How dare they?

Here we go again. War in Europe! How is it possible in the 21st century that a handful of men unleash a whole military machine with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, tanks, and rockets on another country, have hundreds of thousands of people killed or wounded, millions driven from their homes – and may even get away with it unpunished?

We, the overwhelming majority of people in the world, do not want war. Neither in our own country, nor anywhere else.

Sadly, nobody asked us.

And that is independent of whether you live in a dictatorship or in a democracy: Once our leaders are in power, they can do essentially whatever they want. And we, the people, are never asked, whether we want that war. Nowhere. For even if you live in a democratic country, did you ever see on your ballot a question about going to war? Did any party ever have it in their program?

Most state forms have a reasonable balance of power based on checks and balances between different constituents of government, such as different chambers of parliament, the president, jurisdiction. But what balances the power we, the people, have given to the politicians?

The problem becomes particularly clear in war in its most extreme form: nuclear war. Humanity has given the power over its own extinction to a handful of old men – without any control mechanism! This is completely absurd and must be changed urgently if humanity wants to survive.

The Veto War campaign wants to give people the power to stop war before it even starts. And that power shall be guaranteed by national laws:

We request that when the government of a country A decides armed military action in another country B, the people of country A shall have the right to a referendum that determines whether they agree with that decision. The barrier for requesting a referendum must be established reasonably low, and if it takes place, the military action is allowed only if a majority of voters approve it.

As simple as that.

Central goal of Veto War is an international legal framework that anchors that principle in as many countries as possible. To get there, we intend to work together with many other peace organizations, diplomats, committed governments and the United Nations to create an international treaty that obliges the signatory states to include the right of veto in national legislation.

In parallel we aim at collecting 1 billion signatures worldwide for a petition to the United Nations’ General Assembly to pass a Resolution that urges all member states of the United Nations to negotiate and establish such an international treaty – in order to demonstrate the will of humans all over the world to get that minimum amount of say if their country´s leaders want to go to war.

For wars are too important to let a handful politicians decide: the lives of thousands, sometimes millions of people are at stake, not to talk about all the destruction, grief, and desolation.

There is hope that this little change will make the world a bit more peaceful, built trust instead of confrontation between nations, and lets humanity focus together on other urgent issues. If even a single war is avoided, it will have been worth the effort – and you, who signed the petition, will have written World history!