ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the premise that practical concern with human rights is the life instinct of civilization. It argues that the arms race is a critical element of this process, and that a combined conscious and unconscious spirit in arms negotiations is moving toward the protection of victims’ fundamental human rights. The chapter examines the development of the relationship and the role of the United States in defining and implementing an end to the arms race which is critical to any framework for the fulfillment of basic human rights. Human rights in this framework would assert that international economic actions must be in furtherance of aspirations which are stated in treaties and General Assembly Resolutions that seek to set out a framework in such matters as disarmament and apartheid. The arms strategists’ plans of “taking out” millions of people either in first strike or second strike reprisal are surely not contemplated by any internationally lawful system of defense.
