4 ms·

International law is not real.

by jdkee 9mo ago

FergusArgyll 9mo ago
Failure to understand this is a primary cause of a lot of unneeded consternation
esarbe 9mo ago
Then it's just "might makes right" and you pick a favorite imperialist to cheer on to invade their next peaceful neighbor. Sorry, but I don't buy into that imperialism shit.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- Fricken 9mo ago
  That imperialism shit doesn't care what you think because it's bigger and meaner than you are and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it.
  - lenkite 9mo ago
    Once normal people get desperate and mean enough, imperialism tends to loose in a big way. History has proven it at great cost.
    - RankingMember 9mo ago
      Yep, the "great cost" is something that seems to get lost in the shuffle sometimes in conversations about this. No leadership realizes the error of their ways before a lot of suffering.
- terminalshort 9mo ago
  Always has been
mindcrash 9mo ago
The UN Charter isn't real? "Article 1 (2) establishes that one of the main purposes of the United Nations, and thus the Security Council, is to develop friendly international relations based on respect for the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”. The case studies in this section cover instances where the Security Council has discussed situations with a bearing on the principle of self-determination and the right of peoples to decide their own government, which may relate to the questions of independence, autonomy, referenda, elections, and the legitimacy of governments." https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/purposes-and-principles-un-chapter-i-un-charter https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/purposes-and-...
- stale2002 9mo ago
  > The UN Charter isn't real? Correct. The UN charter is a piece of paper. Pieces of paper don't do anything. They are not magic spells that enforce anything, and they only matter in so far as they are enforced by other actors with real power. If you want to talk about what other countries with a military or trade power might do, go ahead. But the piece of paper is rarely relevant at the international stage.
  - greenavocado 9mo ago
    The only thing that matters is what the guys with the guns want to take from you
    - goatlover 9mo ago
      That was certainly the case on The Walking Dead with the various surviving communities. But we should hope the actual world would operate a little more lawfully than a post-apocalyptic free for all.
      - terminalshort 9mo ago
        The law is only lawful because the guys with guns say it is
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
skissane 9mo ago
International law is real. It has discernible content, people who professionally study it, and it does influence (however incompletely) the behaviour of the world’s governments This idea that law can’t exist if it doesn’t have a clearly identified enforcer is very modern-a lot of traditional/customary law (e.g. the Pashtunwali in Afghanistan or the Kanun in Albania) never had a clear enforcer but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, people sometimes paid attention to it, it influenced how people behaved even if they sometimes got away with ignoring it
- xdennis 9mo ago
  Law is defined as "a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior". International law is defined as "the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations". When people say that international law is not real, what they mean is that "international law" is to "law" as a "guinea pig" is to a "pig". The primary differentiation is enforcement. People bastardize the term law, because they like to throw the word "illegal" around and imply "evilness" without being arbitrary. But guess what: Trump can be evil, without his actions being "illegal". Without international law, actions would be the same (Serbia gets punished, Rwanda gets away), but you would have to argue for morality individually. Instead, people can point to some tome some unelected people wrote and say "this book says you're evil and you can't argue with it". The book says it's illegal and that's that.
- jdkee 9mo ago
  ". . . people sometimes paid attention to it . . ." Exactly.

International law is not real.

by jdkee 9mo ago

International law is not real.

FergusArgyll 9mo ago

Failure to understand this is a primary cause of a lot of unneeded consternation

esarbe 9mo ago

Then it's just "might makes right" and you pick a favorite imperialist to cheer on to invade their next peaceful neighbor. Sorry, but I don't buy into that imperialism shit.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
Fricken 9mo ago
That imperialism shit doesn't care what you think because it's bigger and meaner than you are and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it.
- lenkite 9mo ago
  Once normal people get desperate and mean enough, imperialism tends to loose in a big way. History has proven it at great cost.
  - RankingMember 9mo ago
    Yep, the "great cost" is something that seems to get lost in the shuffle sometimes in conversations about this. No leadership realizes the error of their ways before a lot of suffering.
terminalshort 9mo ago
Always has been

mindcrash 9mo ago

The UN Charter isn't real? "Article 1 (2) establishes that one of the main purposes of the United Nations, and thus the Security Council, is to develop friendly international relations based on respect for the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”. The case studies in this section cover instances where the Security Council has discussed situations with a bearing on the principle of self-determination and the right of peoples to decide their own government, which may relate to the questions of independence, autonomy, referenda, elections, and the legitimacy of governments." https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/purposes-and-principles-un-chapter-i-un-charter https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/purposes-and-...

stale2002 9mo ago
> The UN Charter isn't real? Correct. The UN charter is a piece of paper. Pieces of paper don't do anything. They are not magic spells that enforce anything, and they only matter in so far as they are enforced by other actors with real power. If you want to talk about what other countries with a military or trade power might do, go ahead. But the piece of paper is rarely relevant at the international stage.
- greenavocado 9mo ago
  The only thing that matters is what the guys with the guns want to take from you
  - goatlover 9mo ago
    That was certainly the case on The Walking Dead with the various surviving communities. But we should hope the actual world would operate a little more lawfully than a post-apocalyptic free for all.
    - terminalshort 9mo ago
      The law is only lawful because the guys with guns say it is

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

skissane 9mo ago

International law is real. It has discernible content, people who professionally study it, and it does influence (however incompletely) the behaviour of the world’s governments This idea that law can’t exist if it doesn’t have a clearly identified enforcer is very modern-a lot of traditional/customary law (e.g. the Pashtunwali in Afghanistan or the Kanun in Albania) never had a clear enforcer but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, people sometimes paid attention to it, it influenced how people behaved even if they sometimes got away with ignoring it

xdennis 9mo ago
Law is defined as "a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior". International law is defined as "the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations". When people say that international law is not real, what they mean is that "international law" is to "law" as a "guinea pig" is to a "pig". The primary differentiation is enforcement. People bastardize the term law, because they like to throw the word "illegal" around and imply "evilness" without being arbitrary. But guess what: Trump can be evil, without his actions being "illegal". Without international law, actions would be the same (Serbia gets punished, Rwanda gets away), but you would have to argue for morality individually. Instead, people can point to some tome some unelected people wrote and say "this book says you're evil and you can't argue with it". The book says it's illegal and that's that.
jdkee 9mo ago
". . . people sometimes paid attention to it . . ." Exactly.