In the first place, what is international law? Until recently, it consisted of various agreements between countries or organizations that dealt with matters such as maritime rules, airlines, radio wavelengths etc etc. On top of that there are commercial agreements and conventions. All this clearly comprehensible.Hey, why not? They're real familiar with sexual and financial criminality!
There is also the slightly more difficult concept of war crimes, based on the Geneva Convention. The best known occasion when war criminals were tried was in Nurenberg after the Second World War.
While, it is unquestionably true that those on trial had broken every agreement and convention in the book, there is a certain uneasy feeling around the whole procedure, induced by the presence of a Soviet judge and the Soviet prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky, who had been the prosecutor in the show trials of the thirties.
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Since then the concept of war guilt has acquired an undoubted political aspect, with the words being flung around at all international congresses, usually at Americans and other westerners, with little mention of the mass murders perpetrated by left-wing dictatorships up and down the world.
All of which makes the notion of an agreed international law impossible. Once again, as with other international and transnational organizations, a structure with documents to back it, in this case the International Criminal Court, is being put in place of real content. And, as an inevitable corollary, unacceptable and unaccountable power is given to the international legal and political elite.
In the months leading up to the Iraqi war, another aspect of this convoluted situation became apparent. On no basis whatsoever, the United Nations, a political organization, created for purely political purposes, full of members who have no concept of legality within their own countries and run by a completely unaccountable and, as is increasingly obvious, seriously corrupt bureaucracy, has suddenly claimed the position of being an arbiter in international law.
The argument that something is legal because a bunch of politicians, international lawyers and civil servants, all of whom have a vested interest in constructing more and more international organizations, say so is illogical by any definition. That is why it leads inexorably to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein should be restored in Iraq and Tony Blair tried by an international court.Easy solution, Tony - stop doing that.
Mark Steyn also weighs in with Blair? Once a lawyer, always a lawyer...:
Every couple of months I pick up a paper and read something about Lord Goldsmith's view on the likely illegality of the Iraq war. And I think, "Hang on, didn't I read this story back in January?" - or October, or June, or whenever this indestructible "controversy" last reared its head. And I get to the bit about Baroness Kennedy calling for an investigation into what Clare Short has revealed - or possibly vice versa - and my eyes glaze over and round about paragraph four I flip to the books page and Barry Norman's review of Halliwell's Illustrated Guide to Great Lesbian Movie Scenes.Once again, Tony, stop doing that.
My take on "international law" was summed up by John Bolton, America's new ambassador to the UN: "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law."
Just so. Sadly, that sort of talk is a tad too strong for the multilateral cocktail circuit, which takes this "international law" business awfully seriously. A year or so back, you'll recall, the Pentagon declared the axis of weasels - France, Germany, Russia - ineligible for Iraqi reconstruction contracts, and an outraged Gerhard Schröder protested that this act was illegal under international law. President Bush took it in his stride. "International law?" he giggled. "I better call my lawyer. He didn't bring that up to me."
Great line. The difference between George W Bush and Tony Blair is that when Blair says, "International law? I better call my lawyer", he's not joking. Hence his ongoing difficulties.
Two years ago - March 15, 2003 - I wrote in this space that Bush had been prevailed upon to "go the UN route" to give his closest ally some (pseudo-legal) cover and "the end result is that we'll be going to war with exactly the same participants as we would have done last August, and the one person weakened by going the UN route is the very one it was designed to protect: Mr Blair. The best way to help Blair would have been to get the war over six months ago."Tony, you really have to stop doing that.
That would have been best for the Americans, too. While Colin Powell and co were going that interminable "extra mile" for Blair, back in the badlands the Saddamites, the Islamists, Iran and Syria had six months to plan an insurgency that would have been far less virulent had Iraq followed hard on Afghanistan. There were real consequences to Mr Blair's excessive deference to multilateral mumbo-jumbo beyond any hypothetical fears of a wrongful dismissal suit by Saddam.
More importantly, the uniquely lasting damage to his reputation reminds us that in the coalition of the winning's inner counsels - America, Britain, Australia - Mr Blair is the odd one out. Bush and John Howard are soul mates not just on Iraq but in their general contempt for old-school poseur multilateralism. Indeed, the Aussies are far more open about their views on the UN and "international law" than even the Bushies. By contrast, Blair thought he could somehow square the activist liberationist Bush doctrine with the whole tired Security Council/ICC/Hague/EU circus. You can't. They're mutually incompatible. The problem with the entire concept of "international law" is that it can ensnare a Tony Blair while never laying a finger on a Saddam Hussein. A "legalistic" regime of global relations confers an inviolable sovereignty not on countries or peoples but on every tinpot thug holding down the presidential palace. Bush and John Howard are under no illusions about this postmodern concept of sovereignty. Tony Blair is.
As usual with Steyn, you need to read the whole thing.
