When did int'l law become uncool?
 

You have wierd friends.

Originally posted by Dauphin
Nobody has ever obeyed internationally treaties unless they have been forced to, or it's in their interests. [/sweeping generalisation] That never stopped anyone from complaining when someone else broke treaties.

Only Lord Shiva is allowed to do that.

It is pretty much what dauphin said. No one really follows intl' law, so it just seems as though you're missing out.

Also, no one has really been enforcing it regularly. And

Probably no one ever will enforce it on super-powers like the US, China, Russia, Britain. But the main problem is that intl' law is no longer enforced even against minor players. Small wars in Africa - no one cares. A holocaust going on in Rwanda or Darfur - no one cares.

Not because it is hard but because no one can be bothered. No one wants to send troops to enforce stuff. And UN troops are a joke. They are incapabale, neither physically nor do they have an authority to do anything.

So intl' law isn't worth the paper it was written on.

FWIW, international law has always been meaningless. Who decides the universal standards which form the "laws" obeyed by all humanity? What sort of authority can be thought as just? War nerd has a nice summary.
war nerd:

"Laws of war"-what a joke that is. Ever check out these "laws"? I have, and they make no sense whatsoever. For instance, according to these laws, dum-dum bullets are a forbidden weapon, too evil to be allowed in civilized warfare. But napalm? Noooo problem! Napalm is on the checklist of approved weapons, gets escorted past the velvet rope while those poor dum-dums wait in the rain.

The reason is simple: dum-dums were used by the Boers against the Brits, who were so outraged they lobbied to get those nasty exploding bullets banned. Meanwhile the British forces were rounding Boer civvies up in some of the nastiest concentration camps ever invented, where a quarter of the whole Boer population bought the farm.
[..]
There ain't no law of war. There's just double-dealt rules pushed through by the big powers. Asking guerrillas to put up their dukes and face the attack helicopters is as stupid as scolding the Boers for filing the tips of their bullets while they watched their families die, nice 'n legal, in those Brit death camps. Haphazardly picking up another example from memory: In World War 2, Germany IIRC didn't bomb civilian targets in the early phase of war (or didn't bomb during night time, or something equally ridiculous) against UK supposedly because of some "international law" forbidding bombing runs against civilian concentrations. I remember thinking that it was most probably because they were concentrating on tactical bombing runs against aircraft targets and thought of winning the Battle of Britain with a quick victory by destroying the air force before that -- it was only after Luftwaffe thought that it couldn't win the air war it started bombing civilian targets such as London on terror runs.

The fundamental fault with this logic is that nobody believes Teheran will lift a finger if we call them pigeating goat****ers. Well I don't, but I don't know about the Swedish university intellectuals. They justified the censorship wave during the riots over a newspaper comic with exactly that -- the thought that we're "provocating" the muslim world by our freedom of speech. Politicians were quick to catch up, repeating the reasoning over and over again. Shutting up because of fear -- it's pathetic, really. But that was my point.

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Originally posted by VJ
FWIW, international law has always been meaningless. Who decides the universal standards which form the "laws" obeyed by all humanity? What sort of authority can be thought as just?
All law rests on a mixture of force and consensus. War Nerd's arguments apply with equal force to any national laws he happens to disagree with (except he's more likely to be locked up for breaking them). Yes. The point is that "international law" has neither force or consensus atm.

Well I don't, but I don't know about the Swedish university intellectuals. I happen to know the people I spoke of in the OP personally, and they certainly do not fear Iran's reaction to their opinions. I'm pretty sure that we both have observed that very few people have the right combination of time, boredness and interest to form their own opinions, most tend to unfortunately copy such from their peers because they trust them. You formed this topic because you wanted suggested answers to your question. If you presume that your friends have themselves formed and created their own opinions about the meaningfulness or meaningnesless of international law and you really want to know why international law has suddenly turned "uncool", why don't you ask them and tell us what they answered?

I happen to know the people I spoke of in the OP personally, and they certainly do not fear Iran's reaction to their opinions. You know, now that I actually look at this conversation, that's really a gigantic red herring. I said that dissing US is cool among Swedish university intellectuals (a blanket statement which you either believe or not from your own experiences, 1 or 0) and then quickly (because I didn't want to threadjack) formed a single speculative reason why it has been and probably will be for a long time (because criticizing US is easy and will not cause any negative backlash from it). You transformed this simple statement into an accusation which contained a presumption that I know what your friends (none of which I have ever met) think and why they're thinking it. This is such an obvious change of what I wrote, surely you must've noticed your red herring yourself. Why are you trolling?

Originally posted by VJ
If you presume that your friends have themselves formed and created their own opinions about the meaningfulness or meaningnesless of international law and you really want to know why international law has suddenly turned "uncool", why don't you ask them and tell us what they answered? I'm not asking my friends because they're not at hand.

But you seem to have misread the thread title. It doesn't say "why did int'l law become uncool?", it says "when did int'l law become uncool?". The only question in the OP is "Has anyone else noticed a similar shift to nihilism?"

Why are you trolling?
I'm not trolling. I just made the mistake of thinking you were sticking to the topic. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif

Originally posted by Last Conformist

I'm not asking my friends because they're not at hand.

But you seem to have misread the thread title. It doesn't say "why did int'l law become uncool?", it says "whendid int'l law become uncool?". The only question in the OP is "Has anyone else noticed a similar shift to nihilism?"

Why are you trolling?
I'm not trolling. I just made the mistake of thinking you were sticking to the topic. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/rolleyes.gif

Practically speaking, int'l law has never been meaningful. I think it was only cool among your peers because it suited their agenda of blaming US for everything during the Iraq war, when press media in both of our countries used the "America is acting against international law!" widely and loudly. Now that they can't use it to blame and bash US anymore, they're ignoring it. They start using it again when it convienently suits their interests.

But I already said this. This is part of my original answer here, which you then started to divert. I think you had misunderstood something so I kindly counter-replied altough didn't really understand what was the point of your questioning. Turned out you only wanted to spend your time to set up a red herring trap to flame with me. Now that I noticed it and asked why were you trolling, you quickly change the subject by yet again diverting the answer by selectively quoting and subtly changing the discussed subject. Quite frankly, I thought you were better than this.

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Yes, if Iran withdraws they will have the "right" to nukes. But today they are still in the NPT, and thus if the treaty has any moral weight whatsoever they today have that much less "right" than the Americans. Iran doesn't have nukes.

Iran's violation of the NPT is it non-disclosure of nuclear activities, and what it needs to do to be fully compliant with the treaty is provide the IAEA with the access it demands.

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Has anyone else noticed a similar shift to nihilism? Yes. It's esp. annoying when you have people who otherwise are all into international stuff, like disarmament treaties etc., but simply ignore it in a case like Iran. The argument I encounter then is mainly "but the NPT is unfair", which may very well be, but I usually get strange reactions when I try to point out that fairness is no category in that field.

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Very fine, but the question wasn't "is Iran in violation of the NPT" but "does Iran have the right to have nukes". Well, your question and your thread are at odds.

you made a thread about compliance with treaties, not about "rights."

The NPT as an international treaty stated that from its date on, any signatory that did not have nuclear weapons gave up a pursuit of them in return for assistance in developing the peaceful aspects of nuclear power, with the understanding that those states that had nukes prior to signing would work to disarm in the long term. All parties agreed to take steps to isolate those that did not sign. In order to make sure everyone was complying the IAEA was to monitor the system. Given the paramount nature of National Soverignty in the international system, any state has the right to withdraw form the NPT, knowing of course that there are consequences.

As for your question, Iran has the same "right" to nukes the US has. All Iran has to do to be in full compliance with all international law is withdraw form the NPT. Then it will have the same "right" to nukes as other non-NPT states like India, Israel, and Pakistan.

India never signed teh NPT http://www.discussworldissues.com/im...ons/icon14.gif http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/pride.gif

Originally posted by GePap


http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/rolleyes.gif

One of the basic assumptions of the international system, one of the underpinnings of the United Nations is the concept of National Sovereignty. Near as I can tell, neither the UN apparatus nor any of the major powers agree to your notion of "national sovereignty".

Be that as it may, I can always mention it to the friends allude to and see if they agree, next time the subject comes up.

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Near as I can tell, neither the UN apparatus nor any of the major powers agree to your notion of "national sovereignty".

Be that as it may, I can always mention it to the friends allude to and see if they agree, next time the subject comes up. really?

The UN Charter, Chapter 1, Article II:

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/


The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.

6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.

7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters

Pay special attention to the first one.

Originally posted by Last Conformist

For the record, it only affirms "principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members", without specifying that GePap's (or anyone else's) interpretation thereof applies. Well, you have given no interpretation of the notion of national sovereignty whatsoever, at least not one you have posted on this thread.

Do you have a notion of soverignty to share in whcih one state wuold have greater rights than any other?

But actions speak louder than words, and even those opposing measures against Iran or Iraq act and have acted as if treaties ceding the right to certain weapon types are binding, national sovereignty be damned. Jesus:

fromt the NPT itself:

http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/text/npt2.htm


Article X
1. Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.


Treaties are binding agreements, but as the NPT and every other treaty states in its wording, the principle of soverignty is ALWAYS paramount.

No state can sign away its basic soverignty - that is a tenet of basic international law as it stands, which is what you brough up, just as current thinking on human right states that no man can sign a contract to become a slave.

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Did you copy the wrong paragraph? That one says that a country may leave the NPT, not that it may have nukes while a signatory of the treaty (and not being one of the original nuclear powers). Given that there is no dispute that non-nuclear state signatories stated they would not seek nuclear weapons, posting that paragraphs is irrelevant.


But my original argument isn't about legal niceties.

You claimed it was abolut International Law, not international morality.

It's the very simple moral argument that the Iranians have promised not to have nukes, and that them having them would therefore be naughty.Even if going nuclear without leaving the treaty first is somehow within the letter of their promise, it certainly isn't within the spirit. Your statement is demostrably false.

Every article in the NPT is of equal standing. Every state signed the NPT knowing that article X existed, so every state that signed the NPT and agreed under it not to develop nuclear weapons did so knowing that the treaty they signed assumed that if a state felt it critical to develop nuclear wepons, they could do so by leaving the treaty.

Originally posted by GePap
Every article in the NPT is of equal standing. Every state signed the NPT knowing that article X existed, so every state that signed the NPT and agreed under it not to develop nuclear weapons did so knowing that the treaty they signed assumed that if a state felt it critical to develop nuclear wepons, they could do so by leaving the treaty. ***Red Herring Alert***

You seem to be either misunderstanding or deliberately ignoring LC's point. At no time did he deny that national sovereignty is paramount in international law, as he clearly concedes that Iran can exercise its inalienable national sovereignty at any time by simply pulling out of the NPT. He was only referring to Iran's right to have nukes prior to pulling out of the NPT.







*runs*

But my original argument isn't about legal niceties. It's the very simple moral argument that the Iranians have promised not to have nukes, and that them having them would therefore be naughty. You're ignoring the fact that this was never intended as a simple promise, but as a conditional promise. All treaties are conditional promises where it is assumed the participants consider themselves bound only so long as the other parties observe the treaty.

The major parties to the treaty have not, in the eyes of any reasonable person, lived up to the disarmament clauses of the NPT. As GePap pointed out, the United States has itself aided a non NPT state (India).

In cases of simple promises a hypocrite has a case. So, for example, if two people both unconditionally promised not to steal from a third party, whatever anyone else did, and then both stole, then each could justifiably accuse the other of a moral fault and be completely correct (even if they were hypocrites in doing so). The fact that someone is a hypocrite does not entail that the object of their judgement must be in the right.

But in cases of conditional promises, violations by one side release the other from the obligation specified in the promise. The NPT is a case of a conditional promise. A treaty whereby the participants agreed not to allow child pornography would be an example of an unconditional promise. In this latter case the other side allowing child pornography would not be a good reason for you allowing it (and they could justly criticize you if you did).

People have a hard time separating these two cases, IMHO because they have implicitly simple contractarian views of morality (even though this is a misunderstanding of contractarianism IMHO).