Abstract

Today the radical as well as the organizing pacifism have become compatible in the engagement for an universal legal system, which is based on the acknowledgement of human rights and a general prohibition of the use of force. The classical doctrines of just war have become obsolete, but their implicit elements concerning moral criticism of violence are indispensable. The author critisizes the misuse of the human rights argument for the justification of military interventionism. A legitimate policy of peace and security has to depend on the development of a collective security system as proposed by the UN-Charter. It cannot be based on traditional military alliances of defence. To intervene in domestic conflicts, if any, peacekeeping operations are qualified, when and as far as they bind themselves to the principles of consensus of all parties concerned, of strict neutrality and of deescalation. There is a special obligation for Germany to restrain herself in military actions and toset an example in developing an international culture of nonviolence.