this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Aren't the ICJ, ICC and UNSC institutions of international law? And haven't they ruled over and over again that the settlements, occupations, blockades, and blocking of humanitarian aid to Palestine have been violations of international law?
The international courts are courts in name only. They don't have power because it is by design and thus any rulings are non-binding. The only real power there is is the UNSC, and it is extremely corrupt as everyone knows.
It sounds like for you the signature of legitimacy is not the soundness of legal judgments as developed within consensus and consent and principle based deliberation, but their enforceability with weapons. And so I think we probably have diametrically opposite ideas of what renders laws legitimate.
This comment reads like it was written by somebody who has only ever read books and never experienced the truth of "Might Makes Right."
Just because he was an authoritarian communist doesn't mean Mao was incorrect when he said that all political power derives from the barrel of a gun.
Similarly, a law means absolutely nothing if it has no teeth, no consequences if broken.
A court of experts may very well come to a consensus on a ruling. But if they have no way to enforce that ruling, or carry out sentencing, what good is it? It's essentially just virtue signaling at that point.
Thank you for the complement! But I haven't read anything, and I don't think being the face that the boot stomps on would make me agree that "laws" enforced in that manner have anything to do with legitimacy. Legitimacy has to do with adherence to principles, consent of the governed.
Something is certainly being enforced in the scenario you have described, but certainly not legitimate laws.
Not the person you replied to, and I am not trying to sound elitist, but a lot of people have ill-informed views. If they simply didn't know before, it's okay; but a lot people proudly prance as if they're right, when their views are Twitter-takes instead of coming from expert sources.
Laws do not need to be moral, logical, rational, or even reasonable. Most laws are made out of rage or political will.
International law is made out of the latter two; and enforced only by the winning agent of a state on state conflict. Anything else is political sabre rattling.
Even most national laws are all teeth no bite, and exist only for the perception of control and order.
If police can't enforce laws, and you have an immoral populace, you have chaos. If police can't enforce laws with force and violence, it degrades into tyranny as the people retake control with violence.
The world revolves around control and violence. Laws, judges, white wigs and gowns are all a perception of control in a world of savages. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sitting in a world of privilege.
Might is right. If you doubt me, ask how many war crimes the United States has been charged with, Russia, etc.. then look up the number of people killed by the Nazis vs the communists. Totally off topic, but if you doubt that, and it's your first time, Patton was right, we should have kept going.
They do to be legitimate, which is what I thought this conversation is about. The flexing of power is many things, but not something that testifies to legal legitimacy in ways that motivate the creation of laws as distinguished from the ordinary structures that arise from blind power in the first place. This is actually something I remember from Philosophy 101, where Socrates talked to the rage filled Thrasymachus who said what's "right" is the same as "the advantage of the stronger" and the whole point of the conversation is that there was more to it than that.
Or, perhaps more to the point, I recall one of the mini-skits in a play called Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, which had a lion talking about power to a monkey talking about intelligence. The point of the skit is that they were talking past each other, with the lion thinking that drawing a distinction between power and intelligence meant they were missing the lion's point about power.
This whole comment simply doubles down on might makes right and has nothing to do with legitimacy.
I did not make the rules, the ruling class did. If you are not aware, the UN is never meant to have legal power. Why do you think the UN General Assembly "pass" resolutions in favour of the oppressed (stopping the war in Ukraine , lifting sanctions on Cuba, stopping the Israeli settlement on Palestinian lands, declaring the war on Iraq as illegal), and yet nothing happened?
The UN is meant to be a "platform" for diplomacy, not act as the world government. If you read more about international "law", the more you will realise how farcical and practically nonexistent it is. The terms accords, agreement and treaty don't mean the same thing in international "law". The United States even repeated several times they will invade The Hague should the international courts prosecute any American citizens.
Notice I have put quotations on some words, which is to highlight that in practice, they don't have binding power and therefore don't mean anything.
Is international law important or not?