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USA has been very hostile to the ICC since way before Trump. The ICC was created in 1998 when Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome
by lysace 1y ago
USA has been very hostile to the ICC since way before Trump.
The ICC was created in 1998 when Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome treaty. And then GW, Obama, Trump and Biden didn't either.
Very few americans batted an eye as far as I could tell. Your are after all by definition exceptional. (/s)
- chvid 1y agoNo one thought the US would get this insane.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bawolff 1y agoI dont know, when bush threatened to invade the netherlands over the ICC, that was pretty insane, and in some ways worse than sanctions.
- chvid 1y agoSure. But no one thought it, or anything like it, would actually happened.
- perihelions 1y ago> "The American Service-Members' Protection Act, known informally as the Hague Invasion Act[1] [sic] (ASPA, Title 2 of Pub. L. 107–206 (text) (PDF), H.R. 4775, 116 Stat. 820, enacted August 2, 2002) is" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
- tharne 1y agoThis is not a U.S. specific issue. Once you strip away all of the formalities, titles, and ceremonies, you'll realize there's no such thing as international law, at least not in any meaningful sense of the word. The law, by definition is a rule backed up by the use of force, specifically state-sanctioned violence. If you write a law but do not have the ability to use a sufficient amount violence to enforce it when needed, you don't have a law at all, you just have a suggestion around how you'd like people and countries to behave. The only way you could ever have anything resembling "international law", would be to have some sort of global military or police force capable of exerting enough violence to ensure that the law is followed, and I'm not even sure how such a thing would work.
- lysace 1y ago[flagged]
- tharne 1y agoI feel like this comment ^ was made in bad faith. Providing an accurate description of reality is not an endorsement of that reality, but I'm pretty sure you already know this, and your comment here is more of a rhetorical tool than an addition to the discussion.
- lysace 1y agoOkay, I will spell it out: You are confusing might with right.
- catlifeonmars 1y agoNo, GP is stating that right can’t be enforced without being backed by might. Idk how that’s controversial.
- bawolff 1y ago> Okay, I will spell it out: You are confusing might with right. You are confusing describing the world with how it is and describing how it ought to be. Might does tend to make right in geopolitics if you are a super power. That doesn't mean i like it, or think that it is right, its just the world we currently live in is.
- mrchucklepants 1y agoA law with no enforceable consequence is no law at all.
- lukan 1y agoThere is international law. It is made up of all the treaties the big and small powers implemented together. But yes, not much is left now, but I would argue before Bush and 9/11 .. it was in a way better shape. Global military is not necessary, just consensus to enforce it. Practical example, there is no EU military, but there surely are EU laws EU members have to follow.
- epistasis 1y ago> Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome treaty. And then GW, Obama, Trump and Biden didn't either. Small point of order, but it is the Senate that ratifies treaties and not presidents. The Senate is heavily biased to overrepresent rural areas, which tend to be very conservative, and only 40% of senators can stop any ratification. The ICC has been the subject of massive amounts of conspiracy theories and misinformation in conservative media, so there's approximately zero chance that it could ever be ratified, unless the Senate's structure was made more representative of the people of the US rather than a conspiracy-minded subset. If the Senate was a democratic representation of the will of the US it would not be hard to ratify the treaty.
- lysace 1y agoFair. Clinton signed it on his last day in office but didn't submit it to the senate for ratification. Seems like he wanted it both ways.
- epistasis 1y agoYou're probably very right on that, Clinton listened to Kissinger on foreign policy and somebody like Kissinger is very much at risk if the US follows international law.