Violation of Vienna Convention

[Charles Brown]

As Lenin said, law is politics. Hope we can disregard NAFTA and MAI as easily as the U.S. ignores the UN treaties it has signed , which as Doug says supposedly have the force of law under the U.S. Constitution . William Lear quoted the Constitutional provision on treaties as part of the supreme law of the land.  Attorney Ann Fagan Ginger of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute in Berkeley, California is a leading expert and author on UN law. She advocates of taking this Constitutional provision seriously and bringing suits in U.S. courts based on it. But so far that is futuristic law. I notice Noam  Chomsky and Andre Gunder Frank place a lot of emphasis on the outlaw international character of U.S. actions in many current events in recent decades. 

Klauswitz said war is politics by other means. Lenin added that war is politics by other violent means.

The law being the language of the state, it ultimately relies on the use of force, or might makes right, real politik.

So, only an awakened working class and people, not lawyers and judges, can end U.S. illegal actions, though the international law principles may carry some moral and persuasive influence in peace polemics.

Charles Brown


>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 04/05/99 10:02AM >>>
Sam Pawlett wrote:


>Is the Vienna Convention and the U.N. charter legally binding at all? It may
>just be a gentlemen's agreement. Of course, law means nothing unless there is
>a body to enforce it. In this case, the U.S. is no doubt the strongest
>military power in the world and as such is free to act as it pleases without
>fear of retribution.  The rule of force not the rule of law is usually the
>rule in international relations.

Under U.S. law, a treaty is legally binding, no? But you're right that the
rule of force prevails in international relations, and you could also say
that the first principle of international law is that the U.S. can do
whatever it wants. But, 1) publicists for the war have been piously
appealing to international law and, 2) as a principle, it'd be nice if
negotiation and truly multilateral bodies played a larger role in
international relations, and B-52s a smaller one.

Doug