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i
R I S K A N D T H E R E G U L AT I O N O F U N C E RTA I N T Y
I N I N T E R N AT I O N A L L AW
ii
iii
Risk and the Regulation

of Uncertainty
in International Law
Edited by
M Ó N I K A A M B RU S
RO S E M A RY R AY F U S E
WO U T E R W E R N E R
1
iv
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© the several contributors 2017
The moral rights of the author‌have been asserted
First Edition published in 2017
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Crown copyright material is reproduced under Class Licence
Number C01P0000148 with the permission of OPSI
and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934733
ISBN 978–0–19–879589–6
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
v
Preface
This book has its origins in a small ‘exploratory workshop’ which was held at the
Faculty of Law at Lund University in May 2011 on ‘Imagining the Future Climate
Regime’. At the time our interest revolved around the ‘clash of precautions’ evident
in the international climate regime where the precautionary approach demands,
on the one hand, that lack of scientific uncertainty as to the seriousness or irrevers-
ibility of damage from climate change should not prevent the taking of protective
or mitigation measures while, on the other hand, simultaneously demanding that
lack of seriousness or irreversibility of damage from these protective or mitigation
measures themselves should not be used as an excuse to prevent their introduction.
We foresaw, and wanted to explore, the problem of responding to climate change
by introducing mitigation measures despite uncertainty as to both their efficacy and
their potential to cause serious or irreversible damage. Although not sure where the
topic would take us, we particularly had in mind the then emerging debates relating
to global geoengineering as a mitigation strategy, as well as discussions relating to
scientific uncertainty in decision-making more generally.
It quickly became apparent that there was much more to the topic than a climate
change-centred focus would suggest. Indeed, ‘imagining the future’ has become an
important and influential part of international law in general, with international
legal arrangements across the multiple regimes and sub-regimes of international law
increasingly imagining future worlds, or creating space for experts to articulate how
the future can be conceptualized and managed. In short, science and technology
have made it possible to imagine different possible futures in all areas of interna-
tional law, be they in the form of promises, or threats, or of radical uncertainty.
Examination of the various imageries, vocabularies, expert knowledge, and rules
developed within these different areas of international law seemed, at its core, a
worthy pursuit, and one which might lay the groundwork for future comparisons
between the values articulated and methodologies or practices developed in differ-
ent international legal regimes for anticipating future regime stress and allocating
preference for one imagined future over another.
In a second workshop held in 2013 at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, a
group of scholars from a range of substantive areas across international law mapped
out the way forward for the more ambitious project which eventually became this
book. At a further workshop hosted by the Institute for Legal Studies at the Centre
for Social Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in October 2014, partici-
pants exchanged papers and ideas on the theme, which have now been transformed
into the chapters of this book.
As is inevitable in a project of this breadth and ambition, not everyone who par-
ticipated in the workshops was able, ultimately, to contribute to this book and not
everyone who has contributed to this book was able to attend the workshops. Thus,
vi
vi Preface
in addition to thanking the authors represented here for their contributions and for
their forbearance with the project, we would also like to thank the numerous other
colleagues who, over the years, participated in and contributed to the project at
various stages and in various ways. Their contributions have been equally valuable
in shaping the direction, contours, and content of this book.
In terms of institutional and financial support we are extremely grateful to the
Law Faculty at Lund University for providing seed funding for this project and
hosting the exploratory workshop from which this book arose. Thanks are also
due to the Law Faculty at VU Amsterdam and the Hungarian Institute for Legal
Studies, and in particular, Dr Tamás Hoffmann, for kindly hosting our two main
workshops. We are also grateful for the financial support provided by the European
Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) programme, an intergovernmen-
tal framework aimed at facilitating the collaboration and networking of scientists
and researchers at the European level. COST is supported by the European Union
Seventh Framework Programme (EUFP7) through a dedicated Coordination and
Support Action (CSA) and is funded by the European Commission. For more infor-
mation on COST, see <http://www.cost.eu>. This volume was prepared within the
context of COST Action IS1003 (International Law between Constitutionalisation
and Fragmentation: The Role of Law in the Post-national Constellation).
Finally we are grateful to Oxford University Press, and in particular to Nicole
Leyland, for putting the publication of this book on track and to Emma Endean-
Mills for seeing the publication through to fruition.
Mónika Ambrus, Rosemary Rayfuse, and Wouter Werner
Groningen/Budapest, Sydney/Lund, and Amsterdam
September 2016
vi
Contents
List of Tables ix
Table of Cases xi
Table of Treaties xv
List of Abbreviations xxi
List of Contributors xxiii
PA RT I I N T RO D U C T I O N
1. Risk and International Law 3
Mónika Ambrus, Rosemary Rayfuse, and Wouter Werner
PA RT I I R I S K A N D S E C U R I T Y
2. Risk and the Use of Force 13
Nicholas Tsagourias
3. ‘It Could Probably Just as Well Be Otherwise’: Imageries of Cyberwar 39
Wouter Werner and Lianne Boer
4. Maritime Security 57
Douglas Guilfoyle
5. International Law and the Exploration and Use of Outer Space 77
Steven Freeland
PA RT I I I R I S K A N D H U M A N P ROT E C T I O N
6. The European Court of Human Rights as Governor of Risk 99
Mónika Ambrus
7. Imagining Future People in Biomedical Law: From Technological
Utopias to Legal Dystopias within the Regulation of Human
Genetic Modification Technologies 117
Britta van Beers
PA RT I V R I S K A N D T H E E N V I RO N M E N T
8. Prevention in International Environmental Law and the Anticipation
of Risk(s): A Multifaceted Norm 141
Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli
9. Conceptions of Risk in an Institutional Context: Deep Seabed
Mining and the International Seabed Authority 161
Aline Jaeckel and Rosemary Rayfuse
vi
viii Contents
10. Imagining Unimaginable Climate Futures in International Climate
Change Law 177
Jacqueline Peel
11. Catastrophic Climate Change, Precaution, and
the Risk/Risk Dilemma 197
Floor M Fleurke
PA RT V R I S K A N D E C O N O M I C P RO S P E R I T Y
12. The Assessment of Environmental Risks and the Regulation of Process
and Production Methods (PPMs) in International Trade Law 219
Andreas R Ziegler and David Sifonios
13. Risk, Responsibility, and Fairness in International Investment Law 237
Azernoosh Bazrafkan and Alexia Herwig
Author Index 257

Index 271
ix
List of Tables
6.1 Overview of the features of the Court’s risk dispositief relating to the
specific public values 111
6.2 Overview of the factors influencing risk governance relating
to the specific public values 111
x
xi
Table of Cases
ERITREA-E THIOPIA CL AIMS COMMISSION

Partial Award: Jus Ad Bellum: Ethiopia’s Claims 1-8 (2005) XXVI RIAA 457 ��18
Partial Awards: Prisoners of War: Eritrea’s Claim [2003] 42 ILM 1083 ��30
EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS (ECTHR)

Budayeva and Others v Russia App Nos 15339/02, 21166/02, 20058/02, and
15343/02 (20 March 2008) �� 105, 106, 112
Dubetska and Others v Ukraine App No 30499/03 (10 February 2011) �� 109, 110, 113, 114
Elberte v Latvia No 61243/08 (Fourth Section, 13 January 2015); ��137
Evans v United Kingdom No 6339/05 (Grand Chamber, 10 April 2007) ��137
Guerra and Others v Italy App No 116/1996/735/932 (Grand Chamber,
19 February 1998) ��156
Hirsi Jamaa and Others v Italy App No 27765/09 (23 February 2012) �� 68, 69, 70
Jaloud v Netherlands App No 47708/08 (20 November 2014) ��69
López Ostra v Spain App No 16798/90 (9 December1994) ��156
Luginbühl v Switzerland App No 42756/02 (17 January 2006) ��110
Öneryildiz v Turkey App No 48939/99 (30 November 2004) �� 105, 112, 156
Osman v United Kingdom App No 87/1997/871/1083 (28 October 1998) ��104, 112
Refah Partisi (The Welfare Party) and Others v Turkey App Nos 41340/98,
41342/98, 41343/98, and 41344/98 (13 February 2003) �� 107, 108, 113
Saadi v Italy App No 37201/06 (28 February 2008) �� 106, 107, 113
SH v Austria No 57813/00 (Grand Chamber, 3 November 2011) ��137
Taskin and Others v Turkey App No 46117/99 (10 November 2004) �� 110, 112, 113, 156
Tatar v Romania App No 67021/01 (27 January 2009) ��110
Van Colle v United Kingdom App No 7678/09 (13 November 2012 ��104
Vona v Hungary App No 35943/10 (9 July 2013) �� 108, 109, 113
EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE (ECJ)

Brüstle v Greenpeace eV (Case C-34/10) [2011] ECR I-9821 ��137
INTER-A MERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS (IACHR)

Velasquez Rodriguez Case, 1988, Series C: Decisions and Judgments No 4, 135 ��27
INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR SET TLEMENT

OF INVESTMENT DISPUTES (ICSID)
ADF v United States (Case No ARB(AF)/00/1, Award, 9 January 2003) ��247
AES v Hungary (Case No ARB/07/22, Award, 23 September 2010) ��245
AWG Group v Argentina (Case No ARB/03/19, Decision on Liability, 30 July 2010) ��244
Azurix v Argentina (Case No ARB/01/12, Award, 14 July 2006) ��245, 246
xi
xii Table of Cases

Bayindir v Pakistan (Case No ARB/03/29, Award, 27 August 2009) ��247
CMS v Argentina (Case No ARB/01/8, Decision on Objections to Jurisdiction,
17 July 2003) ��242, 245
Continental Casualty v Argentina (Case No ARB/03/9, Award, 5 September 2008) ��242
Duke Energy v Ecuador (Case No ARB/04/19, Award, 18 August 2008) ��248
El Paso Energy v Argentina (Case No ARB/03/15, Award, 31 October 2011) ��244
Enron v Argentina (Case No ARB/01/3, Award, 22 May 2007) ��242, 248
Impregilo SpA v Argentina (Case No ARB/07/17, Award, 21 June 2011) ��244
LG&E v Argentina (Case No ARB/02/1, Decision on Liability, 3 October 2006) �� 242, 246, 248
Metalclad v Mexico (Case No ARB(AF)/97/1, Award, 30 August 2000) �� 244, 245, 248
MTD v Chile (Case No ARB/01/7, Award, 25 May 2004) ��247
Parkerings v Lithuania (Case No ARB/05/8, Award, 11 September 2007) ��247, 248
PSEG v Turkey (Case No ARB/02/5, Award, 19 January 2007) ��247
Santa Elena v Costa Rica (Case No ARB/96/1, Final Award, 17 February 2000) ��245
Sempra v Argentina (Case No ARB/02/16, Award, 28 September 2007) ��242, 244
Siemens v Argentina (Case No ARB/02/8, Award, 17 January 2007) ��245
Suez et al v Argentina (Case No ARB/03/19, Decision on Liability, 30 July 2010) ��244, 248
Tecmed v Mexico (Case No ARB(AF)/00/2, Award, 28 May 2003) �� 245, 246, 247, 255
Tokio Tokeles v Ukraine (Case No ARB/02/18, Decision of Jurisdiction, 20 April 2004) ��245
Total v Argentina (Case No ARB/04/01, Decision on Liability, 27 December 2010) ��248
Vattenfall (I) v Germany (Case No ARB/09/6, Award, 11 March 2011) ��238
Vattenfall (II) v Germany (Case No ARB/12/12, Pending) ��238
Waste Management Inc (I) v Mexico (Case No ARB(AF)/98/2, Award, 2 June 2000) ��247
Waste Management Inc (II) v Mexico (Case No ARB(AF)/00/3, Award, 30 April 2004), ��244
Wena Hotels Ltd v Egypt (Case No ARB/98/4, Award, 8 December 2000) ��247
INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ)

Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited (Belgium v Spain) [1970] ICJ Rep 4 ��28
Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) [2007]
ICJ Rep 241 �� 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic
of the Congo v Uganda) [2005] ICJ Rep 168 �� 18, 26, 29, 47
Case Concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities In and Against Nicaragua
(Nicaragua v United States of America) (Merits) [1986] ICJ Rep 14 �� 18, 29, 31, 48, 83
Case Concerning Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v United States of America)
[2003] ICJ Rep 161 �� 18, 29, 30
Case Concerning Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v Uruguay) (Request for the
Indication of Provisional Measures) [2006] ICJ Rep 113 ��31, 32
Case Concerning Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan (Indonesia v Malaysia)
[2002] ICJ Rep 625 ��29
Case Concerning the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v Republic of Mali)
[1986] ICJ Rep 554 ��31, 32
Case Concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador v
Honduras: Nicaragua Intervening) [1992] ICJ Rep 351 ��29
Case Concerning The Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v Thailand) [1962] ICJ Rep 6 ��31
Corfu Channel Case (United Kingdom v Albania) (Merits) [1949] ICJ Rep 4 ��27, 29
Fisheries Case (United Kingdom v Norway) [1951] ICJ Rep 116 ��33
Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) [1997] ICJ Rep 7 ��152, 155
Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
(Advisory opinion) [2004] ICJ Rep 136 ��18
xi
Table of Cases xiii

Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion)
[1996] ICJ Rep 226 �� 18, 32, 48, 91, 141, 156, 157
North Sea Continental Shelf Cases (Federal Republic of Germany v Denmark and Federal
Republic of Germany v Netherlands) [1969] ICJ Rep 3 ��83
Nuclear Tests (New Zealand v France) (Order Concerning the Request for an Examination
of the Situation in Accordance with Paragraph 63 of the Court’s Judgment of
20 December 1974) [1995] ICJ Rep 288 ��32, 33
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR

THE FORMER YUGOSL AVIA (ICT Y)
Prosecutor v Naser Oric (Case No IT-03-68), Judgment of 30 June 2006 ��52
LONDON COURT OF INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION (LCIA)

Occidental v Ecuador (Case No UN3467, Final Award, 1 July 2004) �� 245, 247, 248
PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION (PCA)

Chagos Marine Protected Area (Mauritius v United Kingdom), 18 March 2015, ��149
Indus Waters Kishenganga Arbitration (Pakistan v India) Final Award, 20 December 2013 ��154
Iron Rhine Railway (Belgium v Netherlands) (2005) 27 RIAA 35 ��154
Isle of Palmas (Netherlands v United States) (1928) 2 UN Rep Intl Arb Awards 829 ��33
Saluka v Czech Republic (Partial Award, 17 March 2006) ��244, 248
South China Sea Arbitration (Philippines v China), Award on the Merits, 12 July 2016 ��149
UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION

ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE L AW (UNCITRAL)
CME v Czech Republic (Czech Republic-Netherlands BIT, Partial Award,
13 September 2001) ��240, 247
Ethyl v Canada (NAFTA, Award on Jurisdiction, 24 June 1998) ��246
Methanex v United States (NAFTA, Final Award, 3 August 2005) ��246
National Grid v Argentina (United Kingdom-Argentina BIT, Award, 3 November 2008) ��247
SD Myers v Canada (NAFTA, Partial Award, 13 November 2000) �� 244, 254, 255
W TO/G AT T
Brazil—Measures Affecting Imports of Retreaded Tyres (17 December 2007)
WT/DS332/AB/R (Brazil—Tyres) �� 228, 231, 232
European Communities—Measures Affecting Asbestos and Asbestos-Containing
Products (5 April 2001) WT/DS135/R (EC—Asbestos) �� 226, 228, 231
European Communities—Measures Concerning Meat and Meat Products (13 February
1998) WT/DS26/AB/R, WT/DS48/AB/R (EC—Hormones) ��224
European Communities—Measures Prohibiting the Importation and Marketing of Seal
Products (18 June 2014) WT/DS400/R, WT/DS401/R (EC—Seal Products) ��220, 228
Japan—Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages (11 July 1996) WT/DS8/R, WT/DS10/R,
WT/DS11/R (Japan—Alcohol I) ��231
Japan—Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages (1 November 1996) WT/DS8/AB/R,
WT/DS10/AB/R, WT/DS11/AB/R (Japan—Alcohol II) ��226, 231
xvi
xiv Table of Cases

Korea—Measures Affecting Imports of Fresh, Chilled and Frozen Beef (10 January
2001) WT/DS161/AB/R, WT/DS169/AB/R (Korea—Various Measures on Beef ) ��232
Korea—Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages (17 February 1999) WT/DS75/AB/R,
WT/DS84/AB/R (Korea—Alcoholic Beverages) ��232
United States—Import Prohibition of Certain Shrimp and Shrimp Products
(15 May 1998) WT/DS58/R (US—Shrimp I) �� 220, 225, 226
United States—Import Prohibition of Certain Shrimp and Shrimp Products
(12 October 1998) WT/DS58/AB/R (US—Shrimp II) �� 220, 225, 227, 228, 230, 231, 232
United States—Import Prohibition of Certain Shrimp and Shrimp Products, Recourse
to Article 21.5 of the DSU by Malaysia (22 October 2001) WT/DS58/AB/RW
(US—Shrimp 21.5) ��228
United States—Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting
Services (20 April 2005) WT/DS285/R (US—Gambling) ��226
United States—Measures Concerning the Importation, Marketing and Sale of Tuna and Tuna
Products (13 June 2012) WT/DS381/AB/R (US—Tuna II (Mexico)) ��228
United States—Restrictions on Imports of Tuna (3 September 1991) DS21/R (unadopted)
(US—Tuna I) �� 219, 225, 226, 231
United States—Restrictions on Imports of Tuna (16 June 1994) DS29/R (unadopted)
(US—Tuna II) �� 221, 225, 226
OTHER ARBITRATIONS
Caroline case (United States v United Kingdom) (1842) ��19, 21
Eureko v Poland (Netherlands-Poland BIT, Partial Award, 19 August 2005) ��247
Trail Smelter case (United States v Canada) (1941) 3 RIAA 1905, 1965 ��143
xv
Table of Treaties
Additional Protocol to the Convention Argentina –United States of America
for the Protection of Human Rights BIT (adopted 14 November 1991,
and Dignity of the Human Being entered into force 20 October
with Regard to the Application 1994) �� 241, 242
of Biology and Medicine, on the Preamble �� 254
Prohibition of Cloning Human ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary
Beings (adopted 12 January Haze Pollution (adopted 10 June
1998, entered into force 1 March 2002, entered into force
2001) CETS No 168 25 November 2003) �� 149
Art 1 �� 123 Art 3 �� 150
Agreement Governing the Activities Charter of the United Nations (adopted
of States on the Moon and 26 June 1945, entered into force
Other Celestial Bodies (adopted 24 October 1945) 1 UNTS XVI
18 December 1979, entered into (UN Charter) ��81, 92, 141
force 11 July 1984) 1363 UNTS 3 Ch VII �� 18, 23
(Moon Agreement) �� 80, 82 Art 2 �� 93
Art 7 �� 87 Art 2(4) �� 47
Art 11(2) �� 85 Art 51 �� 23
Agreement on the Rescue of Convention for the Protection of
Astronauts, the Return of Human Rights and Dignity of
Astronauts and the Return of the Human Being with Regard to
Objects Launched into Outer the Application of Biology and
Space (adopted 22 April 1968, Medicine: Convention on Human
entered into force 3 December Rights and Biomedicine (adopted
1968) 672 UNTS 119 �� 80 4 April 1997, entered into force
Agreement relating to the 1 February 1999) CETS 164
Implementation of Part XI of the (Convention on Human Rights
United Nations Convention on and Biomedicine) �� 129
the Law of the Sea of 10 December Art 13 �� 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 128
1982 (adopted by UNGA Res 48/ Art 14 �� 123
263 28 July 1994, entered into force Art 18(2) �� 123
16 November 1994) 1836 UNTS 3 Art 21 �� 123
(Implementing Agreement) ��162, Convention for the Protection of the
169, 170, 173 Ozone Layer (adopted 22 March
Amendment to the London Protocol to 1985, entered into force
Regulate the Placement of Matter 22 September 1988) (1985)
for Ocean Fertilization and Other 26 ILM 1529 �� 148
Marine Geoengineering Activities Preamble �� 149
(adopted on 18 October 2013) Convention for the Suppression of
(21 October 2013) Doc LC 35/15 Unlawful Acts against the Safety
Annex 4 �� 212 of Maritime Navigation (adopted
American Convention on Human Rights 10 March 1988, entered into force
in the Area of Economic, Social 1 March 1992) 1678 UNTS 201 �� 60
and Cultural Rights (adopted Convention Implementing the Schengen
16 November 1988, entered into Agreement of 14 June 1985
force 16 November 1999) OAS between the Governments of the
Treaty Series No 69 States of the Benelux Economic
Additional Protocol, Art 11 �� 150 Union, the Federal Republic of
xvi
xvi Table of Treaties

Germany and the French Republic Convention on the Control of
on the Gradual Abolition of Transboundary Movements of
Checks at their Common Borders Hazardous Wastes and their
(adopted 19 June 1990) (Schengen Disposal (adopted 22 March
Convention) �� 65 1989, entered into force 24 May
Convention on Biological Diversity 1992) (1989) 28 ILM 657
(adopted 22 May 1992, entered Art 4(2) �� 151
into force 29 December Convention on the Prevention of
1993) (1992) 31 ILM Marine Pollution by Dumping of
822 (CBD) �� 158, 205 Wastes and Other Matter (adopted
Preamble, para 2 �� 168 13 November 1972, entered
Art 2 �� 150, 151 into force 30 August 1975) 1046
Arts 8–10 �� 147 UNTS 120 (London Convention) �� 211
Convention on Environmental Impact Art I �� 212
Assessment in a Transboundary Convention on the Prohibition of
Context (adopted 21 May 2003, Military or Any Other Hostile Use
entered into force 11 July 2010) �� 150 of Environmental Modification
Convention on Facilitation of Techniques (adopted 10 December
International Maritime Traffic 1976, entered into force 5 October
(adopted 9 April 1965, entered 1978) 1108 UNTS 151 �� 80
into force 5 March 1967) 591 Convention on the Protection and Use
UNTS 265 (Facilitation Convention) of Transboundary Watercourses
Art I �� 64 and International Lakes (adopted
Art VI(a) �� 64 11 June 1999, entered into force 4
Art VIII �� 64 October 2005) 2231 UNTS 202
Annex �� 64 Art 1 �� 149
Convention on International Civil Convention on Wetlands of International
Aviation (adopted 7 December Importance Especially as Waterfowl
1944, entered into force 4 April Habitat (adopted 2 February 1971,
1947) 15 UNTS 295 (Chicago entered into force 21 December
Convention) 1975) 996 UNTS 245
Art 1 �� 83 Art 3(1) �� 148
Art 5 �� 83 Declaration of Legal Principles
Art 6(6) �� 83 Governing the Activities of
Convention on International Liability States in the Exploration and
for Damage Caused by Space Use of Outer Space, UNGA Res
Objects (adopted 29 March 1972, A/R ES/1 8/1 962 (13 December
entered into force 1 September 1963) (Legal Principles
1972) 961 UNTS 187 (Space Declaration) �� 82
Liability Convention) �� 80, 87 Para 3 �� 85
Art I(d) �� 89 Declaration of the First Meeting of
Art II �� 83 Equatorial Countries (adopted
Art III �� 89 3 December 1976) (Bogotá
Convention on Persistent Organic Declaration) �� 84
Pollutants (adopted 22 May Declaration of the United Nations
2001, entered into force 17 May Conference on the Human
2004) (2001) 40 ILM 532 Environment (16 June 1972) UN
Preamble �� 149 Doc A/CONF.48/14/Rev 1
Convention on Registration of Objects (Stockholm Declaration) �� 86, 148
Launched into Outer Space Preamble, para 1 �� 143
(adopted 14 January 1975, Preamble, para7 �� 158
entered into force 15 September Principle 7 �� 148
1976) 1023 UNTS 15 �� 80 Principle 21 �� 141, 143, 144, 150, 155
xvi
Table of Treaties xvii

Declaration on International Kyoto Protocol (adopted 11 December
Cooperation in the Exploration and 1997, entered into force 16
Use of Outer Space for the Benefit February 2005) 2303 UNTS
and in the Interest of All States, A-30822 �� 178, 179, 183, 184, 188
Taking into Particular Account the Art 3(1) �� 184, 185
Needs of Developing Countries, Art 12 �� 186
UNGA Res A/RES/51/122 Marrakesh Agreement Establishing
(13 December 1996) ��82, 92 the World Trade Organization
Doha Amendment to the Kyoto (adopted 15 April 1994, entered
Protocol (adopted 8 December into force 1 January 1995) 1867
2012, not yet in force) UNTS 154 (WTO Agreement)
C.N.718.2012.TREATIES- Preamble �� 229, 230, 231
XXVII.7.c �� 184, 185 Art IX(2) �� 234
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights Annex 2, Art 3(2) �� 234
(adopted 18 December 2000, Annex 2, Art 16(4) �� 234
entered into force 1 December Annex 2, Art 17(14) �� 234
2009), OJEC C 364 Minamata Convention on Mercury
Art 3(2) �� 123 (adopted 10 October 2013,
European Convention on Human not yet in force)
Rights (adopted 4 November Preamble �� 149
1950, entered into force 3 Paris Agreement (adopted 12 December
September 1953) (ECHR) 2015, entered into force
Art 2 �� 101, 103, 105, 108, 110 4 November 2016) �� 179, 182, 185,
Art 3 �� 68, 100, 101, 107, 108 187, 190, 191
Art 4 of Protocol 4 �� 69 Preamble �� 188
Art 6 �� 101, 109 Recital 7 �� 193
Art 8 �� 101, 109, 113, 114 Recital 11 �� 193
Art 10 �� 101 Art 2 �� 188, 207
Art 11 �� 101 Art 2.1(a) �� 179
Art 13 �� 69 Art 3 �� 188
Geneva Conventions I-IV 1949, Art 4 �� 207
Additional Protocols of 1977 �� 52 Art 4(1) �� 153, 195
Geneva Convention III relative to the Art 4(2) �� 188
Treatment of Prisoners of War Art 4(4) �� 192
(adopted 12 August 1949) �� 53, 54 Art 4(7) �� 188
Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 �� 52 Art 4(9) �� 153, 178, 179
International Convention Concerning Art 5 �� 207
the Use of Broadcasting in Art 7(1) �� 188
the Cause of Peace (adopted Art 7(10) �� 188
23 September 1936, entered Art 7(11) �� 188
into force 2 April 1938) Art 7(2) �� 188
186 LNTS 301 �� 80 Art 8 �� 189, 192
International Convention for the Art 8(2) �� 192
Safety of Life at Sea (adopted 1 Art 8(3) �� 189
November 1974, entered into force Arts 9–11 �� 189
25 May 1980) (SOLAS) 1974 �� 62 Arts 13–14 �� 191
International Covenant on Economic, Art 14(1) �� 188, 198
Social and Cultural Rights Art 15 �� 198
(adopted 16 December 1966) 993 Annex �� 197
UNTS 3 (ICESCR) Project of an International Declaration
Preamble �� 254 concerning the Laws and Customs
Art 2(1) �� 254 of War (Brussels, 27 August
Art 23 �� 254 1874) (Brussels Declaration) �� 52
xvi
xviii Table of Treaties

Protocol on Strategic Environmental Art IX �� 87, 91
Assessment to the Convention on UN Convention on the Law of the
Environmental Impact Assessment Non-Navigational Uses of
in a Transboundary Context International Watercourses
(adopted 21 May 2003, entered (adopted 21 May 1997, entered
into force 11 July 2010) 2685 into force 17 August 2014) (1997)
UNTS 40 �� 150 36 ILM 700 (New York
Protocol on Water and Health Watercourse Convention)
to the 1992 Convention on Art 7 �� 147, 151
the Protection and Use of Art 20 �� 150, 152, 157
Transboundary Watercourses and UNECE Convention on the Protection
International Lakes (adopted and Use of Transboundary
17 June 1999, entered into force Watercourses and International
4 August 2005) 2331 UNTS 202 ��149 Lakes (adopted 17 March 1992,
Protocol to the Convention on the entered into force 6 October
Prevention of Marine Pollution 1996) (1992) 31 ILM 1312
by Dumping of Wastes and (UNECE Water Convention)
Other Matter, 1972 (adopted Art 2(1) �� 147, 151
7 November 1996, entered into Art 2(2)(d) �� 150, 152
force 24 March 2006) 2006 ATS 11 Art 3(1) �� 150, 152
Art 3(4) �� 212 UNESCO Universal Declaration on
Rio Declaration on Environment and the Human Genome and Human
Development (adopted 14 June Rights (adopted 10 December 1948)
1992) �� 5, 142, 145, 156, 230 Art 3 �� 129
Principle 15 �� 205 United Nations Agreement for the
Seafarers’ Identity Documents Implementation of the Provisions
Convention (Revised) 2003 of the United Nations Convention
(adopted 19 June 2003, entered on the Law of the Sea of 10
into force 9 February 2005) 2304 December 1982 relating to the
UNTS 121 (SID Convention) �� 66 Conservation and Management of
Art 3(8) �� 65 Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly
Art 6(4) �� 65 Migratory Fish Stocks (adopted 4
Art 6(6) �� 65 December 1995, entered into force
Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests 11 December 2001) 2167 UNTS 88
in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space Art 5(c) �� 59
and Under Water (adopted 5 August Art 6 �� 59
1963, entered into force 10 October United Nations Convention on the Law
1963) 480 UNTS 43 �� 80 of the Sea (adopted 10 December
Treaty on Principles Governing 1982, entered into force 16
the Activities of States in the November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3
Exploration and Use of Outer (LOSC) �� 58, 72, 76
Space, including the Moon and Preamble �� 150
Other Celestial Bodies (adopted 27 Part XI �� 162
January 1967, entered into force Part XII, Section 5 �� 148
10 October 1967) 610 UNTS 205 Art 1(1) �� 162
(Outer Space Treaty) �� 83, 87 Art 1(4) �� 149
Preamble, para 1 �� 95 Art 61(3) �� 59
Preamble, para 2 �� 77 Art 136 �� 162
Art I �� 85 Art 137 �� 162
Art II �� 85, 86 Art 137(1) �� 85
Art III �� 81, 92, 93, 94 Art 137(2) �� 169
Art VI �� 91 Art 143 �� 169, 173, 175
Art IV �� 93 Art 145 �� 168, 169
xi
Table of Treaties xix

Art 145(a) �� 148 Art 4(1)(h) �� 207
Art 156 �� 162 Art 4(2)(a) �� 184
Art 157 �� 162 Art 4(4) �� 185
Art 160(2(f )(ii) �� 169 Art 24 �� 186
Art 162(2)(o)(ii) �� 169 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Art 165(2)(h) �� 170 (adopted 10 December 1948
Art 192 �� 150, 157 UNGA Res 217 A(III)
Art 194(1) �� 148 Preamble �� 254
Art 194(2) �� 148 Art 1 �� 130
Art 194(5) �� 150 Universal Declaration on the Human
Art 209 �� 148, 169 Genome and Human Rights
Art 211 �� 148 (adopted 11 November 1997,
Annex III Art 17(1)(b)(xii) �� 169 UNESCO Res 29 C/17, endorsed
United Nations Framework Convention by UN General Assembly
on Climate Change, New York Declaration, UNGA Res 53/152,
(adopted 9 May 1992, entered 9 December 1998)
into force 24 March 1994) 1771 Art 11 �� 123
UNTS 107 (UNFCCC) �� 205, 211 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
Preamble �� 150 (adopted 23 May 1969, entered into
Art 2 �� 150, 183, 185 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331
Art 3(1) �� 184 Art 31 �� 253
Art 3(3) �� 184, 206, 207 Art 31(1) �� 253, 254
Art 4 �� 184 Art 31(3)(c) �� 253
Art 4(1)(g) �� 207 Art 32 �� 253
x
xxi
List of Abbreviations
AIEA International Atomic Energy Agency
ARTs Assisted reproductive technologies
BECCS Bio-energy carbon capture and storage
BEINGS Biotechnology and the Ethical Imagination: A Global Summit
BIT Bilateral Investment Treaty
CBD Convention on Biological Diversity
CBDRRC Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities
CDR Carbon dioxide removal
CE Climate engineering
C-
EENRG Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource
Governance
CoC Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities
COP Conference of the Parties (Paris Agreement to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change)
COST Cooperation in science and technology
CSA Coordination and support action
CTLD Center for Transboundary Legal Development
ECHR European Convention on Human Rights
ECtHR European Court of Human Rights
ESA European Space Agency
EUFP7 European Union Seventh Framework Programme
FDI Foreign direct investment
FET Fair and equitable treatment
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP Gross domestic product
GHG Greenhouse gas
GMO Genetically modified organism
IADC Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee
IASS Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies
ICES International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
ICISS International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
ICJ International Court of Justice
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
ICSID International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
IEA International Energy Agency
IIAs International Investment Agreements
ILC International Law Commission
ILO International Labour Organization
IMO International Maritime Organization
Intelsat International Telecommunications Satellite Organization
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
ISA International Seabed Authority
xxi
xxii List of Abbreviations

ISPS Code International Ship and Port Facility Security Code
ISS International space station
LDC Least developed countries
LOSC Law of the Sea Convention
MA Moon Agreement
MFN Most-favoured-nation
MIDAS Managing Impacts of Deep-seA reSource exploitation
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NDC Nationally determined contributions
NGO Non-governmental organization
NPCs Nationally determined contributions
NPMs Non-precluded measures
NRC National Research Council
OST Outer Space Treaty
PAROS Prevention of an arms race in outer space
PCASP Privately contracted armed security personnel
PPMs Process and production methods
PPWT Draft Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer
Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects
R2P Responsibility to protect
RCP Representative concentration pathway
SDG Sustainable development goal
SID Seafarer identification documents
SOGI Sexual orientation and gender identity
SOLAS International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea
SRM Solar radiation management
TCBMs Transparency and confidence-building measures
TILT Tilburg institute for Law, Technology and Society
TOA Technology options analysis
TSC Tilburg Sustainability Center
UNC Charter of the United Nations
UNCOPUOS United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space
UNDOALOS UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNSCOM United Nations Special Commission
UNSW University of New South Wales
UNTS United Nations Treaty Series
USNSS National Security Strategy of the United States of America
VCLT Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
WMD Weapons of mass destruction
WTO World Trade Organization
xxi
List of Contributors
Mónika Ambrus is a Senior Researcher in Public International Law at the Institute for Legal
Sciences at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. Earlier she worked as a lecturer
in public international law at the Department of Public International Law at the University
of Groningen and as Assistant Professor at the Department of Public International Law
at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD in 2010,
focusing on European anti-discrimination law and its enforcement mechanisms. Her cur-
rent research focuses on the discourse analysis relating to the legitimacy of international
adjudication and legal designs in international water law. Between 2010 and 2016 she was
the managing editor of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, and the editor with
RA Wessel of Between Pragmatism and Predictability: Temporariness in International Law (45
Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, TMC Asser Press 2014).
Azernoosh Bazrafkan joined the Globalization and International Economic Law program
of the University of Antwerp in partnership with the World Trade Institute. Her doctoral
research focuses on international investment law from the perspective of development.
Currently, she is engaged as a part-time consultant for the World Bank on a project analys-
ing pro-development provisions in international investment agreements. She holds an LLM
degree in International and European Law from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a
Bachelor’s degree in Law and Economics from Leiden University.
Lianne Boer is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at VU University, Amsterdam,
and Research Fellow of the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law. Her research focuses
on academic practices, such as the construction of legal knowledge in international humani-
tarian law, approaching these from the perspectives of inter alia linguistics and the sociology
of science. She has been a visiting scholar at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law in
Cambridge, as well as at the Faculty of Law at Lund University, Sweden.
Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli is a Philomathia Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University
of Cambridge and a Fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural
Resource Governance (C-EENRG). She holds a PhD in international law from the Graduate
Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva) and Master’s degrees from
Sciences Po Paris and the University of Panthéon-Sorbonne. She teaches and researches
international environmental law and international energy law. Her current research focuses
on the legal aspects of the energy transition to a low-carbon economy. She is also interested
in investigating the nature and content of the fundamental principles of international envi-
ronmental law, in particular the principle of prevention.
Floor M Fleurke is Assistant Professor of European Environmental Law at Tilburg Law School,
the Netherlands, where she is member of three research schools within Tilburg University,
namely the Center for Transboundary Legal Development (CTLD), the multidisciplinary
Tilburg Sustainability Center (TSC) and the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and
Society (TILT). Her research focuses on European environmental law, with a specific interest
in the relationship between science, technology, and environmental law. She holds a PhD (cum
laude) from the University of Amsterdam for a thesis on the application of the precautionary
principle in the European Union and has published several peer-reviewed articles.
xvi
xxiv List of Contributors

Steven Freeland is Professor of International Law at Western Sydney University, Australia
and Permanent Visiting Professor at the iCourts Centre of Excellence for International
Courts. His main teaching and research interests are in the fields of international crim-
inal law, commercial aspects of space law, public international law, and human rights law.
He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna; a member of Faculty at the London
Institute of Space Policy and Law; Director of the International Institute of Space Law; a
member of the Space Law Committee of the International Law Association; a member of
the Advisory Board at the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research; and a mem-
ber of the European Centre for Space Law. He sits on the editorial board of a number of
international journals, including the Australian International Law Journal, the Annals of Air
and Space Law, the German Journal of Air and Space Law, and the Space Law Review, and is
Co-Editor of Annotated Leading Cases of the International Criminal Tribunals.
Douglas Guilfoyle is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Monash University.
He was previously a Reader at University College London. He is the author of Shipping
Interdiction and the Law of the Sea (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and International
Criminal Law (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and numerous articles on Somali
piracy, and maritime security and law enforcement. He has acted as a consultant on piracy
and maritime security issues to the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia
(Working Group 2), the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons and the
UN Office on Drugs and Crime, among other organizations. He holds a PhD and LLM
from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Chevening and a Gates Scholar, and
undergraduate degrees in law and history from the Australian National University.
Alexia Herwig is Assistant Professor in International Economic Law at the University of
Antwerp. Prior to joining the Faculty of Law, she held a personal post-doctoral fellowship
from the Flemish Research Foundation and was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the
University of Bremen, Germany in a project on social regulation and trade. She holds a
doctoral degree and an LLM in International Legal Studies from New York University and a
Bachelor of Science from the London School of Economics. Her research interests focus on
risk regulation in international economic law, as well as more philosophical thought about
matters of human rights, distributive justice, and democracy in the context of economic
globalization.
Aline Jaeckel is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Macquarie Law School, where she is a
recipient of the Macquarie University Research Fellowship. Her work focuses on the regula-
tion of deep seabed mineral mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction. She is the author of
The International Seabed Authority and the Precautionary Principle (Martinus Nijhoff, 2017) as
well as articles and book chapters in the fields of law of the sea, international law, and interna-
tional environmental law. Previously, she worked for the Institute for Advanced Sustainability
Studies (IASS) in Potsdam and taught international law and law of the sea at the University
of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. Aline holds a PhD from UNSW, an LLM from
Leiden University, and an LLB from UWE Bristol.
Jacqueline Peel is a Professor at the Melbourne Law School. Her research interests are
in the areas of environmental law (domestic and international), risk regulation, and the
role of science and climate change law. She has published numerous articles and several
books on these topics, including Australian Climate Law in a Global Context (with A Zahar
and L Godden) (Cambridge University Press Melbourne, 2013); Principles of International
Environmental Law (with P Sands) (3rd edn, Cambridge University Press, 2012);
Environmental Law: Scientific, Policy and Regulatory Dimensions (with L Godden) (Oxford
xv
List of Contributors xxv

University Press, 2010); Science and Risk Regulation in International Law (Cambridge
University Press, 2010); and The Precautionary Principle in Practice (Federation Press,
2005). She holds a BSc and an LLB from the University of Queensland, an LLM from
New York University, where she was a Fulbright scholar, and a PhD from the University
of Melbourne. She has been Hauser Research Scholar and Emile Noël Fellow at NYU Law
School and a Visiting Scholar at the Berkeley Law School’s Centre for Law, Energy and
Environment and Stanford Water in the West, Stanford University.
Rosemary Rayfuse is Scientia Professor of Public International Law at UNSW, Australia,
Conjoint Professor in the Faculty of Law at Lund University, and Visiting Professor at
the University of Gothenburg. Her research focuses on the law of the sea and interna-
tional environmental law, with particular emphasis on protection of the marine environ-
ment in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Her publications include the edited Research
Handbook on International Marine Environmental Law (Edward Elgar, 2015) Protection of
the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict (Martinus Nijhoff, 2014), and International
Law in the Era of Climate Change (with Shirley Scott) (Edward Elgar, 2012). She is on
the editorial board of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law and is Chair’s
Nominee on the International Law Association’s Committee on International Law and
Sea-Level Rise.
David Sifonios is attorney at law and in-house lawyer with an energy and telecommunica-
tion company in Switzerland. His forthcoming PhD thesis presented at the University of
Lausanne analyses the issue of environmental processes and production methods (PPMs) in
World Trade Organization (WTO) law.
Nicholas Tsagourias is Professor of International Law at the University of Sheffield. His
main teaching and research interests are in the fields of international law and the use of
force, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law. He sits on the edi-
torial board for the Journal of Conflict and Security Law (Oxford University Press) and he
is a member of the Cyberterrorism Study Group of the International Law Association.
Among his recent publications are the edited book Research Handbook on International
Law and Cyberspace (with Dr Russell Buchan) (Edward Elgar, 2015) and the co-authored
book Collective Security: Theory, Law and Practice (with Professor Nigel White) (Cambridge
University Press, 2013).
Britta van Beers is Associate Professor at the Department of Legal Theory of VU University,
Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research involves the legal-philosophical aspects of the
regulation of medical biotechnology. She has degrees in philosophy (cum laude) and law
from the University of Amsterdam and New York University School of Law and a PhD
from the VU, for which she received the CJ Goudsmit prize from the Dutch Health Law
Association and the Praemium Erasmium Research Prize from the Praemium Erasmianum
Foundation in 2011. Since 2011, she has been a member of several advisory commit-
tees of the Dutch Health Council. Recent publications include the volume Humanity
across International Law and Biolaw (co-edited with Wouter Werner and Luigi Corrias)
(Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Symbolic Legislation and Developments in Biolaw
(co-edited with Bart van Klink and Lonneke Poort) (Springer, 2016).
Wouter Werner is Professor of Public International Law at VU University, Amsterdam. His
main fields of interest are international legal theory, conflict and security law, international
criminal law, and the interplay between international law and international politics. In his
recent publications, Werner has focused on audio-visual representations of international
xvi
xxvi List of Contributors

criminal law. Werner is Co-Director of the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law
and editor of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law. In 2010, he received a grant
of approximately €550,000 from Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) for
the establishment of a pan-European, interdisciplinary research network on foundational
changes in international law. This volume is one of the publications that has emerged from
the COST research network.
Andreas R Ziegler is currently a Professor of International Law and the Director of the LLM
Program in International and European Economic and Commercial Law at the University of
Lausanne. Previously he was a civil servant working for several Swiss Ministries and interna-
tional organizations. He has published widely on European law, public international law, on
international courts and tribunals, and on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI),
as well as trade and investment. He regularly advises governments, international organiza-
tions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private clients and has represented
them before various domestic and international courts and arbitral tribunals. He is counsel
with a law firm specializing in economic and business law (Blum & Grob Attorneys-at-law,
Zurich), is on the permanent roster of panelists of the World Trade Organization (WTO)
and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and is a SOGI
expert for the Council of Europe.
1
PA RT I
I N T RO D U C T I O N
2
Exploring the Variety of Random
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of World atavism
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
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Title: World atavism
Author: Edmond Hamilton
Illustrator: Frank R. Paul
Release date: June 17, 2024 [eBook #73857]
Language: English
Original publication: Jamaica, NY: Experimenter Publications Inc,

1930
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD ATAVISM

***
World Atavism
By Edmond Hamilton
Author of "The Universe Wreckers,"

"The Other Side of the Moon," etc.
Illustrated by PAUL
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Amazing Stories August 1930.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The sun's rays have been credited with many beneficial
powers. It is a universally conceded fact that the sun is
necessary to good health; not only because of its
warmth-giving rays, but also because of some other
element, directly a health-giving factor, which has since
been more or less successfully duplicated in the
laboratory—in the form of Alpine lamps and what not.
It is also said, however, that there are certain
properties in the rays of the sun which might be used
as life-giving rays. As far as we know, nothing definite
has been established on this score yet. Who knows
what other helpful possibilities are hidden in the various
ether vibrations produced by the sun? Edmond
Hamilton has a brand new idea, which he elaborates
and weaves into a fascinating story of scientific fiction.
Certainly it seems to us to be of absorbing interest.
FOREWORD
I write these words in a room perched high in one of New York's

highest towers. Beneath me, in the fading sunlight of late afternoon,
there stretches the vast mass of the mighty city's structures. New
York it is—but such a New York as never man looked upon before.
And it is with its familiar but infinitely strange panorama before my
eyes that I start now this record of the great change.
My name is Allan Harker. Dr. Allan Harker, I could say, for it has been
seven years since I took the degree and with it a position on the
biological staff of Manhattan University. That was a great day for me.
Manhattan was one of the most renowned of eastern universities,
and its biological department in particular was known to scientists the
world over. This was due not only to the department's unrivalled
equipment, but also in greater part to two of the scientists who
worked in it, Dr. Howard Grant, head of the department, and Dr.
Raymond Ferson, his associate. Very proud I was to have won so
soon the opportunity of working with those two world-famed
biologists. And even prouder I was when, in the next years, my work
came gradually to link my name with theirs.
Grant and Ferson and Harker—we were known to scientists across
half the world. It was Grant, of course, the eldest of us, who was
best known. A tall, saturnine-faced and dark-browed Scotsman, his
utter and undivided passion for research was a byword among us. It
used to be said, though not in his hearing, that Grant would have
vivisected his own grandmother if he thought some new principle
might be learned by it. All respected the man, or the man's
achievements, but he never had a tithe of the popularity that was
Ferson's. Ferson was in fact a complete contrast to his superior, a
short-statured man of middle age with unruly hair and beard and
warm brown, friendly eyes. As for myself, the third of the trio, I had
neither the brilliant scientific mind of Grant nor the keen vision of
Ferson, but by dint of ceaseless plodding with monotonous details, I
had built for myself a reputation that linked my name with theirs.
Aside from our professorial duties in the university's lecture-rooms,
we had each of us our separate work. I was plodding away with my
dull experiments on cell-grouping, which I expected would some day
yield a theory that would astound all cytologists. Now and then I
received help on some difficult point from Ferson, who was himself
immersed in an attempt to demolish the Snelsen-Morrs re-
vertebration theory by prying into the interior structure of
innumerable unheard-of lizards. Grant, however, never received or
gave any help, keeping his work entirely to himself. We had gathered,
from his rare references to it, that he had been working for months
on one of the broader problems of evolutionary science, but that was
all we knew, and we were as amazed as any when Grant published
the statement that touched off the sensational "evolution
controversy."
It is needless for me to give here all the details of the thing. It is
sufficient to say that Grant, in his statement, announced that he had
solved at last the greatest enigma of biological science—that he had
discovered the cause of evolution.
One can understand what an uproar that statement created, and was
bound to create. For the cause of evolutionary change has always
been the supreme problem of biology. Long ago Darwin and Wallace
and Lamarck and their fellows had laid the processes of evolution
bare. They had shown to an astonished world that life on earth was
not static in forms that had always existed and always would exist,
but that it was in constant change and movement up through
constantly changing forms. The eohippus had changed, had evolved
into the horse, and in future ages would be something different still.
The great felines that had roamed earth had evolved into smaller
forms and into tame cats. A certain branch of ape-like forms had
evolved into great hairy troglodytes and then into modern men. All
life on earth was constantly changing, evolving, forced ever upward
through the diverging channels of evolution into new and different
forms.
But what force was it that pressed earth's life thus upward through
the paths of change? What force was it that caused all this vast, slow
evolution of earth's creatures into different creatures, that had begun
with the first jelly-like life-forms on earth and had forced the tide of
life up from them to the forms of today, that still was slowly changing
them? That question none could answer. Environment did not explain
it, for though environment had certain effects on the life-forms in it,
it was not responsible for that deep, vast tide of upward evolution.
Mendelism had seemed for a time to suggest an explanation but had
failed in the end to do so. Some great force there was, all knew, that
pressed life always up the path of evolution, but none had ever
guessed what that force might be, and the thing had come to be
accepted at last as one of the insoluble problems of science. And now
Grant claimed that he had solved it!
"For long," Grant's statement said, "I have held that since
evolutionary change is unquestionably caused by some definite and
omnipresent force acting upon all life on earth, it should be possible
to discover the nature of that force. I will not recount the work of
months which I have spent in constant search for this force, but will
say that finally I have been successful, have identified the force
which my experiments show beyond all doubt to be the single force
responsible for the upward course of evolution on earth. That force is
a vibratory force, a vibration unknown to earth's physicists prior to
my discovery of it, which has as its source the sun!
"The sun, we know, is a vast mass of incandescent matter which
ceaselessly pours out part of its matter transformed into energy. The
energy thus formed, flooding out in all directions from the sun
through space, takes various forms. At a certain vibratory frequency,
it takes the form of light and illuminates our day. At another
frequency, it is radiant heat, warming our world. At still another, it is
the cosmic ray so recently discovered. There are many others, known
to us, and still more of which we know nothing as yet, a vast welter
of vibratory forces flooding endlessly outward from the sun. And it is
one of those vibrations, one which we well may call the evolution
vibration, which is responsible for the evolutionary change of all life
on earth.
"In this there is nothing astounding. The sun's various vibratory
forces affect all living things on earth profoundly, each in a different
manner. Without the light-vibrations earth's life would fade and die,
the absence of the ultra-violet waves being fatal in time. Without its
heat-radiations all life would freeze. And without this evolution
vibration playing ceaselessly upon earth, all life upon earth would no
longer be pressed upward through the paths of evolution, would slip
back swiftly down those paths, down the myriad roads up which it
has surged for so long. For not only is it this evolution vibration that
forces earth's life upward on the way of change, it is this vibration
that keeps earth's life from slipping backward!"
Thus for Grant's statement. To Ferson and me it was as astonishing
as to the rest of the scientific world, for not until then did we learn
what work it was that had occupied Grant for so long. Yet even we
two, I think, were surprised at the sensation that that statement
caused. Always the work of Dr. Grant had been accepted almost
without question, so great was his reputation and so brilliant his
achievements. But with the publication of this amazing new theory of
his, the general dislike of the man that had always lain latent, burst
forth into a storm of criticism.
It was admitted that the new vibratory force which Grant had
discovered did apparently exist, since other scientists working on his
data had corroborated his work on it. But it was denied, by Grant's
numerous critics, that this force was what he claimed it to be—the
cause of evolutionary change. It was impossible, they stated, that
such a so-called evolution vibration could in reality be responsible for
the course of evolution on earth. And it was even more absurd to
suggest as Grant had done that were that force withdrawn, were the
evolution vibration to cease to play on earth from the sun, the living
beings of earth would slip swiftly backward on the road of change.
The controversy over the thing grew, in fact, to a point of bitterness
unprecedented in scientific discussion, a bitterness intensified by the
comments of the saturnine and black-tempered Grant. In a series of
sardonic statements, he compared his critics to those who had
derided the work of Darwin and his fellows, and indulged in some
rather acrid personalities. These in turn provoked fiercer attacks, and
the whole matter grew thus quickly into an unseemly intellectual
brawl. To Ferson and myself the whole controversy seemed a useless
one, because, in the course of time, experimentation by other
scientists would definitely prove or disprove Grant's theory. Yet
neither of us ventured to suggest that to our bitter superior, and so
the wrangle grew in intensity in the next days until it suddenly came
to a head.
It was the elderly President Rogers of Manhattan University who
brought the thing to a focus. He and the university's other officials
had been growing more and more restive under the criticisms that
Grant's controversy was bringing on the school, and so at last he
suggested that a meeting be held at which Grant could lay his
theories and data before his fellow-scientists in their entirety. This
Grant accepted, and so too did most biologists of any note within
traveling distance of New York, so widely had the clamor of the
dispute spread. And on an afternoon Grant rose before several
hundred assembled scientists in one of the university's lecture-halls
to explain his discovery.
There is little need for me to tell at length of what took place at that
meeting, which both Ferson and I attended. At the first appearance
of Dr. Grant his enemies in the audience grew vocal in their criticisms,
and before he had spoken a quarter of an hour the hall was in such
an uproar as a scientific meeting has seldom heard. Twice Grant
made an effort to go on and each time his voice was drowned by a
storm of shouted cries. The President, chairman of the meeting, was
rapping vainly for order, but Grant only stood still, looking out over
the stormy meeting with a cold contempt in his eyes, yet with a
strange fire in them. Quietly he rolled up the data-sheets in his hand
and thrust them into his pocket, and as quietly stepped forward to
the platform's edge. Something in his bearing, in his expression,
quickly quieted the noisy throng before him.
His voice came out over the hall cold and clear. "You have not let me
give to you the proof for which you asked," he said.
The President stepped to his side, said something rapidly, but Grant
shook his head calmly. "No proof that I can give you here would
convince you of my theory's truth, I know," he told the silent throng
before him, "but I will give you proof of it yet! To you, and to the
world, I will give a proof such as the world has never seen before!"
Before any could move, he had walked from the platform and out of
the hall. A buzz of excited voices broke out instantly, in comment and
criticism. It was some hours later before Ferson and I got from the
meeting to Grant's laboratory. But Grant was not there.
Within twenty-four hours more we knew, and all at the university
knew, that Dr. Grant had disappeared. From the meeting he went to
his laboratory, burned some papers there and pocketed others. Then
he went to his rooms, hastily packed a few bags and departed. He
left no note, no message. His action brought to a climax the whole
sensation of the controversy he had precipitated and Grant's going
was taken by many of his critics as a confession of the falsity of his
position. He had had no close relatives to start a search for him, and
though to Ferson and me his strange departure seemed astounding,
we could explain it no better than others. The sensation subsided,
and Ferson was appointed to head the department in place of the
vanished scientist. Our own work occupied us once more. And
certainly neither Ferson nor I, any more than another, guessed what
lay behind Grant's strange action.
It was six months after Grant's departure that the great change
began.
The first intimation was brought to the public notice by a New York
newspaper. In a sensational article entitled "Is a New Crime Wave
Upon Us?" it pointed out that in the last few days an unprecedented
number of crimes of violence had taken place.
These were the more appalling in that many seemed quite without
motive. In New York alone, in those few days, there had been more
than a dozen murders, mostly clubbings and stabbings, which had
apparently been provoked by the slightest of causes. In Chicago a
respected clerk of middle age had for some annoyance turned
suddenly and fractured the skulls of three of his associates with a
heavy bar. From San Francisco and Los Angeles had come news of
half a dozen holocausts in which one member of a family had
slaughtered or attempted to slaughter all the others. From every part
of the land there were coming reports of the most horrifying crimes
of violence, the great majority of which seemed inspired by the
pettiest of causes.
And this same wave of homicidal mania seemed at work over all the
world! It was as though hundreds in earth's population had suddenly
had their reason dwarfed and their passions magnified. No less than
three solid householders in London had run amuck in bursts of
sadistic[1] fury that had cost a half-score lives. The Paris police had
taken from the Seine more human bodies, many terribly mutilated,
than had ever been found in it in a like time before. Germany was
aghast over two mass-murders of unexampled fiendishness that had
occurred in a Rhenish and a Silesian village. There was news of an
even more terrible slaying in Calcutta, and word of murders almost as
terrible from almost every country on the globe.
Nor was it murder alone that was stalking the earth, for robberies of
the utmost brutality were even more numerous. Overshadowed as
they were by the greater horror, they were as astonishing in nature.
For all, like the slayings, seemed the result of sudden brutal instincts
or desires uncontrolled by reason. Small shopkeepers in American
and English towns were struck down for trifles. In the stores of great
cities there were those who snatched childishly at desired objects and
attempted a hopeless escape to the street. That was the keynote of
all these robberies, of all these crimes—the unreasoning childishness
of them. For the great part of them were attempted under
circumstances which should have shown to even the most dull-witted
that there was no chance of success.
It was a wave of strange and terrible crime, indeed, that was
sweeping over all the earth. The newspapers concerned themselves
with it to the exclusion of all else soon. They sought for explanations.
What had caused this sudden release of the most brutal passions of
numberless people? Many were the answers. An eminent scientist
declared that the nerve-racking strain of modern civilization had
reached such a pitch that the human mind could no longer stand it,
was giving way beneath it. Many wrote serious letters to the press
denouncing the motion pictures as schools of crime. Others defended
them. And while the cause was thus argued, the great wave of crime
and utter lawlessness that had rolled across earth seemed increasing
in volume.
The number of deaths by violence that were each day recorded had
grown now to an appalling figure. Murderous attacks were common
in every one of earth's great cities. Men hurled themselves at each
other's throats, apparently for a word, a gesture. Nor was this all. A
strange erratic insanity seemed seizing more and more of earth's
millions. Numberless were those reported to the authorities as
missing, those who had wandered causelessly away from home and
family. The world's roads held an unprecedented number of vagrant
wanderers.
But in a few days more even this astounding wave of appalling crime
was dwarfed in importance by more astounding and more terrible
happenings. Accidents, a great number of them fatal to many, were
occurring in every part of earth in an amount that was all but
incredible.
More than a hundred people had gone to death in the crash of two
thundering passenger trains in Colorado, a crash that had been due
to the failure of an engineer to heed the plainest of signals. Two train
wrecks in northern England had taken a toll of life almost as great,
and there were reports of many other crashes from various parts of
earth. In every one the accident had been due to the inexplicable
failure of the human element, the failure of dispatcher or switchman
or engineer to perform the duty that habit should have made
automatic. In one case, that of the Austrian disaster, the crash had
been directly caused by the sudden craziness of a switchman, who,
for some slight grievance, had sent a long passenger-train crashing
through an open switch and down an embankment.
There was news as terrible from the seas. Wireless reports flashed
thick with word of ships that had blundered fatally on rocks or shoals
by fault of helmsman or navigating officer. The greater part of these,
fortunately, were freight-ships of medium and small size, but one
case sent a thrill of horror through earth, already steeped in horror.
That was when the great transatlantic liner Garonia, bound to
Southampton, crashed by night into the southern Irish coast with the
resulting loss of three-fourths of the thousand humans it carried. And
that wreck, like the others, was due to an utterly inexplicable failure
of the ship's personnel.
Smaller in magnitude, but taking a total of far more lives, were the
unnumbered accidents that took place in the thickly populated and
highly mechanized countries of North America and Europe. The
number of automobile deaths, always staggering America, reached a
stunning total in those last fateful days of September. Crashes took
place at every corner, and the running down of pedestrians became a
common occurrence everywhere. Many cars mowed a path of death
through street and sidewalk before they were halted, their drivers
losing apparently all faculty of control of them.
And in mill and shop and factory death's grim hand was reaping as
thickly. Men, upon whom the lives of many depended, suddenly lost
control of their machines and sent those many to death. Countless
others were mangled or crushed to death by the great mechanisms
they had operated for years without mishaps. Airplane crashes
became so numerous that many sections of the world peremptorily
forbade all further flying until the cause of it all could be ascertained.
It was as though more and more of the masses of men were
becoming incapable of handling the mechanisms, of conducting the
operations, that they had been executing for years. Was mankind
going collectively insane?
It seemed insanity, indeed, that was sweeping earth now. Riots had
taken place on a small scale here and there in those days, but it was
not until after the first of October that the first of the great outbreaks
took place in London. Crowds of wandering men and women began
the looting of shops, the breaking of windows, and the rioting swiftly
spread. So swiftly did it spread, in fact, that by the time the troops
called to suppress it appeared on the scene, unestimated thousands
were engaged in the wild search for plunder. At the order to fire, an
irregular volley from the troops killed scores, but in the pitched mob
battle that followed scores of the soldiers took the side of the looters.
The combat between mob and soldiers was forgotten, and the battle
became a wild scene of brutality and violence in which hundreds
were slain and trampled. In the end it required machine-guns to
disperse them.
A similar great outbreak in New York was curbed quickly a day later
by the use of planes and tear-bombs, but two days after there came
a huge riot of unexampled bloodiness in Chicago, which cost several
thousand lives and which resulted in the burning of a third of the city.
Beginning as a race riot and developing into a savage general battle
for loot, it was notable for the fact that the troops, called to suppress
it, broke up even before they reached the scene and occupied
themselves in brutal looting and battle of their own. And a score of
great riots in the other cities of earth had similar results.
Civilization seemed crashing, with this oncoming dissolution of its
organization and institutions. Had humanity gone insane, indeed?
Swiftly, with full realization of the peril upon it by then, a conference
of the world's most noted scientists had been called some days
before at New York, to explain and to halt, if possible, this wave of
seeming insanity that was gripping more of the masses of humanity
each day and that was disintegrating civilization.
But when those scientists met, the world learned that they had a
hundred different explanations of the thing, no two agreeing. The
famous American alienist who had voiced his opinion days before
reiterated his belief that the minds of men were giving way en masse
beneath the strain of modern civilization. A Rumanian bacteriologist
claimed that the thing was the result of a contagious new brain
disease spreading over earth, and claimed even to have isolated the
bacterium of that disease. The scientists, gripped seemingly by
something of the erratic condition of mind they were striving to
explain, argued these theories and others with utmost passion,
sometimes attacking each other. An English physicist, who suggested
that earth was passing through strange mind-affecting gases in
space, was assaulted by the proponent of another theory. And still
more furious and incredulous, the world learned, was the reception
given to the explanation of a New York biologist named Ferson, who
claimed that the whole great terror was the result of the human races
slipping backward on the road of evolution!
"World atavism! A throwback of all the world's life on the road of
evolution!" So, they learned, Ferson had cried to the assembled
scientists. "All earth's animal life is beginning to slip back, and man,
as the most recently developed animal, is slipping first, is going back
toward the savage state, toward the cave-man or troglodyte, toward
the ape! He is losing control of his passions as he goes back, which
accounts for the violence that now fills earth! And he is losing the
mental capacity of modern man, which accounts for his inability to
operate longer our modern machines! A world atavism that is
beginning with the atavism of the human races!"
"But what could cause such world atavism as that?" the incredulous
scientists had cried.
"The evolutionary theory of my former associate, Dr. Grant——"
Ferson had begun, but was interrupted by a chorus of derisive shouts
provoked by the mention of the scientist whose ridiculous theory had
been exploded.
So Ferson had been forced from the meeting by the furious scientists,
who seemed seized indeed with the erratic craziness that was
gripping the world. Another day they advanced and argued their
theories, theories that grew ever more impossible, more incoherent,
and then the meeting dissolved in a general riotous brawl of the
arguing scientists. They, in common with the rest of the races of
men, seemed incapable longer of calm thought, of cool, unpassioned
reasoning. Two were killed, throttled in the brawl that ended the
meeting, and the rest scattered. They were not followed or punished,
for now the disintegration of humanity's institutions had become such
that crime was unheeded.
Men were outrivalling each other in mad action. Those in high places
as in low were gripped by the insanity that had apparently seized
earth, and from the Cabinets and Congresses of a score of nations
came declarations of war against other nations, for the slightest of
reasons or for none at all. England, the United States, France,
Germany, Italy, Turkey, Japan and China—these and a dozen others
issued frenzied and incoherent calls to arms. But they were
unheeded! Even war now could not penetrate the unreasoning minds
of men. Armies had broken up, all discipline and organization
vanishing. A few who tried to keep their soldiers in line found that the
men could no longer handle the great guns and instruments of war,
found that most of them were incapable of the operation of rifles!
Civilization was crashing with a prolonged roar of falling laws and
institutions and customs echoing across the world. The ordinary
methods of transportation and production having completely broken
down days before, the stream of food into the great cities had
abruptly ceased. The brutal throngs that filled those cities subsisted
by looting the existing food supplies for a time, but soon these were
exhausted and then terrible battles took place between the rioters for
food which they had found. Battles they were of hordes of ragged
brutes, of savages, who fought with knives or with their bare hands
in the streets. Only occasionally was a shot heard, for almost none
there was now with sufficient dull glimmer of intelligence to
manipulate a gun.
In the shadow of the tall towers of New York, and in the brick and
stone acres of London and the boulevards of Paris, thousands and
hundreds of thousands of these savages swarmed, the ways choked
with corpses of the slain. At night they crouched fearfully in hallways
and offices and corridors, the vast cities lying dark and silent beneath
the stars. Shapes of prowling animals were being seen in some of
them by night. No wheel turned in all the world now, for none
seemed left with intelligence enough to operate the simplest
machine.
And these swarms that had been human were changing in
appearance too. The men were unshaven and hairier, it seemed.
Much clothing had been discarded, crude belts that held knives or the
like weapons being retained. They crouched now as they walked,
their step a watchful, animal-like one. From under shaggy brows they
stared at each other. Small, crude family-groups held together, the
man battling other men for the possession of food. Some managed to
kill animals, and wore the skins.
They were troglodytes, millions of them, men such as the world had
seen thousands of years before, as humanity had been then. They
were troglodytes, wandering through the cities and towns that they
themselves had built, staring in wondering fear about them at things
the purpose of which they could not understand. But most had no
wonder, only a brutal lack of interest in all save food and mating and
sleep. There were no fires, for all had lost the use of fire and feared it
now.
Driven by hunger, great masses of them were pouring out of the
cities into the countryside, to hunt roots and herbs and to kill small
animals for food. They made rude shelters for a time, then
abandoned them for caves and crannies in the rocks. They ceased to
use knives or spears, they could but throw great stones at each other
or wield chance clubs, or fight with bare hands.
Many had remained in the cities and among them was more fighting.
With each day they were changing farther, it seemed, going farther
back along the long road of change that man had ascended so slowly
through the ages, and that he was slipping back upon so swiftly.
The streets of New York and Glasgow and Constantinople and
Yokohama saw them, these animal-like, ape-like hordes that
wandered there. Ape-like they were becoming, indeed, swiftly hairier
of body, more crouching of gait, stooping occasionally in moving to
run on hands and feet. Clothing they had discarded. The
fragmentary, mumbled speech that they had kept until days before
had given way to a meaningless medley of barking shouts and cries
whose tone conveyed their crude attempt at communication. They
roamed the great cities in little groups or tribes, of each of which one
was the strongest, the tyrant, the acknowledged lord.
And now, they were changing still. Were running more on hands and
feet, walking upright less. Back from man to troglodyte, and from
troglodyte to ape had the human races gone, and now were slipping
back still into the animal races from which the apes had come! World
atavism—and it was wiping the last human-like forms from the face
of earth!
Of this great change that in days swept man back into the brutal
forms of dead ages, I, Allan Harker, was a witness from the first. For
it was at New York that the early manifestations of the change had
been first noticed, in that increasing wave of terrible crime that was
in days to rage over the whole earth.
Neither Ferson nor I, of course, had any suspicion of the thing's real
magnitude in those first days. We followed, with the same
astonishment that held most in the world, the astounding growth of
crime and violence, but it was remote from our own interests, and we
were both very much absorbed in our differing work of
experimentation. We spent more time on that work, indeed, in those
days than before, for both Ferson and I seemed to have lost a little of
our usual skill and knowledge. I know that he caught himself in
inexplicable lapses, and I know that I, usually the most patient of
biologists, forgot myself in sudden impatient rage on one or two
occasions and smashed retorts and test-tubes about me. Neither of
us dreamed, of course, that we were being affected by the same
strange forces that were releasing humanity's passions in a carnival
of crime.
But when a little later the great wave of crime that was making earth
hideous was made more terrible by the innumerable inexplicable
accidents that were occurring, Ferson became thoughtful. He
deserted his own white-tiled laboratories for the university's
psychological test-rooms with their strange recording instruments,
and spent hours there carrying out intricate tests of the reactions of
himself and others. It was after two days of such tests, when the
fatal accidents occurring everywhere were taking toll of thousands of
lives daily, and when almost all industrial activity was slowing and
stopping because of them, that Ferson came back, his countenance
as I had never seen it.
"I've found it, Allan," he said quietly. "The cause of all this terror—
these innumerable crimes and accidents and riotings."
"The cause of them?" I repeated, uncomprehendingly, and he
nodded.
"Yes, and that cause is world atavism! An atavism, a throwback, of all
the world's animal life, that is beginning with man as the most
recently developed animal and that is taking place before our eyes!
Taking place in ourselves even!"
"World atavism!" I gasped. "But, Ferson—that such a thing could be
—it's inconceivable!"
He shook his head. "Not inconceivable. You remember Grant and his
theory, that the evolution vibrations from the sun were what had
pushed earth's life up the road of evolution? And you remember that
Grant said that were those evolution vibrations to cease to reach
earth from the sun, all earth's life would slip swiftly back upon that
road?"
"I remember," I said, "but how could such a thing happen? What
could ever halt the play of the sun's evolution vibrations on earth?"
Ferson's eyes were somber. "I do not know what could," he said
slowly, "but I think I know who could!"
"Ferson!" I cried. "You don't for an instant think that Grant——"
"I do think so," he said, his voice steelly. "Grant discovered the
existence of the evolution vibrations—he alone of men knew all
concerning them. Do you remember what he said when they refused
to let him explain his theory even at that meeting? He said: 'I will
give you proof of this. I will give you proof yet of this theory, and
such a proof as the world has never seen before!'"
My mind was reeling. "Then you think that when Grant disappeared—
that he——"
"I think that that great proof that Grant promised in his rage to give
the world is the world atavism that is upon humanity now! I think
that Grant in some inconceivable way has used his knowledge and his
power to deflect or dampen the evolution vibrations coming toward
earth from the sun, and that it is because of the absence of those
vibrations that earth's life is slipping backward!"
"But where will it stop?" I exclaimed.
"It will not stop, Harker—this tremendous change has only begun.
Man, the most recently evolved of all animals, is changing first, and
will go back through troglodyte and ape to the forms before them,
back through changing beast-forms. By then the other animals of
earth will be changing also, thrown back along the evolutionary road,
and that great atavism will continue until earth's life has all changed
back into the first crude protoplasmic forms from which eons ago it
sprung!"
"But what can we do?" I cried. "There must be some way of stopping
this!"
"There is only one way," he said. "Grant is causing this great world
atavism, is shutting off the sun's evolution vibrations from earth by
projecting toward the sun, no doubt, a great dampening or
neutralizing vibration that stifles them, annihilates them, at their
source. We must find Grant's whereabouts, must destroy whatever
apparatus he is using to do that!"
"Yet if all are changing—we two also must be changing!" I exclaimed,
and he nodded.
"We two are already a little affected as all men are, more or less. Our
lapses of memory, the difficulties we have in our work now, these
things in the last days are the result of this world atavism in us, just
as the crimes and accidents filling earth are. And we two must
protect ourselves against this tremendous change, whatever we do,
for on us depends the one chance of halting Grant's terrible work.
The world will never believe that that dread work is really going on
until it is too late, so you and I must not change!"
Ferson went swiftly on to explain his idea. This was none other than
to construct two small projectors that would each automatically and
ceaselessly generate artificial evolution vibrations, vibrations affecting
a limited range as the sun's vibrations had affected all earth. These
projectors in their compact cases could be worn on our bodies by
each of us without being noticeable, and would keep each of us
always thus in the range of the vital vibrations, so that we would not
be affected by the world-wide absence of that which was causing this
world atavism. Whatever great dampening wave Grant was sending
out toward the sun to neutralize its evolution vibrations would not, of
course, affect the vibrations of our own little projectors.
The next two days saw us at work upon these projectors. The
method of producing the evolution vibrations we knew, for as I have
mentioned, they had been artificially produced in a small way by
physicists upon Grant's first announcement of his theory. The second
day, therefore, saw our projectors complete, small flat black cases
that were strapped to our belts without being noticeable, each
holding the tiny but marvelously powerful batteries that were the
current-source, and the compact little generator that automatically
and unendingly released the vital evolution vibrations for a range of
several feet. With these completed and working, and secured thus by
them from being ourselves affected by the terrible atavism that was
upon the races of man, we began our greater work of locating Grant
and the apparatus by which he was shutting off the sun's vibrations
and loosing this horror on the earth.
For horror it had now become, and the world was waking up to its
true nature as every sort of brutal passion was released in terrible
crime over it, and as the inexplicable mindlessness of men brought
on terrific accidents. Already a dozen of the greatest governments in
coöperation had called a conference of earth's greatest scientists at
New York to explain or to halt at least the horror that was sweeping
earth. To that conference they came with each a different and more
incredible explanation of the thing, and to it went Ferson and I to
give them the true explanation and to turn them toward the search
for Grant that might yet save humanity. But that explanation was
never given, for Ferson's first mention of world atavism was greeted
with incredulous cries, and when he went on to mention Grant, such
a derisive storm arose, that he was forced bodily from the meeting,
leaving the scientists disputing fiercely over the most impossible of
theories, supporting and opposing those theories by blows.
For they, like the rest of humanity, seemed incapable now of clear
and sustained thought upon any subject. Even Ferson and I, working
day and night in the isolated upper Manhattan laboratories of the
university, were able to see clearly what was happening about us. We
were living, eating, sleeping at the laboratories by this time, for all
means of transportation and all industrial activities were ceasing.
Great masses of men roamed the streets of the city, some forming
into gangs that made life terrible for the others, the rest engaged in
indiscriminate looting. The great London riot and the abortive
outbreak in lower New York had now taken place, and it was evident
to all that the last shadow of law and order in the city was vanishing,
for more and more the troops and police who maintained it were
engaging in the rioting themselves.
News came still a little, in incoherently written and erratically printed
sheets, for a few days, and it was thus we learned of the huge
Chicago riot and subsequent fire. It marked the beginning of the end.
Within a few days more utter lawlessness reigned over New York,
corpses lay in its streets and looters were everywhere. The university
buildings, deserted now by all but ourselves, were not attacked
except on a few occasions by the looting swarms, there being no
food or other desirable things in them, and Ferson and I had rifles
and pistols in our laboratory to repel the ragged and brutal gangs
that might attack us.
In those terrible days we were occupied heart and soul in the work of
locating Grant and whatever mechanism it was by which he was
casting this doom on humanity. It was Ferson's idea that the great
damping wave, which Grant must be sending toward the sun to halt
the play of its endless evolution vibrations, would affect certain
recording instruments, if the correct frequency for their circuits could
be found. Once that was found, by observing the amount by which
the instruments were affected at different locations by the waves of
the great damping vibration, we could calculate and chart that great
wave's source with some degree of accuracy. It seemed to me a very
slender chance, yet I knew as well as did Ferson that it was the one
possible way. Grant, we knew, would have protected himself, as we
had, by a small artificial projector of the vibrations.
So in those fearful days we worked with the recording instruments,
watching them at each new trial for some indication of the force
whose source we sought. The whole great mass of New York's giant
structures that stretched southward and downward from our
laboratory lay now in complete darkness each night; the last wonted
activities of civilization having ceased in it as elsewhere. Ragged
hordes of savages roamed it, savages so hairy and crouching and
brutal of face, seeming each day more prognathous of jaw and
slanting of brow and animal-like of eye, that we knew them to be
troglodytes, cave-men, men such as humanity had been ages before
and such as it was over all earth now.
We saw them occasionally prowling through the university grounds in
search of food, shambling toward us with lowering brows to attack us
when they glimpsed us, but fleeing in fear when we fired over their
heads. For none of them could manipulate so complicated a thing as
a firearm. All earth's hundreds of millions were prowling their way in
just such brutal bands, thrown back to the state that had been man's
before history's dawn. And ever more brutal and hairy and animal-like
they were becoming as they slipped back farther still, back from
troglodyte to ape! Mankind was gone, transformed into these still-
changing brutes—all except Ferson and me.
I cannot tell now in full of those terrible last days of change, those
days in which in our chance glimpses we saw men making that other
terrible step backward, from troglodyte to ape. For Ferson and I were
working with the speed of utter despair. Even were Grant's terrible
work to be halted, the sun's evolution vibrations again released on
earth, it would take them untold ages to raise the brute-like beings
about us to the status of men once more. Humanity was passing, had
passed, into the brute around us, yet for their sake, for the sake of
the humanity that might rise again in the dim future, we kept to our
efforts, sought still to halt this awful change, that would otherwise
not stop until protoplasmic slime alone was left living on earth.
We had found the correct frequency for the circuits of our recording
instruments, and in feverish haste set up those instruments at
intervals of a mile, working through the night. The weirdest of work it
was, the vast city's streets and structures silent in the night around
us, the countless hordes of brute-like beings that once had built them
now cowering in the buildings in ape-like fear of the night's
mysteries. We took our readings, hastened back to our laboratory,
and dawn found us marking those readings on the great chart-map of
the section we had ready. Somewhere in that section, somewhere
near New York, we knew, Grant lurked with his terrible mechanism,
our first readings having shown us that. And now, as with trembling
hands Ferson and I drew the graphs on the big chart, we stared for a
moment after in complete silence.
Those lines converged at a point in a midtown block of the great city
south of us, a block occupied by a single gigantic building whose
aspiring tower was in sight of our laboratory's windows!
For moments Ferson and I stared from chart to tower in silence, and
then without words we had turned, seen to the filled magazines of
the pistols at our belts, and were passing out of the laboratory into
the bright sunlight. As silent as ever, we started southward.
Never, were my existence extended a thousand years, could there be
blotted from my memory that journey southward through the silent
towers of New York that Ferson and I made then. For the great city
that lay silent about us beneath the brilliant noon sunshine, was a
city of horror unutterable. Dead lay thick in its streets and great
dogs, already strange and fierce and wolf-like, ran in packs among
them. The rusting wrecks of smashed automobiles were piled at
every corner. No window of all we passed remained intact, sidewalks
and streets were sprinkled with shivered glass. Westward across the
river a great fire was burning in the cities there, pouring a black
volume of flame-laced smoke up to the skies. But more terrible than
all of these things were the hordes, the swarms of creatures that
moved through the streets and ways about us, the countless
creatures that once had been the city's people!
Great ape-like creatures they were, not apes such as men had
known, but ape-like races such as men had sprung from eons before.
In groups and packs of scores they roamed the city's ways. Covered
with thick hair, stooped and crouching of gait, the garments that they
had worn as men torn and discarded, there was in them no
semblance to humanity. They walked stiffly toward each other,
stooping to rest hairy forearms on the ground each few steps. They
growled and barked in rage, or chattered volubly and meaninglessly.
The majority were prowling in wrecked stores for fragments of food.
Others moved along the streets in a search for small animals, for
insects even.
Growling in rage their groups came toward Ferson and me as we
moved onward, but each time a pistol-shot sent them fleeing from
us. We moved on, never speaking, Ferson's face icy calm, my own
brain reeling. We came at last to the base of the giant building that
we knew must hold whatever mechanism Grant was using to
withhold the evolution vibrations from the earth.
Ferson turned to speak to me for the first time. "Somewhere in here,"
he whispered. "We must search, Harker——to find Grant's apparatus
——"
"And if he is with it?" I asked, but his only answer was to tighten his
grip on the pistol in his hand.
We passed into the great building's marble entrance hall, a place of
dim shadows, through which we stumbled over prostrate dead. We
went quickly through the looted, wrecked rooms that had been the
luxurious shops of its first level. Then the stairs, and we were going
upward, level after level, searching through the immense building's
numberless offices and rooms. In one or two were dead, and some
had been wrecked, but in none, in no part of the building, it seemed,
were any of the ape-like throngs. That seemed encouraging,
somehow, and with beating hearts we pressed on upward.
Level after level. We were high in the immense building; its floors
here were smaller of extent because of its pyramidal form. Yet there
was no sound from the shadows about us, no sign of what we
sought. Despair was growing in us, for we were high in the great
tower that was the building's uppermost part, and had found nothing.
Through the shadowy halls we pressed still, and through the silent
rooms lit with the gold of the westward-swinging sun. But as we
moved up the narrow stair toward the last and highest level of the
great tower, something flamed in Ferson's eyes as in mine.
A sound had come from above to our ears, a steady, slow clicking as
of a great clock. Pistols in hand, we moved up, found ourselves in a
small hall at the tower's side. The unused elevator-shaft was beside
us, and the stairs that led to the roof. But before us was the single
door that gave access, apparently, to the whole space of the tower's
uppermost level. And from behind it came the slow clicking to our
ears!
As one we crossed the hall toward that door. Ferson's hand on its
knob turned slowly, and slowly, astoundingly, the door swung open.
Our pistols lowered for the moment in our amazement, we stepped
through, stopped. A dozen feet before us stood Grant, a heavy
automatic in his hand trained upon us.
Silence. In it Grant's eyes held ours. His dark-browed powerful face
was lit with unholy triumph, with sardonic exultation. I saw that
before us was the whole space of the tower's highest level, thrown
into one great room. Huge black-cased and powerful batteries were
ranged upon each other in scores at one side of the room. Armored
cables led from them through incalculable generators and
transformers to a great object at the big room's center. It was like a
giant searchlight, a dozen feet or more in diameter, swung in a frame
resembling gimbals, so that it could be turned in any direction. The
twelve-foot disk inside it glowed silently with white light, and the
great thing was turned to face exactly the sinking sun westward. It
was slowly following the descending sun, turning slowly under the
action of a great clock-mechanism, whose clicking was loud in our
ears still.
Grant, Ferson and I——we were silent there in the room, all
motionless, until Grant spoke. His voice was metallic, controlled,
mocking.
"Ferson and Harker," he was saying. "Ferson and Harker, who
believed in my theory, my power, it seems, when none else on earth
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Risk and the Regulation of Uncertainty in

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Author Index 257

ERITREA-​E THIOPIA CL AIMS COMMISSION

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS (ECTHR)

EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE (ECJ)

INTER-​A MERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS (IACHR)

INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR SET TLEMENT

xii Table of Cases

INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ)

Table of Cases xiii

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR

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UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION

xiv Table of Cases

xvi Table of Treaties

Table of Treaties xvii

xviii Table of Treaties

Table of Treaties xix

xxii List of Abbreviations

xxiv List of Contributors

List of Contributors xxv

xxvi List of Contributors

Title: World atavism

Author: Edmond Hamilton

Illustrator: Frank R. Paul

Release date: June 17, 2024 [eBook #73857]

Original publication: Jamaica, NY: Experimenter Publications Inc,

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

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Author of "The Universe Wreckers,"

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