"Empowering the International Court of Justice to safeguard the future of 2 billion children of the world and generations to come"

It is in the order of nature and human tradition that it often happens when mankind's existence is threatened, a saviour emerges to give the lead and to avert the disaster.

History is replete with examples of such heroes whose deeds are remembered and recorded for contemplation and gratitude by posterity.

It is ironic, though, that the same heroes whose deeds are praised by history were often ridiculed by their contemporaries who thought their methods archaic, unrealistic, unpractical or doomed to failure.

In 1914 when Mahatma Gandhi launched the Home Rule Movement, he advocated a policy of non violent, non co-operation to achieve independence for his country. His motives and methods were often misunderstood, and not only by the mobs in the streets. Not long ago, Arthur Koestler described Gandhi's attitude as one "of passive submission to bayoneting and raping, to villages without sewage, septic childhood and trachoma." Such a judgment has been shown to be not only erroneous, unfair and unjust, but wrong.

Gandhi advocated non violence not because it offered an easy way out, but because violence is a crude and ineffective weapon. His rejection of violence stemmed from wise choice, not dire necessity.

To-day the world is in turmoil. The global village is threatened. It is in the grip of crises, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Iran to name but a few. The shadow of a thermo-nuclear war with its incalculable hazards continues to hang over mankind. More and more leaders of the major nuclear powers speak not the language of conciliation but confrontation, and efforts are only grudgingly made to resolve conflicts by diplomacy. Diplomacy is being denied a real chance to succeed. Rash decisions to go to war are taken in defiance of the United Nations Resolution.

The irony of the very perfection of the weapons of war rendering them useless as arbiters between nations has become increasingly clear during the last forty years. The atomic stock piles which the major nuclear powers have built up are capable of destroying civilization by the touch of a button ordered in rashness and arrogance. So far, peace has been precariously preserved by what has been grimly termed "the balance of atomic terror".

With the weapons of mass destruction at hand now, to attack another nation is tantamount to attacking oneself.

In Lucknow, India, there is a man, a sage, who sees more than his contemporaries. In his sagacity he has a long time since appreciated the risks, the plight, the threats mankind faces. Unlike many of us he does not rest content with only bewailing his lot and that of others. Instead he has spared no cost, no effort and at great personal sacrifice has spearheaded and set in motion in all humility a sensitization campaign in order that we in turn become more alive to the problems confronting mankind and do something about them.

In his noble mission to bequeath a better world to future generations Jagdish Gandhi found a soul mate, a stalwart, in Bharati Gandhi, his wife who shares his vision with unreserved, unqualified dedication. Today it has become their vision which is shared by many of us.

In the year 2000 when Jagdish Gandhi organized the Chief Justices of the World Conference in Lucknow for the first time only one Chief Justice was in attendance. To-day on the occasion of the 8th Chief Justices of the World Conference, there is a plethora of eminent personalities present. The presence of so many Chief Justices, judges and judicial officers here is testimony to our belief and conviction in Jagdish and Bharati Gandhi's vision. Mr. & Mrs. Gandhi's vision is no longer a piously quaint and utopian exhortation, it has become a necessity if we want to save posterity.

Every single day 5,500 of the world's children die from diseases coming from polluted air, unclean water and tainted food. This is only one tiny side of the horrifying picture painted in a report the U.N. issued for its Special Session on Children.

Figures like this should come as no surprise, since one billion people in the world have no access to clean drinking water. Almost half the world's population - 2.4 billion people - do not even have a simple latrine, not to speak about indoor plumbing.

All told 11 million children under the age of five died in the year 2000, 150 million suffered from malnutrition.

120 million children of primary age were not in school - many of them because they were working. Two fifths of the world's children aged 10 - 14 were working, many under slave labour conditions. Even the youngest children were put out to work, just to help their families survive: over one-fifth of all the world's children aged 5 - 9 were working.

The well-fed delegates to the U.N. met in session to hear this report and then wrangled among themselves about what, if anything, could be done about the situation. And the chief wranglers were delegates sent by the U.S. who did not even pretend they were interested in discussing the real problems that such figures represent. Instead, the U.S. delegation continued, for three days of the U.N. special session, to raise and raise again the issue of abortion.

Certainly the U.N. - where talk is cheap but action rare, has never been a model of concern for the rights of children, even if it issues regular reports.

But even in this forum, U.S. actions stood out as abhorrent.

Children are dying from diseases which are preventable, dying from malnutrition in a world overstocked with food, forced to work instead of gaining any education.
If the problems facing the world's children are to be addressed, that will happen only through the activity of the laboring population itself - in the countries most directly affected, but in this country also.

It is said that there are many roads that lead to Rome. Likewise there are several options available in order to set in motion the mechanism which will bring about and ensure that the world we bequeath to our children and grandchildren will be comparatively safer and salubrious than the one we know.

We are all under a duty to protect, look after and responsibly raise the two billion children of the world who constitute a big percentage of our population. It cannot be stressed enough that today's children are the leaders and decision makers of tomorrow. However, our children have inherited a world of war and hostilities, degraded and polluted environment, poverty, disease, slavery and child labour (soldiers). While some, who were born and continue to live in refugee camps suffer all sorts of abuses with no certainty as to their future.

In every conflict children suffer the most. The international legal instruments put in place to protect and cater for the interests of the children would be a worthless and wasted effort if their rights are not justiciable before a powerful world adjudicating body such as ICJ.

Therefore, limitations such as realpolitik, economic considerations, international relations etc affecting the working of the ICJ should be gotten rid of. The mandate of the ICJ should be widened in this respect to specifically deal with issues of and related to children, their security, wellbeing, rights and future. For instance, any individual or NGO should be allowed to bring a case before the ICJ where there is, or likely to be, a degradation of the environment affecting and/or threatening the health of children (and parents) and those not yet born (future generations). The court could further be empowered to deal with cases whose subject matter is to do with the safety, welfare and future or violation of rights of children, even if the defendant state is a non party to the statute and in either situation, whether that state has submitted to jurisdiction or not, of course bearing in mind the doctrine of state sovereignty. Enforcement mechanisms like those enjoyed by national courts should be put in place to ensure compliance and execution of judgments. Otherwise merely determining and declaring a violation, at international level, of international law, customs and usages, limits ICJ's relevance in international dispute resolution strengthening further the common expression that ICJ yields a blunt sword of justice.

ICJ procedures are expensive both in temporal and monetary terms which hinder accessibility to its services. The ICJ should be decentralized so that it could also hold sessions for instance in Africa, Asia and the Carribeans.

The seriousness with which the International Criminal Court is considered should be replicated. (Jurisdiction and enforcement/execution especially).

Indeed ICJ continues to play a key role in the promotion of international peace and security. It however requires wider jurisdiction and strengthening in regard to its operations and support from the UN and other entities involved in the administration of justice at international level so as to ensure proper enforcement of decisions.

It requires a unified global stand amongst nations using their best endeavours to reach consensus on a matter of such great importance, namely to invest the ICJ with the necessary jurisdiction in order that the rights of the world's children become justiciable before the ICJ.

Access to justice is a profound and powerful expression of a social need which is imperative and more wide spread than is generally acknowledged.

We must all work together towards achieving that goal if we don't want to fail our children.