Comments on Mental Meanderings: Rules are made to protect us

On your point about aggression, see this: http://w...

2006-06-21T14:31:00.000+01:00

On your point about aggression, see this: http://www.opiniojuris.org/posts/1150711864.shtml
(although you may have seen it already)

On your unipolarity, that's a vague term, isn't it...

2006-06-21T14:28:00.000+01:00

On your unipolarity, that's a vague term, isn't it? Especially when it gets enmeshed with talk of "exceptionalism". But that when it comes to international law, a degree consensus among responsible states is needed. If you mean no more than that, I agree with you.

That makes an awful lot of sense. I know you proba...

2006-06-21T14:24:00.000+01:00

That makes an awful lot of sense. I know you probably didn't intend to suggest as much, but I don't say we should throw all of international law and start from scratch with America dictating to the rest. But whether by slow accretion of customary norms, by new (possibly informal - or less formal and rigid than the UN - institutions) international law, and domestic legal frameworks are going to

Karole I don't doubt that the challenges that stat...

2006-06-21T13:59:00.000+01:00

Karole I don't doubt that the challenges that states are facing have changed, however I don't think that they have changed to such an extent as to scratch the old rules and replace them with new. You know as well as I do that many if not most international laws protecting rights can be suspending in times of emergency PROVIDED that emergency is shown and that the suspension is proportionate.

Oh dear, oh dear: My firsy sentence should read "a...

2006-06-21T13:03:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, oh dear: My firsy sentence should read "are not figments".

Fiona: The world had changed. The proliferation of...

2006-06-21T13:02:00.000+01:00

Fiona: The world had changed. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and globalised terrorist networks are figments of Tony Blair and George Bush's imagination. Add the revolutions in communication and transportation; chaos caused by failed states, such as Afghanistan in effect was pre-2001, will have consequences far from their own borders in such a world. These are not "

Patrick - thanks ever so much for the comment and ...

2006-06-21T11:32:00.000+01:00

Patrick - thanks ever so much for the comment and congratulations on the daughter's graduation!! Off to college soon - that'll be a big change I'm sure!!

Karole - why? Why will this require new rules? Why is America the best place to form them? You can't just make assertions like that, you know? How do you know what's coming down the tracks and that current legal frameworks wouldn't be

Sadly, the issue of how to deal with diffuse terro...

2006-06-20T16:12:00.000+01:00

Sadly, the issue of how to deal with diffuse terrorist networks is far less simple than you acknowledge. It is not (and into the future will not) simply be a matter of applying the old rules, which you say are clear and simple. Maybe so. But the current war (that's the so-called "so-called War on Terror") will need new rules. They must be crafted. And the U.S. is the best placed to craft them.

Fiona,I've just quaffed (?) a few in celebration o...

2006-06-17T02:51:00.000+01:00

Fiona,

I've just quaffed (?) a few in celebration of our daughter's graduation from high school this evening so I hope this is halfway intelligible. I'm so glad you're back! I want to chime in later about this post, as I have a few things to say about what I believe to be a rather ubiquitous 'principle of transgression' in affluent cultures fully penetrated by a
capitalist economic