WANTED: A CHARTER OF NATIONS

By    Hugh    J.   Schonfield

At the beginning of the war the late Mr. H. G. Wells, in a letter to The Times of 25th October, 1939, as part of a discussion on War Aims, advocated the drawing up of a new Declaration of Rights. He pointed out that " at various crises in the history of our communities, beginning with Magna Carta and going through various Bills of Rights, Rights of Man and so forth, it has been our custom to produce a specific declaration of the broad principles on which our public and social life is based, and to abide by that as our fundamental law." He was convinced that the present great turning point in history demanded " another fundamental assertion of the claims of the common man." Subsequently a committee framed a text based on Wells's original draft of what was designed to be a new Charter of the Rights of Man.

This Charter was widely canvassed and supported by bodies in many countries, but it failed to receive the measure of endorsement which was expected, and there is now little prospect of its official recognition.

I believe that one of the major reasons for this was the failure of the author to take cognisance of a vital fact. Previous Declarations of the kind, however generally applicable in terms, were meant essentially to safeguard the interests of the common people within a country against the misuse of power by the central authority. For any such Declaration to be universally demanded to-day not only would the Brotherhood of Man have to be felt to be real by the masses in all countries, but there would also have to be felt that a definite threat to individual liberty existed through the tyranny of a World Authority. If plans for a World Government were to materialise such a situation might conceiv­ably arise.   At present the need for another Declaration of Rights in the individual sense is still an internal affair in those countries where it is deemed that the liberty of the subject or citizen is being endangered.

Another consideration overlooked by Mr. Wells is that our gravest problem in the world context is not the Rights of Man as individual but the Rights of Man in communities?national communities. What is now required, I suggest, is a Charter of Nations that will define the rights and responsibilities of nations as parts of the world community of nations. Without such a Charter international law must remain little more than a figure of speech, and any such association as the United Nations Organisation must prove unwork­able in the  political sphere.

Despite much that has been set down by jurists from the time of the Roman Empire to our own day there is no Law of Nations in exact terms. It is not even clear what is the definition of nationhood. One of the latest definitions is that of Professors Mander and Harrison in If Men Want Peace to the effect that : " A nation is a group of people which thinks that it is a nation ", which, however true, is surely quite inadequate. Is it to be expected that nations will live together in harmony when there is no code governing their behaviour, no universally accepted standards of national conduct, no charter proclaiming their rights and responsibilities, not even an exact definition of their nature ? The confusion that exists between nation and state, and the formulation of the curious term nation-state, only serves to emphasise the obvious deficiency in our apprehension of the character and functions of nationhood. How can an International Reign of Law properly begin until this essential lack has been remedied ?

It has been said that you cannot indict a nation. Is this still the case in the light of the Nuremberg trials, and the present attitude of the Allies towards Germany and Japan ?    It seems evident that we are moving towards a conviction that nations can be held responsible for the actions of the governments which they either elect or permit. If that is so then equity demands that such responsibility should be set forth in plain language in a Charter of Nations which every Government must endorse and every people read and know. If it is for­bidden that one nation may oppress or intimidate another, by occupation of territory, by discrimination against national minorities, by war of nerves, by prevention of trade or access to materials of production and food supplies, by any kind of economic pressure or boycott which shall endanger its free existence and well-being, then all this too should be incorporated in a Charter of  Nations.

Many peoples to-day are seeking national independence which they have not previously enjoyed. Others are recreating their national life under conditions of great difficulty. The political and economic future of these nations must inevitably be problematic unless they have a Charter of Nations to protect them upheld by the World Court of Justice, and they should also be told by means of the Charter what are the responsibilities required of them on attaining independence and entering the family of nations.

I have covered here only a few of the themes that would enter into the various clauses of the proposed Charter, but 1 trust that I have made out at least an a priori case for its necessity. I am prepared to go further and supply a provisional text of the document, but I believe that this can best be done initially by a committee of international jurists and authorities. I am glad that the Service-Nation Move­ment, at its Annual General Meeting, has sponsored the proposal, and is now ready in conjunction with other peace and inter­national organisations to invite suitable persons to serve on this committee, and thereafter to publicise the Charter of Nations, and press for its acceptance, with such alterations as may be essential, by all Governments.

Article originally published in 'The World Citizen' Vol III, No 11. March 1947.