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| The United States invaded another country to arrest its president. Is that legal? |
When Russia invaded Ukraine, international law was invoked. When the Trump administration began to blowup alleged drug ships off Venezuela, it made another appearance, as it did after the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, and as it does whenever President Trump threatens to seize Greenland.
Have Putin and Trump violated international law? For that matter, has Maduro? Does anybody care?
This is nothing new.
After the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said in an interview with the BBC World Service that he believed there should have been a second U.N. resolution to determine the consequences of Iraq's failure to comply over weapons inspections.
Asked if he viewed the U.S. invasion of Iraq as illegal, he said: "Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. charter--from our point of view, from the (U.N.) charter point of view, it was illegal."
When diplomats such as Annan talk about international law, they usually fail to explain that what is called international law is very different from the ordinary, everyday law to which you and I are subject. Annan hinted at it with his carefully qualified answer.
If we break a law and are found guilty by a court, we can go to jail, or be required to pay a fine, or required to pay some sum of money to another person. Ultimately, the government body in question (whether it be a city, state or nation) has the authority and power to enforce its rulings, by force if necessary, and usually they do so without hesitation.
My options for avoiding those penalties are few.
If, like most people, that is what you think of when you see the word “law,” then by comparison “international law” is a euphemism.
Advocates of international law would like everyone to equate it with the common understanding of “law.” That is why they call it that. But if there were truth-in-advertising in international rhetoric, the term “international law” would have to be banned.
In reality, international law is a web of multi-lateral and bi-lateral agreements among and between sovereign states. The first international laws were trading agreements that became standardized and to which most nations subscribed. It grew from there to encompass most other aspects of international relationships.
Today, the various courts of international law operate under the auspices of the United Nations. If you understand the United Nations to be to international law what the State of Illinois is to Illinois law (I live in Chicago), you can begin to see the problem. All persons, whether natural (you and me) or unnatural (corporations), are subject to Illinois law. The state of Illinois can send armed officers to take me into custody to enforce its laws. It can order my bank to give it my money. It can even kill me, legally.
With international law, sovereign nations are its subjects. What can the United Nations or one of its courts do to a member state found guilty of violating an international law? If it imposes sanctions on a nation, it relies on member states to abide by the sanctions regime. International law only works when it is in everyone’s interest to go along. When it is not, they don’t, and there isn’t much the U.N. or anyone else can do about it.
Unless, that is, they have a military and the willingness to use it. Then so-called international law can provide a handy justification for a powerful state’s military action, as it did for the Bush administration in 2003.
In an Illinois courtroom, at least ideally (and, in fact, in most cases), the law applies equally to everyone. When we cheer "the rule-of-law," we're celebrating law that transcends politics. This may be true of international law in theory, but it is always political in practice. Might makes right, which is the rule-of-law's exact opposite.
Nations voluntarily submit themselves to various bodies charged with hearing cases and making rulings about alleged breaches of international law. They can cooperate during a trial and then say, “no thank you” to the verdict, or they can say “no thank you” to the entire process. As a rule, nations abide by international law except when they don’t. When they don’t, the political part kicks in, first prodding and persuasion, then maybe sanctions, which might or might not be effective at punishing the violator, depending on the violator’s susceptibility to international pressure and on the willingness of other nations to bring it. Imagine if the IRS collected taxes that way.
It is often said the United States Constitution is not a suicide pact, meaning any right can be reasonably limited when permitting its full exercise would threaten the nation. Likewise, international law is not a suicide pact. Sovereign nations never will submit voluntarily to rulings that threaten their sovereignty, as they perceive it, and the United Nations has no independent ability to compel them to submit.
So, the United States invoked international law to defend its invasion of Iraq and the war’s opponents invoked it to condemn the invasion as illegal. Who was right? Neither? Both? Both sides had a case but, ultimately, so what? The Bush administration did what it wanted, just as the Trump and Putin administrations are doing now.
That is what “law” means when you put “international” in front of it. Ultimately, not much.
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