Whatever happened to Human Rights? Like you, I think it is an odd title for a lecture; but in the end I settled for it rather than the alternative which sounded even odder—whatever has not happened to Human Rights since their grand eruption, forty years ago? Only ten years before that, the expression was still unfamiliar in the English-speaking world. The expression ‘The Rights of Man’ was familiar enough, but it did not necessarily mean the same thing and I cannot see that it was often seriously used with the same intention. ‘Human Rights’ only began to come into use through the second half of the Second World War. It was found apt for describing what the United Nations conceived themselves as fighting for, and what they undertook to do something constructive.about when the fighting was over. They gave it prominence in general terms in their Charter of principles and plans for the post-war world, and left the working-out of the Human Rights details to a committee (the embryo of the present Human Rights Commission). After about two years’ work, its draft Declaration then went back to the UN's debating mills and after being not too badly messed about was accepted nem con by the. General Assembly on 10 December 1948. An idea which, depending on your cultural point of view was either impressively old or excitingly new, had gone into orbit.

Western Europe's status and impact within the contemporary international arena is a matter of contention and debate, reflecting its often elusive and intangible nature. On the one hand, enthusiasm for the notion of a ‘European foreign policy’ and for the idea that Western Europe can play a constructive role in the world is evident both in academic analysis and in the pronouncements of West European political leaders. On the other, there is often a yawning gap between the promise or the prescription and the reality of European disunity and pluralism. One possible reason for this gap between enthusiasm and reality is that concepts fail us when the discussion turns to Western Europe's international role: the notion of ‘Europe’ or ‘Western Europe’ is often taken to be consubstantial with the European Community, and the notion of a European ‘foreign policy’ carries with it a conceptual framework which is inseparable from the state-centric view of world politics. Thus, the idea of ‘Western Europe’ as an international actor of the conventional state-like kind based on the EC leads inevitably into the analysis of European Political Co-operation as a pro to-foreign policy; it can extend into evaluation of the ‘external relations’ encompassed by the Treaty of Rome; and it may entail a consideration of the potential for further development in the security field by the European members of NATO. At its most ambitious, it might lead to the proposal that these three areas could be combined to produce an integrated, state-like policy mechanism. Although there are few who would explicitly argue that the EC is on the verge of emerging as a ‘European state’, it is the ideal type of a state-based foreign policy which lies behind much contemporary analysis of Western Europe's international status.

The student of international relations seeks from Clausewitz not a theory of politics but an analysis of war. For some 150 years those who have sought to understand war have turned to Clausewitz—to find inspiration or to condemn him, to borrow or to steal from him, to quote or to misquote him. He has been called upon to support particular wars and strategies, to take sides in the Cold War and to throw light on nuclear deterrence. He has been both venerated and vilified, and frequently misunderstood. Few have ignored him altogether.

While the threat and use of force remain elements or even possibilities in world affairs, the political importance of the defence industries will be substantial. Defence industries must be viewed as significant because of the contribution that they make to allowing states to deter attack and to use force. But they also have an economic and technological significance. In the UK, France and the US, defence equipment represents about 10 per cent of total manufacturing output. Equipment orders from home and abroad provide employment for around 500,000 people in the UK, at least 300,000 in France, and over two million in the US. The US Department of Defence, the Pentagon, employs 134,000 people just to procure equipment worth about $130 billion involving 15 million contracts a year. Defence equipment is big business and is particularly important today in the aerospace, electronics and shipbuilding sectors. Between a quarter and a third of professional technologists and scientists in Britain, France and the US work in the defence sector.