The UN must be shut down if it can not stop the occupation of Iraq
and the slaughter of people in Iraq, Afganistan and the sixty-year genocide against Palestinians !
Depending on which list one takes most seriously, there are 190 – 250 countries in the world. Notwithstanding natural endowments, historical cultural and political economic specificities, all countries in the world are part of a (single) “international” society or “system” of states that emanated from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. In this context, perhaps more so since the end of the Second World War, every single country in the world is fundamentally accountable to prevailing international law – to the extent that international laws actually exist, and that such laws are, actually, enforceable.(1) The notable exception to this rule is the United States, which is probably the only major rogue state in the world – by rogue state I refer to a country that has basically placed itself beyond the reach and jurisdiction of international law, a country that will bomb, maim, murder, invade and occupy any country or sovereign society it wishes to bomb, maim, murder, invade and occupy without being held accountable. See, for instance, the book, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions by Clyde Prestowitz.
Nevertheless, one very informal source explains that there are approximately 170 separate currencies, 239 two-letter country codes recognized by the International Standards Organisation, and the Universal Postal Union has listings for 500,000 localities in 189 Countries. The same source explains: “By a recent count, France and the US officially recognize 192 states, (though unofficially acknowledging the existence of several others!), Switzerland recognizes 194, Russia 172, the UK has over 200 diplomatic posts, and Germany recognises more than 200.” For an “official list” of countries, go the United Nation’s Member States listings. Israel is one such country – it is not a religion.
Like every country in the world, Israeli foreign policy and human rights violations may be criticised in same way as the policies of, say, Burma, Saudi Arabia or the Sudan. In an international order within which all states are legally sovereign and equal -notwithstanding the willful intellectual obfuscation and obscurantism, cognitive dissonance, revisionism and justifications for war (or “regime change”) by scholars and policy-makers in the West – there can be no law for Israel and one for the rest of the world. In this sense, it is appropriate and even necessary that Israeli actions against neighbouring states, especially the wanton violence of the Israeli security forces against displaced people within (Gaza) and beyond its territories (Sabra and Shatila), the willful and violent territorial expansion of the Israeli state and the usurping of Arab land. (See the video below for a take on the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982) None of these issues have anything at all to do with Judaism. In fact, the period when religion and churches ruled the world and determined the policies of states was left behind with the Peace of Westphalia.
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Indeed, the principles of international order that emerged after the Peace of Westphalia are generally acknowledged to be the basis of the international system or society of states. Fundamental to this “system” are the principles of state sovereignty and international law, which implies the existence of some form of sovereign authority – which in the contemporary period is bestowed on the United Nations – and the obligation of obedience by all countries to said authority. Most international laws are created by and for states and therefore regulate state conduct; enforcement of international law is deferred to the UN Charter’s the Statute of the International Court of Justice (the US is the only major Western country that refuses to be held accountable and at the time of writing the Court has mostly individual African despots and rogues on trial). Article 38 of the Statute defines the sources of international law as:
- International conventions (treaties), whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states;
- International custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
- The general principles of law recognized by civilised nations;
- Subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of the rules of law.
There are, also, customary laws; practices that have been accepted by states as binding. The jurist and legal scholar Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) is usually attributed with the earliest articulation of the principles of customary law in his treatise On the Law of War and Peace. Grotius noted the existence of common practices whose routine observance by governments led to their acceptance as required behaviour in the relations of states.
In Grotian terms, the basic principles of international relations (in the context of the Westphalian order) include:
- Sovereignty of the state
- Sovereign equality of states
- The right of non-interference in domestic affairs of each sovereign state
- Territorial integrity of the state
- The obligation to abide by international agreements,
- The principle of the peaceful settlement of disputes, and
- The obligation to engage in international cooperation consistent with national interests.
There are no provisions in international law or customary law for religious justification for violation of the human rights of communities or groups of people. As such, the state of Israel is, quite correctly, a secular entity in a world of secular entities (perhaps the Vatican can claim some exemption) drawn together in an international society or system by a set of international laws – not religious laws. Criticism of the state of Israel may, rightfully, be accepted as criticism of a secular entity, in the same way as every other country is criticised.
I should stress, again, that there may well be some people – mainly in the West (Europe and its settler colonies in North America, Australia and New Zealand) who would have us believe that sovereignty is bunk. What should be noted, though, is that the suspension, dismissal or denial of sovereignty is usually directed at countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Finally, I started out by wanting to write a piece about the failure of the UN and liberal internationalism, in the vein of EH Carr’s critique of the collapse of the League of Nations and inter-war liberal internationalism, but was sidetracked by the matter of the Israeli state. The critique of the UN/Liberal Internationalism is for another time…
Footnotes
Realist scholars of international relations and world politics, and right-wing thinkers associated with so-called neo-conservative think tanks in the US and foreign policy wonks and pundits in Washington would, unilaterally, dismiss any talk of “international society” or of a “family of nations” and contest the concept of sovereignty – a convenient figleaf for post-war US invasions, interventions and the funding of despots and dictators from Iraq, to Angola, Nicaragua and Chile (among other).
References, Sources and Further Reading
Cox, Michael (2005) “E.H. Carr and the Troubled Origins of American Realism” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott Wardman Park, Omni Shoreham, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC Online <PDF>. 2009-05-25 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p42649_index.html. Retrieved on 7 February 2010.
Prestowitz, Clyde (2003) Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions. New York, Perseus.
Sabra and Shatila: Dealing with facts: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/1390979.stm Retrieved on 6 February 2010.
“Sabra and Shatila: The unforgettable, unforgivable, Israeli massacre against Palestinians – 1982.” http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/09/15/sabra/ Retrieved on 6 February 2010















