[pp.int.general] "Natural" law

[Reinier Bakels]

Firstly, I agree that "natural law" is pretty nonsensical. But discussing 
copyright (on a normative level, i.e. beyond the present state of the law), 
one should be prepared to face that this concept still has its adherents. It 
is to some extent paradoxical: if you reject the economic paradigm "law 
should cater for maximum social welfare", what else is the basis? 
Incidentally, if one does not reject the (strict) utilitarian perspective, 
what ts the basis for that decision? Such questions keep philosophers busy. 
A (comparatively) simple problem in this field is that non-economic values 
are hard to quantify.

Secondly, there is indeed a link with human rights, to the extent that human 
rights are also assumed to be given, and non susceptible to e.g. efficiency 
arguments.

In a political context, I am afraid that human rights arguments are not 
always effective, and may even be counter-productive. I mentioned before 
that some people argue that strong copyright is a "human right" associated 
with the personal dignity of the author. And extreme enforcement, 
sacrificing all privacy, "indispensable" for the human integrity and safety 
right (under whatever wordings) against terrorism. Such arguments are by no 
means uncommon. Some people may consider such arguments as an intellectual 
challenge. I would prefer to stay away from (somehow) weak arguments in a 
political context. No human right is absolute (as is recognised in the 
ECHR). The exception conditions are lawyer stuff, not suited for politics.

 The solution imho is to be explicit:

- promote privacy as the right to be left alone
- promote *balanced* decision making on copyrights
- promote the freedom of information (send AND receive) as a basic value
- etc.

Succh items can be defended even without recourse to UNDR of ECHR, with very 
concrete examples from practice.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carlos Ayala Vargas" <aiarakoa at yahoo.es>
To: "Pirate Parties International -- General Talk" 
<pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 2:35 PM
Subject: [pp.int.general] "Natural" law


> John Nilsson wrote:
>> I think there is a case to be made for "natural" laws. The basic argument 
>> being that legislation and law is not the same thing. While legislation 
>> is created and designed, "law" can be seen as the cultural phenomenon of 
>> agreed boundaries of behavior.
> If the boundaries are agreed, then are not natural but made by human 
> beings.
>> The English system of common law is in this way a codification of such 
>> emerged behavioral norms rather than the designed law of legislation.
> Sure there is a customary law; however, it is valid only because we, human 
> beings, agree on it being valid; would you accept any /wise men council/ 
> forbidding you to change customary laws? Not in a democratic context; 
> constitutional courts may be thought of as wise men councils, however they 
> are not able to legislate, and specially not allowed to counter 
> constitutional changes -he may, however, counter the way those changes are 
> made (usually, constitutional changes have to follow certain rules)-.
>> also take a look at Murray N. Rothbards writings on the subject of 
>> natural rights. I believe it is in "The Ethics of Liberty" he makes a 
>> thorough exploration of the subject. (Not that I agree with Rothbard in 
>> everything, his logic can be a bit faulty at times)
> I simply reject the idea of the "/existence of a law whose content is set 
> by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere/" -according to the 
> definition of natural law at the Wikipedia -from the International 
> Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences-. I only accept the law made by human 
> beings, and only under certain circumstances:
>
> - at least for fundamental laws like UDHR, constitutions and such, if 
> agreed by a high consenssus between citizens -i.e., sovereigns-
> * e.g., while people in Spain hadn't the chance of voting UDHR, in 1978 
> people had the chance of voting for a Constitution who pledges allegiance 
> to UDHR ... and *60 % of eligible voters* supported that text, with little 
> opposition
> - if changeable
>
> There is a third, arguable (due to being subjective if we reject the 
> /natural/ approach) requirement, which is expressed by UDHR preamble: "/it 
> is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last 
> resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights 
> should be protected by the rule of law/"; 90 % of people can agree, 
> following rule of law, on exterminate the remaining 10 %, which wouldn't 
> be really democratic; Francisco Franco or Adolf Hitler can be reborn -or 
> simmilar people can appear- and 90 % of people can democratically decide, 
> following rule of law, to surrender their civil rights and liberties to 
> such dictators ... would they, however, be able to surrender the civil 
> rights and liberties of the remaining 10 %? I don't think so, and I don't 
> think that any of you would accept such thing.
>
> There always will be controversy on which the exact definition of human 
> rights should be; also, there always probably be people not accepting 
> current status, and other (or the same) people not accepting new status, 
> of human rights -e.g., pro-copyright lobbies, always willing to distort 
> them in order to protect their interests-. We will never find a /happy 
> Arcadia/, with everyone being happy with the state of things, as people 
> like us will always clash with people like the pro-copyright lobbies -call 
> me pessimistic, however I will keep thinking that mean people 
> (archetypical villians) will always exist, even though in a low 
> percentage-. What in my opinion matters, then, is what we do think as PPI, 
> and what citizens -the true sovereigns- think.
>
> To summarize this thoughts, I think that:
>
> - at least we should try whether we agree on what human rights are (there 
> are some nuances in the About Civil Rights and Liberties section of Pirate 
> Manifesto, though there apparently is an almost total consenssus except 
> for one issue)
> - once we agree on what human rights are, we ought to defend them, 
> specially the most essential ones -freedom of information, freedom of 
> speech, privacy, etc; the list I have in mind is written in the Pirate 
> Manifesto drafts and, as I said, there is apparent consenssus except for 
> one issue-
> - never to accept the mandate of wise men councils -who may talk about 
> laws as coming from a divine or natural origin-, but the sovereigns (i.e., 
> citizens) mandate -considering that, if laws are passed by sovereigns, 
> observing the constitutions and other fundamental laws is not only 
> observing the citizens' mandate, but the highest citizens' mandate 
> (usually, constitutions are passed with a higher consenssus than ordinary, 
> statutory laws)-; one reason to do it is that /wise men councils/ may be 
> wrong; other powerful reason is that /wise men councils/ may lie and/or be 
> corrupted.
>
> Democracy -understood as a regime where citizens free and voluntarily 
> decide to bind themselves to basic rules in order to build a society 
> (including decision-making rules), and later and only later, decide how to 
> live according to those rules- is for me essential, and I believe it must 
> not be subjected to /natural/ nor /divine/ laws, but by laws free and 
> voluntarily agreed by human beings. Regards,
>
>
> 
> Carlos Ayala
> 
> ( Aiarakoa )
>
> 
> Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman
>
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