Fortunately for the world, your opinions carry no weight in determining these things. There needs to be some controlling legal authority, to quote a recently prominent law school dropout.
Please cite that authority. Keep in mind that your word for it is less than worthless, given that you have already falsely alleged that the Secretary General is the one who does it.
If you are merely going to continue your usual act, well, too bad - we can go back to mockery.
Regards,
Shodan
The controlling authority is the UN Charter.
Sure. Just like in the US, where the controlling authority is the Constitution.
But despite the plain language of the Constitution not saying a word about abortion, the law of the United States is that the Constitution forbids states from restricting first-trimester abortions.
This odd state of affairs exists because it’s insufficient to merely point to some broad language in the text.
I will admit that it’s heartening for you to come around to the way of thinking that the text SHOULD control, and I look forward to seeing you advance that view consistently and across the board.
If someone wished to pursue this case, there are two venues which could rule on the matter. The first is the Security Council, which is authorized to determine disruptions to peace and security. The other is the International Court of Justice. Funny enough, when Nicaragua won its case in the mid-1980s against the United States in the ICJ for unlawful use of force, the US essentially said, “F.U., we don’t have to listen to the United Nations!” and has pretty much ignored the court since then. I will not comment on parallels between the US feeling free to disregard the ICJ and various other events in the news, such as Iran feeling free to disregard the mandate of the International Atomic Energy Agency simply because it doesn’t like its conclusions.
Of course, what you are arguing is that the UN Charter isn’t worth the paper it is written on, and that the US can freely disregard its legal obligations on a whim. I suppose one could draw the same parallels to despotic governments which do not feel constrained to follow “laws” and “rules,” but I tend to think the US should live up to the treaties it has signed.
If you wish to argue that it hasn’t, I would think you’d need to show that a resolution was introduced to the Security Council, and that it would have passed but for the US’s veto.
Why would he need to show that?
I’m not entirely following what you mean here…
But the US has vetoed Security Council resolutions that have criticized its compliance with the Charter’s restrictions on the use of force.
For example, in 1983, the US vetoed a resolution calling the invasion of Grenada a “flagrant violation of international law.”
Also, the US has vetoed something like a half-dozen Security Council resolutions that called for the US to comply with the ICJ ruling which found that the US had violated the Charter with respect to support for the Contras and mining the Managua harbor, from 1984 to 1987 or thereabouts.
Does that answer your question?
OK, then by all means cite where the Security Council or the ICJ has ruled that the invasion of Iraq is illegal. The Security Council would be the better choice, since the ceasefire that Iraq violated and the resolution the US was enforcing were both under the auspices of the UN.
You are missing the point - the veto is entirely legal, so it is incorrect to say that the US is ignoring its legal obligations.
Regards,
Shodan
The controlling statement is… language not actually in the resolution? Interesting. Did you know the controlling statement in the Constitution is:
I await your delicious response.
If I asked you whether I have just committed a crime if I punched my coworker in the head and took his watch, I doubt your answer would be, “Well, I’m not the controlling legal authority… so until face a judge and jury, it doesn’t matter what the law says. It’s only illegal if you’re convicted of it.”
In contrast, I think most sober-minded people here would say, “Well, if you punch your coworker, it is assault. If you take his watch, that is theft. I’m pretty sure that you could spend a few years in jail for what you did.”
In reality, for the purposes of a debate, all of us here are perfectly capable of reading the relevant law (whether US law, the UN Charter, or the Constitution, or any combination thereof) and forming convincing points to justify our position on the issue. Your oft-repeated claim that we are not in the authoritative position to issue a legal ruling does not lend any substance to your position. I’m not sure why you aren’t arguing the issue on its merits rather than the children’s argument of “if my parents don’t punish me for something, I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The US has the power to veto any resolution that would have findings or punishment for violating the Charter. That does not fundamentally mean that the US has a veto over the Charter. It is our national obligation to uphold the treaty that we have signed, and that includes not invading countries without them having attacked us first or having been specifically authorized by the Security Council to do so. Those are the rules of the game we have signed up to: if you don’t like the rule in basketball that you have to dribble, then don’t play basketball. If you don’t like the rule in the UN that you can’t invade other countries for no good reason, then get out of the UN.
Correct.
But the situation here is more analogous to a set of facts that lend themselves to more than one answer – that is, I absolutely deny the claim that the conduct here is unambiguously subject to only one interpretation.
Instead of punching the coworker and taking his watch, you make a voodoo doll of him, and threaten to stick a pin in it unless he hands over his credit card. He hands over a pre-paid Visa logo gift card, which you use. Are you guilty of armed robbery? Does a voodoo doll constitute a weapon as a matter of law? Did you use a credit card without authorization? Does a pre-paid gift card count as a “credit card” merely because it has a Visa logo?
People may come to different conclusions to those questions. In such a case, it IS necessary to be able to point to a “controlling legal authority” before announcing that you are unambiguously correct.
No, the attack on Iraqi sovereignty was unambigiously illegal. It was not in self-defense, therefore it was illegal, QED.
To be perfectly frank, I think the issue of the facts of the case are a huge backseat to one’s personal, political opinion of whether the war was a good thing, or a bad thing.
If you think the war was a good thing, then the urge not the find the US in the wrong seems to be able to turn the hardest-line strict constructionist into the most wobbly-kneed, loophole-seeking, spirit-of-the-law reading cheerleader when it comes to the UN Charter.
Aside from that tongue-in-cheek characterization of my noble debate opponents, it simply is a fact that Chapter VII of the Charter says there are two ways in which war is authorized: in response to an armed attack and pursuant to a UNSC resolution. This is a fact.
So, the question is, when did the UNSC authorize the war? Some have said UNSC 1441 did – but that is false. At the time it was passed, the US Ambassador said that resolution did not authorize war. Every country which voted on it understood it did not authorize war. That is a fact.
The US subsequently revised its story AFTER the war began, and said that the resolution did authorize war. Well, that’s just incredibly convenient, isn’t it?
So, the only real debate here is whether the US Ambassador to the UN was lying when he said that the resolution didn’t authorize war, or whether the White House lied when it later said that it did.
No, but it’s a hell of an argument for our support of the Contras being illegal.
Who cares what 1441 did?
Rresolution 678, from 1990, never expired and it authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660.
It was authorized by UN resolution, which is another way war can be legal under the charter.
QED. :rolleyes:
No it wasn’t. It was done in direct contravention to the Security Council.
The important point is that the Security Council Resolution did exist. People can argue about how it should have been interpreted. But these interpretations are matters of opinion not matters of fact.
Can anyone explain what bearing the UNSC resolution legally, under US law (the afore-linked UCMJ), would have on Watada’s court-martial?
Congress agreed to the United Nations Charter Treaty. Therefore it is part of American law. If orders were given which were against American law, then they arguably are illegal orders, which Lt Watada could use as a defense for disobeying those orders.