The victims were slaughtered.
Sometimes genocide against disarmed victims ends when another nation invades, for the invader's own interests, as when the Allies invaded Germany, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia, or when Tanzania — defending itself against incursions by Uganda's military — invaded Uganda and overthrew Idi Amin.
Unlike Hitler, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin, however, the genocidal regime in Sudan has been careful not to ******* any other nation's sovereignty. Accordingly, the international community is, in practice, respecting the "sovereign" power of Sudan's dictatorship to perpetrate domestic genocide.
According to provision (1) of Article 25 of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on December 10, 1948: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his ******, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care." But in Darfur, the government has been complicit in depriving its citizens of these basic necessities.
THE FIFTH AUXILIARY RIGHT
The Darfur genocide is more proof that the human rights ostensibly guaranteed by U.N. documents often disappear when the people are disarmed, and are thereby unable to prevent a tyranny from usurping their sovereignty. As the American Founders recognized, political power often does grow out of the barrel of a ***. If you are disarmed, you are at the mercy of an armed government.
In Sudan, it is virtually impossible for an average citizen to lawfully acquire and possess the means for self-defense. According to ***-control statutes, a *** licensee must be over 30 years of age, must have a specified social and economic status, and must be examined physically by a doctor. Females have even more difficulty meeting these requirements because of social and occupational limitations.
When these restrictions are finally overcome, there are additional restrictions on the amount of ammunition one may possess, making it nearly impossible for a law-abiding *** owner to achieve proficiency with firearms. A handgun owner, for example, can only purchase 15 rounds of ammunition a year. The penalties for ********* of Sudan's firearms laws are severe, and can include capital punishment.
International ***-control groups complain that Sudan's *** laws are not strict enough — but the real problem with the laws is that they can be enforced arbitrarily. The government can refuse *** permits to the victims in Darfur and execute anyone who obtains a self-defense ***. Meanwhile, the Arab militias can obtain guns with government approval, or the government can simply ignore ******* *** possession by Arabs.
The blacks in Sudan therefore face a situation somewhat like that of blacks in the 19th-century American south. There, ostensibly neutral ***-control laws were enforced vigorously against blacks, amounting to de facto prohibition. Meanwhile, the governments of the post-bellum south allowed the terrorist KKK to arm with impunity, and the Sudanese government does the same for Arab terrorist militias. The result: second-class citizenship for American blacks, and genocide for Sudanese blacks.
The solution to the worldwide ********* of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the worldwide recognition of one more human right. As the great English jurist William Blackstone explained, core human rights would be "the dead letter of the laws" if not guarded by "auxiliary rights." So the law "has therefore established certain other auxiliary subordinate rights of the subject, which serve principally as barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights, of personal security, personal liberty, and private property."
Thus, "The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject...is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute ...and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the ******** of oppression."
The Darfur genocide — like the genocides in Rwanda, Srebrenica, Cambodia, and so many other nations in the last century — was made possible only by the prior destruction of that fifth auxiliary right.
It is long past time for the United Nations and the rest of the international community to do more than bemoan genocide after the fact. It is time for formal international law to recognize the natural right of self-defense, and to acknowledge the universal human right of "having arms for their defense" so that, as a last resort, victims can "restrain the ******** of oppression." As history has shown, as long as dictatorships exist, the only way to ensure the primary right to life is to guarantee the auxiliary right to arms.
— Dave Kopel is research director, and Paul Gallant and Joanne Eisen are senior fellows, at the Independence Institute. Their most recent academic publication is "Firearms Possession by Non-State Actors: The Question of Sovereignty."
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