All existing mutual obligations under international law should be used to achieve mutual security. Lasting security cannot be achieved against each other, but only with each other.
Diplomacy instead of preparing for war
Editorial Telepolis
[This editorial published on Feb 11, 2022 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Diplomatie-statt-Kriegsvorbereitung-6445584.html.]
Peace organizations demand: mothball red phone again.
Telepolis documents: Appeal calls for Nato-Russia conflict to be resolved peacefully. Initiators remind German government of 1989 agreement.
Two peace policy organizations today addressed an open letter to the German government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Ukraine. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War/Physicians with Social Responsibility (IPPNW) German Section of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) is supported by a number of well-known first signatories, including historian and author Peter Brandt, retired diplomat and government spokesman Uwe-Carsten Heye, and retired UN Secretary-General Hans-Christof von Sponeck.
In the currently dangerous conflict between NATO and Russia, we call on the German government to actively contribute to stopping the escalation and seeking a peaceful solution. In doing so, all existing mutual obligations under international law should be used to achieve mutual security. Lasting security cannot be achieved against each other, but only with each other.
Although the concentration of troops appears threatening, Russia avowedly does not want war but a treaty that guarantees its security and has submitted two detailed drafts for this purpose, although they are largely unknown to the public.
Some of the proposals contain far-reaching maximum demands and bargaining chips for a new European security concept. Other proposals in the draft treaties for mutual security guarantees between Russia and NATO and between Russia and the United States are capable of agreement, e.g., for the establishment of telephone hotlines, for mutual briefings on military exercises and maneuvers and the respective military doctrines (Art. 2, draft NATO-Russia treaty), or the proposal for a ban on the stationing of land-based medium- and short-range missiles in areas that make it possible to reach the territory of the other parties (Art. 5).
Others are aimed at ending nuclear sharing and withdrawing U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe (Art. 7 of the treaty with the United States). Article 1 states that "The Parties shall be guided in their relations by the principles of cooperation, equal and indivisible security. They will not strengthen their security (....) at the expense of the security of the other Parties."
The German government has a special legal obligation to Russia: on November 9, 1990, Kohl and Gorbachev concluded a "Treaty on Good Neighborliness, Partnership and Cooperation," which is still in force unchanged. Art. 7 reads: "If a situation arises which, in the opinion of either side, constitutes a threat to or breach of the peace or may give rise to dangerous international entanglements, both sides shall immediately contact each other and endeavor to coordinate their positions and reach agreement on measures likely to improve or overcome the situation." We call on the German government to intensify its talks in line with these commitments.
Important obligations under international law to be observed for the resolution of the current conflict arise in particular from the principles of the UN Charter on the peaceful settlement of disputes (Art. 2 para. 3) and on the prohibition of the use of force (Art. 2 para. 4). They also follow from the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 27 May 1997.
Accordingly, the permanent stationing of substantial combat forces in the new NATO countries in central and eastern Europe is subject to restrictions imposed by international treaties. The seamless rotation of NATO troops along NATO's eastern border now being practiced undermines obligations under the agreement.
Demands by the new NATO countries that NATO should disregard this must be resisted. Russia rightly recalls the wording in the final report of the 1999 OSCE Summit in Istanbul, according to which each participating state will respect the rights of all other states when changing its security structures and will not consolidate its security at the expense of the security of other states. NATO countries reaffirmed this commitment at the OSCE Summit in Astana in December 2010.
We call on the German government to conduct the upcoming negotiations with respect and in recognition of mutual security interests and with due regard for existing security systems.
It should be borne in mind that since 1990 Russia has increasingly seen its security on its western border threatened by NATO. Although the renunciation of NATO's eastward expansion has not been agreed in a binding way under international law, it has repeatedly been the subject of talks and negotiations with representatives of the Russian government.
We call on the German government to negotiate within the following framework:
Intensified efforts to enforce the Minsk II ceasefire agreement and to prevent the parties from militarily ending the territorial disputes regarding Crimea and the Donbas.
Activate all remaining channels of talks between Russia and NATO to find a peaceful solution that recognizes both Western and Russian security concerns.
Halting all actions that currently promote a military confrontation. This includes halting arms shipments to Ukraine, ending all troop concentrations on both sides of Ukraine's eastern border, establishing a security area on both sides of Ukraine's eastern border in which all troop movements of division strength or more (= 5,000) are reported in advance to the opposite side, and refraining from maneuvers in this security area.
Red phones, especially in the nuclear weapons area; no stationing of short- and medium-range missiles in Europe, as well as a mutual renunciation of the first use of nuclear weapons.
Negotiations within the framework of the OSCE on the Russian draft treaty with the aim of a European security structure and a redefinition of the Russia-NATO relationship in the spirit of the earlier mutual security agreements.
Promotion of all forms of cultural exchange and personal contacts between the peoples of Russia and Germany, the vast majority of whom reject any war in Europe but want to live together peacefully.
(Editorial Telepolis)
https://marcbatko.academia.edu
Original: Diplomacy instead of preparation for war