On November 16th, I had the opportunity to attend a speech and Q&A session given by former Undersecretary General of the United Nations Hans Corell. The speech was held at the University of California, San Diego for their International Education Week that was held on campus. A wide array of topics were covered in his hour long session spanning from Global Warming, Darfur, to the War in Iraq. But mostly the War in Iraq.
The bulk of his speech was about the Iraq War as it applies to International Law. He began by saying that the U.S. is wrong for the war in Iraq because it violated international law; then went on to explain this claim by citing the two main criteria for the use of force by any nation according to the UN Charter. The first justification for use of force is self-defense, the second is by explicit permission from the UN Security Council. Corell criticized the US for never seeking permission from the Security Council(which the US is a part of), and for making the war seem justifiable based on false evidence. He also said that as it applied to international law and the UN, there needs to be a clear case for why there is a need of the use of force; something the US simply did not do.
So while Hans was making his case for why the US violated International Law, I started to think about a couple of things myself. For example, it wasn’t just one member of the Security Council whom violated international law in this case, it was two (this is a point Corell also made). Great Britain was another member of the S.C. that was directly involved in the Iraq War as well. My point here is not to illuminate the fact that Britain is no better than the US as far as breaking international law, it is actually to prove the greater point of who cares? (I’m sure as you read on you will realize that most of this post has to do with justice) Now the question I asked myself while Hans was going on and on about how international law was broken were – So what is going to be done about these violations of the law? The simple conclusion I came to was…nothing. Nothing was going to happen to the US or Great Britain for their violations of international law; the UN had no plans to repremand them, no plans for removal from the security council, nothing was going to happen. Maybe because the US contributes 22% of the UN’s budget (the ceiling they are allowed to pay, and still the single greatest financial contributor) and Britain accounts for about 5.56% of the UN’s budget (still a significant portion in its own right). Or maybe it is because the UN lacks the tools necessary to really establish any sort of legitimate international law and have no methods to enforce it (whether it be internally or externally).
In making his case that the US ought to seek legal means to fight the War on Terror, Corell pointed out the four points needed to maintain domestic law:
- Democracy
- Legislation
- Rules/Tools to apply that Legislation
- Enforcement
It seems to me that the UN really lacks numbers 3 and 4, and that is why breaking international law really does not mean much. This point will be further extended in my next argument that the lack of rules/tools to apply legislation and the lack of enforcement may actual encourage countries to violate international law. Now, some people may think this is a crazy argument, and it is something I never really believed in up until I heard this speech, but just read on.
Corell’s main argument in his speech was that the US cannot fight terrorism by throwing all of its prinicples and legalities away. The only way to really fight this ‘War on Terror’ was to make terror a criminal act. Now this is a very good point that I found very interesting. There are a million other options the US could have have taken after 9/11 to go after terrorists in a more effective way. It took very little time to figure out who the individuals involved in the 9/11 plot were, yet we went all the way to Afghanistan and later into Iraq to fight this terrorism. We could have tried these individuals in the World Court, we could have even tried them in the US for the crimes committed on our soil – yet we chose war. I started to wonder why we chose war when there were, in theory, better options available….
This is where I get to my main point on Justice: To me this has deeper implications as to our international justice system and even our justice system on a domestic level. I feel like the reason the United States took matters in their own hands, in a way, was because of the lack of faith for the international legal system or maybe even the US legal system to be able to give adequate justice in these situations (lets pretend like the goal of the Bush Admin. was not to go to war in the Mid-East prior to 9/11 for one second). Following this logic…it would not be hard to see why we went to war or started this whole bs campaign on terror thing. Answer this question…Would giving the people responsible for 9/11 a long trial in which eventually they would get a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty be enough for the atrocities they committed? Even in the most objective sense where people can look back now and say yes, the real answer is no. We all remember how mad every American was when 9/11 happened…no one just wanted a trial, we ALL wanted war. Democrats and Republicans alike wanted war (the vote was almost unanimous), and so did the public. We all know that there can be no real ‘War on Terror’ because terrorists are individuals or small networks, not nations. Nevertheless, we still all wanted justice, so we needed war. Its similar to the families we see here in America who do not feel any better when a former Klu Klux Klan member gets life in prison for hanging over 5 african americans in the 50’s, and not be able to convict them until the turn of a new century. It doesn’t seem like ample punishment for the torturing and murder they have committed and it does not take away the time they were free and getting away with it (this story was actually in this week’s TIME magazine). The point is that under the law, it is a suitable punishment – but is it justice? Perhaps not. Maybe we do not have the ‘eye for an eye’ legal structure seen in the Code of Hammerabi for a reason; to be fair. Maybe our legal system is the way it is because of the overwhelming belief in Christian values in our country; where turning the other cheek is a virtue, and we try to be the better person all the time. The fact is, in many cases we see individuals and sometimes nations take things into their own hands because they don’t believe true justice will be served (whether it is in lacking the proper methods to reach justice, or not having the proper methods of enforcement of the law).
Now I am not claiming to be an expert on what justice is…but I wanted to get this discussion going because it is important. And I am not saying that I necessarily think this is the reason we went to war in Afghanistan or Iraq, but it is simply just another viewpoint that I do not think gets discussed enough.
At the end, Corell concluded his speech by saying that he thinks that America does have the ability to correct their wrongs and be a leader in upholding the law and what is right. I sort of wonder if he was sincere and really believes in this country, or if he just felt like maybe it wasn’t wise to spend an hour ragging on America to American students without some words of encouragement. In any case, I suppose we will see.
-Esmé
