Vladimir Putin has a point: the United States seems to have discovered international law only recently.
Obama’s Changing Moral Compass on Iraq
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international law
America, Genocide, and the “National Interest”
It’s time for the United States to examine how its own foreign policy promotes genocide, and take the actions necessary to curb it.
On the Fence about Syria? Read This!
Some progressives remain conflicted about how the United States should respond to Syria's increasingly violent civil war. This internal division has only deepened as the Obama administration considers launching a military strike on Bashar al-Assad for an alleged...
Moral Obscenities in Syria
The threat of a reckless, dangerous, and illegal US or US-led assault on Syria is looking closer than ever. The US government has been divided over the Syria crisis since it began. Some, especially in the Pentagon and some of the intelligence agencies, said direct...
John Kerry’s Doomed Peace Process
Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest foray into Middle East negotiations should be called the Einstein peace process. Doing the same thing over and over again and still expecting different results is the great scientist’s definition of insanity. This time around,...
The Impotence of International Law
The empty invocation of international law does nothing but reinforce our own sense of impotence in the face of international lawlessness.
The South China Sea Conundrum
Recent months have witnessed renewed tensions over disputed territories in the South China Sea. In response to China’s encroaching military maneuvers and the country’s designation of the whole area as part of its indisputable sovereignty, several South East Asian countries have found themselves dangerously vulnerable. A murky legal regime has led to the emergence of a series of overlapping territorial claims in the area, but at the center of tensions are five key-actors: China, the Philippines, Vietnam, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and increasingly the United States.
Governments Kill
Governments kill on our behalf. This arrangement is a form of social contract, which means that governments are basically contract killers. Some states, like Nazi Germany, use the tremendous power of arms and bureaucracy to transform their territories into slaughterhouses. Regimes that are merely authoritarian can be equally brutal but display a greater selectivity in their tyranny. In our more decorous democracies, meanwhile, we perfume our conversations with words like “justice” and “national security” to mask the odor of death.
U.S. Hijacks ICC conference
The United States managed to foil the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) adoption of the crime of aggression as part of its mandate during this month’s review conference in Kampala, Uganda. But the U.S. presence at the conference demonstrates a new engagement with the ICC, and the Obama administration’s interest in helping to shape international law.
Guantanamo: The Bigger Picture
The U.S. base at Guantanamo has been called many things. The “gulag of our time” (Amnesty International General Secretary Irene Khan, May 2005). “The key strategic intelligence platform in the war on terror” (Charles Stimson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, January 2007). The “legal equivalent of outer space” (unnamed Administration official). The right place for “the worst of a very bad lot” (Vice President Dick Cheney, January 2002) and for the “most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth” (former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, January 2002).