War Resisters' International

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Se også en oversættelse af den nyeste udgave af princip-erklæringen, vedtaget af WRIs council juni 1997.

The following Statement of Principles was agreed at the first WRI Conference in 1925 except for the references to the League of Nation and collective security which were added in the 1930s. Although written in the language of the day, it stood until after the Second World War as an exposition of the WRI Declaration.
This year the WRI Council is considering a draft for a new Statement of Principles. Let's hope that it can have the same clarity and durability.

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WAR IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. lt is a crime against life, and uses human personalities for political and economic ends.

WE, THEREFORE, actuated by an intense love for mankind,

ARE DETERMINED NOT TO SUPPORT either directly by service of any kind in the army, navy, or air forces/ or indirectly by making or consciously handling munitions or other war material, subscribing to war loans or using our labour for the purpose of settings others free for war service,

ANY KIND OF WAR, aggressive or defensive, remembering that modern wars are invariably alleged by Governments to be defensive.

Wars would seem to fall under four heads:-
(a) Wars to defend the State to which we nominally belong and wherein our home is situated. To refuse to take up arms for this end is difficult:
1. Because the State will use all its coercive powers to make us do so.
2. Because our inborn love for home has been deliberately identified with love of the State in which it is situated.
(b) War to preserve the existing order of society with its security for the privileged few. That we would never take up arms for this purpose goes without saying.
(c) Wars on behalf of the oppressed proletariat, whether for its liberation or defence. To refuse to take up arms for this purpose is most difficult:
1. Because the proletarian regime, and, even more, the enraged masses, in time of revolution would regard as a traitor anyone who refused to support the New Order by force.
2. Because our instinctive love for the suffering and the oppressed would tempt us to use violence on their behalf.
(d) War organised under the auspices of the League of Nations in the name of Sanctions to defend the Covenant or to maintain Collective Security against a so called Aggressor State.
However, we are convinced that violence cannot really preserve order, defend our home, liberate the proletariat, or give security to any nation. In fact, experience has shown that in all wars, order, security and liberty disappear, and that, so far from benefiting by them, the proletariat always suffers most. We hold, however, that consistent pacifists have no right to take up a merely negative positions, but must recognise

AND STRIVE FOR THE REMOVAL OF ALL CAUSES OF WAR.