The document discusses political conflict and violence. It defines political violence as the use of force for political ends. While states claim a monopoly on the use of force, violence is also used by groups seeking political change. The document examines justifications for and historical examples of violence used by states, groups challenging states, and in civil conflicts. It also reviews the development of international law seeking to regulate weapons and define crimes against humanity.

1. Political Conflict,
Political Violence

2.  Anti-curfew protests in the Netherlands,
January 2021
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1YD
gaT8BzI

3.  Political conflict
 Cooperation and conflict – the two main modes of politics
 Interactions between them
 Conflict can be waged by various means – from verbal to
armed
 Conflict intensity affects possibilities of cooperation
 Democratic political regimes accept political conflict as a
normal phenomenon - but seeks to keep it non-violent and
regulated by law
 Non-democratic political regimes seek to eliminate political
conflict by depriving citizens of political freedoms
 This greatly increases potential for violence: both by the
rulers and the ruled

4.  Political violence is the use of force for political ends
 Force is one of the tools of power
 People use force in:
 the exercise of power
 struggle for power

5.  Justifications of political violence
 Claiming the right to use force – in the name of:
 Survival, self-defence
 Order
 Justice
 Freedom
 Struggle for possession of resources (land, water, people,
etc.)?
 Access to markets?

6. Violence as exercise of power

7.  The state has a legitimate monopoly on the use of force
 The use of force is supposed to be regulated by law
 Every state makes a distinction between:
 Lawful use of force
 Unlawful use of force
 How precise is the distinction?
 What if the law is unjust?

8.  Those in power have advantages in defining when they
may lawfully use force – internally or externally
 Capturing and punishing criminals – those who violate
the rights of others
 Protecting and maintaining the existing order
 Defending the country from aggression
 Attacking other countries

9.  Each of these actions of the state is a matter of contestation
 Those in power may be wrong on any of these issues from
the point of view of those who are out of power

10.  Amritsar, India, April 13, 1919:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lao
amJ3vbs

11.  Nazi atrocities, 1939-45 – over 18 mln. civilians killed
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5mY6rbGpss&bpctr=1
580229111

12.  Violence as a means of struggle for power

13.  Use of force in politics by those out of power is outlawed
 It violates the state’s monopoly on the use of force
 It is a threat to the state
 And those who use force to overthrow the existing order are
punished by the state as criminals

14.  Rationalizations of the use of force against the state:
 Struggle for national independence
 Resistance to the use of force by the state
 Struggle for changes in state policy
 Struggle for reorganization of the state
 Struggle for political democracy
 Struggle for social change

15.  Why use violent means as a tool in these struggles? Why
not use peaceful means?
 Answers usually given:
 Peaceful means may not be available
 Peaceful means may be available, but not effective
 Why not effective?
 One may not have enough support in society
 The existing political rules may be rigged in favour of the
status quo
 One may despise peaceful means and glorify political
violence

16.  “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure.”
 Thomas Jefferson
 “Violence is the midwife of history.”
 Karl Marx

17.  Ca ira! French revolutionary song, 1789:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Vo
RmjxvPs

20.  “The Warsaw Song”
 Anthem of Russian revolutionaries, 1917 (listen to audio)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2UlNtNU-Tc
 “Hostile storms are raging over our heads.
 Dark forces are viciously oppressing us.
 We have engaged our enemies in a fateful battle,
 And our destinies are not to be known.
 But we shall raise, proudly and bravely,
 The banner of the struggle for the workers’ cause
 The banner of the great struggle of all nations
 For a better world, for sacred freedom!
 Refrain
 Onward to bloody battle, holy and righteous!
 March, march onward, working people!”

21.  “We hate the tyrants’ crowns.
 We will break the chains holding the suffering people.
 We will redden the thrones, covered with the people’s blood,
 With the blood of our enemies.
 Death without mercy to all tyrants!
 To all parasites feeding off the working masses!
 Vengeful death to all plutocratic rulers!
 The glorious hour of victory is near!
 Refrain
 Onward to bloody battle, holy and righteous!
 March, march onward, working people!”

22. “A stone is a worker’s weapon”, by Russian sculptor A. Shadr

23. Russia,
1905:
Mutuny on
the
battleship
“Potemkin”

24. Armed citizen militia replaces the police in the Russian revolution of 1917

25. Chinese Communist poster from the 1950s: Mao Zedong calling for revolutionary war

26. Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution” (1966-76) took up to 20 mln. lives

27.  Cambodia genocide under Khmer Rouge, 1976-79
 1.5 – 2 mln. people
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SI8RF6wDE

28.  Civil violence: use of force by groups of citizens fighting
each other
 Communal, ethnic, religious, political
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qZBDmnsfQM
 The state is supposed to prevent it from happening
 But it may be unable – or unwilling to do so
 Governments may actually incite or encourage such
violence to keep society under control

29.  Use of force in international relations
 Aggression, colonial conquests
 Self-defence, wars of national liberation
 Conflicts between states over territory and other issues
 Legitimation
 Having the power to use force
 vs.
 Having the right to use force

30.  Nuclear weapons
 There are 14,000 (estimated) nuclear weapons in the world
today
 They are in possession of just 9 states: (USA, Russia,
China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea)
 They can be used by the order of a president – with
devastating consequences
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_hM-vimf10
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rXXMDGhjUs
 Whatever the political rationale, should any government be
allowed to possess - and use - such destructive power?

33.  What does historical experience suggest?
 Use of force is a legal prerogative of the state, but it can be
disastrous
 Use of force by citizens against the state may be justified in
extreme circumstances, but it may perpetuate violence and
lead to rule by terror
 The Communist experience
 Revolutionary dictatorship, terror against opposition
 Violations of human rights
 Self-perpetuating rule by the bureaucracy
 The end does not justify the means

34. Mahatma
Gandhi
(1869-1948),
leader of the
movement for
India’s
independence

35.  Gandhi on Non-Violence
 “The first principle of non-violence is the non-compliance with
everything that is humiliating.”
 “Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence.
Hatred can be overcome only by love. Counter-hatred only
increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred.”
 “Human dignity is best preserved not by developing the
capacity to deal destruction but by refusing to retaliate. If it is
possible to train millions in the black art of violence, which is
the law of the Beast, it is more possible to train them in the
white art of non-violence, which is the law of regenerate man.”
 “The power at the disposal of a non-violent person is always
greater than he would have if he were violent.”
 “There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.”
 “So long as one wants to retain one's sword, one has not
attained complete fearlessness.”

36. 1930: Gandhi leads a non-violent march to protest British salt monopoly

37. 1947: Sectarian violence after the partition of India

38. January 30, 1948: Gandhi is killed by an assassin

39.  An example of non-violent resistance:
Moscow, August 1991
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go5M
gpM2AH8

41.  The 20th century
 Global political violence reaches a historical all-time high
 Response:
 Development of international legal norms to ban or reduce
the most atrocious methods and weapons of political
violence
 By governments against each other – and against citizens

42.  Weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
 Chemical and biological weapons
 Banned by international conventions of 1925, 1972 and
1993
 Nuclear weapons
 1963, 1996: Treaties banning nuclear weapons tests
 1972-1910: Treaties limiting and reducing nuclear arsenals
 January 2021: The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons went into effect: http://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-
and-regimes/treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons/

43. Countries in blue have ratified the Nuclear Ban Treaty

44.  Conventional weapons
 1980: The United Nations Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons (CCW or CCWC)
 to provide new rules for the protection of civilians from
injury by weapons that are used in armed conflicts and also
to protect combatants from unnecessary suffering. The
convention covers fragments that are undetectable in the
human body by X-rays, landmines and booby traps, and
incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons and the
clearance of explosive remnants of war.
 1997: The Mine Ban Treaty (The Convention on the
Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer
of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction), known
informally as the Ottawa Treaty, the Anti-Personnel Mine
Ban Convention, or often simply the Mine Ban Treaty 1997

45.  1948: The United Nations Genocide Convention banned
"acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group". Examples:
 Genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas (16th-19th
centuries)
 The Armenian genocide (1915)
 The Holocaust (1939-45)
 The US war in Vietnam (1965-75)
 The Indonesian massacres of 1965-66
 The Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia (1975-79)
 The Rwandan genocide (1994)
 1956-2016: an estimated total of forty-three genocides took
place, causing the death of about 50 million people. The
UNHCR estimated that a further 50 million had been
displaced by such episodes of violence up to 2008.

46.  Crimes against humanity
 The term “crimes against humanity” was used for the first
time in 1915 by the Allied governments (France, Great
Britain and Russia) when issuing a declaration condemning
the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
 1945: crimes against humanity were for the first time
prosecuted at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in
Nuremberg. Both the Charter establishing the IMT in
Nuremberg as well as that establishing the IMT for the Far
East in Tokyo included a similar definition of the crime.
 1997: creation of the International Criminal Court
 Other tribunals: the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda.
 Many states have also criminalized crimes against
humanity in their domestic law; others have yet to do so.

47.  From the Statute of the International Criminal Court:
 “Any of the following acts when committed as part of a
widespread or systematic attack directed against any
civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
 Murder;
 Extermination;
 Enslavement;
 Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
 Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in
violation of fundamental rules of international law;
 Torture;
 Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy,
enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of
comparable gravity;

48.  Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on
political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as
defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally
recognized as impermissible under international law, in
connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any
crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
 Enforced disappearance of persons;
 The crime of apartheid;
 Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally
causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental
or physical health.”

49.  Trends in political violence:
 https://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/an-
updated-look-at-trends-in-political-violence/
 The surprising decline of violence – Steven Pinker:
 http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/21/steven-pinker-on-the-
decline-of-violence

50.  Trends in political violence in America
 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/us/domestic-terrorist-
groups.html
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu9BCEp5TME

51.  Omniviolence – is it coming?
 https://getpocket.com/explore/item/omniviolence-is-coming-
and-the-world-isn-t-ready?utm_source=pocket-newtab