International law - where does it come from?

[AngryAmish]

I myself do not really believe in a lot of international law. I think one has to consent to a law before one is held to the standard of the law. There are exceptions - children, the insane and the like. But if I go to France I agree to be governed by French law. If I do not like the laws here in the US I should move.

International treaties and all that are good. People vote on these things (through their representatives). So the Law of the Sea treaties and that are all good. But we should not be able to prosecute the leadership of North Korea unless they do something to us. Bomb them in acts of war, yes. But jail them? No.

Question for international law believers is: where does it come from? Universally acknowledged standards? Or the consent of those who would be covered by these laws?

[wtmusic]

1. It has a long and varied history

going back to the Old Testament, but codified in its modern form beginning with the Peace at Westphalia in 1648.

To be held to a standard of international law you have to consent to being a member of the human race, and granted, there are not many good alternatives.

But international law is not particularly demanding, either. You have to agree to not torture people, to not commit genocide, etc. Avoiding these practices, unlike fastening your seat belt, should be a no-brainer. It is universally-acknowledged; if you look at the list of people who have signed onto Geneva or the UN Charter you'll see your United States reps have made you a member of this community. I guess if you really wanted to, you could bail and move to one of the few countries which aren't signatory. I guarantee you'll regret it.

You reject international law but accept war? One of the main goals of international law is to avoid war, which is indisputably far more damaging.

[petronius]

2. I've always thought that all international law, even the good mutually-agreed-on stuff,

really just boils down to one party or group of parties having more firepower than the other, and a willingness to use it. There is no enforcement power other than force (including military, economic, and other pressures) from the states that support the treaty.

International law is a construct intended to avoid war, by applying or threatening to apply force in specific or limited ways. The threat of imprisonment for example, makes the consequences more personal and perhaps is a better deterrent to people in power than the threat of killing thousands of their citizens.

So I guess I would answer your question by saying that it comes from acknowledged standards, with the each parties acknowledgment weighted by each parties power. Between equals, it comes from mutual consent, which is ultimately rather toothless...

(All in my non-legal-scholar haven't-had-my-coffee-yet opinion, of course. :) )

[wtmusic]

4. If you google "UN troops" you'll find that international law

has prevented millions of deaths in Sri Lanka, the Congo, and most recently in Serbia/Croatia (but conspicuously absent since Bush '43). Dubya did his best to render the UN irrelevant - still trying to come back from that one.

[petronius]

5. Yes, that's a portion of what I was getting at - the willingness to use force (troops in this case)

is a key underpinning of international law. Without it, the law is not much more than a nice philosophy to be observed or not depending on each country's current whim...

[Captain Hilts]

3. It started, basically, with the Catholic Church. The Vatican determined that Portuguese would

be spoken in Brazil, for example.

Then Grotius.

Overall, International Law is like playing poker. You want to win, but not so much or so big that folks to ensure that folks will want to keep playing.