#anyway shaming countries is unfortunately a legit enforcement mechanism for international law

[mirrorofliterature]

when people complain about the un and international law being useless... look

I don't think (many) people fundamentally understand what the UN is, what international law is, and what they can and cannot do

the UN and international law in general are... quite imperfect and bureaucratic systems which are heavily politicised but it's like. a better world to be in where they do exist than one where there is not. I like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights! I love the self-determination article in the subsequent human rights treaties and how decolonising countries in the 1940s-1970s played a crucial role in shaping the current system.

international law gives us benchmarks, lines in the sand to point out and articulate why someone something did was illegal without running into the issue of ex post facto law, which was an issue in the nuremberg trials, but I digress.

the UN is not a governing body. it has no independent political power.

international law, at the end of the day, is based on the consent of states. whether you like it or not, international law is a horizontal system.

most people are much more familiar with domestic law which is vertical and has clear enforcement mechanisms. international law, particularly international human rights law, has fucking shit enforcement mechanisms. it's all consent based, it's heavily politicised and it's woefully underfunded. sanctions are terrible. humanitarian interventions often go terribly wrong.

but they give structure, and guidelines, and things for civil society to point at and say: you have fucked up. you have breached xyz treaty article, as seen in abc treaty body decision or general comment.

I guess I'm real tired of people acting like international law and the UN are useless or a net negative. like. there are a lot of issues. but it's more complex than 'good' versus 'bad'.

the power imbalance between countries and the veto power of the security un council in particular are stupid but products of historical reality and compromise. international law is built on compromise.

anyway keep on holding the west accountable for the treaties they helped create and signed. unfortunately the united states is weak and has not ratified as many treaties as it should have but what state has ratified which treaty is publicly available information and so are the treaties.