Sure, it was a bit of a weird digression. But I figured it would be useful to you. > And while I agree with you in theory that "laws don't "actually grant any

Sure, it was a bit of a weird digression. But I figured it would be useful to you. > And while I agree with you in theory that "laws don't "actually grant any rights", that's a matter of ideology. For all practical intents, they do. Practical intents? Well, here's a practical example: if laws actually affected/defined rights, then the government could just pass a law that says "it's alright to kill innocent bystanders", and people would have no problem with it. But we both know people would consider such a law illegitimate (and insane), exactly because passing a law that says it's alright to kill people doesn't actually make it moral to do so. In other words, rights are not defined by laws, even in practice. > it has the effect of granting rights by preventing signatories that have subordinated themselves to it from enforcing laws that try to take those rights away So once a government signs a paper that says X, it can't sign another paper that says not-X? Or alternatively, if a government promises it'll be good, it can't then be bad? If government A promises to be good, but is bad, will governments B, C and D then invade A to force it to be good? Or will they go give A a stern talking to? Or will they perhaps impose economic sanctions that hurt their own economies too? You see, signing a law that says a government will be good is nothing but PR, in practice.