Comment by tguvot
7 days ago
my point is that diplomatic immunity is international law. signatories to rome statue said that they will violate it (diplomatic immunity of Israeli head of state) because of icc warrant.
this is violation of international law that multiple countries openly stated that they will perform.
essentially it means that international law is not binding and selectively enforced. this is slippery slope.
if you can ignore vienna convention why not ignore whatever other part of international law that prohibits invasion ?
PS. UK and France just bombed ISIS in Syria. Is it also invasion and morally wrong ?
I still do not understand your point because as you state there is no conflict between the two agreements, and further there are no pair countries involved that mutually agreed to the ICC:
- Diplomatic Immunity (through various treaties): Countries that participate will respect diplomats - ICC: Countries that agree will participate in ICC judicial process
From what I can tell, you seem to be under the impression that there's some conflict here. If that is your position then you are wrong. A country can both simultaneously respect foreign diplomats and work with the ICC to ensure that local citizens are held accountable in the ICC.
BUT, a further point -- international law can never be binding. It's between sovereign peers, and is based on the concept of reciprocal benefit. International treaties give the participants some benefit in exchange for something else. This has to be the case because there is no superior entity to arbitrate violations of the law. If you don't keep up your end of the bargain, you risk the other participants not keeping up their end of the bargain.
This is, for example, why having the top US officials committing war crimes is bad -- it's not because some superior nation will inflict justice upon the violator (because no such entity exists) but because other signatories have no legal obligation to not commit war crimes against us (although, many people are morally opposed to most war crimes and wouldn't commit them anyway).
A further note about your PS, which seems unrelated to the topic is that bombing isn't itself an invasion (it may be part of one), but for my opinion I think that killing people without due process is bad and should be a last resort for defense.
in my example countries stated that they will arrest diplomat covered by diplomatic immunity based on icc warrant. not local citizens.
in case international law is not binding, than whatever US did is ok.
and according to usa it was law enforcement operation. not invasion. just like uk and france didn't invade but casually bombed
I've had some additional time to reflect on this thread and I think I can spot the core disconnect.
Do you believe that the Vienna Convention requires that countries treat their diplomatic representatives in some special legal way ? For example, do you believe that the Vienna Convention obligates the US to extend diplomatic immunity to the US Ambassador to France ?
If so, that's backwards. It doesn't obligate one country to treat their own diplomats specially inside their own legal system, it defines how participants of the treaty will treat FOREIGN diplomats. The benefit of being part of the treaty is that your diplomats are treated specially when they are in foreign lands, and the cost is you treat foreign diplomats specially when they are in your land.
The currency of treaties is reciprocity.
A treaty can never be binding, there exists no superior entity for which to bring your appeal which can then ultimately use their monopoly on force to extract justice -- each nation is sovereign and a peer in that respect.
Finally, I didn't address your last paragraph but I will now: It does not matter if the USA calls it a law enforcement operation and not invasion, it was still an invasion. It was an invasion because it meets the definition of the word. But ALSO it wasn't a law enforcement operation because the laws of the US do not apply in Venezuela. Also, it's illegal in the US to use the US Military for enforcing US laws except in times of invasion... although it sadly specifies that the US must be the entity being invaded, not just there be an invasion.
So it sounds to me like you are stating that you are okay with the original premise that it would be okay for China to come to the US Whitehouse and forcibly remove Trump to China to stand trial for the crimes he may have committed against Chinese nationals ?