This is so funny

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Roland
Only the weak are subject to what exactly ?

When do you think you will find an American president or a Chinese party chairman sitting in Milosevic's position? Instead we get deposed dictators from small countries. No medium sized or large country which has not been hit militarily is ever going to have it's citizens sitting in such a position. If the crime is losing a war, then I suppose it's fair.

Btw, I don't have a problem with a nation doing what it will with such prisoners as it gets under it's own name. It will have to pay the consequences of it's actions after all. But this is a fantasy that is going on in all our names. Until national power is replaced in large part these sorts of international proceedings are going to be seen as another tool of the powerful to use against the weak. I think it's better to admit that international organizations are too limited to provide justice than to wreak vengeance only on the weak and pretend that it's universally applicable.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by Dalgetti
does anyone here can even imagine a situation in which Milosevic is not found guilty ? ( I am not talking about whether he's guilty or not , but the court's desicion )

if such a thing would happen , would you take all your words about milosevic back?

exactly. there is not even a promile of chance he could walk free. not even an OJ-like percentage.
he is lynched by the media already. therefore, this is not a trial, but an execution of the media verdict, already delivered.
he knows that and i guess he is trying to turn himself into georgi dimitrov....but that is another farce....

funnily, they cited him saying to karadzic:'they are either with us or against us' which should prove his genocidal tendencies. i wonder where i heard that sentence before.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
:which, if we did, Milo would STILL be in power and STILL killing his people.

yes this is the 'Third Man' argument
all sanctions West did and idiotic bombing are justified because at some point Milosevic fell
This is to say that Hitler's rampage was justified because he knew that, as one of the results, O. Wells would shoot 'The third man" and that it will be actually a brilliant movie.

[Roland]

"When do you think you will find an American president or a Chinese party chairman sitting in Milosevic's position?"

So the enforcement of this particular segment of international law is the issue.

"Instead we get deposed dictators from small countries."

Well no enforcement system is perfect. International law is a bit in the same stage as the nascant state in medieval europe. I'm not happy about it. It sucks. But the alternative is an even worse anarchy. And as a slightly cynical remark, "pretending" there is a rule has been a respectable way of making such a rule for millenia.

[Sikander]

Roland,

I thought about the medieval analogy and perhaps you are right. However these days I think people are a lot more sensitive to class warfare rhetoric and a lot less sensitive to the appeals of 'divine right'.

[Jack the Bodiless]

When do you think you will find an American president or a Chinese party chairman sitting in Milosevic's position? Instead we get deposed dictators from small countries. No medium sized or large country which has not been hit militarily is ever going to have it's citizens sitting in such a position. If the crime is losing a war, then I suppose it's fair.

Yes, that is a problem. Realistically, a head of state isn't going to find himself in this position unless he loses a war. We live in an imperfect world.

But is this justification for letting known mass-murderers get away with it if they DO lose a war? I think not.

Milosevic had this coming. Not just for Kosovo, but for Bosnia also. And the Bosnian atrocities were certainly not just "an issue for the Serbian people", because it wasn't primarily the Serbs who suffered.

It's a good thing that the protection of being a "sovereign head of state" is being dismantled. Nuremberg was a start, and this is another important step on the road to a world where any national leader who orders atrocities CAN be hauled before such a court.

[Roland]

Originally posted by Sikander
However these days I think people are a lot more sensitive to class warfare rhetoric and a lot less sensitive to the appeals of 'divine right'.

Class warfare ? How does this come in ? And "devine right" was used by both sides in medieval power struggles (as usual). Just as today the issue is the devine/natural/rational law of human rights vs the devine/natural/rational law of sovereignty.

Rex imperator in regno suo. Or maybe not. Princeps legibus absolutus. Or maybe not. Nothing new...

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Wouldn't you expect the usual Fred West or Charles Manson to respect the court and to speak when it is his turn?

does anyone here can even imagine a situation in which Milosevic is not found guilty ? ( I am not talking about whether he's guilty or not , but the court's desicion )

if such a thing would happen , would you take all your words about milosevic back?

It would be interesting to hear justifiable reasons for what he was trying to create - greater Serbia- or to find out that he was not behind all the operations and was not the real leader at all.

"When do you think you will find an American president or a Chinese party chairman sitting in Milosevic's position?"

So the enforcement of this particular segment of international law is the issue.

"Instead we get deposed dictators from small countries."

Well no enforcement system is perfect. International law is a bit in the same stage as the nascant state in medieval europe. I'm not happy about it. It sucks. But the alternative is an even worse anarchy. And as a slightly cynical remark, "pretending" there is a rule has been a respectable way of making such a rule for millenia.

[Sikander]

I have a generalized problem with most international organizations which are universal and not consisting of smaller groups of like minded states. Namely we are going to end up like an African country after colonialism. A large group of peoples with not enough values in common, and with only a minority sophisticated enough to intelligently participate in a democracy. The U.N. general assembly and the numerous bureacracies have met my low expectations on many occasions.

My fear with an international court system (aside from that stated in my earlier post) is that once a few of these trials take place there is going to be an incredible amount of political pressure for convictions of people not normally brought to trial in the past. America or China might serve up some medium level bureaucrat to pay for their sins and of course protect the bigger fish. In the end I don't think many will be satisfied, wherever they are from. Different cultures have a lot different standards of behavior, law and justice, and I don't think that a western legal system applied to the weak and the politically importunate is going to be viewed as justice.

On a lighter note, perhaps Milosevic will provide the saving grace for the whole system by making these trials enough of a spectacle that their entertainment value alone will carry them through whatever claims of injustice might arise. These courts need to come up with a novel means of carrying out the death penalty in order to maximize the audience. Hmmm....

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Sikander
I have a generalized problem with most international organizations which are universal and not consisting of smaller groups of like minded states. Namely we are going to end up like an African country after colonialism. A large group of peoples with not enough values in common, and with only a minority sophisticated enough to intelligently participate in a democracy. The U.N. general assembly and the numerous bureacracies have met my low expectations on many occasions.

My fear with an international court system (aside from that stated in my earlier post) is that once a few of these trials take place there is going to be an incredible amount of political pressure for convictions of people not normally brought to trial in the past. America or China might serve up some medium level bureaucrat to pay for their sins and of course protect the bigger fish. In the end I don't think many will be satisfied, wherever they are from. Different cultures have a lot different standards of behavior, law and justice, and I don't think that a western legal system applied to the weak and the politically importunate is going to be viewed as justice.

On a lighter note, perhaps Milosevic will provide the saving grace for the whole system by making these trials enough of a spectacle that their entertainment value alone will carry them through whatever claims of injustice might arise. These courts need to come up with a novel means of carrying out the death penalty in order to maximize the audience. Hmmm....

I think it is even worse at the moment, USA might give some middle level beaurocrat that is of no threat and no use to anyone, but China or Russia... they won't even give them, and there is no way to enforce them giving up those people -perhaps stop aid to Russia for example, but nothing for China. For lesser countries you can do trade embargos etc... However even that enforcement is not universal it is a good start. A few good ideas were perfectly executed from the beginning. But maybe in 300 years this will be seen as the start of a court that will than be seen as a protector of human rights worldwide no matter who the people are and where they come from.

[Roland]

"I have a generalized problem with most international organizations which are universal and not consisting of smaller groups of like minded states. Namely we are going to end up like an African country after colonialism."

Only that post-colonial Africa tried to force a centralised state on that population rather than IOs for special purposes. Even the most developped IO that is only regional, the EU, is far from a centralised state.

"The U.N. general assembly and the numerous bureacracies have met my low expectations on many occasions."

The general assembly is a circus. The various bureaucracies, that's a mixed bag, but often just a way to park some fat cronies... but why should they suddenly be better than nation states ?

"Different cultures have a lot different standards of behavior, law and justice, and I don't think that a western legal system applied to the weak and the politically importunate is going to be viewed as justice."

It can't stay that way, but as I said I see it as transatory. So it either fails or evolves - if it doesn't move, bicycle syndrome.

"On a lighter note, perhaps Milosevic will provide the saving grace for the whole system by making these trials enough of a spectacle that their entertainment value alone will carry them through whatever claims of injustice might arise."

Well we had that entertainment approach with the OJ Simpson trial, and it didn't work...

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Roland
So legally you won't get much mileage out of the "farce" argument.

I wasn't making a legal arguement Roland. Nor was I trying to in the post that you quoted.

However, if you really want a legal debate we could argue the legalitiy of a foreign alliance imposing itself in a civil war without approval from the UN Security Council. Chapter VIII, Article 53 of the UN Charter, which I mentioned earlier, would be a good place to start the debate IMO.

[Roland]

Originally posted by DinoDoc


I wasn't making a legal arguement Roland. Nor was I trying to in the post that you quoted.

However, if you really want a legal debate we could argue the legalitiy of a foreign alliance imposing itself in a civil war without approval from the UN Security Council. Chapter VIII, Article 53 of the UN Charter, which I mentioned earlier, would be a good place to start the debate IMO.

As you mentioned the UN Charter, it had a legal slant. But no, I do not want to repeat those 1999 debates.

[Fidel]

Roland, as Kelsen said, people observe law because it IS law, not because they are punished.
Yet we devise punishment mechanisms. True, not every murderer faces justice. Yet Dubbya can kill anyone not carrying US passport and get away with it. Just like we are told that we should clean up our backyard first, self righteous
1) Dutch - should face their Indonesia episode
2) Swedish - should pay us reparations for selling steel to Hitler
3) Yanks - should pay massive reparations to half a dozen nations they invaded
4) Belgians - should do some soul searching on Kongo
5) Russians - should send couple of generals to answer about Grozny
6) the whole of Middle East - bunch of lunatics
7)Turkey - paradise for minorities


and so on and so forth....as we both know, war crimes and genocide are never obsolete.....

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Roland
But no, I do not want to repeat those 1999 debates.

That's too bad.