What future for international law and the UN?

[nashoi]

The law should apply to everybody and everybody should be equal under the law, is surely the minimum standard that should be applied to any law. I don't see how this can be said, now or in the future, of international law.

The UN cannot enforce international law and so it is routinely ignored. The only weapon in the UN's arsenal appears to be sanctions which punish the people of a country whilst leaving the leadership unaffected thereby achieving nothing. The worst recent case of this is the genocide the UN perpetrated on the people of Iraq for which it will never be held accountable.

All across europe the surrendering of sovereignty to the EU has been extremely divisive why should this process be repeated with the UN, a far more undemocratic institution?

Effects of UN sanctrions on Iraq

[Santerme]

I think what you are aspiring for is the evolution towards global values, which is something I doubt mankind will ever achieve.

Certainly not institutionalised in the UN.

Which, and I can tell you this from personal experience, is a very imperfect body.

[nashoi]

To borrow an idea from the god thread, in the abscence of a higher authority isn't enlightened self-interest the way forward rather than trying to create said authority ?

[Santerme]

I would say the UN was formulated directly from a position of enlightened self interest.

Most created authorities are born from this, for example the Hanseatic League to combat piracy in the Middle Ages.

[nashoi]

Interesting reference Santerme, I had to give myself a quick wiki lesson on that. To quote from wikipedia though

"The League never became a closely-managed formal organisation. Assemblies of the Hanseatic towns met irregularly in L?beck for a Hansetag (‘Hanseatic Diet’), from 1356 onwards, but many towns chose not to send representatives and decisions were not binding on individual cities."

I don't take issue with the idea of international cooperation, the treaties and protocols that are a necessary part of that. The UN does obviously do valuable work around the world in some of its many guises. However is the UN a fit body to decide one way or the other on the "legality" of the actions of sovereign states.

Edited to add: If the UN was born out of enlightened self-interest and now you have doubts about its efficacy where do you think its gone wrong?

[plimsoul]

functionalism will dictate what happens on the different levels. there are issues today that need to be addressed on a global scale: global environment, terrorism blah blah. subsidiarity, the principle by where the most effective strata of government should deal with the problem also explains my thought.

the un and eu were mainly inspired by the horror people felt after the 2 great wars, particularly the eu.

from your opening post i am assuming (maybe incorrectly) that you are against such intercontinental institutions, whether a global 'leviathan' would ever work i don't think you can really ever say. does a local police force enjoy the love of the whole community and never accused of bias? no. so on an international scale the ask is even bigger.

i hope that there is a good future for international law, that the hague court will actually take to task people who break it, including tony and george for the war. but, instinct would tell me that man kind is far too navel gazing to realise how key tackling certain things globally are to our future today. like the ice caps melting etc...

i (pretty naively many would say) still believe in the social contract as prescribed by rousseau and think that politics is no longer a national issue and therefore this principle i would apply internationally. we are global citizens, not just UK. whether the institutions that represent that international cooperation are 'good' and 'right' or respected is another issue. but then, who respects their own parliament? apart from the swiss i know of no one who actually feels like they participate in their democracy....

[Santerme]

nashoi Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Interesting reference Santerme, I had to give

> myself a quick wiki lesson on that. To quote from

> wikipedia though

>

> "The League never became a closely-managed formal

> organisation. Assemblies of the Hanseatic towns

> met irregularly in L?beck for a Hansetag

> (‘Hanseatic Diet’), from 1356 onwards,

> but many towns chose not to send representatives

> and decisions were not binding on individual

> cities."

>

> I don't take issue with the idea of international

> cooperation, the treaties and protocols that are a

> necessary part of that. The UN does obviously do

> valuable work around the world in some of its many

> guises. However is the UN a fit body to decide one

> way or the other on the "legality" of the actions

> of sovereign states.

>

> Edited to add: If the UN was born out of

> enlightened self-interest and now you have doubts

> about its efficacy where do you think its gone

> wrong?

It has an inbuilt failure which is the self interest of those nations who can veto SC Resolutions.

We see this failure in all multi national institutions, NATO, the EU, and even the Commonwealth.

From my perspective I can only relate experiences in my dealings with them on peacekeeping missions.

Certainly the role played by the UN in Bosnia was a complete farce, without going into detail we were not allowed to move Muslim villagers under immediate threat because it would be seen as though we were participating in the ethnic cleansing.

Now we found other ways in many cases but there were times when communities were devastated because we were under too much scrunity from the UN observers and our chain of command forbade us to act.

So there were incidents where you could be kicking round a football with some young children on Monday and removing them from their burned out homes and burying them by Wednesday.

So, I am no fan of weak peacekeeping, you enforce or you go home.

In Kosovo, when there was meant to be co-ordinated action on the bombing of Serb targets by NATO, we had 72 hour debates because the Greeks vetoed targets or the Germans would not attack certain installations.

It was the most ineffective air campaign in history.

In many areas the UN is working well despite obstacles, WHO and UNESCO.

The organs of International Justice should be strenghtened, in my opinion.

I am not sure the UN decides on the legality of war, that is done by the committment of signatory nations to international protocols from the Kellogg-Briand Pact, through the Haig Conventions and the Nuremburg Principles!