Since it's been a while since we had an Israel/Palestine thread...

padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I object to what Israel is doing - and tbc, various things its opponents have done - bc I as an individual find them immoral, not because they do or don't constitute war crimes according to whatever body decides what are and are not war crimes (i.e. no one, there is no such body with the ability to universally enforce such laws)
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
the question is, how do we bring people together in order to solve them. that means developing international law, institutions, etc. none of that is a givent, but its also the only way we can solve them.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
padraig (u.s.) said:
I object to what Israel is doing - and tbc, various things its opponents have done - bc I as an individual find them immoral, not because they do or don't constitute war crimes according to whatever body decides what are and are not war crimes (i.e. no one, there is no such body with the ability to universally enforce such laws)
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I completely agree with that
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Whether an act is legal from the POV of international law it doesn't imply that its moral. Maybe its legal and totally immoral.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
vimothy said:
the question is, how do we bring people together in order to solve them. that means developing international law, institutions, etc. none of that is a givent, but its also the only way we can solve them.
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As I said to begin, lip service is better than nothing. Another of saying it is a useful fiction. If govts have to say that they care about human rights qua human rights instead of realpolitik, it might mitigate their behavior. An ICC that prosecutes leaders who aren't powerful enough to prevent that is better than no ICC at all. But it's still only a useful fiction and whenever the rubber truly meets the road that will hold true.

You have to have a single world govt for what you're describing. Look at the various messes the EU has gotten itself into with it's halfway uniform approach. International accords are enormously weaker still.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
To get back on topic, the immediate point is that whether or not it's even feasible (which I doubt) indisputably no international institution currently exists which is likely to serve as a means to solve Isr/Pal

Certainly the UN Security Council ain't it
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Look, I'm a very cycnical person. We had, if you remember, a huge argument about the "rules based" order, russia, and FP realism, in which I took the position that the rules based order was a big joke. I stand by that. But, at the same time, we have to recognise that we want and need to construct an international system in which everyone is invested and in which disagreements can be resolved without the whole thing falling apart. That's an aspiration. It doesn't exist now. But it might one day, and that's the only kind of order which is ultimately sustainable.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
padraig (u.s.) said:
Yes it's almost as if laws have no inherent connection to morality
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that's just another extreme statement which doesn't make any sense. where do you think laws come from? the issue is who makes the rules and what they consider moral, not whether they're completely disconnected from morality.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
vimothy said:
that's just another extreme statement which doesn't make any sense. where do you think laws come from? the issue is who makes the rules and what they consider moral, not whether they're completely disconnected from morality.
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Semantics

You know exactly what I mean

There is no universal morality. Laws are exactly an expression of whoever made them.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
And who decides this universal morality to which the laws are tied? You, vimothy? Someone else? What universal arbiter of morality exists
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
padraig (u.s.) said:
The basis of any international agreement is a balance of self-interests
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I mean jfc look at the Congress of Vienna which is as textbook a formal international settlement as you can get. Literally Metternich's whole deal was a balance of self-interests to prevent another general European conflict.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
“Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and however much he comes to value his judgments ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.”
 
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