When and Why Does International Law Get Obeyed?

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Ragusa,

Tell that to your government and the French. They voted for or abstained from the 17 resolutions against Iraq in the last 12 years. Now they don't want to live up to their responsibilities. "If you can't walk the walk, don't talk the talk." It is really easy to make threats you never intend to follow though on. It is much harder to stand up and take responsibility for your statements.

joac,

You claim that the US is going to lose all her allies if she defies the UN? That is funny considering that the majority of the EU and Candidate EU nations are joining with the US in a call for action. The fact of the matter is, the US is not the equivalent of the "bad cop" on the block, and even if she is, when things go bad, everyone cries out for that same "bad cop" to come save them. Fact of the matter, as the UN continues to weaken itself, the paradigm of nations will shift. Some nations will flock to the US, some will oppose. However it is not the US's fault that the UN is weakening itself. The US is simply the mechanism by which the weakness is displayed. The actual blame for the current situation lies at the feet of the UN. If the UN had enough foresight to handle Iraq properly in the first place, or to enforce the rules it passed along the way, this situation would not exist. The entire issue with Iraq is just of symptom of a much greater ill within the UN. One that if not quickly addressed, will rot it from the core. When the head dies, the body must follow.

 

well, as the energy plan to discontinue north korea's nuclear program was halted by the us, and then the US turn around and complain that they recontinue their nuclear program.

It is a bit cynical to say that countries always act out of self-interest, eg. Kosovo, Europe and the US didn't have any interests in the Balkans, but they still went in as peace-keepers and stopped a mass-genocide.

But it is a bit much that the US complain that France are being awqward and acting in self-interests, when the US are the main protagonists of this, Read the Kyoto Protocol.

 

It is naive to say europe intervened in Kosovo because of human rights. They were one motive, politics, however, is never mono-causal. The fear of masses of albanian refugees trying to come to greece and italy and eventually germany (costing us money to feed them) was another strong motive.

BTQ, I'm unsure what to tink about standing to NATO pobligations and not signing a treaty in reference to france. I may misunderstand you there. However:
France has went an independent way since it left NATO under de Gaulle. That was because France felt that the US were unwilling to put europe under the "nuclear umbrella" against the russians, fearing that the US would be intimidated by the thought the east-west conflict in europe could escalate and come to the US. That's basically why they started their own nuclear program. Since then France is associated with NATO, but not a member. Despite that french troops were based in germany to fight at our side against the russians in case of war.

And it is injust to blame the french not to care about international security, blocking the able and willing US - as I repeatedly heared from some americans. Much more than others they do the opposite. France actually is guarding the US back in dark places like africa, for example intervening in the actual crisis in ivory coast, enable the US to concentrate elsewhere. Of course, there is much french money and there are many french people endangered in this area but anyway.
French carrier aircraft have been the only ones of the multinational alliance that were tasked with close air support for US forces in Afganistan. Frace is the only central european country with capabilities close to the US. And france is actually willing to go to war in Iraq at need - but not under the US conditions.

Insofar you're putting it quite right when you say that france is blocking others from acting in their self-interest

 

France was not an active member of NATO from De Gaulle onwards but became active again in the mid-90's. Over peacenik objections, if I remember correctly, since France does not have the best track record with nuclear testing, plus is actually more trigger-happy than the US (the US, just for one example, has never blown up a Greenpeace ship no matter how tempted they might have been).

This must be said for the French position on Iraq: at least it reflects the will of the people and is therefore the democratic position. While I disagree with the French position on this issue, at least I am pleased the citizens' will is being done- which cannot be said for the UK, and probably not for the US either.

In all this talk of motivations ranging from weakness to Elf Fina (which may be factors for the government but not for most of the citizens), let's remember another reason France fears action that would anger Islamist extremists further. There is a very high North African/Arab population within the country and a lot of racial and faction-based violence. France has already suffered enormously from the type of terrorism that has only now become real to most Americans, and this will explode if France participates in a US-led attack on Iraq. No one wants another 9/11, and France is extremely conscious of the fact that the next one is likely to be on their own soil if they aren't careful. The average French person couldn't care less about the Elf Fina company, or about poking the US in the eye, she is worried about her family's safety. This is consistent with what I hear from my American friends; most of them oppose US-led action against Iraq because they think it will lead to more terrorism rather than less. The difference is that the US is not listening when its citizens say this.

Mostly we hear what Americans think of the French position, but in the interests of fairness I urge you to read for yourselves what France itself has to say about the French position. Like most diplomatic speeches it's fluff, but you can at least discern that France *does* oppose Hussein's activities in no uncertain terms, and is quibbling only about the method of stopping them.

Diplomatie.fr

 

But how do nato have an obligation in Iraq?

The name suggests that they only have obligations in threats to the north atlantic.

As Iraqs furthest range is 120 miles, that means that the middle east is in danger, but not europe or the US. And they have no links to terrorist organisations able to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into high security countries.

America not signing up to the Kyoto Protocol (while accounting for 25% of world carbon based emissions) was an example of countries acting out of self-interest.

 

I thought I read somewhere that part of the agreement of NATO was that members would back other members during a war. I may just be thinking of something else.

 

Do not Turkey themselves be quite questioned to this whole thing? IIRC there was a voting yesterday or something was not able to secure the right for US troops to go through Turkey.
And NATO is a defence organisation if a member is attacked the others are bound to come and help him. The controversy now is that no NATO member has been attacked.

 

These are the articles of the N.A.T.O treaty, which are reffering to the obligations of the members in case of an attack. According to my interpretation an attack must take place first and then the other members of the treaty are obliged to assist the member, who is under attack. Until now Iraq has not attacked Turkey or stated that it is going to attack Turkey.

 

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BTA
Article 3 states that the members of the alliance must maintain armed forces in order to resist an armed attack. It doesn't state that they are obliged to provide defensive support to a member that feels threatened.

Article 4 uses the verb "consult". "Consult" doesn't mean "send military aid to the member who feels threatened". In the official Greek translation of the treaty it is translated as "advise". Therefore it doesn't obliged the other members to send military aid, it obliges them to discuss with the threatened member and nothing more.

 

BTA
Article 3 states "to resist an armed attack" not "to resist a possible armed attack". There is a huge difference between these two phrases.

 

Internationl law can actually even justify a pre-emptive war when an enemy attack is imminent. This has been decided by the UN on a case-by-case basis.
So it depends on circumstances. That means there is no right to go to a pre-emptive war, you have to justify yourself and your reasons to the world. And Art.3 of the NATO charter that means exactly that.
However, in the cold war the NATO position was not to strike first, even going so far that in the regular NATO exercises the situation always was that Warsaw pact forces had entered NATO territory already.
It would be a very new, and IMO errant, interpretation of Art.3 to suggest that a pre-emptive war would be consensus and generally accepted.

An iraqi threat to turkey is a joke. In northern turkey there is a stripe of 100km where not a single iraqi soldier is. The turkish army could, if they wanted, be in Baghdad within two weeks. They don't do it because it would isolate them in the arab world - and because there's nothing to win - they have the best position available already: they control the springs of Euphrate and Tigris and in this region water is more valuable than oil. And they know it.

And if you were Saddam: Would you fire your few missiles you've left to turkey or perhaps ... rather to israel with the option of it responding and provoking arab reactions? More, Saddam is seemingly quite happy about the disputes among NATO, why should he seriously risk uniting them again by attacking turkey? Even germany, with our moron chancellor, could not refuse to aid turkey then.
So what could Saddam's gain by that? Now don't tell me he's a madman anyway - for a madman he has always been quite rational ...

IMO the promotion of the iraqi threat to turkey is a tool to put pressure on NATO and on the anti-war fraction of the european countries, but of course, that's just my, humble as ever, opinion

[ March 05, 2003, 21:00: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

I agree with BTA for the most part, but I think the whole deal was just a political exercise. If Turkey were to be attacked, I think that France and the rest of her buddies would fulfill their NATO obligations. Speaking theoretically, though, they wanted to once again state their "anti-war on Iraq" position.