international law. i'm a canadian. i have a historical and continued interest in international law. we're the ones that tend to speak up about it.

i accept the reality of the situation, which is that the united states decided quite some time ago that it did not want to be constrained by international law. to me, the problem this presents is how it is that we are to convince them to be constrained by international law, which is admittedly a difficult path to walk, as we are also legitimately the close allies of the united states.

it's kind of like you've got this friend with terrible heart problems, and he just won't stop eating double bacon cheeseburgers three times a day. you kind of feel the urge to say something, but you need to do it in a way that promotes beneficence without sacrificing tact.

this was a low-key issue for me in the last election in canada. while the conservatives didn't stray far from international law principles under their rule in the second half of the 20th century, it was the liberal party that had the legacy of upholding international law in conflicts from the sinai to iraq. it's kind of a consistently liberal ideological principle, as well, in that it upholds states to a rule of law, thereby restricting their actions - perhaps under the threat of sanctions. but, this requires a world where forces are balanced in such a way that the threat of sanctions is real, even if it's unstated.

i think that it's clear, in hindsight, that the united states never really saw the united nations as anything more than a forum to debate the russians in. maybe there were some lofty ambitions for a rule of law floating around in the chattering classes, but the actual levers of american (and british) power don't seem to have ever taken the idea seriously.

the reform movement in canada sought less to discard the rule of law and more to establish a firmer alliance with the united states, for the purposes of further opening oil markets. it was thought that greater integration would have greater persuasive power, but what we learned was that greater integration meant greater imperial control over our resources, which are being put aside for later use.

there is no question that the liberal party's position on international law required some reanalyzing after the failure of the international system to prevent the war in iraq. during the election, i posed the issue as a question: will the liberal party continue to attempt to argue for the international system, given that it appears to be broken? if it accepts that it is broken, what other ideas does it have to attempt to uphold the rule of law? or, will the liberal party carry on the ruling conservative party's policy and accept and adjust to the absence of international law?

in fact, trudeau answered the question in a debate, and it provided a predictive answer: he answered that he thought there were situations where nato could use force outside of the united nations. this is our dauphin, folks, our aristocratic defender of liberalism, through the noblesse oblige of his lineage.

well, we had an answer. i heard it. i didn't like it much. but, it seemed like there was consensus amongst the options presented, so it kind of disappeared as a non-issue.

i remain convinced that a rule of law amongst nations is beneficial to everybody on the planet, but it requires a balance of power where hegemony is not being asserted. hegemony may even exist silently within the rule of law, which is the unrealistic ideal of empires - never truly met. as soon as hegemony asserts itself, though, the rule of law becomes impossible until the hegemony is broken, and an equilibrium reasserts itself. it is the never met responsibility of a good hegemon to allow the equilibrium to reset without force - although the americans have come closest in human history, through rebuilding in germany and japan. in the end, america failed like every other hegemon, and that equilibrium will need to be reasserted with force.

the canadian will need to wait. but, it is with the expectations of a hidden zeal to reform existing institutions for efficacy, whenever the opportunity again arises.

international law has been dead for years.

http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/4/19/15345686/syria-un-strike-illegal-un-humanitarian-law