The Human Right of Self-Defense, by Kopel, Gallant & Eisen
Date: May 1, 2007 8:20 AM
The Human Right of Self-Defense, David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne
D. Eisen, 22 BYU Journal of Public Law (forthcoming, 2007).
http://davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/The-Human-Right-of-Self-Defense.pdf

Abstract: Does a woman have a human right to resist rape or murder? Do
people have a human right to resist tyranny? The United Nations Human
Rights Council has said “no”-that international law recognizes no human
right of self-defense. To the contrary, the Human Rights Council
declares that very severe gun control-more restrictive than even the
laws of New York City-is a human right. Surveying international law from
its earliest days to the present, this Article demonstrates that
self-defense is a widely-recognized human right which no government and
no international body have the authority to abrogate.

The issue is especially important today, as many international advocates
of international gun prohibition are using the United Nations to deny
and then eliminate the right of self-defense. For example, the General
Assembly is creating an “Arms Trade Treaty” which would define arms
sales to citizens in the United States as a human rights violation,
because American law guarantees the right to use lethal force, when no
lesser force will suffice, against a non-homicidal violent felony
attack.

The article analyzes in detail the Founders of international law-the
great scholars in the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries who
created the system of international law. The Article then looks at the
major legal systems which have contributed to international law, such as
Greek law, Roman law, Spanish law, Jewish law, Islamic law, Canon law,
and Anglo-American law. In addition, the article covers the full scope
of contemporary international law sources, including treaties, the
United Nations, constitutions from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and much
more. The Article shows that international law-particularly its
restraints on the conduct of warfare-is founded on the personal right of
self-defense. This is a draft of an article that will be published in
the BYU Journal of Public Law.