Tuesday, August 03, 2021
The Universe Figured Out
For Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays:
Determinist forces are wrong,
And irresistibly strong;
While of God there's a dearth
For He visits the Earth,
But not for sufficiently long.
For Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays:
Determinist forces are wrong,
And irresistibly strong;
But of God there's no dearth
For He visits the Earth,
Source: Philip K. Dick as quoted by Tim Powers in Bryce Carlson, ed., Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, vol. 4, (BOOM! Studios, 2011).
Labels: art and literature, Philip K Dick, quotations, religion
The Law of Intent in War
Among the prohibitions of international humanitarian law relevant to this case are the prohibitions against weapons which cause superfluous injury, weapons which do not differentiate between combatants and civilians, and weapons which do not respect the rights of neutral states.
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It is not to the point that such results are not directly intended, but are "by-products" or "collateral damage" caused by nuclear weapons. Such results are known to be the necessary consequences of the use of the weapon. The author of the act causing these consequences cannot in any coherent legal system avoid legal responsibility for causing them, any less than a man careering in a motor vehicle at 150 kilometres per hour through a crowded market street can avoid responsibility for the resulting deaths on the ground that he did not intend to kill the particular persons who died.
The plethora of literature on the consequences of the nuclear weapon is so much part of common universal knowledge today that no disclaimer of such knowledge would be credible.
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An argument that has been advanced in regard to the principle regarding "unnecessary suffering" is that, under Article 23 ( e ) of the 1907 Hague Regulations, it is forbidden, "To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering" (emphasis added). The nuclear weapon, it is said, is not calculated to cause suffering, but suffering is rather a part of the "incidental side effects" of nuclear weapons explosions. This argument is met by the well-known legal principle that the doer of an act must be taken to have intended its natural and foreseeable consequences ... It is, moreover, a literal interpretation which does not take into account the spirit and under lying rationale of the provision — a method of interpretation particularly inappropriate to the construction of a humanitarian instrument. It may also be said that nuclear weapons are indeed deployed "in part with a view to utilising the destructive effects of radiation and fall-out".
Source: International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion, On the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (8 July 1996), "Dissenting Opinion of Judge Weeramantry", pp. 255, 269-270, 276-277 (477, 491-492, 498-499).
Labels: law, nuclear weapons, quotations, War
