Everything You Need to Know About International Law in the 21st Century But Were Too Afraid to Ask
The responses to Trump’s coup in Venezuela are twofold.
On the one hand, commentators such as Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell on The Rest is Politics, or Mark Almond in the Daily Mail, or Helen Thompson for the New Statesman, who retweeted an article from last year predicting that Trump would soon turn towards Venezuela and oil, respond by speaking in terms of power. (I send greetings to Thompson and Almond, both old colleagues of mine.) Power = Trump’s vainglory, American empire, oil, drugs, China, Russia, the Monroe Doctrine, the Panama Canal, etc.
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So, our prime minister has made a very nice living out of something that doesn’t really exist? Says it all really.
Reading your comment about something not existing, I’m minded of Falstaff’s ‘Honour’ speech from Henry IV pt1. Substitute his reference to ‘honour’ with ‘international law’ and the applicability is uncanny.
But Shakespeare isn’t Falstaff and his play doesn’t treat honour as a “mere scutcheon”.
International law… yeah, right.
Blair Invading Iraq – ah, but of course that was all an act of charity.
I’ve always thought of law as the set of rules that those powerful enough to make them agree to in advance, so that we all play by the same rules which we all know in advance. Law exists when those who have the power to ignore it don’t.
And the opposite of law is raw power that just does what it wants, whenever it wants, to suit itself. Because it can.
The capture of Maduro was obviously the latter.
He was hung by his own petard. Because he had been doing “what it wants, whenever it wants, to suit itself. Because it can.” Only this time he picked on the wrong bloke, and will suffer the consequences. If he was a legitimate head of state, it might be of some concern. But he wasn’t. I hope he gets what he deserves. If citizens of his own country had their way, he would be Ceausescued, or Mussolini’d with good reason. The murderous fat dancing oaf.
Like the author, I’m not saying it was good or bad. I’m just making my own observation about what law is and its total absence in this particular case
As it happens, I don’t really know enough, or care enough about Venezuela to even want to form an opinion.
Actually, I’m gradually finding how liberating it is to not have an opinion about things and how much energy is saved limiting the things one actually cares enough about to have an opinion.
It’s not only liberating but if people had fewer opinions about things that don’t materially affect them, the world would be a better place – in my opinion.
I don’t care but I like to know why people do care .. it helps you understand what’s going on, rarely can you impact on the situation but sometimes down the line it could impact on you .. think of the green scam, for example..
As has been pointed out ad nauseam elsewhere it is not law because there’s no enforcement mechanism and so it is all about wordplay.
if humpty humpty was head of the UN he might say “international law means exactly what I want it to mean no more and no less”.
Let’s have a think about football, and in particular the World Cup.
The Rules of the Game = International Law. All the participants agree to abide by them.
Some, in fact most countries generally do: particularly the UK which invented “the beautiful game.”
Some don’t, for example Argentina which won the World Cup because “the Hand of God” intervened.
Some have the resources (money) to ensure that the World Cup is held in their country (Qatar). Some have the resources (money) to massively increase their chances of winning in the future (USA) even though they’re not really that interested in it.
And that is International Law. A means by which every country can play the game, but “the rules” can easily be manipulated or contravened, to your country’s advantage.
To call the rules of football “International Law” treats a game as too significant. They are rules. Not even the players and definitely not the supporters get a say.
So much like the rest of life then. It’s not as if we get a say in our laws. They’re all handed to us. There’s a mechanism, which in theory, if you do some impressive mental gymnastics, you could claim gives us a say in the laws that are made. But let’s be real. Our choice is limited to agreeing with laws or not being very happy about them at all. That’s it.
The vast majority of people don’t find out about a law or regulation until they crash up against it.
Indeed, though through Jury Service we get a chance to have our say. Hold on….
It’s an analogy.
And you are quite right “those watching and even those playing” don’t get a say. Just like “International Law.”
Used wisely, it can make it possible for us trade in a peaceful environment. A close relative is the concept of international standards that are used in manufacturing of all sorts, either for the economic benefit of all that adopt, or comply with it, or to promote global power to a company or an associated nation. E.g what I am using now was design in California, but manufactured in China.
These are not laws but agreements between states. Usually private ones.
But there are legal requirements to comply with the relevant standards, e.g. when manufacturing a car.
There’s a very good article, by someone called Robert Marchant — at https://dukemaskell.substack.com/p/states-make-laws-and-enter-treaties — saying just that, in James’s terms, that there are only relations between states and that the claim that there is something above them is just a pretence, which states (those in power in them) sometimes find it useful to treat as a reality.
It strikes me that ‘international law’ means whatever you want when you are trying to prove your case to an authority that doesn’t really exist. There is no binding supra-national court system (other that a few UN inspired judicial quango’s). There is no ‘World Constitution’. It is a playground fight, involving threats of both children that they will call on their Dads and Teachers to sort out the other side. In the end you might as well argue with the Moon.
The left want world government because they think small nations can be easily bought to give them power their voters won’t.
That’s because there isn’t a strong enough power to acquire the monopoly of violence at a. global scale required to impose law on everyone.
In this particular case, the relevant treaty is the treaty which established the UN. The USA is a member of the UN and thus, has declared that it’ll respect the rules set forth in this treaty, not the least because the whole concept of a world peace league is a US invention dating back to Woodrow Wilson.
In practice, it’s more like Thucydides’ observation about international relations¹ at the time of the Peloponnesian war: The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. Eg, the Athenians invaded Melos, formally an independent state on an island. The Melians refused to capitulate because they were convinced of the justness of their cause and the support of the gods. The outcome was that all grown men among them were slaughtered during the siege or afterwards and the women and children sold into slavery.
¹ Mostly between Greek city status of that time, 5th century BC.
Starmer claims international law matters because he and other politicians who cannot get what they want any other way band together to try to hoodwink the more powerful states and the public.
Just how many of Starmer’s international laws have we ever voted for.
Who really thinks it would be a good thing for Russia and China to colonise Venezuela and threaten the US snd all the West Indies. Only the left who want US power destroyed do their alliance with Islam can advance faster.
I was disgusted to hear Kier Stumbler trying to evade blame – and also disappointed that he did not explain how his beloved international rule of law had failed to curb narcoterrorism. I guess ‘International Law’ appeals more to those of a collectivist mindset – when it suits them.
Trump’s actions may or may not be acceptable according to ‘International Law’ – but at least he put American citizens first. I find that refreshing.
What is narcoterrorism? I’ve never seen it or experienced it.
Selling Americans stuff the American government doesn’t want Americans to buy but is powerless to stop them effectively from doing it nevertheless would be my guess.
See https://grokipedia.com/page/Narcoterrorism
No discussion of law mwould be complete without considering punishment. Without the means to punish effectively then the law is toothless, and hence pointless.
This is completely true of international lw=aw. If a an offender chooses to ignore the punishment given or indeed the the jurisdiction of the court, then what is the point other than giving the “law makers” an opportunity to stamp their feet and sound virtuous.
Really all they’ve done is make the word international mean universal
International law is a misnomer for rules set forth in treaties between certain states these states of voluntarily chosed to abide to (but may chose to stop doing so at any time). For the given case, international law is the UN charta which prohibits military operations except in self-defence or of authorized by the UN security council. The US operation against the government of Venezuela meets neither standard and hence, occurred in violation of the UN charter.
International law is laid down in the UN Charter. However, it is open to interpretation, resolutions, precedents and sanctions decided by international courts. Unfortunately, the UN has become a tool of the US and Nato who bully other countries to agree to their sanctions and resolutions or bully them to disagree with the “will of the people” in countries which do not suit US foreign policy. As an example, Russia is convinced they acted within International Law when they entered Ukraine in Feb 2022. Russian diplomats have explicitly cited the 2010 International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion allowing Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence to make their case for a Crimean and Donbass separation. Russia also used UN Article 51 and R2P (Responsibility to Protect) in the same way that the US and Nato had taken similar action in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. etc. Ukraine had also broken the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 although it was not legally binding. The West do not sanction Israel for their slaughter of Palestinians because the US backs Israel. “None of the UN Security Council resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been implemented. There have been no sanctions against Israel for… Read more »
The UN charta is a treaty between sovereign states and because of this, it’s no law as there’s no supreme authority with the real-world power to enforce it. It was originally imagined that the UN security council would function as such based on the most important military powers of the time cooperating with each other in this respect but this hasn’t worked since the West fell out (somewhat nominally) with its former darling Stalin and since the USA is a permanent member of the security council, this mechanism wouldn’t work, anyway.
My worry is not really what the US did or does, but whether it opens the door for Taiwan say… That, given criticality of superchips to how the world works, could be a total disaster.
Very useful, thank you. As you say, it is a language that everyone uses because it is useful to them. Those who understand their self-interest (China) use it to exert their self-interest, those who don’t understand very much and are clueless about their nation’s self-interest (British Prime Ministers) use it as a way of avoiding their lack of interest in what is national self-interest.
The Prof back on form. I understood, was fascinated and educated. Thanks Prof!
…although things became clearer towards the end, when the earlier analysis was encapsulated in more concrete terms, such as that
“the other draws the world starting with order, assuming an original perfection”,
…and that the reason “the principles exist is everyone’s willingness to use the language”
(Reminded me of Miranda Richardson in a silly series years ago called ‘Merlin’, who said rather poignantly that she would only exist so long as people believed in her)
I’ve always wondered where these ‘international laws’ – presumably thrashed out and agreed upon by selfless representatives from every nation – are enshrined – to which the answer would appear to be They’re Not.
Anyway, good one Prof!
(Sorry, italics can be turned on, but apparently not off)
ps – My assertion that the Prof is “back on form” is condescending. The Prof is much cleverer than me, whence his status as university educator, contrasted with my status as a Norfolk taxi driver, despite a Mod.Langs degree four decades ago. I apologise, Prof – you no doubt were not ‘off form’; somewhat more likely I just didn’t get it, previously!
Have you seen this. https://youtu.be/lK1TsoeEQKo?si=s6C8NeO0Y1WaAGWB and do you agree with Brendon.
Let’s allow Trump a sense of humour: he employs aircraft carriers and about 150 planes to get hold of Maduro and charges him with having a machine gun.
An interesting article as usual. How do you get time to do your day job ?
A problem with International Law is that too many states are signed up to it, so it has no meaning.Meaning of the representational kind depends on internal contrasts, so if everyone agrees it becomes meaningless