International lawyers have “laid the foundations” for a special tribunal to try Russia for the crime of aggression, the EU has said, hailing a significant step towards holding Vladimir Putin and his top officials accountable for the invasion of Ukraine.
In a statement late on Tuesday, the EU executive declared a breakthrough that it said would mean the Russian political and military leaders “who bear the greatest responsibility” would be held to account.
The tribunal’s creation was initially proposed by Ukraine just days after the full-scale invasion, but for nearly three years lawyers have wrangled over finding the right courtroom.
Except caring about ethicality of the conduct of countries is great.
What’s not so great is that the county that pitched the idea then withdrew itself from its justification after it was realized.
But as an ideological beacon of jurisprudence we should all aspire to it’s pretty cheap and much more worthwhile than wars on drugs, porn and abortion.
It’s meaningless unless everyone is in on it, willing to be held to it and willing to go to war to enforce whatever ethical standards have been agreed. It’s pure theater.
And I didn’t know that it was a choice between international law and meddling in the lives of individuals.
That’s rather silly. If jurisprudence would only work if everyone was in on it there wouldn’t be any.
‘it says in your lawbook that killing is illegal, yet Mr Dahmer here disagrees, so it’s of the table’
Law is ingrained with our culture and it’s the shitty fact of life that it’s perennially imperfect as people always try to skirt it or circumvent it. That doesn’t mean it’s meaningless.
I don’t know how you came up with the meddling in the lives of individuals bit, though.
The situation you describe is different and actually proves my point because Mr. Dahmer, presumably lives in a nation, and in that nation in which he lives there must be some form of state or organization that is imposing that law. Even if he disagrees they can impose the law on him through some form of force. He can run, he can fight, but the organization is bigger and thus more powerful than him and as such can make him follow the law or force him to face the consequences. See also why billionaires may be above the law in some places: they are individually richer and more powerful than the organization that would hold them accountable.
On the international level, if a group of nations declare that invading other countries is a crime but 1 of them disagrees and starts an invasion, the crime can only be punished by force, ie war. You could impose penalties on them too, which is a type of force or power, but look at Russia to see how effective they are.