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I\’m not entirely convinced

At a special \”review conference\” in Kampala, Uganda, the nations which have signed up to the court, including Britain, will consider a proposal to let the court try the \”crime of aggression\” – the offence allegedly committed by Tony Blair.

If the proposal, backed by more than 70 countries, passes, national leaders alleged to have launched \”illegal\” wars could be seized, transported to the Hague, tried and imprisoned.

Not because I\’m all that in favour of wars of aggression. But because I\’m against what I think would come next: an expansion of what is the definition of aggression….even of war in fact.

There are already those who call the US embargo against trade with Cuba \”war\” and \”aggression\” and while I too think it\’s very stupid and entirely counter-productive, I don\’t quite think that it is a war of aggression.

And the problem really comes in with, well, who is it that, over time, gets to decide what is indeed the definition of \”war\” and \”aggression\”? That would be the nation states of the world. And have you looked at the governance systems of them? I\’ve not got the exact numbers to hand but less than 50% of them are even what could be loosely termed democracies, let alone roughly liberal capitalist ones like all of us here in Europe.

Essentially, I\’m really not sure that I want to be subject to a system of law drawn up by the majority of those who currently run nation states. Yes, I realise that rather puts the entirety of international law into something of a grey area but really: do you want Ghaddaffi (no, I don\’t know how to spell it but apparently just about any collection of g,d and f works), Kim Jong Il, Teddy Obiang and Nazarbayev to each have a vote on what laws a British Prime Minister will be subject to? For that is indeed what the current set up of creating new international law means.

I just don\’t see it myself.

5 thoughts on “I\’m not entirely convinced”

  1. Brian, follower of Deornoth

    Quite. I am old enough to remember when ‘violence’ was extended to mean ‘not subsidising coal mines’.

  2. You just have to see some of the crap that comes out of the UN Human Rights Council to see where it would go.

    Be nice to see how they’d try to enforce any judgements as well.

  3. I agree with you and with the commenters. But by God what wouldn’t I give to see the grinning jug-eared bastard being led away in handcuffs.

  4. The people who want to set up this system of “international law” are only interested in doing an end run around western common law values.

    There are lots of judicial systems out there in the wide world, and most of them are bloody awful. Socialism of course, demands the universal application of equality of misery and deprivation, supervised by ugly old ratbags with felt tip pens.

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