Front Sight, Press

David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne D. Eisen, The Human Right of
Self-Defense, 22 BYU Journal of Public Law (Number 1, Fall 2007) 43-127.
http://www.law2.byu.edu/jpl/index.htm

The above article is now available in its publicaton form at the Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law web site. You can access it by clicking on the hyperlink above which brings you to the BYU current journal page, and then  clicking on the 3rd item down, our article.

Abstract

“Any law, international or municipal, which prohibits recourse to force, is
necessarily limited by the right of self-defense.”

Is there a human right to defend oneself against a violent attacker? Is there
an individual right to arms under international law? Conversely, are governments guilty of human rights violations if they do not enact strict gun control laws?

The United Nations and some non-governmental organizations have declared that there is no human right to self-defense or to the possession of defensive
arms. The UN and allied NGOs further declare that insufficiently restrictive
firearms laws are themselves a human rights violation, so all governments must sharply restrict citizen firearms possession.

Since the 1990s, the United Nations has been focusing increasing attention on
international firearms control. UN-backed programs have promoted and funded
the surrender and confiscation of citizen firearms in nations around the world.
A subcommission of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) has declared that there is no human right to personal self-defense and that extremely strict gun control is a human right which all governments are required to enforce immediately.

The full Human Rights Council is expected to take up the issue and promulgate
similar orders. The declaration implements a report for the HRC prepared by
Special Rapporteur Barbara Frey. According to the Frey standard adopted by the
United Nations, even the most restrictive gun laws in the United States, such
as those in Washington, D.C., or New York City, are violations of current
human rights law, because they are insufficiently stringent.

This Article investigates the legal status of self-defense by examining a
broad variety of sources of international law. Surveying international law from
its earliest days to the present, the article analyzes in detail the Founders
of international law - the great scholars in the fourteenth through eighteenth
centuries who created the system of international law. The Article then looks
at the major legal systems which have contributed to international law, such
as Greek law, Roman law, Spanish law, Jewish law, Islamic law, Canon law, and
Anglo-American law.

In addition, the article covers the full scope of contemporary international
law sources, including treaties, the United Nations, constitutions from
Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and much more. The Article shows that international
law-particularly its restraints on the conduct of warfare-is founded on the personal right of self-defense.

Based on those sources, the Article suggests that personal self-defense is a
well-established human right under international law and is an important
foundation of international law itself. Finally, this Article demonstrates that
self-defense is a widely-recognized human right which no government and no
international body have the authority to abrogate.