undefined | Better HN

0 pointstristanj1mo ago0 comments

>the UN security council, which is both the judge, the appelate court, the supreme court and the enforcement mechanism of maritime law, has publicly declared they won't do anything about it. In any other legal situation, if the supreme court says it's OK, there's nothing to be done. There's a word for that: legal. As in whatever happens is legal, even if everyone kills each other.

You are rhetorically clever but analytically wrong on almost every premise.

Your claim rests on UNSC inaction = judicial approval = legal sanction. This is false on multiple levels.

A supreme court saying something is legal relies on an affirmative ruling. A body simply declining to act, especially for political reasons such as a Russian or Chinese veto, is not a ruling of any kind.

The UNSC is also not a court. It is a political body of 15 member states that authorize enforcement actions related to international peace and security. It does not make legal rulings. The actual judicial body in the UN system is the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ has made no ruling on the strait of Hormuz situation.

You also conflate UNSC inaction with legality. That's an interesting philosophical position, but by that exact logic:

* The apartheid of South Africa was "legal" because the UNSC was blocked from acting decisively on the issue for decades.

* The US/Israel strikes on Iran were "legal" because the UNSC never vetoed it.

* The Israeli genocide of Palestine is "legal" because it was protected by UNSC veto.

Obviously, quite flawed logic.

Overall, three errors:

1) you conflated legal inaction as affirmative legal action.

2) you conflated a political body with a legal one.

3) you conflated UNSC inaction with legality.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

spwa41mo ago· 2 in thread

Can I just point you to the first line of Wikipedia's definition of law? Law is what's enforced, not the rules by themselves.

Oh and it's pretty revealing which situations you think are worthy of law violation and which ones aren't (e.g. as per usual Boucha and anything relating to Russia's, or Iran, or offensive Palestinian actions aren't mentioned. It "almost seems" the argument you're making is that law only serves to make your favorite political viewpoint come true, and not for anything else. Funny in a way, since it exposes your hypocrisy: that was exactly the point I was making. Well, with "you" being a person who actually decides, as opposed to you)

kcplate1mo ago

> Law is what's enforced, not the rules by themselves.

Within my circle of friends (generally those who are in Europe), I have been trying explain this distinction whenever it’s brought up that “US violates international law”. Be it Greenland, Iran, Israel…whatever…if your international law’s enforcement arm (The US) will not enforce on itself, then whatever the US does or decides to do is legal.

tristanjOP1mo ago

> Can I just point you to the first line of Wikipedia's definition of law? Law is what's enforced, not the rules by themselves.

Sure, and this is the first line of Wikipedia's definition of law [0].

Law is a set of rules that are created and enforced by governmental or societal institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate.

Ouch, that obviously doesn't agree with your definition. What a flagrant error. Did you even look at the Wikipedia article before writing your comment?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse