Is there really such a thing as “international law,” if there are no actual written, legislated and binding statutes constituting it?
Sadly, this is why international law is a joke.
Countries don’t have army’s to uphold any laws other than laws within their own borders.
The history of our species unfortunately is full of violence and will remain so. But ultimately it comes down to how you define things.
The first difficulty we have is effectively defining ‘what is a law’.
There are lots of competing definitions and descriptions for what a law really is.
But whilst I don’t think there is a universally agreed concept, most people regress to the ‘command of the state’ concept.
If that is so, then international law is clearly not ‘law’ in that sense – it does not represent the command of any state.
The second problem we have is the whole question of ‘what is the substantive content international law’ is actually pretty fuzzy.
The boundaries and the detailed rules are far from clear. So we are not even certain what it is we are trying to find a definition for.
International law lacks many of the keys concepts that we traditionally associate with the term ‘law’:
the rules do not represent the command of any state or sovereign
there is no tribunal with original jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the rules
most international laws only exist because the parties have voluntarily subjected themselves to them
there is no penalty or sanction for breach or non-compliance – ‘remedies’ in international law tend to be of the self-help nature where they even exist, but countries do not get ‘fined’ or ‘sent to jail’
In most cases, the parties who are bound by the rules can cease to be bound by those rules at their own election by withdrawing from the relevant.
The truth is and has always been the powerful do as they please.
The best views, think of international law like a handshake agreement amongst friends.
How do you force your friends to hold up their end of things? Except not everybody making the deals are friends.
The US is just taking it as a given that it has de facto jurisdiction over the nations of Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and now Venezuel.
Any attempt to interfere in its authority in the region is an unprovoked attack which must be defended against.
This is completely backwards and illegitimate.
Only through the most perversely warped American supremacist reality tunnels can it look valid to dictate the affairs of sovereign nations on the other side of the planet and respond with violence if anyone in those nations tries to eject them.
MADURO might be an evil person ( he is far from the first) but this doesn’t give any country the right to enter an other sovereign nation without consequences.
The seizure of Nicolás Maduro from his country in the middle of the night might have violated various domestic and international laws, but it was not at odds with America’s historic willingness to bend all kinds of rules in its own backyard
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
The present moment finds the world as dangerously divided and on the edge of international violence as any in the last thirty years. Why?
You could blame #Bill Gates for this reason.
He was blinded by the good of connecting us all and our every actions in the world, with the Internet which has introduced an epochal change that is been used both for good and bad.
Since the internet became a thing (in a period of conflict and transformation of international relations) states use to be able to find new ways of discovering points of common interest and signalling willingness to conform to particular norms.
This is no longer possible as everything is connected to some other another thing, or event with an eroding of International laws.
—————————-
The world faces many threats that require collective action for an effective response..
Climate change, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and future pandemics, including those deliberately engineered using cutting-edge technology, may lead the list.
The present moment of crisis has many causes – geopolitical, economic and cultural and the Internet/ AI algorithms running social media and killing programs.
Russia’s armed attack on Ukraine and now the Israel war have prompted many to despair of international law.
What it means as a practical matter is that the formal adoption of new international rules through international agreements faces roadblocks that seem likely to persist for some time.
WHY?
Because suddenly just about everyone has a portal to cyberspace, a wonderful world with an amazing range of images, sounds and writing, further democratized connections and influence around the world through cyber-activity.
These developments are transforming our world. The difference from twenty years ago could not be greater.
——————–
The cyber-revolution, an explosion in connectivity that increasingly allowed people to bypass central authorities to communicate, agitate and organize, unfolded during the first decade of the present century.
What is the value of a legal order that has no effective remedy in store against even the most blatant violations?
Global governance seemed to have overcome the burgeoning nationalism of the 19th century.
The establishment of the International Criminal Court arguably marked the end of history in the field of international law. Surely now we don’t need another war or the current wars, to open our eyes about the insufficiency of the post-1990 international legal order.
The differentiation concerning the real-life implications of international law are now so profound with wars conducted with AI drones and targeting programmes, we are left to realize that even in cases so clearly in violation of the most fundamental principles of international law, international law hardly seems to contain power.
Due to the lack of centralized enforcement, how international law influences states and other actors in ways that are often implicit rather than explicit, influencing the cognitive, psychological aspects of human nature, rather than the faculty for rational calculus.
Our understanding of legal terms was guided by moral concepts, not anymore.
In the absence of effective formal international law-making, jurists face a choice that will require a lot of work on language and perceptions.
It is sometimes incredibly difficult to find out whether states choose their course of action due to cognitive or motivational biases or out of sheer self-interest.
In the case of international humanitarian law, we are likely to see entrepreneurial rules favoured by states that project military force into conflicts, either international or non-international, rather than those preferred by states that find armed conflicts unfolding on their territory against their will.
—————————
I offer here a stylized and truncated narrative that focuses on two factors:
(1) geopolitical changes related to the use of force in international and non-international disputes, and (2) the achievements of information technology.
This is not the entire story,
The collapse of Soviet Union in December 1991, seemed to put an end to the bipolar regime that had governed international security issues since the Second World War. This opened the door to the possibility of a new world order based on the international rule of law. It became possible to imagine a world where international uses of armed force would rest on international consensus, reflected in the actions of the United Nations Security Council, and thus increasingly rare.
Worldwide, States walked away from the bipolar structure that had dominated international relations for the previous forty years. Many thoughtful people believed that we found ourselves in a new age of collective security and democratic peace with the international rule of law and peaceful resolution of international disputes replacing the threat of armed conflict and the risk of Armageddon.
After 1991, armed conflict did not disappear, but shifted and is still shifting to AI weapons beyond any human control, that will produce atrocities yet to be seen- forever wars. Al-Qaeda and Da’esh embody non-State parties to such conflicts.
Forever wars, that spawn mass terror attacks resulting coalitions invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. ( the former with the Security Council’s approval and the latter without.) However conquest did not result in triumph, but instead in prolonged insurgencies that in many ways resembled the old wars of national liberation.
Resulting in a right to collective self-defence against non-State organizations operating on the territory of Syria and Russia and Iran introducing forces at the invitation of Syria’s government.
That are neither anti-colonial struggles of national liberation nor civil wars confined to the territory of a State. Rather, they involve armed struggle by non-State actors to bring about a regime change in a particular State or region that extends outside the borders of the contested territory.
As freedom spread from the virtual space to the physical space.
Cyber-tactics could defang authoritarian uses of targeted force by enabling elements of surprise and swarming for popular uprisings that resist State-sponsored suppression of protests.
The cyber-revolution, in the eyes of some, represented the death knell of violent authoritarian regimes and thus provided yet another path to a democratic peace. Such as the 2011 Arab Spring.
Authoritarians increasingly exploited the new technologies to survey and remove their adversaries.
Once an instrument of liberation, cyberspace increasingly became the place where States bolstered their defences against dissidents. The same technologies that gave states greater resources to leverage domestic social control also provided new instruments for prosecuting international conflicts.
These actors also can infiltrate online media so as to engage in disinformation and psychological warfare. The cyber-tools not only greatly multiply the efficacy of these interventions, but complicate attribution of responsibility. These malign capacities exacerbate both traditional international disputes and the prosecution of non-traditional armed conflicts.
Both developments breed instability and leverage threats to peace and prosperity. They also raise issues related to international humanitarian law.
This may mean developing rules with which states will comply while maintaining plausible deniability that their compliance represents a broader commitment to cooperation or any indication of the normative pull of the rule of law.
With the capacity to conduct over-the-horizon operations, typically drone strikes, against persons they believe to be implicated in imminent armed attacks have developed non-trivial standards and rules of evidence to constrain military actors in choosing whom to target.
Before it becomes impossible, international law must be updated to the technology it is supposed to operate in.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin
You don’t have to be told that the World is in a mess or for me to tell you why – it is in this post.
Of all the places in the world you would think that the European Union (which was built out of the ashes and grief of two World Wars) would extend the hand of help to Refugees.
I am not saying that the EU should accept every Tom Dick and Harry on a Willy – Nilly bases.
I am saying that in order to save lives the EU should have safer routes for refugees run by EU border agency.
Italy Mare Nostrum at a costs 9 million euro per month has now fished out over 150,000 migrants/refugees – mostly from northern Africa and the Middle East.
Italy ended its full-scale coastguard operation known as Mare Nostrum, and the EU replaced it with Operation Triton. An under-resourced scheme whose primary focus, officials admitted, was securing maritime borders rather than rescuing migrants. While on the other hand it is commencing to pump billions into the economies by Quantitative Easing.
Shame on us all.
If the EU is not willing to set safer routes it needs to get serious about preventing future tragedies, it needs to give Triton the mandate and resources to rescue boats throughout the Mediterranean.
The morality of Europe’s decision to downsize maritime rescue operations last autumn fly’s in the face of everything it stands for.
The drowning of over 400 migrants since the start of the year, once again raises concerns over Europe’s reduced coastguard rescue operations.
If we believed that families drowning in the Mediterranean would be a deterrent to other migrants to attempt the crossing, well it’s not.
People are leaving because they’re being pushed out.”One survivor from Wednesday’s disaster told their rescuers: “We know what fate we’re going towards and [we understand] the probabilities of dying, but it’s a sacrifice we consciously make to have a future.”
God forbid it was one of us.
The Mediterranean Sea is over 2.5 million square kilometers.
The European Union must guarantee that there are no more push-backs at its land and sea borders:
Such refoulement (The expulsion of refugees) is an infringement of international law. Fundamental rights and fundamental values are just that, and should not be modified or curtailed based upon the strength of economic indicators. For if that is the case, they were not fundamental rights or values at all.
The true measure of a country, as well as a person, is how it deals with the most vulnerable. Our children may not consider this one of Europe’s finest hours.
Foreign Office minister: Baroness Anelay has said such operations can encourage more people to attempt to make the dangerous sea crossing to enter Europe and claims that the demand for smuggling trips will continue despite the cancellation of Mare Nostrum. The UK would not support future search and rescue operations to prevent migrants drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. Migration is seen as something negative.
The UK looks about migrants as a burdens on the labor market, security risks linked to immigration, burdens on the social security system – these are three issues that are immediately brought up when migration is discussed by UKIP. And we can see from the political discussion of the last few weeks with what strength this defense mechanism comes into operation, even though we are talking about such small numbers.
I would suggest that the Baroness should spend a few day on a Life raft.
Since refugees have little chance of legal resettlement in countries such as Britain, which has settled only 90 Syrian refugees. Europe unlike the UK must open its arms in an act of humanity. The costs will be about EUR 2.8 million per month creating badly need jobs.
Let me tell her that the protection of asylum seekers are shared challenges. The new EU refugee operation “Triton” will be different in nature to Mare Nostrum, as it does not have a search and rescue function, but it has only a third of the budget of the Italian mission.
The operation has six ships, two planes and one helicopter at its disposal.
The EU needs to reconsider how it deals with refugees. The invasion is a myth which has been encouraged over decades, but it has nothing to do with the reality of the global figures.
Here is what a few that survived say:
Justice Amin, Ghana
“I’m here to find work to do so that I can help my family in Africa. That’s why I’m here in Europe. So I’m not happy. I mean, I like this area, this place I am living. But I’m not happy.
Vito, Nigeria
He explained life in Europe isn’t what he was expecting: “They are not treating us well… there is no work for black people, for illegal immigrants, all of them are wandering the street, looking for, begging money.”
Atiku, Ghana
After be saved, he was buzzing with excitement and ambition, now he’s sleeping rough in a train station, scavenging in litter bins and begging: “I can’t steal… so begging is better for me.That will be better for me to survive.”
He would still like to go to England, but his priority is finding work and somewhere to live.
One idea would be an EU-wide distribution key with clear criteria, including possibly distribution according to population and tax revenue. That way, one wouldn’t always have this jealousy and bad feeling and the refugees wouldn’t be politically instrumentalized.
bobdillon33blog 