When the World Outlawed War [Paperback]

David Christopher Naylor Swanson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2011

This is a masterful account of how people in the United States and around the world worked to abolish war as a legitimate act of state policy and won in 1928, outlawing war with a treaty that is still on the books. Swanson's account of the successful work of those who came before us to insist that war be outlawed points us toward new ways of thinking about both war and political activism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: David Swanson (October 19, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0983083096
• ISBN-13: 978-0983083092
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #850,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Swanson's books include:
Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union (2009)
War Is A Lie (2010)
When the World Outlawed War (2011)
The Military Industrial Complex at 50 (2012)

Swanson contributed a chapter to "Why Peace" edited by Marc Guttman, January 2012.

Swanson hosts Talk Nation Radio.

Swanson helped plan the nonviolent occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington DC in 2011.

In December 2011, The Hook newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., named him a runner-up Person of the Year.

Swanson holds a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works as Campaign Coordinator for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org

In April 2012, Swanson began working for Veterans For Peace.

"David Swanson is a truth-teller and witness-bearer whose voice and action warrant our attention." --Cornel West, author.

"The world needs more true advocates of democracy like David Swanson!" --Thom Hartmann, radio host.

"David Swanson will be remembered and well recognized as the citizen who held up a lamp in the darkness and cried, as did good Tom Paine: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.'" --John Nichols, columnist, The Nation.

"David Swanson predicates his belief that nonviolence can change the world on careful research and historical analysis." --Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

"David Swanson's War Is A Lie may be the most comprehensive antiwar statement available in the English language." --Kevin Young, Znet.

"Our times cry out for a smart, witty and courageous Populist who hasn't forgotten how to play offense. Luckily we have David Swanson." --Mike Ferner, President of Veterans For Peace.

"David Swanson, who has been a one-man wonder leading the charge for accountability, writes a compelling narrative that inspires not just outrage, but ACTION." --Medea Benjamin, Code Pink and Global Exchange.

"David Swanson despises war and lying, and unmasks them both with rare intelligence. I learn something new on every page." --Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR.

"David Swanson's book is a masterful exposure of the emergence of a monarch-like president coupled with an effete, irresponsible, and constitutionally ignorant Congress." --Bruce Fein, former Associate Deputy Attorney General.

"David Swanson has written a fascinating account of how peace once became the law of the land. It is particularly pertinent in the era of the Endless War, by giving encouragement and suggestions of a path forward to those who want to give peace a chance." --Liz Holtzman, former member of the U.S. Congress.

"Swanson's book is far more uplifting and inspiring than virtually any other book in its genre, as it devotes itself to laying out a detailed plan for how American citizens -- through the activism to which he has devoted himself -- can bring about a rejuvenation of our political values." --Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com.

"David Swanson is an antidote to the toxins of complacency and evasion. He insists on rousing the sleepwalkers, confronting the deadly prevaricators and shining a bright light on possibilities for a truly better world." --Norman Solomon, author of War Made Easy.

David Swanson is also the author of the introduction to "The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush," by Dennis Kucinich (2008).

Swanson wrote the foreword to "Another Life" by Karen Malpede, 2011, and contributed two chapters to Fix America, 2011.

Swanson is Co-Founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, creator of ProsecuteBushCheney.org and Washington Director of Democrats.com, a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, the Backbone Campaign, Voters for Peace, and the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution, and chair of the Robert Jackson Steering Committee.

Swanson joined the board of the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy in December 2011.

In December 2011, The Hook newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., named him a runner-up Person of the Year.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be mandatory reading in our schools. November 7, 2011

By Pace Amani

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book gives a whole new perception to our use of military force as a tool of diplomacy. Swanson lays out a case, both legal and historical, showing that the current US law concerning WAR is that it is illegal and those who perpetrate it need to be prosecuted. Easy, interesting and enjoyable read that gives peace a very important place in our recent history.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Kellogg-Briand Treaty Outlawed War -- 83 Years Ago November 13, 2011

By David Kinchen

Format:Paperback

Wouldn't it be great if war was a crime? If it could be prosecuted like murder, rape, child abuse and other crimes against humanity?

Actually, 83 years ago the U.S. signed a treaty that did that, writes David Swanson in "When the World Outlawed War" (David Swanson self-published paperback, no index, 174 pages, ordered from 100Fires, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powells, other sellers, or your local independent bookstore, which can order it through Ingram., $15.00 -- bulk discounts available).

Swanson, a peace advocate who has been arrested for his beliefs, says in his very readable book that when he asks students if they've ever heard of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty of 1928, ratified by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 27, 1928, he rarely sees a hand raised. Named for U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg (1856-1937) and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, the treaty is still in force, the law of the land, according to the State Department.

It's been honored or dishonored more in the breach than in the observance, unfortunately for the tens of millions of people who've been murdered in wars since it was passed.

Swanson's account of the "Outlawry" peace movement in the wake of the meaningless slaughter of the First World War -- called the World War or Great War at the time of the treaty's passage -- is vital as endless wars bedevil the human species.

I get a chuckle when I loudly proclaim to all and sundry that my beautiful shelter cat Greta belongs to a higher species than humans, but quite a few people agree with me when I ask them to point to ONE WAR that cats -- or dogs or horses -- started.

Erik Larson writes in his masterful new book "In the Garden of Beasts" that Nazi Germany had strict laws against abusing horses and dogs -- the happiest creatures in the Third Reich -- but ended up slaughtering or causing to be slaughtered 60 million people in the second "Great War" because there was no law against killing people in the guise of war.

In fact, as Swanson points out, the Nuremburg War Crimes tribunals that followed the war -- as well as similar trials against Japanese militarists -- had their legal roots in the Kellogg-Briand Treaty, also known as the Pact of Paris, where it was signed. Japan and Germany -- the Weimar Republic democratic version -- were among the many nations that signed it.

Swanson proposes adopting Aug. 27 -- the day that the treaty was signed -- as a national holiday of peace. We already have enough holidays recognizing war.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact -- in keeping with the tenets of the Outlawry movement -- renounced war -- all war --prohibiting the use of war as "an instrument of national policy". Unfortunately, It made no provisions for sanctions, as if sanctions would have deterred the invasion of Manchuria by Japan a few years later or the Italian invasion of Ethiopia a few years after that or Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939 -- along with its then ally, the USSR -- of the same country.

The pact was the result of a determined American effort to avoid involvement in the European alliance system. It was registered inLeague of Nations Treaty Series on September 4, 1928. Yes, the same League of Nations that the U.S. decided, against the wishes of President Woodrow Wilson, not to join.

Not that Swanson is a big fan of Wilson, who campaigned for re-election in 1916 on the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War." A month after he was inaugurated, in April 1917, the U.S. was in the war against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. In his 2010 book, "War Is a Lie," Swanson details the lies of Wilson and -- a few decades later, FDR, who served Wilson as assistant secretary of the Navy -- to get us involved in, respectively, World War I and the Second World War.

In its original form, the Kellogg-Briand pact was a renunciation of war between only France and the United States. Kellogg wanted to retain American freedom of action; he thus responded with a proposal for a multilateral pact against war open for all nations to become signatories.

The U.S. Senate approved the treaty overwhelmingly, 85-1, with only Wisconsin Republican John J. Blaine voting against. While the Senate did not add any reservation to the treaty, it did pass a measure "interpreting" the treaty which included the statement that the treaty must not infringe upon America's right of self defense and that the United States was not obliged to enforce the treaty by taking action against those who violated it.

The Kellogg-Briand pact was signed by the representatives from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, India, the Irish Free State, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. It was proclaimed to go into effect on July 24, 1929. By that date, the following nations had deposited instruments of definitive adherence to the pact: Afghanistan, Albania,Austria, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Romania, the Soviet Union, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Siam, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey. Eight further states joined after that date: Persia, Greece, Honduras, Chile, Luxembourg, Danzig, Costa Rica and Venezuela.

In his book, Swanson asks the question: what's the present name of Persia. Everybody out there knows that's it's Iran, which was involved in a bloody war in the 1980s with Iraq, don't they?

Although it was conducted outside of the League of Nations, the Kellogg-Briand pact was recognized as a treaty by that body. Its "outlawry" of war confirmed and broadened by the United Nations Charter, which states in article 2, paragraph 4, that

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

I found the book eye-opening and enlightening. As a history nut, I had heard of the treaty, but I had pretty much dismissed it as irrelevant. It isn't...it's the law of the land. Too bad we -- and virtually every country in the world -- have forgotten the lessons of the "Outlawry" peace movement propelled by people like S.O. Levinson, Nicholas Murray Butler, John Dewey, Carrie Chapman Catt, and others -- and of course Frank B. Kellogg of Minnesota.

Editor's Note: Swanson will sign his book at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16 at Random Row Books, 315 West Main Street, Charlottesville, VA 22902.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Evanescent Dream Come True. February 10, 2013

By Jane M. Baker VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Imagine this: you are living in the 1920s. World War I, the 'war to end all wars' is over. It is time to make peace, a lasting peace. However, due to the insistence of some members of the winning side, punishment of the losing side, Germany, is inflicted. But there still is this Kellogg-Briand pact that outlaws war. Unfortunately, it proves to be a very nice idea,that is impossible to enforce, especially with Mussolini and Hitler lurking nearby.

An extraordinary quotation is adapted from Socrates, and is too long to present here. The key word in the selection is stigmatize, a moral objection to the status of war under law. There is also in the last chapter a series of ideas, listed under the rubric of Multiple Strategies. It is worth considering and worth putting into force.