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This has always been the case, and not just the US either. International law has no enforcement mechanism - it depends on willingness of countries to follow it

by graemep 10mo ago

This has always been the case, and not just the US either. International law has no enforcement mechanism - it depends on willingness of countries to follow it or force others to. It does not have a proper system of courts to decide the law. Different bits of it can clash with each other. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9010/CBP-9010.pdf https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-...

chii 10mo ago
> This has always been the case, and not just the US either. the difference is that the US used to pretend that international laws mattered - at least, they selectively only ignore some when it's advantageous, but pay lip service to it being relevant and claim to follow it. Now, however, trump has blatantly disregard the norms without regards. While everyone knows that the US will get their way militarily even before trump, it used to be a negotiation with law and order at least being pretended to matter. After trump, the pretense is off. It leads to less trust, less negotiation and more hard-lining. Within one term, trump has destroyed the trust that took more than a century to build.
dragonwriter 10mo ago
> International law has no enforcement mechanism International law has a number of enforcement mechanisms. > it depends on willingness of countries to follow it or force others to. All law depends on the willingness of its subjects to follow it, and failing that of its other subjects to force them to. This is not unique to international law. Some systems of law (e.g., typical modern national criminal law) may have a particular group of people (usually with a formal heirarchy) who are expected to do the executive part of enforcement, and a similar (possibly the same or overlapping, but often distinct) group of people employed to do the adjudicative part of enforccement. International law has the latter (in several forms), but lacks the former. But anyone who is familiar with more than a narrow range of the most idealistic systems of national law will be aware that that that executive body can be a single point of failure—the real problem with international law isn't that it lacks such a single dedicated executive body, but that the important issues under it frequently involve significant conflicts of interest for any of the groups with the capacity to take on the executive role in the particular case, which is problematic under any system of law whether it has a single dedicated body for the executive part of enforcement or whether it relies on ad hoc case-by-case posses for that purpose.
- utilize1808 10mo ago
  > International law has a number of enforcement mechanisms. That's rather naïve. How do you propose to enforce the law when the offender possesses the greatest military/economic/technological might, even compared to the rest of the (law-biding) world combined? US, for quite some time, is the international law.
  - LadyCailin 10mo ago
    What about when a police officer gets qualified immunity after murdering someone? Does this mean the US has no enforcement mechanisms?
    - utilize1808 10mo ago
      Didn't see that one coming. Not sure what your agenda is but that's just the law *enforcement* doing the enforcing part. You can argue that it is unjust, that's a separate issue.
      - LadyCailin 10mo ago
        My point is, the powerful nations are the enforcement mechanism in international law. When they are the ones breaking the law themselves, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an enforcement mechanism, it just means it’s a possibly unjust one, just like with national enforcement mechanisms.
        utilize1808 10mo ago
        The difference is that in the national case, justice is expected; whereas in the international case, it must be understood that there is not supposed to be a "enforcement mechanism" that delivers justice.
        dragonwriter 10mo ago
        In both case there are enforcement mechanism that deliver the will of the enforcers collectively which sometimes correlates with justice or at least a reasonable reading of the letter of the law; in both cases there are a wide set of failure modes from the perspective of law and even moreso justice, because law enforcement (and, in the case of concern for justice, also law making) rely on institutions ultimately composed of people, and the interests of those people is often not in the law or justice. If you see the difference as being “in the national case, justice is expected”, you either have an extremely naive view of national law, or at a minimum of an extremely narrow and privileged one.
fredley 10mo ago
Yes, laws only matter if they are collectively believed in. International law just the same. This has always been the case, but largely speaking in the West, for the last century or so, the rule of law has been broadly believed in, including international law. The story here is that the US seems to not currently believe international law is an effective tool for projecting its power. Whether correctly or otherwise, it has believed that up until now.
_DeadFred_ 10mo ago
For the United States of America, we ENSHINRED it into our Constitution in Article 6 to give it an enforcement mechanism in our country. Our court system is international law's court system as far as US related issues/enforcement. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-6/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-6/ "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land"

by graemep 10mo ago

chii 10mo ago

> This has always been the case, and not just the US either. the difference is that the US used to pretend that international laws mattered - at least, they selectively only ignore some when it's advantageous, but pay lip service to it being relevant and claim to follow it. Now, however, trump has blatantly disregard the norms without regards. While everyone knows that the US will get their way militarily even before trump, it used to be a negotiation with law and order at least being pretended to matter. After trump, the pretense is off. It leads to less trust, less negotiation and more hard-lining. Within one term, trump has destroyed the trust that took more than a century to build.

dragonwriter 10mo ago

> International law has no enforcement mechanism International law has a number of enforcement mechanisms. > it depends on willingness of countries to follow it or force others to. All law depends on the willingness of its subjects to follow it, and failing that of its other subjects to force them to. This is not unique to international law. Some systems of law (e.g., typical modern national criminal law) may have a particular group of people (usually with a formal heirarchy) who are expected to do the executive part of enforcement, and a similar (possibly the same or overlapping, but often distinct) group of people employed to do the adjudicative part of enforccement. International law has the latter (in several forms), but lacks the former. But anyone who is familiar with more than a narrow range of the most idealistic systems of national law will be aware that that that executive body can be a single point of failure—the real problem with international law isn't that it lacks such a single dedicated executive body, but that the important issues under it frequently involve significant conflicts of interest for any of the groups with the capacity to take on the executive role in the particular case, which is problematic under any system of law whether it has a single dedicated body for the executive part of enforcement or whether it relies on ad hoc case-by-case posses for that purpose.

utilize1808 10mo ago
> International law has a number of enforcement mechanisms. That's rather naïve. How do you propose to enforce the law when the offender possesses the greatest military/economic/technological might, even compared to the rest of the (law-biding) world combined? US, for quite some time, is the international law.
- LadyCailin 10mo ago
  What about when a police officer gets qualified immunity after murdering someone? Does this mean the US has no enforcement mechanisms?
  - utilize1808 10mo ago
    Didn't see that one coming. Not sure what your agenda is but that's just the law *enforcement* doing the enforcing part. You can argue that it is unjust, that's a separate issue.
    - LadyCailin 10mo ago
      My point is, the powerful nations are the enforcement mechanism in international law. When they are the ones breaking the law themselves, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an enforcement mechanism, it just means it’s a possibly unjust one, just like with national enforcement mechanisms.
      - utilize1808 10mo ago
        The difference is that in the national case, justice is expected; whereas in the international case, it must be understood that there is not supposed to be a "enforcement mechanism" that delivers justice.
        dragonwriter 10mo ago
        In both case there are enforcement mechanism that deliver the will of the enforcers collectively which sometimes correlates with justice or at least a reasonable reading of the letter of the law; in both cases there are a wide set of failure modes from the perspective of law and even moreso justice, because law enforcement (and, in the case of concern for justice, also law making) rely on institutions ultimately composed of people, and the interests of those people is often not in the law or justice. If you see the difference as being “in the national case, justice is expected”, you either have an extremely naive view of national law, or at a minimum of an extremely narrow and privileged one.

fredley 10mo ago

Yes, laws only matter if they are collectively believed in. International law just the same. This has always been the case, but largely speaking in the West, for the last century or so, the rule of law has been broadly believed in, including international law. The story here is that the US seems to not currently believe international law is an effective tool for projecting its power. Whether correctly or otherwise, it has believed that up until now.

_DeadFred_ 10mo ago

For the United States of America, we ENSHINRED it into our Constitution in Article 6 to give it an enforcement mechanism in our country. Our court system is international law's court system as far as US related issues/enforcement. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-6/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-6/ "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land"