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US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

bbc.co.uk

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Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#41

Post by BLKNSLVR »

pendenthistory wrote: post #35
surgical_fire wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find almost satisfying to watch is how the US throws away the soft power it spent nearly a century building for very little benefit in return. The thing is that soft power is extremely effective. Many other countries, including China, try hard at acquiring a fraction of the soft power US naturally had. Trumps administration, sooner or later, will pass. Whether it is voted away, or if it turns into a form of di…

Trump not being a factor will help, but this whole ordeal shows that Europe cannot count on a reasonable person always being in power, and a single bad president can cause this level or mayhem. Even if the next administration backtracks on all this and apologizes profusely, it's too late.

Exactly. This administration has exposed the fragility of the very structure of the US form of government, and building a new, better structure is, in my opinion, practically impossible without revolution.

It appears to me that the US will continue to iterate downhill.

I'd prefer it weren't the case, but that's what my intuition is telling me.

And if it can start to restructure on the fly, it's going to be a long, difficult process. But it's still better than revolutionary structural / regime change.

Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#42

Post by BLKNSLVR »

poisonarena wrote: post #2

There is no such thing as "international law", and never has been. Land belongs to people who can control it, and always has.

Not in a civilized society.

And I don't think there are many people that would prefer to live under 'might is right'.

Or at least they'd find out pretty quick that it's not exactly what they thought it might be.

Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#43

Post by SanjayMehta »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #40
SanjayMehta wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UN is a joke. The security council consists of the five states which happened to be the winning countries post 1945. Africa is not represented. India is not represented. South America is not represented. But we have the UK, which at that time included its "empire," down to two islands today. And then someone came up with "rules based order" to replace international law. What rules? What order? I have no respect f…

I don't really disagree with you in principle, but at least the notion of a rules based international order (no matter how hypocritical it was) was a good thing. We SHOULD all try to be better and not just focus on our own narrow self interests. I think that the UN has been pretty crap (because of the security council and hypocrisy), but like a lot of unsatisfying compromises, we'll miss it when it's gone.

The rules based order, as endlessly parroted out by mostly European and USAian talking heads, is meaningless.

There's international law, in the form of treaties, as ratified by groups of countries.

Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#44

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #27
defrost wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why indeed. And yet: https://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA... The new doctrine of native title replaced a seventeenth century doctrine of terra nullius on which British claims to possession of Australia were justified on a wrongful legal presumption that Indigenous peoples had no settled law governing occupation and use of lands. In recognising that Indigenous peoples in Australia had prior rig…

Did I say that? I just said no one wants to give power over their land. Countries would want international law to protect them. That's why international law exists. I don't think there is any country which explicitly mentions that international law would supersede their law.

> I don't think there is any country which explicitly mentions that international law would supersede their law.

All EU countries agree on the supremacy of EU law, so that's not quite correct.

Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#46

Post by defrost »

SXX wrote: post #4

There is "international law", but no "international police". So the law only as good as long as everyone follow it - so not very good either. Then you have major power like Russia that constantly abuse it while trying to cover its ass with "internatiomal law" once they themself get hit. This is whem you get system is broken. I get it suck for people inside the US to see democracy dismantled, but honestly I dont mind…

Kremlin says Putin has been invited to join Trump’s Gaza ‘board of peace’

  Putin shows no signs of ending Ukraine war and claim adds weight to accusation Trump favours Russian president
~ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/19/kremlin-says-p...

Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#47

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #43
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really disagree with you in principle, but at least the notion of a rules based international order (no matter how hypocritical it was) was a good thing. We SHOULD all try to be better and not just focus on our own narrow self interests. I think that the UN has been pretty crap (because of the security council and hypocrisy), but like a lot of unsatisfying compromises, we'll miss it when it's gone.

The rules based order, as endlessly parroted out by mostly European and USAian talking heads, is meaningless. There's international law, in the form of treaties, as ratified by groups of countries.

> The rules based order, as endlessly parroted out by mostly European and USAian talking heads, is meaningless.

It was never meaningless. It was rather like the rights enumerated in the US bill of rights back before the Civil War. Aspirational, rarely enforced but something that (some) people some of the time tried to live up to.

Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#48

Post by roody15 »

What exactly is international law these days? For example the ICC is ignored by the US, by Russia, by Israel, by China... among others. The UN does not seem to function quite like it did originally post WW2. In regards to Rule based order.. not sure exactly what this even means as well. Power in the world appears to be shifting or reshuffling and not sure these institutions and concepts apply like they once did.

Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#49

Post by dragonwriter »

utilize1808 wrote: post #39
LadyCailin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief

#50

Post by holowoodman »

iso1631 wrote: post #19
SXX wrote: post #4

There is "international law", but no "international police". So the law only as good as long as everyone follow it - so not very good either. Then you have major power like Russia that constantly abuse it while trying to cover its ass with "internatiomal law" once they themself get hit. This is whem you get system is broken. I get it suck for people inside the US to see democracy dismantled, but honestly I dont mind…

> There is "international law", but no "international police" Yet America just bust into a sovereign nation to arrest its president

Well, America is the police for parts of the world. Unfortunately, the police is also criminal...
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