One of the more curious aspects of the recent Syrian issue is the question of whether Syria broke international law. The curious part arises from the issue, what is international law?
As far as I can make out, prior to 1940 there was no international law. The reason is simple. One of the fundamental principles of law (e.g., read the Magna Carta) is that a sovereign authority can write law that informs those subject to it what they are not permitted to do. That implies that there is a sovereign authority, and prior to 1940, each nation was its own sovereign authority. However, by 1945, the sight of the German concentration camps was so horrifying that it seems everyone thought that something had to be done. The Russians would probably have simply taken away the leading Germans and killed them, but the Americans decided to put them on trial. The problem was, the Germans had technically not broken any law, because the Reich was not technically subject to any law. Never mind! The Nazis were tried for what should have been law, and duly executed, and because what they were accused of was so vile, nobody objected (and nor do I object. I think one of their own concentration camps would be just about right). But let us take a deeper look at what followed.
First, for some reason the Japanese got off more lightly, and ex-Nazis that were useful got a sort of immunity. Subsequently, in the Balkans, the West has complained about ethnic cleansing, but at the end of WWII, millions of Germans were ethnically cleansed. The German army of von Paulus surrendered, and the great majority of those soldiers died in captivity, but that, apparently, was not a crime. At a somewhat lower level, the family of my son-in-law were Poles, and the Russians simply took their land and sent the family to Siberia. They eventually managed to get to New Zealand, but there was never recompense for their lands. Justice at this level is hardly blind!
This brings me to the current US complaint that Russia is vetoing action against Syria in the UN. Accordingly, the US wants to let fly with cruise missiles to “teach Assad a lesson”. The first thing we can say about that is that previous such lessons have never ended well, and nobody, least of all the US government, seems to have learned anything. The second thing is that Iraq went ahead without UN authorization, so in many ways that was unlawful, unless international law is reduced to, he who has the most sophisticated forces is right. Then there is the argument, what has Syria done that is illegal in international law? Here the problem is, there is no international law, but even by treaty, as far as I know, Syria has not signed any treaty that bans the use of chemical weapons. Killing its subjects cannot be good, but by some estimate there have been about 100,000 deaths so far, and nobody got too worked up about that. Of course the US claims that its cruise missiles will be surgical and will not kill anybody. Yeah, right!
The question now is, do you believe two wrongs do not make a right? If you do, why is sending cruise missiles into another country and blowing stuff up right? Why is it even legal, apart from the fact there is no real international law? I think there should be international law, but I also think it has to be put in place by an entity that is given the right to enforce such law. In my ebook trilogy “First Contact” I wrote in a federation of nations with Federation armed forces, even though most countries also had their own, and generally did their own policing. I shall enlarge on this federation is subsequent posts.
All of which leads to the question, what should be done in the near future about Syria? As far as I can see, the only way that is likely to end the killing is to partition Syria and permit and assist significant ethnic movement. It is not a great solution, but can anyone think of anything better that has a realistic chance of success?
ianmillerblog 