Prof. Weeramantry's book launched

by Sarath Malalasekera

Dr. Christopher Weeramantry, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Monash, former Vice President, International Court of Justice, has been Sri Lanka's foremost contribution to legal literature, starting with a monumental treatise of Contracts which incidentally resulted in his being awarded a Ph.D, by London University, said President's Counsel Daya Perera at the launching ceremony of the second edition of Christi Weeramantry's "Armageddon or Brave New World."

Delivering the keynote address at the ceremony President's Counsel Daya Perera said that whilst teaching in Australia Christi Weeramantry was appointed as a Commissioner on the Environmental Impact of Phosphate Mining in Nauru. The fearful depredation of the entire little island was caused by the Australians and his book is based on his report laid the blame on the doorstep of the Australian Government.

And again, Weeramanthry went to South Africa, during the height of the apartheid regime, as a visiting Professor at Stellenbosch University and wrote a book provocatively titled "Apartheid - The Closing Phases."

President's Counsel Daya Perera said: "So the legal scholar turned from pure law and quasi law to subjects of current interests and validity.

In 2003, at the outbreak of President Bush's thrust into Iraq to search for and destroy weapons of mass destruction, unsupported by the bulk of the world countries, he wrote "Armageddon or the Brave New World".

His view that the search for weapons of mass destruction was only an excuse to invade Iraq have been justified by unanimous finding of President Bush's Commission on the Intelligence Capability of US weapons of mass destruction. The Panel in a cover letter to Bush said "We conclude that the intervention committee was dead wrong in law or of its pre-war judgment about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

Armageddon has been defined, inter alia, as the last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgment or a bloody battle of struggle on a huge scale. It is left to the readers, in the context of President Bush's utterances regarding good and evil and is the professed motive for "reforming" Iraq to decide which definition is relevant, the President's Counsel added.

Has good won the day or at least are we on the way to a new and peaceful Iraq? In his preface to the first edition, Prof. Weramantry writes- "While the brutalities of war are known to everyone and flashed on the television screen throughout the world, the devastation caused to the international legal system passes virtually unnoticed. Its twin towers of the United Nations and international law have suffered a frontal attack and this tends to receive scant attention with no attempt whatever to repair the damage."

He makes a clarion call for humanity to unite to outlaw war. The alternative is descent into international lawlessness where others can brush aside the UN as if it did not exist. In this book as Prof. Weeramantry terms it, he calls upon people the world over to excercise people back as has been used in domestic politics.

The President's Counsel emphasised that Prof. Weeramantry observes America's emergence in 1776 as a symbol of equality and freedom. In its Bicentennial Celebrations in the 1970s Prof. Weeramantry was called to address a World Congress on Equality and Freedom on behalf of the Third World Countries and he took the opportunity to highlight American goals in this regard and express appreciation of its achievements.

The world awaited the result of the UN Weapons inspections. It did not help during the Iraq/Iran war, Saddam Hussain with his materials and stood by while Saddam used the weapons prohibited by international law.

Dr. Weeramantry also affirms that, while Iraq persistently denied the existence of weapons of mass destruction, the US itself has 18,900 nuclear warheads of which 9,000 are deployed. In that context, he writes -

"The US is the second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and is committed to their indefinite retention. Is it then legitimate for the US to make this accusation? Or the UK either? Or to take the law into its own hands and seek to enforce by force or arms compliance with a rule of conduct of which the accusers and self-appointed enforcers are more substantially in breach than the accused."

All in all, this book with an addendum is written in Prof. Weeramantry's usual highly readable style and is commended for anybody interested in current affairs, President's Counsel Daya Perera added.