N. and S. Korea firing artillery at each other

First of all, I would like to thank you, CoolHandCox, for being willing to step in and provide cites where FinnAgain has stubbornly refused to do so. I’ve been looking forward to an international law debate on this topic, and we can now finally proceed!

Well, it looks like you’ve got both the general document I was expecting and the affirmative defense I was prepared to present.

What we know is that North Korea did, at some point, fire at Southern targets, which would, without more, contravene the Charter. But then we have the catch-all escape clause of Article 51:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

Note the vague wording. The only prerequisite for self-defense is that “an armed attack occurs against a [member state].” There is no requirement that said attack hit land, damage property, or cause casualties. There is no requirement that self-defense measures be immediate. There is no requirement that self-defense measures be proportionate. There is no mens rea requirement. No - you get attacked, you can fire back.

So that is clearly the defense North Korea would use here. Also note that North Korea would point out the following facts in support of its position:

(1) The two Koreas are in a perpetual state of war, rather than the state of peace that the Charter assumes. The Armistice did not end the war, which is technically ongoing. Thus, cross-borders attacks do not threaten peace; they merely perpetuate an ongoing war. Ongoing wars are generally governed by the Geneva Conventions rather than the UN Charter.

(2) The Charter charges the Security Council with applying and enforcing the document. As such, the Security Council must pass a resolution stating which party has breached the Charter, and in what way. No such resolution has been passed, so North Korea can not truly be said to have violated any aspect of the Charter, any more than a person can be said to be guilty of a crime without a judicial ruling to that effect.

(3) All parties to the conflict agree that escalatory self-defense is a valid and legal response to cross-border attacks. For example, both South Korea and the US recently stated that air-strikes can be used against North Korean targets in response to any North Korean “attacks.” Yonhap News Agency Notice that there is no talk of proportionality. North Korea has a strong argument that it should not be held to a higher standard than its enemies are willing to embrace.

Once again, note that Article 51 has no imminence requirement, nor does it require that one have a good faith fear for the safety of one’s populace. Thus, as long as South Korea attacked North Korean territory, the North can lawfully retaliate, even if it does not reasonably believe itself to be in danger.

If you had paid closer attention to what I was saying, you would have noticed that I was expressing a subjective personal opinion on the justifiability of escalatory military defenses in specific situations.

See, this is the main reason why I ignore most of your posts. You tend to miss people’s points, twist their words, and, upon encountering a point that you cannot address, accuse them of erecting “straw men” (seriously, how many times have you used that phrase in this thread to avoid actual intellectual responses?). I’m not sure why you bother posting here if you are unwilling to engage people on the merits.

Feel free to respond to this by making another straw man accusation. :rolleyes:

I assumed you did, as this is a reasonable thing to do.

I don’t expect such gratitude is very popular this time of year:

Kid upwrapping a present on Christmas morning: Wow, thanks for the PlayStation, Grandma! I guess even an old syphilitic cunt like yourself can have a moment of generosity, though I never would have thought so.

Your argument repels facts. How do you manage that?
Also, yet again, you make a claim, you provide proof.

Ahhh, the “It’s my opinion maaaaaaaaaan, everybody is entitled to their own opinions!” dodge.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts. You make a claim about an act of war being “justified” and “appropriate”, it’s up to you to show that it is. Obviously, you still can’t as you’re claiming that an act that nobody believes to be a threat, that ended and was no longer a threat and which occurred in the open ocean is a matter of “self defense”.
And your use of strawmen is, rather obviously, due to you making shit up and claiming that anybody else has said it.

Which is why, of course, you haven’t cited any of the things you made up and claimed I said because, after all, you made them up. As for engaging your argument on its merits, your argument has served as a thoroughly object lesson as to the nature of Orwellian doublespeak, the untenability of apologias for fascism and wars of aggression and in general a comedy goldmine.
It’s say its merits have been used to the fullest extent.

Notice the evasion and distortion. An armed attack against a nation rather obvious has to be an attack against that member state, not a splash in the open ocean. Who’d a thunk it?

Again you reveal that you have nothing but ignorance and fallacy to back up your claims. You are completely unaware of Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute and the Sam Remo Manual, which I cited for you so your ignorance of yet another cite in this thread is… expected and standard operating procedure.

Of course, none of that is at issue as you’ve claimed that NK’s attack was “justified” and “appropriate”, and since you’re now claiming that Article 51 refers to empty water, you need to provide a cite that anywhere, in the history of modern humanity, a shell falling into open water and not threatening a single human life has legally been considered an attack against a nation.
Rather than you rationalizing to yet again support tyrants and butchers.

Yet again, major rationalizations. Unless of course all of a sudden you enthusiastically support the US’s right to invade Iraq.

About a 8.4 on the Rationalization Scale. Article 51, in specific, simply does not start with “As long as the Security Council has not passed a resolution on a specific matter…”
It’s telling that your argument is based on a deliberate conflation between intra-national civilian criminal law and the international laws of war.
Just like your analogies are based on conflating crossing the street with indiscriminately bombing another country’s citizens, or firing live ammunition into someone’s house with shells falling in the open ocean, or…

Equal parts willful obfuscation, simple bullshit and ignorance, and your own definition that nobody else actually holds because you are again rationalizing.
The “escalation” you’ve claimed in NK’s case was the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force against a population center with no casus belli, at all.
There was no attack, even in NK’s narrative there were shells that fell into empty ocean, and NK waited until there was no longer any “threat”, and therefore any reason for “self defense”, before it indiscriminately rocketed both civilian and military targets.
And your deception on the last point is telling, SK has said that it will use air strikes if NK attacks its civilians again. You seem to cherrypick quotes to present their meaning with maximum distortion and dishonesty. [You’ve already had that bit of cherrypicking clear up](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13226589&postcount=503\), which is why of course you’ve chosen a ‘new’ cite that doesn’t report as fully. Funny, that.

It’s interesting to watch the contortions your argument will go through to justify murder.
There’s no confusion over whether or not a state that’s in no danger, believes itself to be in no danger, and waits until the only possible cause of danger is over, is acting in “self defense” if it then attacks another nation.

Go figure.

There we go again with the editorializing. You must think pretty highly of yourself, considering that you appear to assume that you have the power to dictate international law. Um, no. If you assert that a military breach of territorial waters does not constitute an attack under the Charter, I expect you to point to the specific portion of the Charter than says so. Assertions of law require actual references to law. Who’d a thunk it?

Talk about ignorance… First of all, the Manual you’re trying to bring up again is still non-binding. It is not law. I don’t understand why you find this so difficult to comprehend. Anyone can write a set of guidelines - without international acceptance, it is not internationally binding.

Rome Statute? Treaty Law 101: treaties apply only to signatory states. North Korea never ratified the Rome Statute. What a silly mistake on your part, but I’ve no doubts you’ll blow it off, as usual.

The Geneva Conventions are very comprehensive. Which particular article of which particular Convention are you referring to? Also, keep in mind that the US has stated that the Geneva Conventions are non-self-executing. In other words, it is the US position that, despite having ratified the Conventions, it is not actually bound by them. Why would we have a different standard for North Korea?

Were the two nations in a state of war at the time? Did Iraq fire on the US first? Did the US invasion consist of simply firing back at the responsible military units without breaching Iraq’s borders?

If you answered “yes” to all three questions, then yes, the US invasion would be justifiable under my theory. Also, if you answered “yes” to all three questions, you may want to pay closer attention to the news.

Aaaaand we’re back to the current episode of “FinnAgain Sets International Law.” There’s no confusion in your mind? That’s commendable. Now let’s see all those cites proving that your personal interpretation of the right of self-defense is, in fact, the internationally recognized one. I’ll wait.

What treaties, if any, has NK ever ratified or signed or whatever?

*In Soviet Russia, burden of proof shifts you! *
On the Straight Dope, however, you probably won’t have much traction with your “I’m making stuff up now prove me wrong!” tactics.

Yes, so you’re going to provide a cite for your claim that shells falling into the open ocean has ever, in the history of modern humanity, been classified as an attack against a nation, right? No?
Got any actual references to international law that say shells landing in water is an attack? No, you just made it up?
How about your claims that when article 51 refers to ‘self defense’ that really it’s including events that aren’t a threat, that the nation responding military doesn’t believe are a threat, and that have ended and therefore cannot be effected by any response at all? No?
Got any actual references to international law that say that self defense is applicable even if a nation isn’t defending its self? No?

Of course you don’t, because you invented them. And true to form when caught at it, you’ve tried to change the subject and demand that someone else prove that your claims aren’t true, since you refuse to ever prove that they are. You have turnspeak down to, well, not an art form but more like a really predictable and amusing dodge.
Which is why you won’t cite how international law conforms to your claims since you just made them up, and international law has a horrible backlog of retroactively setting precedent for things made up on the internet.

I hear that they’re really working on fixing that over at The Hague, though.Top priority.

Yes, let’s see all your cites that shells landing in open ocean is an attack against a nation, or that “self defense” doesn’t mean “self defense” and can be engaged in when a nation is not threatened, doesn’t believe itself to be threatened and engages in military action once the possible “threat” has ended anyways.

Got those cites?
No?
Didn’t think so.

Yet again you are totally ignorant on a subject that you are talking about. Go figure. Is SK a signatory nation? Yep, the RS went into effect for SK in 2003. Is, SK, in fact the State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred? Why, yes, it was an SK island which was rocketed.

Yah, I’ve cleared up your ignorance on that point and cited the discussion for those reading along. Just like I’ve cited and pointed out several other cases where you have the facts available and still somehow manage to not include them in your claims. Just coincidence, I’m sure.

Your double standards are showing.
If you’re claiming that no casus belli is necessary and the “doctrine of escalation” that you made up is at all valid in any legal sense, at all, then the US needed no justification other than the fact that it was still at war with Iraq since a cease-fire ended the First Gulf War, not a peace treaty.
But of course your argument pretzels up, as two standards are necessary to make it even begin to ‘work’.

Once again, I won’t waste too much time addressing your points, since you’ll just ignore the responses anyway and go off on your own absurd tangents. However, I would really like you to pay attention to this one thing (trust me, it’ll help you be more informed in these matters, so it’s worth it):

Treaties are binding on the states that signed and ratified them only; there are no exceptions to this concept. It doesn’t matter in the slightest if Nation X attacks Nation Y, and Nation Y has signed and ratified Treaty Z. Treaty Z will not apply to Nation X, unless it has also signed Treaty Z. I point this out for your benefit. If you participate in international law debates again in the future, please don’t make this mistake. You’ll get laughed at.

Well, that’s all.

Right… so what treaties have NK signed and/or ratified?

There have been numerous treaties signed and ratified by North Korea. What are you interested in?

North Korea is a state party (=signed and ratified) to the Geneva Conventions, though it signed on with reservations (this is pretty common in treaties): http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/NORM/3C30A306C1766103C1256402003F95CC?OpenDocument

It used to be a state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it withdrew in 2003 (nations are allowed to freely enter and leave treaties).

It is a current state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Of course that is all, me and others will point and laugh at you because what you have done is to demonstrate that NK is indeed a rogue state for not confirming treaties.

Using that as an excuse for the actions of NK is pathetic.

Got those cites?
No?
Didn’t think so.

I do admit I marvel at your ability to post such strident nonsense with such confidence from a position of utter and complete ignorance.

You obviously have not yet read the Rome Statute and you’re still trying to tell someone who has what’s in it. Just because it’s a very good object lesson that you don’t let the facts get in the way of your arguments-in-progress and you don’t let total ignorance get in the way of voicing an argument.
For those who’d like (yet another) example of how Commissar’s arguments are built:

[

](http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/romefra.htm)

Are you saying that if he contrived some exucse for getting out of militarym service, he would admit it in his autobiography?

In a country where every male serves in the military and at a time when the service requirement was real unless your parents are rich enough to buy your way out (what eprcentage of Korean males of his age do you think served in the military?)

Perhaps its not fair to state that he spent his ENTIRE youth dodging military service but a lot of Koreans seem to think he dodged military service. And the lack of military service in his background combined with his military aggression makes him a chicken-hawk like Cheney and Bush.

You got a point, they say all sorts of shit.

OK so when a country attacks a military installation 4 hours after it fires artillery on my territory (whether its splishy splashy in teh water or jsut a thud on a patch of grass somewhere) without actually killing anyone, that is not self defense. So if Israel were to respond hours after the fact to rocketfire from Gaza, that would not be self defense if the rockets fell harmlessly in some field?

Here, you’ve managed to misunderstand a very clear statement that using defensive air strikes against NK if NK attacks civilians again is self defense and not “belligerence”… and you’ve somehow morphed that into a comment about the live fire exercises.

[quote]
And this after trying to take XT to task? No… what actually happened was that NK shot, indiscriminately, using unguided rockets, at an Island that happened to have a military base on it.[/quo0te]

If it was indiscriminte then you would expect a more reandom distribution of where the rockets hit. Are you under the impression taht there was a fairly even distribution of where the rockets hit or are you under the impression that there was a concentration of rockets hitting the part of the island with the military base. Its pretty clear they were aiming for the base. But you knew that.

You constantly refer to the US as the Empire, and have cast dispersions on it, citing it as an evil state, with evil intentions.

In your world, the US is black, period. Bad, eeeeevil, and wrong. And when they do something as stupid as give food to help the starving people in Russia, clearly it was done with evil intent.

The reality is, the US (And even such messed up states as the Soviet Union and North Korea) have many reasons for doing the things they do, most of them in some shade of grey.

As for Collective farms being kept in place after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, well sure. Especially since the original Kulaks who owned that land were liquidated for the crime of owning land.

That being said, since suddently you can get a farm, and don’t have to have the fruits of your labor confiscated by the state for a pittance, I’m sure they make more sense NOW.

The ones where the target waters were recognized as belonging to North Korea.

What’s the covenenant’s position, if any, on manufactured starvation?

That analogy fails because Israel has fallen under lethal rocket attack in the recent past, and also because I’m assuming the “patch of grass” is indisputably Israeli territory while the waters in question are not clearly North Korea’s.

I dont think Finn Again is relying on the UN unless he relies on them as an authority only selectively. The basic framework sounds like it would emanate form a lot of sources.

There is an armistice in place but they’ve kind of been at war for decades. But yeah the question is whether or not the military exercise on contested waters is provocation. Finn seems to think its clear enough taht he can belittle anyone that thinks that military exercises in contesed waters is provocation.

I think Finn Again’s argument is that the conclusion is clear, my argument is that NK are bad guys but the shelling was not unprovoked, commisar’s position seems to be that there is no proof that Nk is even a bad actor.

I think it was my typo. And I have no idea but i would be surprised th hear that Nk is an all volunteer army.

REALLY?!?!?! Because that’s not the impression I got from Finn Again.