2022 ARGUMENTATIVE GLOBAL WINNERS
The Global Round essays are 1200-1500 words in length and are an elaboration of your Regional essay (see Regional Essay Examples for comparison).
Argumentative
FIRST PLACE: Xinying, Poland
SECOND PLACE: Calvin, United States
THIRD PLACE: Armand, Botswana
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER: Minseo, South Korea
First Place
Should the law be broken if you believe the law is unjust?
Xinying, ARGUMENTATIVE CATEGORY
POLAND
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF WARSAW
The Battle for Abortions
I'm going to sleep. Cheers, Mum. This was the final text message from Izabela, a 22-weeks pregnant woman, before entering a fatal septic shock. For days, she waited helplessly on the hospital bed. By her side, doctors stood still in fear of breaking the law and refused to lend a helping hand until the heart of her severely defected fetus would stop beating. On September 22nd, 2021, the wait was over when Izabela became the first known victim of Poland’s near-total ban on abortions. But as many feared, this only marked the beginning of a tragic trend of preventable maternal mortality slithering throughout the Polish border.
For nearly 30 years, there have always been three legal bases for abortions in Poland. However, on October 22nd, 2020, the course of Polish history forever shifted when the Constitutional Court eliminated the legal bases for 98% of abortions by ruling all terminations under severe fetal abnormalities unconstitutional. This brought back the abortion law imposed on the population between 1932-1943 when Germans occupied Poland during the Holocaust. When the law returned on January 2021, the subject to criminal penalties, including imprisonment, fall on the medical personnel carrying out the abortion. Henceforth, trends of hospitals across Poland stopped performing abortions. In other words, without straight-out banning abortions, this ruling made the overwhelming majority of them practically impossible.
However, whether it is the massive burden imposed by Polish orders or the horrifying cries of women seeking abortions, Physician carrying out the abortion are those with the final say in breaking or following the law. To quote the late American Civil Rights Legend, Martin Luther King Jr., “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” While the Hippocratic Oath, an oath of ethics historically sworn by western Physicians, extends that sentiment by stating, “Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death.” As the inherent value of life cannot be an a priori constant if a choice is to be made between two lives, it is unjust to implement a single rule controlling all Polish pregnancies under the bases of severe fetal abnormalities, and force the Physician to prioritize giving birth to the baby, when we possess the medical resources to save the mother. Under this unjust circumstance, by following the ethical doctrine of Civil Rights trailblazers, and the fundamental instinct of Ancient Greek medical texts, it is the moral obligation of Physicians to remedy the glaring systemic flaw by providing thousands of Izabelas with urgent medical services despite unethical political pressure, and sparing them from balancing the value of their lives on the Scale of Injustices that never learned in their favor. Since the dawn of civilization, generations have established that saving a life and breaking an unjust law is never a crime, it has always been a cause to fight for.
On the contrary, it is irresponsible to argue that one reserves the right to arbitrarily disregard legal and societal norms on the rationale that their instinct deems the law to be unjust. At this point in time, there are no official records of definition on an unjust law across societies and borders, simply as the law would no longer remain in effect if it is seemingly believed to be unjust. Hence, the freedom of interpretation, to classify whether a law is just or unjust, would be left in the hands of individuals, introducing a realm of prejudice as the ambiguous concept of an unjust law varies from one’s internal perspective to another. Considering the Polish abortion law as an example, if a young lady discovered that her unborn fetus carries severe fetal abnormalities, yet in fear of holding a distorted miniature hand in her palm but no one ends up holding hers, she may begin pondering upon the necessities of abortion. In such a scenario, the young lady may interpret the Polish abortion law to be an unjust law as she has no choice but to carry a disabled fetus to term, robbing her from a better future. In stark contrast, the disabled fetus may conceive the law to be a just law as they rely heavily on the Polish abortion law to fairly secure the fundamental right to life. If the law should be broken as one believes the law is unjust, the young lady reserves the right of civil disobedience, consuming an abortion pill, forbidden by law yet deemed unjust by the young lady, while the fetus endures the ultimate punishment. Similarly, this idea applies in wider contexts within the society as a whole, for one, an unjust law may relate to force and violence, for another, the very same definition may represent a beacon of hope, justice, and morality. Evidently, in lack of a standard definition to the word unjust law, the way in which individuals conceives injustices may drastically vary, while those entitled with the decision to the outcome of a dispute lavishes in the benefit of power over the situation, arguing their way out of criminal penalties on the basis of personal biases and individual situational awareness, above the holistic spectrum of justice for all.
While discussing the ethicality of legal theories, Massimo La Torre, a UK Law School Professor, once described law as a concept that extends beyond a question of theory or a mere philosophical discussion without practical effects, rather it is a binding custom or practice of a society made possible through norms, values, and principals. In short, laws are adopted and followed in our everyday conduct. This complex system of societal norms fabricates the basis of trust and order in any society of mankind. For example, contracts allow corporations to enter into an agreement, knowing that the agreement is enforceable by law, and the other party may be sued for breach of contract if they fail to fulfill or honor their side of the contract. Such a concept of order, or the societal adaptation of laws, beginning since the dawn of civilizations has proven to have immediate repercussions on the overarching trajectory of a society, politically and systemically. Yet, by arbitrarily allowing the governed to defend how each attempt of breaking the law, unjust or otherwise, is justifiable beyond a reasonable doubt, the statistics on criminal offenses will show a drastic upward trend as we disrupt the functionality of the fair administration of justice. To put this into perspective, if we arrive at a world where individual freedom takes precedence over existing norms, where every action is resulted from how we choose to interpret justice in the context of law, that world is one where peace would be something longed-for. In moments when a decision is to be made, we will arbitrarily assert mental dominance over an event, we would override default societal norms and decide whether we choose to follow an unjust law versus how it is legitimately imposed by law. Such acts of civil disobedience jeopardizes the well-being of a society. As we rail against laws being an affront to our freedom, particularly unjust ones deemed by varied interpretations, we neglect the fact that they are the essence and fundamental building blocks of a harmonious society. Thus, it can be concluded that without rules - and some tendency for us to stick to the - society would slide rapidly into pandemonium. Hence, all laws founded upon legitimacy nonetheless require absolute efficacy.
With all this in mind, a generic question arises for all societies today: What can we, as people, do to remedy glaring systemic flaws and create conditions for justices to hold and flourish? What can we, as people, do to eliminate potential risks to a major societal upheaval posed by the negligence of justices upon fundamental rights? We don’t have to stand idly by and watch as our fellow civilians suffer from the terrifying cycle of inequality, discrimination, and prejudice across a spectrum of social classes, races, and genders. We can begin by opening discussions with government authorities surrounding hindered minorities and victims of legal injustices. In doing so, we can hold authorities accountable by pushing them to take into greater account how implementations of legal frameworks affect those governed, and properly adjust existing laws to accommodate greater needs. This feedback loop of societal participation incentivizes the incumbents to do more for their citizens, in doing so, social cohesions can provide an authentic lens through which to objectively reflect the rise of societal injustices in gray areas of the existing legal framework, and what further amendments may be passed to truly serve the citizens for which laws are created for. Through effective compromisation between citizens and incumbents working in conjunction to obtain a middle ground, and constructive advocacy in which citizens have a say in matters affecting their livelihood, we can cherish a safe environment for all Polish women, where I’m going to sleep. Cheers, Mum. is nothing more than an ordinary goodnight message.
second Place
Should the law be broken if you believe the law is unjust?
CALVIN, argumentative category
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE LOOMIS CHAFFE SCHOOL
“Difference Made Legal:” The Case for Breaking Unjust Laws
On an ordinary South Carolina spring afternoon in 1944, George Stinney, a small seventh-grader, was out grazing the family cow with his little sister, Amie. That very evening, Stinney would be wrongly accused of murdering two white girls and quickly arrested. After interrogation by a sheriff without his parents present and an hour-long trial with an all-white jury, seeming miscarriages of justice which were both in actuality perfectly legal, George would be sentenced to death. There was no evidence against him, other than his dark skin. Tears streamed down his face as he sat on a too-large electric chair, propped up by a Bible, and waiting.
George Stinney’s case displays how unjust laws fail their purpose of serving the common good by wantonly harming individuals; and also showcases the prejudice motivating their implementation, making them hard to combat through legitimate means. Due to failing to uphold the burdens of government in acting for collective benefit, unjust laws are illegitimate, and, due to their disenfranchising nature, need to be broken to effect change.
The first reason why unjust laws should be broken is that they do not focus on the common good and, as such, are illegitimate. As Rousseau first postulated, based on the near-universally accepted premise of governments deriving their power from the governed, laws are mutually-entered social contracts between governments who provide collective good and individuals who sacrifice freedoms for that good, and institutions that fail to uphold their end of the contract should be altered and abolished.
The second reason why unjust laws should be broken is that they often disenfranchise individuals, preventing those people from seeking change unless broken. For example, the Civil Rights Movement, barred from electoral change by unfair literacy tests, grandfathering clauses, and racial violence, utilized non-electoral methods involving civil disobedience to achieve great change on issues such as segregation and the courtroom policies that led to George Stinney’s killing.
Some say that liberal democracies offer representative means of expressing popular will and therefore cannot be unjust in their policies. However, policies passed through completely fair votes can still disadvantage minority groups, and, as such, democracies can still be legitimate arenas for civil disobedience in rectifying this ‘tyranny of the majority.’
Historically, civil disobedience has been used to great ends. Mandela’s anti-Apartheid coalition used collective action to successfully remove segregative barriers that impeded the economic and physical mobility of Black South Africans. Meanwhile, movements like the Singing Revolution in the Baltics, often peaceful yet disobedient actions, saw the liberalization of much of post-Soviet Europe, allowing for freedom of the press, speech, and democratic contestation.
Though the issues within George Stinney’s world that directly led to his death 78 years ago may have been rectified, their root cause in prejudiced governments enacting unjust laws that target and disenfranchise certain groups nevertheless persist. Combatting those regimes with civil disobedience has caused waves of change throughout the last century, and, in a world in which the nature of laws is constant, will remain a sound option.
“A Sea of Blood:” The Case Against Civil Disobedience
On April 15th, 1989, former Communist Party general secretary Hu Yaobang, who urged sweeping democratization of China’s authoritarian government and had recently been ostracized for his liberalism, abruptly died of a heart attack. Small-scale protests for reconciliation of the fiery reformist would be held by students, who, throughout a sweltering April and May, would intensify their demands to press freedom and governmental transparency, congregating in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and defying bans on mass gatherings and protest. Joined by labor, police, and even lower party officials, similarly angered by inflation, corruption, and mismanagement of economic reform, the protestors reached critical mass, necessitating an urgent response from Party leadership. On June 4th, 1989, 300,000 soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army descended on the Chinese capital, indiscriminately gunning down bystanders and protestors and crushing innocent civilians with tanks, staining Beijing’s avenues with the blood of thousands. Student leaders would be ‘disappeared’ en masse, progressives banished from government, and China’s momentum toward political reform would grind to a halt, never to be restarted.
The Tiananmen Square protests demonstrate the potentially bloody consequences of breaking unjust laws, especially under oppressive authoritarian regimes, and furthermore display the potential for halting or even reversion of progress emanating from civil disobedience. Even if done in support of the most righteous causes, which is never in practicality a given, the breaking of unjust laws rarely results in positive change, with electoral, judicial, and journalistic means offering more robust alternatives in democracies and passive routes of resistance presenting better outcomes in autocracies; and as such should not be attempted.
Before discussion of whether breaking or complying with unjust laws creates more positive change, however, the subjective nature of the justness of laws should be addressed. Different individuals with differing beliefs may view the same law dissimilarly. A libertarian who prizes personal freedom may view mask mandates as governmental overreach and therefore unjust, whereas a socialist who prioritizes collective security may view them as essential to societal wellbeing and therefore just. This healthy variation in political opinion makes coming to one societally agreed-upon standard of just laws impossible, meaning that while one group might deem defiance of a law civil disobedience, another might judge that same action a crime, raising contentious questions about the deservedness of punishment for said act. A simple solution in those instances would be to delegitimize the practice of civil disobedience, instead using legitimate and non-potentially-criminal means to contest said laws.
Furthermore, some individuals may hold extreme beliefs that laws that prevent discrimination against other individuals or otherwise guarantee universal moral principles are unjust, and would be justified in breaking those laws as an act of protest in a society where civil disobedience is viewed as universally appropriate. For example, a fascist in such a society could potentially be justified in hurling slurs at a racial minority before physically assaulting them if they claimed that they were doing so to protest hate crime legislation. Finally, some individuals may simply exploit the subjective nature of justice to deem any law they desire to break unjust, which threatens the principle of equal application of law to all individuals, or rule of law, that originated with Locke and that most constitutional states are built on. Simply put, a universal belief in the right of individuals to break any law they deem unjust lacks consideration of the subjective nature of justice or the possibility of people acting in bad faith, and therefore is faulty.
Under the best case assumption that all individuals seeking to break unjust laws are acting to advance objectively righteous progress, civil disobedience still offers worse outcomes than other pathways to change. In liberal democracies, engaging within established areas of discourse such as elections, courts, protest and the press often result in more progress than through civil disobedience.
For example, the American movement for LGBTQ+ rights in the steadily gained favorable press coverage through generally non-disobedient protest in the form of Pride marches throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and as such made queer rights politically popular as an opinion through shifting public opinion, resulting in court rulings such as Obergefell v. Hodges, which ended state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, and in legislation such as state-level protections against workplace discrimination of queer individuals. Meanwhile, movements such as the anti-war movement of the late 1960s have been made more polarizing by their use of civil disobedience tactics such as draft-dodging, putting off the general public and therefore postponing the achievement of their goals.
In undemocratic nations, civil disobedience simply is not legitimate as a course of action. In those nations, laws often prohibit protest and freedom of speech, and however illegitimate they may be, are backed by an entrenched regime that actively employs violence to enforce said laws. For example, the 1980 Gwangju uprising against Chun Doo-Hwan’s military regime South Korea was met with the massacre of its student proponents, similarly to in Tiananmen Square, and reprisals being conducted against of those involved. Whenever change has come in autocracies, it has often arisen from a change in the attitudes of power brokers such as the military and business interests, and not from grassroots civil disobedience movements. For example, the Carnation Revolution in Portugal that deposed the tyrannical regime of Marcelo Caetano in 1975 was first initiated by the Portuguese military, who, disgruntled with years of unnecessary colonial warfare, finally concluded an era of autocracy that many nonviolent protestors had been trying for decades to end.
In conclusion, the subjective nature of unjust laws and the very conception of justice prevent the creation of a universal standard of when breaking said laws is legitimate, raising unanswerable questions about the criminality of certain actions, while the exploitation of this by disingenuous individuals will undoubtedly occur, corrupting rule of law. Even in cases where individuals possess the genuine intention to break unjust laws to advance social change, other mechanisms in democratic and non-democratic states alike allow for more positive progress with less regression and bloodshed, and as such should be pursued.
third Place
Are bystanders who do not intervene also at fault?
ARMAND, argumentative category
BOtsWANA
PIONEER ACADEMY
Am I my brother’s keeper?
15-year-old Junior took a walk from his home in the Bronx to visit his friend at the popular teenage hangout spot, Adams’s place - two blocks later, multiple men chase him, surround him in a bodega, drag him to the sidewalk and repeatedly, viciously stab him in the neck with machetes and knives. They mistook him for a rival gang member. A crowd of witnesses were present. No one offered to help. As blood gushed from his neck, the extent of aid the witnesses provided was shouting, “Run to the hospital!” He tried, but collapsed on the sidewalk and died. One phone call to the police or a lift to the hospital could have saved this 15-year-old child’s life, yet no one even attempted. The consequences of this act of omission should be meditated on diligently and strenuously. Are we to assume these static witnesses bear no amount of fault in this tragedy? The acquittal of all fault from unmoving bystanders is a catastrophic idea.
The echoes of passive bystanders reverberate especially through the horrors of the twentieth century: Powerless Jews hauled to gas chambers; millions of innocent people dragged to the gulag in Russia. Even Solzhenitsyn with his powerful, unshaken book, The Gulag Archipelago, put some hope in the bystanders at times of extensive arrests and death: “Would not our fellow citizens have begun to bristle?” How dramatically the course of history would have changed if it were but for the voices of the onlookers during these times. One could argue that the consideration of personal safety is of cardinal value, though almost all the time no radical actions need to be taken. There is much space between nothing and dying. Even at such tragic times as the holocaust, the rumblings of the watching bystanders could have made a difference, never mind the heroic and courageous acts of people like Witold Pilecki.
The diffusion of responsibility is a well-known psychological concept; essential to the bystander effect which states that the more onlookers there are, the less likely they are to help someone in dire need. Although, the opposite is true also. If one person helps, everyone around is also much more likely to help. By this we can conclude that the amount of influence the upstander has is not limited only to himself but stretches to everyone around him. The bystander’s responsibility is thus multiplied as the potential to act effectively is increased.
After murdering his sibling, Cain cried, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”. That story has in part told us the answer is a loud and deeply felt yes. From a moral perspective, it is wise and honorable to look out for your brother; to be a good Samaritan. As Charles Dickens proclaimed: “No one is useless in this world who helps lighten the burdens of others.”
There is, however, a deeply pertinent idea that should not be overlooked: It is that of individualism and objectivism - the belief that each individual is responsible for himself and himself only. This has been the basis of all western civilization for the past century; that you should focus on yourself as an individual and in that way, you cannot expect anyone else to afford you safety or happiness at their own expense. This does imply, however, that you are not expressly responsible for anyone else. Not their safety, nor their well-being. While it might be a kind thing to do, you would not be at fault for solely thinking of your own skin when someone is in need. You do not have to burden yourself with rectifying the sufferings, misfortunes or even mistakes of others.
In order to evaluate and test this idea, let us enter a hypothetical scenario. Suppose you have a friend who wants to murder his hated colleague. He tells you about his acquired weapon and about his plan, yet you stare blindly, passively ahead. Clearly, this is a cowardly act, but are you also at fault, like your friend? No, you are not. If you did not exist, erased from the equation, the murder would still occur. If your friend did not exist, there would be no atrocious event at all; this is to say, you did not pick up a gun and shoot someone as the perpetrator did. The murderer also now does not have the luxury of blaming others for his dysfunction and actions, as his actions are his responsibility. It is precisely for this reason that you have no duty to rescue or assist another person who is in danger in the majority of states in the U.S.A, otherwise known as the “American Bystander Rule.”1
Returning to the philosophy of objectivism, we have to view the potential guilty bystander through the lens of altruism. Altruism is yet another fundamental part of our culture. Although it should be well understood in order to prevent it from being misused. The act of being unfailingly altruistic may lend itself to the temptation of self-sacrifice. As the creator of objectivism herself, Ayn Rand2, put it when referring to self-sacrifice: “’don’t like’ I would say is too weak a word, I consider it evil.”3 This ties in with the idea that no man should be responsible for the well-being of any other and with his own welfare as his primary objective. A universal culture of expected self-sacrifice builds the foundations for society to breed tyrants and naïvely self-sacrificial victims. Once we as a society expect that self-sacrifice be essential, things may very well turn out very dismally. We have asserted that you are your brother’s keeper, but are you truly his liberator - or even shepherd?
The classic anecdote follows these lines: Once upon a time there was a caterpillar stuck in its cocoon and a well-intentioned stranger took up his scissors to mercifully cut it free. Shortly after a single-winged and crippled butterfly trudged out into the world. This brings us to another important question every bystander should ask, namely: “Do I know how to help?” For example, you could try to give a starving alcoholic money to acquire some food, but they could just once again wastefully indulge to their demise. Likewise, a doctor could prescribe medicine to a seemingly depressed, yet addicted client. Asking this question does not come from a place of ethical egoism. That the purpose of the individual is only to improve himself. The question comes from a sense of humility. Realizing that you are not knowledgeable about everything and that you could easily make the wrong decision. It is worth considering seriously first whether you would do more harm than good. Not hurting someone is an ethical and legal responsibility, but helping someone is not. It is for precisely this reason that there are state institutions such as first responders. In the strictest sense only the state and assigned professionals are truly obligated to help.
During the food shortage crisis in Swaziland in 2016, the UN provided food aid which fed more than 200, 000 people4. This act of kindness, however, had underlying consequences that were unpredictable. Hundreds of farmers gave up on farming as they came to rely on food aid. Some farmers even sold what they had received. As a result, unemployment skyrocketed and a whole generation of children grew up without agricultural skills or knowledge. These events might have been more detrimental than the food crisis itself. The universal expectation of unfailing help often results in complacency. Essentially, complacency should be minimized while the striving of the individual to do better for himself should be emphasized. This can only be achieved, of course, when someone is not in a truly deadly situation. The encouragement of the individual can be achieved through not offering unrelenting help from bystanders when a task can be achieved without aid. In this way, every person could do well enough for themselves in order to serve anyone who is in truly dire need.
Thus, it is imperative to remember that, while helping someone in peril or misfortune may be an honorable and brave thing to do, the complexity of such situations should not be underestimated. We should not let our limited knowledge produce unseen consequences of unparalleled magnitude. Being an upstander may be kind and unbelievably influential but it may also be unwise and damaging. While possibly considered a selfish act, it is not the obligation of the individual to help first, but to look to himself. Therefore, the stationary bystander is not strictly at fault. He should only be held accountable for what he himself has done. We, as a society should avoid being given to self-sacrifice and false altruism or we may lend ourselves to a dysfunctional and dangerous future.
english language learner
Should the law be broken if you believe the law is unjust?
minseo, argumentative category
south korea
changmun girls’ high school
Through the Law, Towards Jinli
Jinli, the Korean word for “truth”, holds a meaning more profound than simply the English translation itself. Jinli is unchanging, eternal, and righteous. And since it is eternal, we humans of transient existence, can never fully understand it. We know what’s right and what’s true, but we can never fully absorb why. This is the very reason the law exists. The law acts as a guide for people to abide by to be as close to jinli as possible, even without full acknowledgment. The law is not the primary notion we are meant to live by— it is jinli. The law is simply a medium we utilize to arrive at jinli. So, what do we do if the law fails to serve its very purpose? We raise our voices and fight en masse for what's right. We hold onto our responsibility upon morality and justice, and perpetually challenge the law so it properly represents jinli.
Once the lawmakers that have been entrusted with the responsibility of crafting laws that stand by justice have let down that trust, the responsibility is then bestowed upon the people themselves; we do not have a legal right to justify breaking the law, but we do have the moral right and responsibility to fix injustice. It is our duty as people under the law to constantly question the law and raise our voices when we believe something is out of line. This is how the law evolves, and this is how we evolve— to be fairer and more just in the future than our past. If it were not for Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, and all the other valorous souls that fought for justice by breaking unjust laws, the world we know of now would not be of existence.
And it is not only that the trusted lawmakers are capable of fabricating unjust laws— a just law can subsequently be proven unjust since we are always only getting closer to jinli, and never fully there. Racial segregation, women’s suffrage, and potent anti-abortion laws were all ensued under the understanding of jinli of the time being. What happened was that people demanded change as they grasped more of jinli’s true meaning. It is our responsibility to demand change once we spot wrongfulness, for the law is not going to change itself.
The future trajectory of the law depends on us, the people. How extensively the law embodies jinli is in our hands. We look to our past and are grateful for having been able to grow and approach jinli. In the future, we should be able to look back and say proudly, “look how far we’ve come”. So, I want each individual to ask themselves this one question: if a broken law is being broken, is it really being broken, or is it being fixed?
Ultimately, we all strive to fix the broken laws, but perhaps breaking them is not enough. We must remember that there are other crucial factors that may act at our disadvantage, and take steps accordingly. The most perilous factor that must not be overlooked is that humans possess the inclination to be subjective and opportunistic when it comes to their own interests and advantages. Therefore, it is important to put into the equation the need for more practical and applicable tools for society to reach the highest possible representation of jinli. On that account, the law acts as a bigger, more binding force that helps society constrain the self-centered nature of the creatures that comprise it, allowing it to maintain rationality and conformity. Once breaking the law is accepted as a reasonable response to laws one believes to be unjust, people will constantly ignore laws that jeopardize their personal interests. People will start obeying the law selectively, and the law will no longer be the highest form of regulation protecting the people. The abidance of law cannot be flexible no matter the circumstance, for the law cannot fully maintain its purpose and simultaneously be pliable. It is never to be violated, for the sake of the preservation of social order and protection of members from violence.
The people of society’s most prominent duty of obeying the law and respecting the legal system is never to be neglected, for it is the foremost promise that constitutes a government ruled by its people. The importance of law is also reiterated in the social contract theory. The social contract theory states that men must agree to live together under common laws and create an artificially and conventionally superior force than the common man in order to refrain from what we most want to avoid— the state of nature, filled with utter distrust and perpetual war. The significance of the law as a superior guideline is also highlighted in Abraham Lincoln’s 1838 Lyceum Address. Lincoln asserts that the people shall fortify against the “ill-omen springing up amongst us”, the violence, the outrage, and the destruction flaming from whatever cause, by solemnly promising to “never violate the laws of the country and to never tolerate their violation by others”. He also does not fail to clarify that he is not saying there are no bad laws, instead, he acknowledges that although bad laws can exist and should be imminently nullified, they continue in force until then. On these grounds, it is clear that breaking the law should not ever be justified. However, that does not amount to the notion that members of society are forever chained to whatever the law embodies. The law is not flawless, but it is also not indisputable. We can still challenge, question, and change the law, without breaking the law. It is not the breaching of the law, but constant questioning and confrontations of the law that keeps it aligned with humanity’s ever-evolving understanding of morality and justice.
One might assert that breaking or disobeying unjust laws is the most direct and primary action members of society can take against unjust laws. However, fixing laws takes more than just breaking or ignoring them. For a problem to be solved, one must get to the root of it. Furthermore, breaking and ignoring unjust laws may do more harm than good. The Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 are significant instances from American history that aptly demonstrate the importance of taking actions bigger than just breaking unjust laws. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 secured slaveholders a right to reclaim an escaped slave, putting fugitive slaves at risk of recapture for the entirety of their lives, while also labeling children of slaves as property of the mother’s master. After Congress passed the first Fugitive Slave Act, the free Northern states refused to enforce the act, some abolitionists assembled networks of safe houses to assist escapees, and some states passed “personal liberty laws” that directly went against the federal law, breaking it in essence. These responses lacked assertiveness and failed to reach the root of the problem, and therefore led to even more destruction. For instance, the Supreme Court case Prigg v. Pennsylvania, in which the court ruled in favor of Edward Prigg, a man from the Southern states convicted of kidnapping after capturing a suspected runaway slave in Pennsylvania, set a precedent that any state measures or “breaches” of the Fugitive Slave Act were to be succeeded by the federal law. Breaking the law in an attempt to fight injustice resulted in the law in question growing in power. The controversial federal law was also revised and intensified in 1850, requiring officials and citizens of free states to cooperate with the re-enslavement of escaped slaves. Merely breaking or ignoring a law is not going to fix it. Taking lawful procedures to target the fundamental problem, the law itself, is a better, more logical approach that will minimize the damage and expedite the process.
The main purpose of battling unjust laws is to continuously elevate the level of justice society represents; therefore, it must not be forgotten that the process towards a higher achievement of justice should properly represent justice at all times. As soon as one fails to act upon the main principle he is fighting for, he can no longer say he is fighting for that very principle. We are refined through civilization and education, descendants of the august framers and the courageous challengers who had built this thriving society. We must act upon the responsibility we hold— to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, just like our predecessors have, through the law, ultimately towards the pursuit of jinli.