Nov 16, 2007 3:28:01 PM cite

What is the purpose of public international law if there are no effective enforcement mechanisms to apply it? There is really no such thing as international law. When people refer to international law they are referring to the same laws upheld in different countries or that a particular law may not be upheld in different countries. One breaks a law in the country they are physically in or through proxy such as the internet or international banking systems say. Interpol cannot prosecute you, it can only notify the country where you committed the crime so that country can prosecute you and extradite you if need be.

by Thai sean

Sep 29, 2006 11:47:11 PM cite

There are effective enforcement methods to enforce international law, Lester B. Pearson proved that in 1953, the problem lies in the multiplicity of connection which encumber each and every crisis, the necessity to concede to whichever agenda is holding sway on any given day and who is going to take responsibility for actually doing the enforcement. The days appear gone when the ad hoc personal initiative of a single person or small group operating autonomously can take charge of a situation and solve it, without being subject to endless brain or blame storming by folks who make their career of such things.

by RedSevenOne

Sep 27, 2006 6:42:48 PM cite

The purpose is to evidence and document situations where a country has been acussed of a crime or committed a crime that is hard to prosecute whitin the boundries of said country, not too much as to pursue a conviction but mostly seeking restoration and international condemation.That's my opinion. I'm probably wrong but that's what I think.

by carpetbagger

Sep 17, 2006 7:02:02 PM cite

By definition sp-called international law is "law" between nations. In other words, static treaties. There is no enforcement, executive or judicial mechanisms involved, therefore "international law" is an oxymoron, a non-sequitor. Moreover, it belies the concept of sovereignty of the people from which derives all national constitutional law. As Emery Reves has pointed out in "The Anatomy of Peace," "international law" is a smokescreen by which the exclusive nation-state preserves its alleged sovereignty within a world community of anarchy. It is the greatest perversion of law imposed on the people of the world which represent the sovereignty of humanity itself; Also it excludes the concept of world law, world citizenship and world government by which alone peace can result in the instantaneous-communicative world of the 21st century.

by worldlaw

Sep 13, 2006 6:06:57 AM cite

Globally, we need checks & balances just like a country does. International Law helps to establish a set of rules we can abide by as many Nations living on the same planet. Governments and people can hide atrocities & unlawful acts in their own countries, but if the world is watching, it forces governments to behave more honorably.

by Deannahawk

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: Of course, you can skip over or ignore a law. In dictatorships international law is ignored, because a dictatorial system locks a country, it has closed politics and it is not interested in it. Yet people possess a great potential of power even though. I have many examples, of our country, which used to be closed in times of the Cold War, when scientist were disliked by the government as dissidents, people with different way of thinking who didn’t support the regime. Of course, international human rights have been never applied to their cases. But many friends and like-minded people raised their voices for those, who were put in prison because of their political views, they went to an international level and achieved the goal. It depends on the energy; often we ourselves are to blame for many things because we are inert. We try something, may be we burn a hand on it and do not try again saying that it isn’t possible. A man is a creation who is capable to do everything. He is like god, if you may use the word, because he is a part of a creator. And he can do everything. Human energy and strength is immense. We use only a part of it, because we are too material and created material laws. Our science has been occupied for a long time with physical needs of a human body. It was a great mistake, because it developed into different direction as religion and materialised everything. Our bodies are only cloths, and even physical needs should be satisfied, it will be still just cloth, and the potential energy is actually our spirit. And we are able to demand, to raise a voice, to achieve something, and to do a lot.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: That is true that there is no use of public international law if there are no effective enforcement mechanisms to apply it. Of course we suffer from this phenomenon in the Middle East. For example, Israel did not apply many international resolutions.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: I think we have already answered this question in the previous one. Public international law does exist, but there are no effective enforcement mechanisms to apply it. I think all nations should jointly seek an agreement about legitimacy and to demand from powerful governments to respect international laws, because otherwise the existance of all these institutions doesn´t make sense.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea: I think that we don't have to sacrifice our security. We don't have to sacrifice with ourselfes. This is why the state has to guarantee security. We have to know how to balance the security. We have to learn how to claim liberty. We have to unite everyone to get our own liberty. We should not allow that these notices that affect us, those manipulating notices, affect our liberty.

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Look, Maria I don’t know if I can really answer this, I’m not a - I don’t know enough about public international law. But sometimes international law is put in place in order for it to embody a principal rather than a practice. You know there have been examples where people have been brought to book, where the international legal community, or the international public opinion if you wish, has forced transgressors to be held account, when local government has failed to do so. But I think it is a very valid observation. There is no real will, or ability, to govern, or to have international laws governing that which local laws tend to ignore. So if a government tends to ignore a law, then it’s very difficult to get an international collegiate to persuade or to coerce a national government. But there are precedents for it. And I think the principal should exist, and we should keep working towards trying to convince –trying to add value or power or empower the idea that government will be held accountable. I mean, in South Africa, where I come from, the global community responded, and isolated the Apartheid government. Sanctions are used in that manner. So I do believe international sanction is important if a national government is transgressive …

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Then there’s no public international law when there is no effective enforcement or mechanism to apply it. That is the simplest answer I can give you. We create many laws but few are being able to be implemented. It does not matter where you live on earth, there are laws in which the government are not implementing. They are just merely in books. It looks good in the books but they’re not being implemented. At the same time there are laws which are so aged, so old, so ineffective, but still they are in the books. And they’re not being implemented either. So I wonder do we need that many laws? Do we need to carry on the way we’ve been doing? I don’t know. What do you think? That we create laws internationally and there’s no one to implement them, when we cannot even implement the laws locally we have created. I wonder how we’re expecting that international law will be upheld when simple laws locally are not being implemented or followed. Can you help me answer the question? I hope so. I pray to the Great One it will be so. Thank you.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: International law is today a [chivalette]. It’s something that we hear a lot about, but as this question points out, international law is applied very selectively in the world today. The United States is exempt from international law. Other powerful states are exempt from international law, whereas subjugated or weak states are subject to it. The reality is there is no effective international law in the world today. There is a law Might Makes Right, and that is the law of the world today, that is the kind of international law we have. The United States is able to carry out war crimes, violate Geneva conventions, torture, murder, invade other countries ,illegally and to violate numerous provisions of international law, and yet claim that it is a beacon of international law that is upholding and advancing international law. The United States at the same time, of course, rejects the world court and the international tribunal and rejects mechanisms that would bind it to international law. The United States is entering into bilateral relationships, agreements with states around the world to compel them to say that they will never bring US soldiers, that they will never US officials before courts of international law. We recently have seen other states, Argentina. In particular, we have the example of Chile and Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. We see universally a principle of trying to exempt executives, political leaders from any accountability. So, really, I think we need to question the basis of international law today and understand that it can’t possibly be meaningful in a world where the states have such power.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala:

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, it is not just about that because we cannot enforce some of the laws or we have not seen them being enforced that we think that there is no point in having international law because we have seen when something is wanted it is done. In the case of the World Trade Organization, the free markets laws, they are being implemented because the people who really want to implement them make sure that they are implemented. But at the same time, if we look at other things such as say freedom from hunger; now that is a right which is ensured through the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Right. It is a right which comes from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And we have seen that even if they have not being enforced but people, social movements are using it to demand that right, whether it is the farmers’ movement which talks about freedom from hunger as being an international human right or we look at people and communities who are struggling to have access to water, they talk about water as a human right. And that has become an important enforcement mechanism because that is helping communities galvanize for the basic rights to come together and to start demanding justice, and I think that is very important and that’s how most of the human rights struggles have been won. So the fact we have it on paper, of course, we have to make sure it can only have change when it is enforced in the power of making it be applied or to be enforced lies within each one of us.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I find this question very interesting. Because the presumption of effective enforcement of international law is a model that we need some force to enforce the following of internation law. I’d like to back up a bit and just think about that question. Because I think it’s imperative that we recognize international-- I’d rather call it global law, global norms, global values-- that protect the sanctity of all human beings and human dignities and human freedoms across this planet, and other species as well, including the planet. We need, for example, The Earth Charter, is an attempt to formulate global norms and values and a kind of consciousness of planetary global consciousness that goes with The Earth Charter. That remind us that we are in a global world and sharing across all of our own borders, as beings sharing this planet. We absolutely need global norms and global values and global institutions and global law to remind us of that. And hopefully, when we are in the global consciousness, whence these laws come, you will not need forces to enforce and intervene, to have them be a living reality. So the purpose of the international global norms and laws and regulations across our border is absolutely imperative in this global age. Whether or not we have external mechanisms to enforce them. So,the presumption is that we can enforce them ourselves in self regulation, in self organization, in our local forms of life and local ecologies in which we live, rather than needing an intervention. Obviously though, in transition from the old cultural ways, the ego-based cultures to the cultures based upon awakened consciousness, there may be the need for strong intervention to bring about the shift from the old cultural way to a sustainable healthy culture that’s based on living these global norms and values that protect the sanctity of all life and the dignity of all human beings and all species and of Mother Earth.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: The implementation and enforcement of international laws pose a different issue than the actual creation and existence of the international law itself. The creation of the law is there to address, insure, and protect the rights of the underprivileged or what is individual or organizations or institutions or governments to be able to say that these rights are important, these rights need to be protected, these people need to have their rights be, be afforded rights and privileges. But the question of whether or not they are enforced and implemented is another question. So it is the case that we have many international laws that are not enforced, that are not implemented. To that extent, it can add to discouragement, but that does not mean that the laws themselves are not important or that the laws themselves should not be there. Today we have the International Criminal Court, it is seen as a hopeful sign towards the implementation as well as enforcement of international laws that deals with issues of human rights and human rights violators. So that is an important public international institution. We also have the World Court that addresses the issues confronting governments and making, making decisions regarding the rights of governments and on the international stage. So we do have enforcement institutions, institutions that seek to implement these laws. So, but that doesn't mean that we can't try to do better, that we should not also exercise more of our political will to ensure the implementation and enforcement of international laws. But we certainly do have a whole panoply of international law.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: Well, you can't claim that there is no mechanism for international law. First I have to say that there is a mechanism which isn't sufficient and somehow still restricted. That's right. But there are many more mechanisms than before. For example between the two world wars and definitely if you compare the situation today with the 19th century. So there are many more. There aren't only international committees but also sometimes international forces and there is the international court of justice. There is everything. The question is if that is sufficient. And it isn't sufficient. We have to develop and enlarge it. That doesn't mean what we have today is worthless and has no meaning, that only means that we haven't yet come far enough and that has something to do with development. And this development comes from the consciousness of people and from education. If the people get more and more international education and they become more and more democratic and they live the democratic values then such mechanisms will develop. That's how tribes, states and nations developed and that's how the international community develops. So it is a question of development. I think we are on the right way but it is a difficult and long way.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 1:45:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Public and international law. Effective enforcement mechanisms. What is the purpose of public and international law? The purpose will might be of ideas for the global community to come together, to come together in a forum, to come up with the ideas, to set some laws. But if there is no effective enforcement mechanisms to apply it, there is no way for these ideas to be turned into an action or refined, this pool of ideas that has a vision. If there’s no way to refine that vision into a conceptual format to come up with ways of implementation, timelines of implementations of phases, then it is like an eddy in the river. It’s moving but going nowhere. There needs to be a stone or something to dislodge this eddy, or an involvement of the people to come in to change the course, so that this eddy and the power that its built can spiral out into the world. And then all this energy and activity can then be dispersed and flow down the river.

by Benjamin Fahrer