Introduction: the brain and aggression: a bioethical dimension of aggression and violence *

This section is a selection of the papers presented at the 15th International Colloquium on the Brain and Aggression, held in Mexico City in September 2007, focusing on a bioethical dimension of aggression and violence. The United Nations has aimed from the outset, to establish genuine peace among and between peoples on the basis of the consensus to identify universal human rights and to limit violence and oppression. The preamble to the Charter of the United Nations accordingly states: ‘‘We the peoples of the United Nations determined . . . to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’’. Drawing on the abovementioned preamble, on the occasion of the World Congress on Aggression held in Mexico City in 1982, an interdisciplinary group of scientists established a working group under the name, ‘‘The International Colloquium on the Brain and Aggression (CICA)’’, with the goal of elucidating, in the light of modern scientific discoveries, whether violence and war were an inevitable part of human nature or whether, conversely, human beings could manage conflict peacefully. After 4 years of study 29 scientists from 13 countries met in Seville, Spain, in May 1986, under CICA’s auspices, to finalise the draft compilation of their arguments. The document, known as the Seville Statement on Violence, was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO held in Paris in 1989, translated into several languages and distributed worldwide. In short, the Seville Statement on Violence argues that peace can be achieved and that violence, in particular war, can be eliminated. Therefore, it makes it clear that there is no biological impediment at all to a world without war. War is not included in our genes, and therefore human aggression is not inevitable. As noted by the ethologist Konrad Lorenz, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, we will not improve the likelihood of counteracting aggression if we accept it as a metaphysical and inevitable fact, whereas we may find solutions if we look into its natural chain of causation. Therefore, far from condemning humanity to war, biology contributes to the elimination of violence and thus to the attainment of peace. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the first meeting of the working group that established CICA, whose work at the behest of the international scientific community has been showcased in various cities in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, was marked in 2007. The 15th CICA, organised by the National Autonomous University of Madrid, the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights in Mexico and the Complutense University of Madrid, was held in Mexico City, the venue at which it had originally convened. Roberto E. Mercadillo was Coordinator of the 15 International Colloquium on the Brain andAggression (CICA),Mexico City and works at the National School of Anthropology and History, Mexico City. Email: xofiel@hotmail.com J. Martı́n Ramı́rez is Chair of the International Colloquium on the Brain and Aggression. He is a member of the Complutense Research Group on Aggression, Institute of Biofunctional Studies and the Department of Psychobiology, Complutense University of Madrid, and the International Security Programme, Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Email: mramirez@med.ucm.es