When did int'l law become uncool?

[Last Conformist]

In discussions of the Iranian nuclear programme, people often ask why Iran has any less right to nuclear weapons than America. I always reply that the Iranians have voluntarily signed away their right to nukes under the NPT, whereas the Yanks have not. No-one has yet found this a satisfying answer. Evidently, int'l agreements aren't considered morally binding in my circles.

It didn't use to be like that, unless my memory is uncharacteristically rosy. People used to think that adherence to int'l treaties was a good in itself, a necessary component of civilized conduct.

Has anyone else noticed a similar shift to nihilism?

[DinoDoc]

You have wierd friends.

[Dauphin]

Nobody has ever obeyed internationally treaties unless they have been forced to, or it's in their interests. [/sweeping generalisation]

[Last Conformist]

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.

[RGBVideo]

I'd except Swedish university intellectuals to use "international law" as a valid argument only when they can use it to bash United States over it's evil treatment of Mideastern nations, not the other way around. Because dissing US is cool among university intellectuals, and it'll probably stay cool for a long time since it's so easy -- US never hits back or threatens those who criticize it, no matter how unfair the critique.

The term "international law" is simply another tool used when reaching for this aim, nothing more, nothing less.

Originally posted by DinoDoc
You have wierd friends.

It's spelled "weird". Pronounced [wied] or [wi:d], which has probably confused you.

[DinoDoc]

Only Lord Shiva is allowed to do that.

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Only Lord Shiva is allowed to do that.

do what?

[Sirotnikov]

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.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by VJ
Because dissing US is cool among university intellectuals, and it'll probably stay cool for a long time since it's so easy -- US never hits back or threatens those who criticize it, no matter how unfair the critique.

The fundamental fault with this logic is that nobody believes Teheran will lift a finger if we call them pigeating goat****ers.

[RGBVideo]

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.

[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).

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.

[RGBVideo]

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?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

That never stopped anyone from complaining when someone else broke treaties.

People only complain when it is against their interest.

If someone else breaking a treaty is bad for you, you complain.

[RGBVideo]

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?

[GePap]

Re: When did int'l law become uncool?

Originally posted by Last Conformist
In discussions of the Iranian nuclear programme, people often ask why Iran has any less right to nuclear weapons than America. I always reply that the Iranians have voluntarily signed away their right to nukes under the NPT, whereas the Yanks have not. No-one has yet found this a satisfying answer. Evidently, int'l agreements aren't considered morally binding in my circles.

It didn't use to be like that, unless my memory is uncharacteristically rosy. People used to think that adherence to int'l treaties was a good in itself, a necessary component of civilized conduct.

Has anyone else noticed a similar shift to nihilism?

Adherence to treaties is held in the same esteem today as it always was, so I would say there has been no shift towards nihilism.

As for your analysis of the current nuclear issue with Iran, I think it is flawed:

Iran's sin vis a vi the NPT is not giving the IAEA full disclosure of all its nuclear activities. The general assumption is that they refuse to give a full accounting of their activities because they plan to create nukes in the future. The solution to this of course is Iran either giving full disclosure to the IAEA, or withdrawing from the NPT, as each signatory state is allowed to do after giving 6 month notice. After withdrawing from the NPT Iran would have the same "right" to have nukes as every other non-NPT member, and NPT signatories would have act towards Iran as the treaty stipulates.

Iran needs to give full accounting of its activities to the IAEA while itis under the NPT system, and the UN has every right to impose sanctions on Iran for this. The demand by Western states that Iran suspend and then give up the ability to enrich uranium is not part of the NPT, but something beyond Iran's treaty obligations that the West wants to impose on Iran. And the US's current deal with India undermines the NPT anyways because we have an NPT member agrreing to give nuclear support to an non-NPT member, which sort of makes the whole deal irrelevant.