Subject:
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International Law and Enforcement
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 6 Feb 2003 17:23:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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302 times
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John wrote:
> > The UN will have power if we support the UN, if we support their authority.
>
> News flash: The United States will NEVER abdicate her sovereign rights to
> *anyone* or *anything*, including the sham AKA the UN.
This is a real interesting question to me. How do we extend the concepts
of law in the US to the rest of the world? If we say that no non-US
citizen has the right to enforce anything on us, then we similarly have
no right to enforce anything in any other country (hmm, what if another
country attacks us? Does that entitle a response?).
It's clear to me that there does need to be some form of international
law. And for it to mean anything, there need to be international courts
that actually have power. On the other hand, just as state law is
supposed to hold sway in most cases, the same should be true of national
law.
Of course the ultimate enforcement of law is the threat of response by
those aggrieved by misuse of the law. There are various forms of
response. One is to refuse to trade with the other party (I always laugh
at the people who call our trade sanctions as "illegal" - no one should
be able to force us to trade with a specific country, and being
international trade they are not "intefering with domestic issues" [as
the Chinese so often claim]). Another is to beat the other party up.
Another is to just ignore the other party.
The US demands that the international court have no jurisdiction over US
citizens is absurd. You can't have a court that allows party A to bring
complaints against party B but not the reverse. If we really want to
play the game this way, we should start with sending every foreign
national in out justice systm home. Of course there are two simple
answers to the concern about US soldiers being held responsible by some
tinpot countries claims:
1. Don't use our forces outside our boundaries, except to respond to
very specific attacks
2. Assuming we respond reasonably to attacks, participate in
internationally authorized actions, and rigorously prosecute our
soldiers when they do wrong, trust that other countries will back us up.
Frank
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