Killing Democracy: United States Imperialism, Civil War and Genocide in Guatemala 1954-1996

Over the years the Americas have made significant contributions to the development of international humanitarian law. These include three nineteenth-century texts which constitute the earliest modern foundations of the law of armed conflict. The first is a treaty, signed on 26 November 1820 by the liberator Simón Bolívar and the peacemaker Pablo Morillo, which applied the rules of international conflict to a civil war. The second is a Spanish-American work entitled Principios de Derecho de Genres (Principles of the Law of Nations), which was published in 1832 by Andrés Bello. This work dealt systematically with the various aspects and consequences of war. The third is a legal instrument, signed on 24 April 1863 by United States President Abraham Lincoln, which codified the first body of law on internal conflict under the heading “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field” (General Orders No. 100). This instrument, known as the Lieber Code, was adopted as the new code of conduct for the armies of the Union during the American Civil War.

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The United States and the Spanish Civil War

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/2190716 ◽

1937 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 74-81

Author(s):

George A. Finch

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Civil War ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

The United States

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The Lebanese Civil War 1975–90

Contemporary Arab Affairs ◽

10.1525/caa.2021.14.3.105 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 105-124

Author(s):

Jamal Wakim

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Civil War ◽

Working Class ◽

The United States ◽

Political Elites ◽

Economic Role ◽

Lebanese Civil War ◽

Organized Violence ◽

State And Society ◽

Leftist Parties

This article argues that the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90) was in essence a terror of state directed by mercantile economic and political elites (the comprador class) controlling the Lebanese state and society against the middle and poorer classes (the working class). The aim of this terror or organized violence was to subdue the subordinate classes, which in the late 1960s and early 1970s rebelled against the confessional system that operated for the benefit of the comprador class. The rebellion was expressed by members of the working-class joining cross-confessional nationalist and leftist parties. Hence, violence was aimed at reestablishing the confessional order as a means to restore a hegemonic system that served the interests of the comprador class at a time when this class was rehabilitating its economic role by resurrecting the financial system, which had received a severe blow in the late 1960s. It effected this rehabilitation through the Taif Agreement signed between Lebanese parliamentarians in 1989, under the auspices of Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, to favor the new mercantile elite led by Rafiq Hariri.

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Morris Ranger: The Rise and Fall of the Liverpool Cotton Market’s Greatest Speculator, 1835 to 1887

Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire ◽

10.3828/transactions.170.8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 170 (1) ◽

pp. 69-92

Author(s):

Nigel Hall

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Civil War ◽

The United States ◽

American Civil War

In the period 1878 to 1883 there was heavy speculation in the Liverpool raw cotton market associated with a trader named Morris Ranger. Little has previously been written about Ranger and his background. Ranger was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1855. He initially traded in tobacco but branched out into cotton during the American Civil War. He settled in Liverpool in 1870. His cotton speculations were enormous, but he fell bankrupt in 1883. The speculations associated with Ranger involved other Liverpool traders and drew heavy criticism from the spinning industry. The speculations played a part in a reorganisation of the Liverpool market and attempts to circumvent it, including the building of the Manchester Ship Canal.

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