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There's no such thing as a rules-based, open world. International relations is a state of anarchy and perpetual conflict that only fleetingly resembles peace du
by philwelch 7y ago
There's no such thing as a rules-based, open world. International relations is a state of anarchy and perpetual conflict that only fleetingly resembles peace during those periods where there's a global hegemon that can enforce those "rules". Within a country, those courts are the hegemon.
"Each country having a strong interest in remaining within that system that outweighs any short-term benefits from skirting its responsibility" was the theory prior to 1914 as to why the Great War would never actually happen.
- corporate_shi11 7y agoExactly. Rules must always be enforced by some higher authority. Because the highest functional units of governance are nations, this means that there will always have to be some "most powerful" nation enforcing order.
- zozbot234 7y ago> There's no such thing as a rules-based, open world. You're living in one right now. Anarchy need not be synonymous with chaos, especially if disputes and conflicts are relatively unimportant (due to easy defense making 'rights' self-enforcing). The point of courts is then to arbitrate disputes in a publicly-visible way, enforcement is relatively less important.
- corporate_shi11 7y agoThe only reason courts have authority to arbitrate disputes is because they are backed up by the will and authority of the government, which in turn has a monopoly on the use of force in society.
- geggam 7y agoNow you are bumping on the reason I think the founders put the 2nd amendment in the bill of rights. Govts have to be balanced at some point by the will of the people
- philwelch 7y agoThe Founders also raised an army to put down a tax revolt in Appalachia—though to their credit they ultimately resolved the dispute through negotiation rather than bloodshed.
- geggam 7y agoOf course, ultimately politics is controlled violence
- rayiner 7y agoOf course that’s the reason. Different people use different euphemisms, for the same reason we do now. (“Defend against tyranny.”) But we’re talking about an amendment the founders wrote shortly after they took up arms to overthrow their government. It’s clear what they were talking about: https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/04/second-amendment-history-lesson-times-ted-cruz/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/04/second-amendment-hist... > Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. That was Noah Webster, dictionary guy. He’s clear that the second amendment embodies a personal right to bear arms (so the citizens aren’t disarmed, like in Europe) so they can overthrow the government.
- zozbot234 7y agoNote, the point is not to overthrow the government in any real sense, but rather to make it incredibly costly and perhaps outright infeasible for the government to actively use state-organized violence against its own people, as dictatorships everywhere are wont to do. Combine an armed populace with a strong tradition of being loyal to the Constitution and its principles first and foremost, even in the context of a standing army or similar, and it's especially clear what the 2nd Amendment was supposed to achieve.
- deleted 7y ago
- zozbot234 7y agoA de-facto monopoly on the use of force is a domain of easily-defended rights within a broader context of anarchy. The two notions are more or less equivalent. Going from that to matters of "legitimacy" or even "authority" is all about taking that state of things as given and building a sensible set of rules and institutions around it.
- philwelch 7y agoNo, I’m living in a world dominated by American hegemony. International institutions like the UN are valuable but when the other Western countries tried to set up a rules-based international order after WWI it only lasted 20 years.
- kazen44 7y agothe reason the league of nations failed (in many, but not all regards) has more to do with the economic and geopolitical situation at the time then it being a non american institution. the strife of the great depression and it's results on politics was probably it's biggest factor.
- DyslexicAtheist 7y agoliterally any institution today is either dominated by, or boycotted by ... yanks! examples of domination are NATO, WTO, WHO, UN, ... while those that get boycotted are things like ICC, or climate summits (Paris etc). There is no middle-ground for them. It's either "their way or the highway" as they like to say. The reason these organizations aren't successful is because of the power imbalance in them. They aren't a neutral territory or in any way an inclusive and neutral platform. It is a lie. To get an idea of how yanks really feel about the rest of the world just look at Trump. He very openly treats foreign leaders literally shoving them out of the way. If you think Trump is alone in his arrogance - he is not. Just look at the wikileaks cables or look at the files that got leaked into archive.org by a misconfigured .htaccess from State Department. These US politicians don't think we are peers. That much is clear of how they speak in their internal comms at embassies and consulates. Most of them don't even know how to read a feckin map.
- incompatible 7y agoIt's world full of multilateral agreements: World Trade Organization, United Nations, Bern copyrights, Paris Agreement on climate, Geneva Conventions, nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Antarctic treaty, etc.
- 7y ago
- jayd16 7y agoThere's no global government so there's no global court. The global/international level is considered anarchy.
- logicchains 7y agoAnarchy means no ruler, not no rules.
- m0zg 7y agoThere are no "rules" on the international stage. There is no way to impose any rules on a sovereign state. As such, what you perceive as "rules" are merely the lowest energy states that will change when the sovereign state decides that it doesn't want to abide by them anymore, and there's not a single thing anyone can do about that short of imposing sanctions or declaring a war. "International law" is a fictional construct, since there can't be any enforcement.
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- jayd16 7y agoThe concept is about the lack of a governing body that can enforce "rules". By definition "rules" (as in laws) cannot exist without a ruler (as in one who can enforce laws).
- logicchains 7y agoSomeone who enforces rules doesn't need to be a ruler; two parties could agree on mutually acceptable rules with a designated external enforcer/arbiter. This is actually how Israel was ruled in time of the Book of Judges (although the unfortunate story there is it didn't work out so they ended up with a king). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kritarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kritarchy
- philwelch 7y agoNo ruler means no rules.
- empath75 7y agoDoesn’t have to be, just have to disarm the world powers and create a one world government. I’m sure everyone will be fine with that.