Reflections on recent events in South America

We start with a nice little cartoon. Perhaps a good reminder that the left can poke fun at itself, or can't resist doing so.

Anyway: da MM has captured Evil Dictator Maduro, an action generally considered illegal "under international law". This Volokh article by Ilya Somin is a good expostion of the finer points (see also On the Legality of the Venezuela Invasion). However international law is but a weak reed; see this article for that attitude forcefully pursued. Technically, it is probably illegal under US law too, since the US has ratified the UN charter; but unless Congress becomes less supine that is unlikely to matter¹.

Hobbes taught us long ago that Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength; and although many people don't like listening to Hobbes, US foreign policy has.

An argument, much repeated, is that upholding international law is a good thing in itself, because upholding civilised norms is good. There is much to this argument, but what it put into my mind was the thought that a thing that one upholds, voluntarily, for the greater good is more like morality than law. So international law has the forms of law - lots of bits of paper studiously written by serious folk - but not the reality: enforcement. Like Rawl's Justice as Fairness it attempts to mislead you with words; it should drop the word "law".

I think that all sound-thinking folk would agree that within a civilised society, we want Rule of Law and not Rule of Individuals governing relations. Both for theoretical reasons, and for reasons of experience: we see from examples that individuals cannot be trusted with so much power. But the slipperly slope is to extend that to international relations between states, analogising people and countries. There are only, what, 200 countries in the world? Many of which are tiny or of no importance in international relations. So perhaps there are 50 that matter. It isn't quite so clear that in a community of 50 people, we would want exclusive rule of law; we would probably have rule-of-norms, with only informal enforcement. And if some nerd started torturing his cat, he'd get slapped around by the Big Guy.

Having considered this in the abstract, what about this concrete example. Is it good or bad? Trump Finds the Golden Mean in Venezuela finds RH thinking it good. I kinda agree². Removing an Evil Dictator gives the Venezuelans a chance to do better. Promoting the vice-prez, rather than pushing for the winner of the elections, was a bit of a surprise, but might actually make sense in the long term, in minimising disruption. You may also like Regime Change in Venezuela Is a Good Calculated Risk. Doubtless you can find for yourself any number of people saying it is terrible. Time will tell. Arguing that breaking international law is a really bad idea because then the Ivans might invade Ukraine is fuckwitted, obvs; ditto the Chinks and Taiwan. Arguing that removing Maduro is a good idea because it might scare others into behaving better is not implausible.

As an example of performative nonsense that isn't even self-aware I find stoptrump.org.uk/sign-venezuela-letter, which offers the delightful "The UK must support international law, in actions not just words, and vote to condemn Trump’s US". However votes are but words, not actions. The chance of the UK taking actual meaningful action is fortunately negligible.

While I'm on this stuff, I found US seizes Russian-flagged tanker in Atlantic instructive. In that it appears to display near-incompetence on the part of the USAnians. How can the most powerful navy in the world manage to lose a slow unarmed tanker and let it get across the Atlantic before finally seizing it?

And on a slight tangent, consider The Crime Victim's Right to Justice. The UK has some similar stuff about "victims rights". But notice that it is very much a recent add-on; it is in no way fundamental to the justice system. This is because (as I've said elsewhere but sadly cannot now find; though I dislike rights-based language is close) you don't actually have a "right" to not-be-beaten-up; it is the other way around: the govt promises to punish anyone who might beat you up.

Another: this X post is an interesting example of how just going tut-tut isn't going to preserve your norms.

Notes

1. The Graun and others are excited that Senate advances war powers resolution to stop Trump from taking further military action in Venezuela. But it would need to get through the House, and then not get vetoed by - arf, arf - da MM; so that doesn't look promising.

2. What pathetic weaselly words. I mean I agree with all or most of the individual sentences. I'm still reluctant to agree with the overall conclusion.

Refs

* The Unbearable Stupidity of Nick Shirley (RH on Somali / Minnesota, not what you might guess)

* Does the Supreme Court Favor the Rich?

* Reflections on recent events in the Middle East.

* Microloans Became Microdeposits.

* Against Recent Events.