We can work on it and within it or we can repudiate it and do our best to trash it. Bush is doing his very, very best to trash it on multiple fronts. He is a destroyer, not a builder.
When historians look back on Bush (if he succeeds, a big if), they will see him as having created the international framework that succeeded the Cold War framework. International frameworks - I prefer the word to 'law' as it's more realistic - need to be negotiated multilaterally among the powers of the day and to make sense in the political context. Current international frameworks will include the WTO, Nafta, the Geneva Conventions, whatever NATO turns into, the EU, the "coalition of the willing" aka "the Anglosphere", etc.
When a bunch of the smaller powers come up with a politically motivated international framework designed to hamstring the major power, and the major power refuses to be a good sport and be hamstrung, this is not a violation of "international law" it is just a reflection of reality - as all laws must be if they are to be enforceable. This is why I am totally unmoved by all the tantruming about how Bush is "trashing international law" by refusing to join the ICC.
I'll leave the last word to Lileks, he said it best:
"The International Criminal Court, like most international institutions, is a wonderful idea. A noble idea. All it needs to work is planetary government, worldwide democracy and the triumph of reason over tribal loyalties, political doctrines and individual ambition. In other words, it requires that we all live in the world described by the "Star Trek" television shows." -- James Lileks |
