovernments stepped in, and that
was a positive movement.
(20:17):
You know I talked about what wewere able to do on.
Idlib withdrew the United Statesfrom the UN Human Rights
Council and other governmentsstepped in, and that was a
positive movement.
You know I talked about what wewere able to do on Idlib.
You know, tiny Iceland, whichreplaced the United States on
the Human Rights Council, ledthe effort to condemn the former
Philippine President Dutertefor his summary execution of
supposed drug dealers.
So we still got a lot donedespite the absence of the
United States.
(20:37):
The other point I want to makeis that there's much talk of
this global contest betweenautocracy and democracy and
certainly with Trump's arrivalit looks like the autocrats have
had a big boost.
But when you look around theworld, the people who live under
autocracy or are threatenedwith autocracy have shown time
(20:57):
and time again that they standfor accountable government.
They want democracy and if youlook at just the large numbers
of demonstrations they've beenin Hong Kong, in Thailand, in
Myanmar, iran, belarus, russia,uganda, nicaragua, cuba I mean
you can go around the world,russia.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Uganda.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Nicaragua, cuba, I mean you can go around the world
, and when people are livingunder autocracy, they are
willing to stand for democracy,even if it shows you know, even
if they risk being arrested orshot.
So I don't think that'ssurprising, because when you
look at how autocrats rule, theyrule for themselves, they don't
rule for the people, and we seethis over and over, including
(21:42):
the most prominent examples ofVladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Where the challenge doespresent itself today is in the
more established democracies,where they are not adequately
delivering to all members oftheir society.
With the result, the people whofeel left behind, who feel that
they're not being served by thegovernment, they're not even
being respected by thegovernment, have become ripe for
(22:04):
the far right, the autocraticappeal, and so I think an
important challenge for theWestern democracies is to
improve their own governance asthe best way to fend off the
autocratic threat at home, andthen to do what they can to help
people in other countries whoclearly do want to avoid
(22:25):
autocracy themselves.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Ken Roth there on his new book Writing Wrongs and his
long career as a human rightsdefender.
Just before we go to our nextinterview with international law
professor Andrew Clapham,here's a heads up that next time
, on Inside Geneva, we'll bereturning to the topic of
(22:54):
artificial intelligence, socialmedia, the big tech industry and
the defence of democracy.
We explored that almost exactlya year ago in the big election
year of 2024.
In just 12 months, things havedeveloped not necessarily in a
good way, with some social mediaplatforms becoming vehicles for
(23:14):
misinformation and hate speech.
What can we do to protectourselves and our democratic
systems?
Join us with Expert Insight onMarch 18th.
And if you're a podcast fan andlooking for more to listen to,
here's some news about a newpodcast series from.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
Swiss Info.
Hi, I'm Angela Saini, a sciencejournalist and author.
I've written four booksexploring humanity's fascination
with science as a solution tosocial problems, and I'm the
host of Lost Cells, a thrillingnew investigative podcast that
will make you question thepromises behind private stem
(23:55):
cell banking.
This gripping podcast followsthe stories of families from
Spain, Serbia, Italy and manyother countries as they embark
on a global quest to find theone thing they need the most
life itself.
Will they succeed in theirsearch for the stem cells that
(24:16):
they pinned their hopes on?
Tune in to Lost Cells, anoriginal Swiss Info podcast.
To find out, Listen on ApplePodcasts, Spotify or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
That does sound pretty interesting.
Do join Angela Saini with LostCells.
Now, it's an old saying, but itturns out a wrong one that all
is fair in love and war.
In fact, we have strict rulesabout how we're allowed to wage
(24:50):
war.
Though at the moment it's notclear, those rules are very
often respected.
Professor Andrew Clapham haswritten a fascinating book
called Simply War, examiningexactly what those rules are and
how they are being tested.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I started noticing that people were using the
concept of war to do all kindsof things, as if it
automatically justified youraction just by calling something
a war, and I thought I shoulddig down a bit and see if war
really did give you rights inthe way that people were
suggesting give you rights inthe way that people were
(25:31):
suggesting.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Is it your idea, then , that people are bending the
laws of war or just using theword war to do things that don't
fit in the rules?
Or are we more civilized, sincethese rules were introduced
mostly after the Second WorldWar?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I definitely don't think we're particularly more
civilized now.
I think atomic weapons and massdestruction of cities, that's
not more civilized.
But to answer the bulk of yourquestion, I think it's that
people are reverting back to oldideas about war, which you can
trace back millennia, to dothings which today, as you say
(26:07):
since 1945, are no longerappropriate.
So wars have been around for along time and the law of
chivalry and the laws of warhave been around, and indeed in
the past if two princes or twostates had a quarrel they would
settle it through a war and youwere entitled to do all kinds of
things.
But since the UN and since theGeneva Conventions you're no
longer entitled to do thosethings.
(26:29):
But still you find peoplesaying oh, but I've captured
these people, they're law of wardetainees, I can do this or I
can bomb that because it's enemyproperty and I can do whatever
I want with enemy property.
But those are old ideas fromalmost medieval times and I was
really challenging states toadmit that in the post-second
world World War era some ofthese things are no longer
(26:50):
appropriate Blockade, siege,ransoming prisoners and so on.
It's not appropriate anymore.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
When is it legal, then, to actually have a war?
Because, reading your book, I'mcoming to the conclusion that
you think under the modern lawsof war, it's illegal to start a
war.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Well, I think it is.
Yes, it's interesting.
The Charter doesn't even usethe word war like that.
It says it's illegal to use orthreaten the use of force, if
you like.
They abolished the idea of warand they said that the only time
you can use force is if you'reresponding to an armed attack.
And even then it doesn't createthe idea that you then enter a
(27:34):
state of war.
You're only entitled to do whatis necessary and proportionate
to repel that attack.
So the whole institution of waris, in my view, no longer
appropriate.
Even though we continue to useit day after day and politicians
continue to use it as if itentitles them to do things,
people suggest that things canbe destroyed because it's a war,
(27:55):
and that's no longerappropriate.
You have to only use as muchforce as is necessary to repel
the attacker.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So it's illegal to start an aggressive war.
That makes Russia's invasion ofUkraine illegal.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
That's correct.
And I think what's particularlyinteresting now is that we even
have the crime of aggression, soone can speak about the leaders
and the instigators of the warof aggression as having
individual criminalresponsibility.
So it's not just illegal for thestate to do it, but it's
illegal for individuals tocommand their forces to do it.
(28:31):
And the book starts to questionwell, if it's illegal for the
leader, maybe it's illegal alsofor the soldiers who participate
in it and maybe it's aviolation not just to kill
civilians on the other side butUkrainian soldiers civilians on
the other side but Ukrainiansoldiers.
Now that's a very radical ideabecause historically you think
(28:54):
in war soldiers kill othersoldiers and there's nothing
wrong with that.
But we now have somethingcalled human rights law and
there is a complaint ongoing nowbefore the UN Human Rights
Committee here in Geneva by thefamilies of Ukrainian soldiers
to say those lives were taken ina war of aggression and
therefore it's a violation ofthe right to life.
Now that's a very modern,radical way of thinking about
(29:15):
human rights that if you start awar of aggression and you kill
soldiers on the other side,you've taken away their human
right to life and we'll have tosee what the UN Human Rights
Committee says.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It's really fascinating.
It's kind of upending my viewof war as well, because I mean,
if you conclude that claimingyou're at war doesn't give you
the right to kill people ordestroy things or take land or
property, well that's what waris.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, and I think that's why, after the Second
World War, war was abolished Imean it was decided that this is
not a good way to resolvedisputes it was accepted that in
some exceptional circumstances,if you've been attacked you
might have to use force to repelthe attacker.
But the idea that two statesand two peoples go to war and
the other side become all theenemy and you can keep what you
(30:07):
seize from the other sidebecause that's the spoils or
booty of war, that idea I thinkshould be abolished.
It hasn't yet been abolished.
In all the books there's stillthis underlying idea that if
there's a major naval warfareyou can seize enemy goods on the
high seas and keep it as prize.
But that's an old idea from theera of pirates.
We shouldn't be continuing tobuttress the idea of war in this
(30:31):
way.
We should accept that theinstitution of war has been
abolished.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I want to come back to that idea of seizing property
on the high seas or wherever ina moment.
But we're here in Geneva,obviously, the International
Committee of the Red Cross ishere.
It's the guardian of the GenevaConventions.
They don't say war is actuallyabolished, it's basically
illegal if it's waged.
(30:55):
They just say even war hasrules.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
You're right.
But that's not because theybelieve that war hasn't been
abolished in the way I've beendescribing it.
It's because they have alimited mandate.
So they choose to focus on thevictims of war and not the
causes of war and not who isguilty for starting the war.
Because under their logic theywould say, if we start to say
who was guilty of starting thiswar and who has committed the
(31:20):
crime of aggression, then thatside won't work with us anymore.
They'll say we're biased and wewon't get access to any
prisoners that they hold.
So they say to both sides look,you've started a war.
We're not interested in whostarted it and who's in the
right and who's in the wrong,just give us access to the
victims of war.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
OK, let's come back to this concept of seizing
property.
I'm assuming you'll also meanterritory with this, because
we're looking at two conflictsat the moment One is Gaza and
one is Ukraine, and in both ofthem there do appear to be
(31:57):
victors' spoils, if you like,against the will of the
inhabitants.
It's being couched, ascertainly by President Trump, as
a way to get peace, but even ifpeople signed on to this, would
these deals be illegal in yourbook?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
They would be in my book and I think they would be
in the book of international law.
And you're right that this isone of the points of the book.
It says you cannot seize andacquire territory through war.
That was decided after theSecond World War.
Of course you could do itbefore and that's how a lot of
states did acquire territorythrough war.
That was decided after theSecond World War.
Of course you could do itbefore and that's how a lot of
states did acquire territory.
But the UN General Assembly hasbeen quite clear explicitly
(32:37):
since 1970 that you cannotacquire territory through the
use of force.
So even a deal which gave Russiathis bit of territory, unless
it is accepted by the Ukrainiansunder no form of duress, is
illegal in the sense that youcannot recognise that territory
that's been seized.
So the Security Council hassaid in the past that states
(33:00):
must not recognise territorywhich has sought to be acquired.
So as a matter of internationallaw, the title of the territory
doesn't pass.
Somebody could say it's nowmine and they could be there,
but it doesn't belong to them.
So an attempt to acquire bitsof Gaza or an attempt to acquire
bits of Ukraine cannot work asa matter of international law,
(33:20):
because we no longer accept thatyou can seize and keep things
through the law of war which youcould in the past, through the
law of war which you could inthe past.
That was one of the points ofgoing to war was to expand your
territory, but since the SecondWorld War it was decided by the
whole world.
That was a bad idea.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Let's turn back to what if there is a war and sadly
there will be wars what armiesthink they can do?
What armies think they can doNow we know that the British
Army, the French, the Germans,the Americans, they have lawyers
, they have classes on theGeneva Conventions, their
soldiers are all supposed to beinstructed in that.
We have heard that the new USDefence Secretary, pete Hegseth,
(34:07):
has fired the US Army'smilitary advisers, their lawyers
.
Does that give you a bit of anuncomfortable feeling?
He says he wants a new warriorethos or something like that.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yes, I think it's disastrous.
I mean, it's true that allthese major armies have legal
advisers who advise what islegal and what is not and, most
importantly, they will beinvolved in issues of military
discipline.
So a breach of the militarycode or the commission of a war
crime under international lawwould be in their department and
they might be in charge ofprosecuting.
(34:39):
And the idea that somehow theGeneva Conventions or the
international law related to warcrimes is too generous to those
it seeks to protect andtherefore one needs to change
the lawyers and ensure thatpeople will not prosecute you.
It is a disaster because in allof these campaigns there have
been civilians who have beenkilled, there have been
disproportionate attacks, therehave been mistreatment of
(35:01):
prisoners and from time to timethere are some prosecutions, and
that makes people feeluncomfortable and angry.
To time there are someprosecutions and that makes
people feel uncomfortable andangry, but the number of
prosecutions that there are ispretty small and the idea that
that can't be tolerated makes mevery, very uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
We live in a very, very unstable world right now
and it seems to get worse by theday.
Four military leaders who areall locked in deep, deep
meetings and concerns at themoment across Europe United
States, russia, ukraine.
What lessons should they takefrom your book?
(35:39):
People who are thinking ofputting soldiers into the field
or thinking they might have to?
Speaker 3 (35:44):
I think they should realise that you can't acquire
territory through the use offorce, even if it looks, as you
put it before, as though you canassume that by putting boots on
the ground and looking asthough you've acquired it, the
legal title does not pass.
It doesn't become yours.
I think they should also beaware that the law of war crimes
(36:05):
is not just about what your ownlawyers are prepared to tell
you not to do.
It's international law, andwhen you travel abroad you risk
being arrested and prosecuted,even if your own side doesn't
want to deal with it.
There are prosecutors nowaround the world who are
prosecuting people using what'sknown as universal jurisdiction.
I've just come back fromwatching a war crimes trial in
(36:27):
Sweden where a Swiss nationaland a Swedish national are being
prosecuted for complicity inwar crimes in Sudan because of
the way in which their companygot involved, allegedly, with
the government of Sudan and itsrepression of the militias in
the area of the oil fields.
I don't think when they wereoperating in Sudan it ever
occurred to them that they couldbe prosecuted for war crimes,
(36:49):
and I think it doesn't occur toa lot of Western military or
Russian military that they canbe prosecuted for war crimes.
But one day they will betravelling in Switzerland or the
south of France or GreatBritain and they will find
themselves arrested andprosecuted for war crimes.
So you can think that bychanging the lawyers or creating
facts on the ground that you'regoing to get away with it.
But those war crimes,allegations, they stick to you
(37:11):
for life.
There's no statute oflimitation on war crimes and you
could easily find yourselfprosecuted in 10 or 20 years'
time.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Andrew Clapham, with some wise words of warning to
those who are or who are temptedto violate the laws of war.
That brings us to the end ofthis edition of Inside Geneva.
We hope you enjoyed thisepisode.
My thanks to both Andrew andKen Roth for their time.
Writing Wrongs is published byPenguin Random House and War is
(37:51):
from Oxford University Press andit's also available open source
Reminder.
You've been listening to InsideGeneva, a Swiss Info production
.
You can email us oninsidegeneva at swissinfoch and
(38:12):
subscribe to us and review uswherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our previous episodeshow the International Red Cross
unites prisoners of war withtheir families, or why survivors
of human rights violations turnto the UN in Geneva for justice
.
I'm Imogen Folks.
(38:32):
Thanks again for listening.
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