Thucydides, Iraq, and the Rule of Law

When I took an introduction to international relations course in college, one of the texts we focused on was Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War. In particular, we spent alot of time on the Melian Dialogue and that realist bumper-sticker: “The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”

That dialogue has returned again and again in my education and I use it now when I teach International Law. So I was pleased to run across this discussion on NPR among classicists and military experts on what modern lessons we can draw from Thucydides. Of particular interest is their analysis of the parallels between the civil war in Corcyra and the war in Iraq. See also Brad De Long’s post for an excerpt from Thucydides that is startling in its application to current events.

Here is one translation of Thucydides’ closing analysis of what happened in Corcyra. For a man who is often described as the “Father of the Realists” he has some precautions about being too quick to set aside the rule of law (emphases are my own):

Meanwhile Corcyra gave the first example of most of the crimes alluded to; of the reprisals exacted by the governed who had never experienced equitable treatment or indeed aught but insolence from their rulers- when their hour came; of the iniquitous resolves of those who desired to get rid of their accustomed poverty, and ardently coveted their neighbours’ goods; and lastly, of the savage and pitiless excesses into which men who had begun the struggle, not in a class but in a party spirit, were hurried by their ungovernable passions. In the confusion into which life was now thrown in the cities, human nature, always rebelling against the law and now its master, gladly showed itself ungoverned in passion, above respect for justice, and the enemy of all superiority; since revenge would not have been set above religion, and gain above justice, had it not been for the fatal power of envy. Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which all alike can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required.

I think I’m going to see what else from Thucydides, beyond the Melian Dialogue, may be of use in thinking about the relationship of international law to power politics. If you find this of interest, you may ant to check out George A. Sheets, Conceptualizing International Law in Thucydides, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 115, No. 1. (Spring, 1994), pp. 51-73 or, more generally, David J. Bederman, International Law in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press 2001).