Nature red in tooth and claw

In the courtyard of the Peace Palace is a magnificent porcelain fountain. It was a gift from Denmark, or, as the Peace Palace website says, from Greenland, which at one time was in Denmark's empire.

Look carefully at this spectacular fountain. Look at what it shows. At the top of the pyramid are the polar bears. Ermine, regal, malevolent. In one bear's claw is a salmon. In another's, an unlucky seal. Surrounding the bears at the bottom of the pyramid are other seals, barking and crying out. Inset into the pedestal is a human face showing distress.

This is nature's immutable law.  It is the law that awaits us when our own system of laws fails.

Porcelain polar bears on
the hunt.

Seals mourn their fate.

An unhappy fate, below the polar bear but above the seals.