I left this comment on Conflict Blotter, a blog by journalist Charles Levinson who writes for the Daily Telegraph and is currently in Israel. I link to it because I think that it provides access to a unique resource – on the spot reporting. I won’t comment on his spin either way, just let people make their own minds up.
His comment section however has already attracted the usual characters – the “Muslim Trashing Israel Defender” and the “Western Activist Quoting Directly from Al Awda Website While Portraying It as Original Thought” among others. I included the link, there are a couple of choice comments there that I won’t repeat here but feel free to see.
I always find discussions of “international law” in these forums to be rather amusing.
Without “international government”, “international police”, a fully capable “international justice system” and an “international penal code”, there is simply no such thing.
All you have is a code of conduct, a gentlemans agreement, which means very little if people choose to make it mean little. No-one except the really tiny insignificant countries wants it any different because they want to control their own borders and maintain their sovereign status.
Name me one country in the world willing to subjugate its personal interests and submit to the “worlds” legal interference. One.
The UN is a group of countries. Period. It has the same power as a neighbourhood community association, the same tendancy to gossip and gang up on the guy with the funny colored door, to get ignored by the rich guy with the big house and the barking dog and to have its by-laws changed by the whiner who wants to build swimming pool.
Lisoosh, you surprise me in dismissing international law as amounting to a gentleman’s agreement and by asserting that there is no such thing without international government and the other elements you mention.
That is not an accurate characterization. International law is arrived at through treaties and convention that are in everyone’s best interest. Nation’s ignore international law at some cost(reputation or scorn, for example) or some risk (retaliation). Abiding by international law does not subjugate nations to the world’s legal interference, except perhaps in the case of the world court.
But there is much more to it than the United Nations or the world court. There is International Maritime law, the Geneva Conventions, international criminal law, even international copyright law. All of these are in everyone’s mutual interests. Commerce over the high seas could not occur without chaos if it weren’t for maritime law. What about global air travel? How would we track down our criminal fugitives around the world?
Sure there are violations, but again at a cost. The United States is no exception. It’s track record with Kyoto, for example. Or Bush trampling on the Geneva Conventions — that one has really cost us and it’s getting fixed too late. I am no expert on it, but what about Israel’s record with resolution 242 and others?
But these things are rare and they usually get righted eventually. Even Libya’s GaDaffy has has made some significant stride forward, and it looks like the crazy man in North Korea might too. International law is comprehensive and it works because nations need it to work.
You trying to stir up trouble?
Dan C.
Comment by Sage — July 25, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
Not trying to stir up trouble.:-)
I actually was prompted to write this by someone yakking on about Israel breaking international law (while of course neither Hamas nor Hezbollah did because they didn’t sign on to anything
). Also by a recent entrance into international business which is eye opening as to the extent that “international law” is extremely limited in scope.
Most people’s perception of law is of an umbrella with a certain amount of consistency – there are rules which everyone is expected to follow and when they don’t there are penalties. However international law works completely differently – yes there are treaties and agreements, but penalties for not following them are neither consistent nor uniformly applied. The recent brouhaha over the Human Rights Council’s decision to place Israel permanently on the agenda while dropping Cuba and Belarus and ignoring the Sudan, China and a hundred other countries constant infractions is a great example. And yes, the US decision not to sign on to Kyoto, or other countries insistence on different rules for developing countries such as China (an environmental disaster area) show that such treaties depend on goodwill and willingness to follow them, not on any potential punitive measures if not followed.
Another great example is in the Israel/Palestinian conflict where people focus on the UN resolution which suits them. Palestinians and their supporters insist that resolution 242 has given all Palestinians and their decendants an unalienable “Right of Return”. However they dismiss the resolution that decided to partition the British Mandate into an Arab and a Jewish State as illegal. Israels “supporters” obviously take the opposite position. However noone seems to appreciate the irony that if you accept UN decisions imposed on one people, you should accept decisions imposed on you. It’s a mess.
And what about justice and international courts? Milosevic was only tried because his own people handed him over. Without a nations acceptance and cooperation, the court has no power whatsoever.
So yes, I stand by the statement that International Law does not have more teeth than a rather civilized gentlemans agreement.
Comment by lisoosh — July 26, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
Her guitars seemed to pinching over as she worked my german faster and faster with her hand.
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Comment by BookSeekers — March 3, 2009 @ 2:07 pm