International law redux
[NOTE: I wrote this post on international law back in 2006. I think it’s time for a re-post (slightly edited). And please note the 2006 event that sparked the post. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.]
The International Red Cross has said that Israel’s response in Lebanon violates the “proportionality” principle of the Geneva Conventions (see this for my views on proportionality). The group has also issued the following statement about the terrorist group Hezbollah:
Hezbollah fighters too are bound by the rules of international humanitarian law, and they must not target civilian areas.
I’m sorry, but what’s the International Red Cross been smoking?
Earth to International Red Cross: Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. They exist to target civilians.
Furthermore, there’s a general principle involved, one that should be readily apparent to anyone with a modicum of sense:
To be “bound” by a certain law, one (or both) of two things need to be true: (1) the “bound” entity has to agree to the authority of those administering the law; (2) the authority has to have the power of enforcement over that entity.
The International Red Cross has neither over Hezbollah at this point. The only way it would get that power–and it could never obtain #1, only #2–is by a military defeat of Hezbollah, a capture of its leaders, and the act of subsequently bringing them before an international tribunal.
And, of course, to defeat Hezbollah would require a response the International Red Cross already has already condemned as violating the principles of proportionality, since Hezbollah is well aware of the value of hiding behind civilians, and does so purposely and frequently. So, how in heaven’s name would any international court ever get authority over Hezbollah, except to try them in absentia? And a fat lot of good that would do, except as meaningless theater.
The remark by the International Red Cross about Hezbollah being “bound” by the Conventions made me think of a popular comeback when I was a kid. When someone would say, I’m gonna make you do it, the usual retort was Oh yeah? You and what army?
Somehow I think that’s exactly what Hezbollah would say.
Like all NGOs, the Red Cross follows Conquest’s second law-
“2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left wing.”
I have not been a fan of the Red Cross since a local director of a blood bank refused to go in on a Holiday to help save a teenager’s life. The innocent kid bled to death because no fresh blood was available on a holiday.
There is no international law. There are merely international conventions.
==
That the apparatchiks in charge of the Red Cross issued this statement is an indicator of what the consensus is among the Davos types. To hell with them all.
Human Laws are not meant to be Just or even equally administered. In most cases they are created by humans seeking to use the power & force of some Government to cram those Laws down some other human’s throat.
International Law was probably created due to societal human’s addiction to their ‘Beloved’ human Laws.
During a search for the definition of “anarchy” yesterday, there are certainly more than one for whatever reason, I came across Edmund Burke. Not anyone I’ve ever read or would read (Jeez…language – read & read!?), but he apparently wrote: “A Vindication of Natural Society: or, a View of the Miseries and Evils arising to Mankind from every Species of Artificial Society”. Educated people seem to argue whether the book was “satire” or not…I dunno ‘bout stuff like THAT.
Anyway, in that book Burke supposedly:
Humans have been creating Laws for thousands of years – maybe societal humans are now in a Catch-22 Law situation…
I knew this would draw Karma’s comment, above.
In reality, current “international law” is not created as the Founders of the U.S. envisioned, that is, authority by the consent of the governed. The UN and the EU both see themselves as righteous organizations entitled to tell everyone else how to behave. Increasingly, they have been taken over by radical leftists and frightened by radical Islamists to insist on laws and courts which have NOT the consent of the parties involved and which cannot be directly enforced.
Karmi:
National and local law fulfill the 2 requirements I set up. International law does not; it is fake law and completely different from national and local law. It uses the word “law” inappropriately to give it the patina of validity.
Two different animals.
International law is supposed to protect civilians and legitimate combatants when a party deliberately eludes those details
Rather than violate, Israel’s actions fulfill the “proportionality” principle of the Geneva Conventions. Hamas has set no limits upon it’s monstrous evil. In the face of that, it is impossible for Israel’s reaction to be ‘disproportionate’. Any deaths among the minority of Gazans would do not support Hamas rest upon the shoulders of Hamas and its supporters. That responsibility includes anyone who expresses support for “from the river to the sea!”
Neo, you’re using “International law” in your title of this old post in conjunction to the Red Cross & Hezbollah & Israel. Then you bring up your apparent definition of what a “general principle” of Law is. Here’s another one:
Public International Law: A Beginner’s Guide:
Anyway, most American criminals would disagree with your part (1), i.e., the ‘“bound” entity has to agree to the authority of those administering the law’. Few criminals accept the Governmental Law authorities over them—it is forced upon them by the power & force of a Government.
Clearly, the International Red Cross & Hezbollah & Israel do not fall under “National and local law” – they fall under International Law. The “doctrines of good faith,
estoppel, and equity” should apply (I struck estoppel out).Basically, with Sharia law already in America, and growing, the Republicans/Conservatives concepts of what law is—is about to get an ‘Attitude Adjustment’ – IMHO. For example:
‘The Big Gift’: By Defeating Joe Democrats become a ’Pro-Palestinian Party Against the Occupation’
International norms can only be enforced in one of two ways, as Neo pointed out:
a) acknowledgement of international authority and voluntary cooperation with it,
b) warfare and reprisals, just like has happened historically with gas warfare and treatment of prisoners of war.
The IRC is either not thinking through the logic of its position, or not explicitly saying all it intends. If Hezbollah or Hamas is bound by international law but not cooperating voluntarily, then warfare and reprisal are required to enforce it–and only Israel is doing that.
Either the IRC is implicitly endorsing Israel’s warfare and reprisal (which it can’t say publicly), or the IRC believes only in voluntary cooperation (which it can’t say publicly), or the IRC is just not thinking and is virtue-signaling in a confused way.
Given the world we live in I’d say it’s probably the third one.
When the first IDF Infantryman was killed, it was proof Israel was acting “proportionally”.
the International Red Cross has long since removed all doubt they are knaves, so have outfits like Medicin sin Frontiere, Hezbollah has turned Lebanon into a corrupt Iranian proxy which really has one goal, so they are willing to sacrifice the needs of the people, to the wishes of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, (they more than the Mullahs, 4
effectively run Iran) in our long expedition in Afghanistan, they backed the Taliban defacto and the Iraqi Resistance which would become Islamic State,
thanks to Turkey and Qatar, the former has been rehabilitated and put in charge, the latter lies in wait, for ‘history to return’but we have seen elements emerge in the last few months, notably in Western Europe
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/05/punked.html
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sj311x0ena
ICC who cares what they think.
“To be “bound” by a certain law, one (or both) of two things need to be true: (1) the “bound” entity has to agree to the authority of those administering the law; (2) the authority has to have the power of enforcement over that entity.” — neo
Ever since the early 90s, the West’s ‘NGO class’ has been consciously trying, effectively, to become a world government. I don’t like the term ‘NGO class’, it’s so vague and imprecise, but I don’t have a better one. Some people call them the ‘tranzies’, short for ‘transnationalists’, or other loose names. Sometimes they’re called ‘Davos people’. None of the names are precisely descriptive and none fit quite all of them.
They include most of the high staff of the United Nations Organization, and its associated hangers on, as well as a lot of the various NGO staffs, and they include a lot of members of Western national governments, esp. in the diplomatic and intelligence branches.
They cut across party lines. In the USA, most of the high Democrats and many of the elite GOP (though not as many) are effectively NGO-class. The Tories in the UK are on the ropes precisely because their entire dominant faction is transzie, while their rank and file are nationalist. The elites of most major governing parties in the West lean Transzie to one degree or another.
There are a lot of them in the academic world, and a lot of the educated classes of the West are sort of supportive of them. Much of the high corporate executive class is comprised of them.
One diagnostic indicator is that people in this group tend to emotionally identify with an international class of people rather than, or more than, their own nations. This groups is almost entirely Westerners, though they often falsely imagine that the elites of the non-Western states share their views. (For that matter, if the polling and survey data can be believed, they tend to imagine that the general publics at home share their thinking much more than they actually do.)
These groups tend to be very lefty on social matters, indifferent or hostile to religion in general and Christianity in particular, but they are often somewhat sympathetic to corporate economic interests _de facto_, whatever they say.
Remember the supposedly winning combo the GOP leaders kept mouthing for 20 years before Trump? “Economic conservative and social liberal!” It wasn’t actually an election winner, but it _was_ what they GOP elites believed and wanted.
But as I said, they want to create an ‘appeal power’ they can use to overturn their own nations, because they have trouble getting their home governments to do what they want. They want to _become_ that enforcing authority that can compel obedience to international ‘law’.
All the way back in 1995 (IIRC) the UNO published a document called “Our Global Neighborhood” that made proposals for updating the UNO after the end of the Cold War. It was the usual pages and pages of diplomatic-speak, with some useful ideas incorporated into it. But it also recommended, in carefully neutral tones, that the UNO have delegates with secure time tenure rather than appointed by their home states, and that the member-states would disarm and enforcement of international law be done by a small international force.
They carefully said that the goal was not world government, but world ‘governance’. They did their best to disguise that what they were actually recommending was converting the UNO into a real sovereign world state with compulsory powers over the member-states and guns to back it up.
In short, that 1995 UN report more or less admitted that a big chunk of what the conspiracy types were saying at the time was _true_ , at least in terms of long term goals.
In practice, of course, if the tranzies ever managed to create their goal, it would quickly go Frankensteinian on them. But that _is_ the goal.
“ICC who cares what they think.” — Sennacherib
Much of the ruling elite class across the modern Western nation-states, unfortunately.
yes they werent really economically conservative it turns out, otherwise how do we end up with 35 trillion dollars in debt, and still? haven’t shored up the safety net,
after Thatcher who was certainly a traditionalist, the Tories spent a great deal losing to Blair, the mass immigration that would typify the designation of Londinistan, is largely part of this, then the Tories finally got back No !0, but in coalition with the Liberal Democrats with a very compromised PM in David Cameron, the epitome of a wet tory, Matthew Godwin shows the results, starting there, and proceeding through May and into Boris Johnson’s term
the notion that Britain should remain apart as it had for a 1000 years prior to 1975, is just alien to these transnationalists, Andrew Marr, by no means, a Brexiter, showed the gizzards of the Apparat, which involves Journalism, Academia Government and the Bureaucracy including the intelligence service, he painted this tableau in the dark comedy ‘head of state’ a year before Brexit errupted, this was why Cambridge Analytica was taken down, because among the archipelago of intelligence contractor, it stood for Ole Britannia, thats why they went after Cummings and co, as well eventually the black legend
was dismantled but at what cost
Covid was the perfect weapon to savage Midland shopkeepers and everyone not anchored to the City, there is a similar dynamic across the Pond with the Non Gaullist Right,like the National Alliance, which has showed some evolution, and across the Alps into the Northern League
of Salvini, the legacy now in the hands of Meloni
without a strong hegemon, we fall into the state of nature
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1795088684406149418
now is it a coincidence that most of those who fell for the Russian hoax, were also involved in the mishandling, to be charitable of the last 20 years of expedition, into Mesopotamia and South Asia, and side quests into North Africa that had disastrous consequences both in this corner of the atlantic, and across the bond, it would be very bad, if Al Queda, or Boko Haram got their hands on any serious concentration of uranium, but we’ve been largely silent on that score, then again considering how the recipients of OPeration Flintlock turned out,
maybe it’s better they remain silent,
now there is a democraphic issue, those to the North of the Country, are Touareg others to the South are Fula or Hausa,
folks like Richard Dearlove, on the UK side, and associated scribes, who were all to eager to defame General Flynn for instance with a transparent legend, John Brennan on the American side, those whopushed for interventions outside their realm of expertise, partially because of their fickle nature one minute they were following Palmerston, then they lost the ball,
@miguel+cervantes:yes they werent really economically conservative it turns out, otherwise how do we end up with 35 trillion dollars in debt, and still? haven’t shored up the safety net,
Party of Grift and Party of Government. Each offers reciprocal membership in the other, and each is full of both Republicans and Democrats, though the proportions vary.
Members of the Government Party try to expand the power of government to impose their vision on society. Members of the Grift Party try to exploit leverage so they can influence appropriations. They both want a big government that spends lots of money, and 20 years after Contract with America, including three Republican Presidential terms and more than one period of GOP majorities in both houses, here we are.
Notice that over the years Congress has delegated much of its legislative authority to the executive, but virtually none of its appropriations authority. This is the real game, and the red/blue political issues presented in the media are the kayfabe.
That’s why the House GOP leadership is so busy cutting deals with the Dems: so they can influence appropriations toward their cronies. If you’re not watching the appropriations you don’t know what’s going on; all you have are self-serving narratives in the media and you’re going to have as much luck spotting how you’re being screwed as you are spotting the lady in three card monte.
It will never change until individual Congressmen and Senators are held accountable for outcomes by their voters. Or until the entire tax income is equal to the interest on the debt.
I bet I know which comes first. When that happens, none of this other stuff we think of as “politics” will matter one bit. It won’t matter how crooked the elections are, how porous the border, or in what trimester you can get a legal abortion.
this seems nonsensical,
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/05/27/rashida-tlaib-speaks-at-anti-israel-conference-linked-to-terror-group-pflp/
except there is a parallel pattern across the pond, with george galloway, or some of the other ghuls that have been liberated from the war
HC68 unfortunately you are right, but this is an era ” of the death of institutions”. If Israel ignores them, everything will be forgotten in about a month.
this is probably a violation of international law
https://twitter.com/ShelleyGldschmt/status/1795148008088015248
“yes they werent really economically conservative it turns out, otherwise how do we end up with 35 trillion dollars in debt, and still? haven’t shored up the safety net,” —
miguel+cervantes
The thing is that they _were_ ‘economically conservative’…from a certain point of view (with apologies to Obi Wan Kenobi). They talked about free market competition, but they didn’t mean a word of it (except for a handful of sincere libertarians).
What the Republican elites meant by ‘economic conservative’ was actually ‘pro business’. Not ‘making policies that encourage business to function’. No, ‘pro-business’ meaning pro ‘big business’. Pro-corporate. The Donor Agenda. Which is in effect transzies/NGO class.
They did _not_ mean pro-business in the sense of the Mom and Pop restaurant or store, the one-owner car repair place, the locally-owned grocery store. It meant Microsoft, Amazon, Bechtel, General Electric, Wal Mart, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, etc.
(They used to actually _call_ Barak Obama ‘President Goldman-Sachs.’ Bush II was actually less controlled by Wall Street than either Clinton or Obama, though he was certainly under their influence.)
So the Business Wing of the GOP is not libertarian by any stretch. These companies didn’t want free markets, they wanted (and want) oligopoly protection. They want cuts to capital gains. They wanted (and want) unlimited immigration and a borderless world (at least as far as capital flows and the movement of workers and customers go).
They believe in ‘private profit and socialized loss’. They hate taxes and love subsidies. They hate, hate, HATE unions of any sort.
This agenda has _never_ been popular, even among Republican voters, but they dominated the top of the GOP from 1989 to 2016, and they’re still trying desperately to regain control. That’s why they backed Nikki Haley earlier this year. They didn’t really like DeSantis, they look at what he’s done against Disney and shudder, but they backed him briefly before Haley in the desperate hope he could knock out Trump.
(Back in 2016, the GOP elites finally, reluctantly backed Cruz, who they _hated_ personally, in a last ditch effort to stop Trump. Their attitude is ‘anyone but Trump’.)
Now some of ’em are starting to throw in with Trump, since he appears to be the inevitable nominee and he might win, so they want to have some good will if he does, the moreso because Biden has been a disaster even from their POV.
But they haven’t changed their policy goals one iota. If Trump wins, they’ll try, just as they did in 2017-2020, to convert the Trump Administration II into Bush III, to get more trade liberalization and immigration amnesties and so forth. It’s just who they are.
Great input, HC68. Who would you like as Trump’s VP pick w/ a look towards 2028?
Another reason why I am skeptical about western interests around the world.
US threatens sanctions on Georgia after ‘foreign agent law’ passes parliament
And to show how undemocratic the measure is this is the next sentence:
You mean like the NGO’s in Hungary, receiving funding by the US government are trying to remove Orban from office? Those kind of NGOs?
Tell me again who are the bad guys? This is now the vehicle of choice to influence/undermine foreign governments around the globe. US funding of supposed NGOs.
They couldn’t have EU and US NGO’s in mind! We have nothing to hide– after all, we’re the good guys, so what’s the beef.
But they haven’t changed their policy goals one iota. If Trump wins, they’ll try, just as they did in 2017-2020, to convert the Trump Administration II into Bush III, to get more trade liberalization and immigration amnesties and so forth. It’s just who they are. — HC68
This is precisely why the globalists are united against Trump. They can’t turn Trump. He has been talking against the bad trade deals/globalization since the 1980’s. And Trump is possibly the only person that has a chance to take on the challenge. He made is money in the only uniquely American industry– real estate. He did not make his money on Wall St.– passing laws to outsource our industries to the benefit of multinational corporations.
The proposed law in Georgia must be good because Russia and Hungary are in favor of it and because various NGOs oppose it? Walk and chew gum ever?
Real estate is an industry? Has it manufactured a square inch of actual land, ever? It is a business a realm of economic activity, but an “industry?” Interesting, the concept that real estate, the buying and selling of property, is not practiced elsewhere in the world? Or is it?
Who does international law as presently constituted represent not citizen interests in any country in the west
An enterprise unlike finance which is a tool to an end but not an end in itself
You can call what business Trump engages in as a subset of Real Estate– but he manufactures buildings that he then leases to other businesses or persons.
One of the few industries whose jobs can’t be shipped overseas.
As to the current favored method of undermining/overthrowing governments around the world, NGO’s have become the goto method. Used to be the CIA worked out of embassies. Apparently they’re now employed by NGOs.
Oh noes! The CIA! Not the FSB nor the myriad of other government agencies employed by other nation states in the rest of the world. Nope let’s fixate on the CIA. Because everyone else plays by “the rules.”
Sad trombone expected now for Yanukovych and the 1950s Iranian (pre-Shah) politician. Don’t be shy, although you’ve played that tune before.
Regarding real estate as an industry. The building of things (buildings, golf courses) does happen in other parts of this earth. Not to be confused with those evil multinational corporations that build things like mines, petrochemical plants, refineries, LNG terminals, factories, bridges, water and wastewater treatment plants, that stuff.
Does any western agency represent the interests of the country they are ostensibly a part of
Who is the immediate clear and present danger to this country is it putin or schwab and soros
om, with all the respect you deserve, you are an idiot.
We can deal with putin, can we deal with a political and corporate class who serves other masters
No crying for mossadegh he was following a failed model which they adopted in egypt yemen and iraq
Brian E:
“You are an idiot” is not a convincing argument, as you are no doubt aware.
When grand statements are made regarding an “industry” or an agency and assumptions behind those grand statements are questioned, well
“You are an idiot!”
shows a bit of sensitivity and fragility?
Sad.
om:
And you of course have a tendency to fan the flames.
Ok, I’m the idiot. Here’s what I said:
He made is money in the only uniquely American industry– real estate.
I was trying to say, He made his money in a unique industry whose jobs can’t be exported.
Contrast that with many/most politicians who have profited from the stock market, where the connection between share value isn’t tied to American jobs and sometimes has an inverse relationship.
Globalization has benefits to the investor class at the expense of the working class– many of which can’t profit from a booming stock market.
So it was only natural that om would reply, correcting my mistake:
Regarding real estate as an industry. The building of things (buildings, golf courses) does happen in other parts of this earth. Not to be confused with those evil multinational corporations that build things like mines, petrochemical plants, refineries, LNG terminals, factories, bridges, water and wastewater treatment plants, that stuff.
To that I owe him a debt of gratitude. Otherwise I might have continued to think that only real estate produced jobs in the United States.
Thank you, om, for pointing that out. I’m eternally indebted to you for that.
Even a blind idiot finds a nut on occassion. But this idiot didn’t know that only in America does the real estate “industry” not export jobs. So even an idiot can learn new things? Or maybe an idiot should not question?
But then the Green Nazis are hell bent on shutting down coal mining in Wyoming and Montana and if possible oil and gas extraction in the US. That isn’t the exportation of jobs by corporations