Raniero La Valle
in Peuples/Popoli/Peoples/Pueblos, n. 8 (October 1986)
It is in this context that the date 4 July 1976, ten years ago, should be placed and remembered, when the “Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples” was proclaimed in Algiers, on the initiative of Lelio Basso and exponents of states, peoples, and liberation movements from all over the world. It was not an improvised undertaking: the whole experience of the Russell I and II Tribunals, firstly on Vietnam and then on Latin America, and of the other juridical and political initiatives that over the years had tried to enucleate and defend a right of peoples alongside and in front of the law of states, and it naturally reflected the whole experience of the struggle of peoples who had tried and tried to assert themselves even against the orders established in the long and arduous exodus from the night of colonialism.
The novelty lay in the fact that, whereas hitherto human rights had been spoken of as the supreme critical scrutiny of the law of states, and these human rights had often been referred to a man assumed in his individuality and abstraction, which does not exist anywhere, here instead reference was made to the right of men and women historically united and organised together, identified in peoples, assumed in their diversity and recognised in their equal dignity and destiny; and this right of peoples was the critical scrutiny of the law of states and international law.
The other novelty was that, by breaking the deadlines, the promoters of the Algiers Declaration, while lacking powers and formal representation, took on a function of substitution and defined the fundamental rights of peoples in a constitution, thus giving a voice to peoples still without a voice and prefiguring and anticipating what could one day be a true Constituent of Peoples.
The rights proclaimed by the ‘Universal Declaration of Algiers’ were the right to existence (not only physical but also in national and cultural identity), the right to political self-determination (including the democratic freedom of the internal regime), economic rights, the right to culture, the right to environmental protection and the use of common resources, and the right of peoples to be safeguarded as such even when they are in minority status in larger state entities.
From the constituent initiative of Algiers, again under the creative impulse of Lelio Basso, three international institutions were born: the International Foundation for the Law and Liberation of Peoples, the League with similar aims but with prevalent characteristics of grassroots militancy, and the better known Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, which has the task of declaring and applying the law of peoples (albeit without any coercive force) to concrete cases (as it did for the Philippines, Argentina, El Salvador, Eritrea, Afghanistan, etc.).
When this venture began ten years ago, it seemed that history was moving in this direction: imperialism was in crisis, Vietnam had won, détente was underway, and even in Italy a new era seemed to be opening up.
But today? The balance of the ten years is very negative. It has been ten years of restoration: the meshes of domination have tightened again, the processes of liberation have been blocked, the race to rearmament has been resumed, the threshold of militarisation from earth to space has been crossed, and so has the threshold of new unconventional weapons, those invisible and with instantaneous action (energy weapons); not only has an attempt been made to restore the old imperialisms, of a still bipolar world, but an attempt is being made to assert an imperialism of a new type, planetary, acting through different and interconnected circuits of power, technology, culture, language, the dollar, trade, ‘aid’, ideology, religion, and wielding, as a structuring and decisive weapon, military power; it is the imperialism of a single empire, in which the ‘other’ world is not so much conquered as absorbed, not so much defeated as assimilated, not militarily occupied but always and in any case placed under the menacing shadow of a huge military heel.
It is the system of war, in which there is no place for the law of peoples, but neither is there any place for traditional international law, the corporate law, contracted between states; and in fact international law today is in crisis, the UN Charter overwhelmed, the majority principle at the UN mocked, the Hague Court recused, existing treaties are considered impotent and obsolete; the Prince is once again on the throne, the West rediscovers Machiavelli, while America, which does not know Machiavelli, transforms itself from a Republic into a Holy Empire.
So the horizon is darkened and many illusions have fallen. But beware: this only relates to the severity of the analysis, it does not at all mean pessimism of prognosis. In fact, hopes are kindled, the future is still to be played out. Peoples are not resigned, the world reduced to a single empire is improbable, Nicaragua is still there, the most sophisticated weapons are blinding and even failing to bomb Tripoli, nuclear power stations are breaking down; and force, the more it presumes of itself, the more it reveals its ultimate impotence, while even some among the great now speak no longer of domination, but of interdependence, of cooperation, of a world where no one can solve problems alone any more, but where everyone must concern themselves with the lives of all. These are the signs, the anticipations of the future; those who still wave shields and armour and spears, even invisible ones, those who wield axes, are in the past, they have not yet emerged from the caves, they can perhaps destroy the world, certainly not dominate it.
So the game of peoples’ rights is not closed. On the contrary, it is just beginning, and victory is all but precluded. La Valle, Raniero
in: Peuples/Popoli/Peoples/Pueblos, n. 8 (October 1986)