Pacifist

The Pacifists Ideal of an Organization of the Family of Nations

Lassa Oppenheim, in the book entitled The Future of International Law, about The Pacifists Ideal of an Organization of the Family of Nations, wrote in 1921: 17. Hitherto, the demand for an organization of the international society has always issued from the pacifist’s party, in order to render the suppression of war possible. In the struggle around the pacifist’s ideal the chief objection has always been the absence of any judicial authority over states, and of any supreme executive power, able to compel, in a dispute between states, the execution of a judicial decree. Accordingly, it has been the aim of the pacifists to obtain inorganization of the international society, such as would compress the whole world, or at least whole parts of the world, such as Europe and America, into the form of a federal state or a system of confederated states. The belief is that only in this way can war be got rid of as a mode of settling disputes between states, and thereby the ever-increasing demands of naval and military budgets be avoided.