Comment by palmotea
14 hours ago
> Which is why the ICC was established by several countries as part of an international agreement. It's literally other countries collaborating to punish bad actor countries.
What would you think of an agreement by ten guys that they'll work together to beat you up if they decide you're a "bad actor"? Is it somehow solemn and respectable merely because they came to an agreement? Even if you don't agree their self-declaration should give them power over you?
I think the way you've presented things is misleading. International relations is literally anarchy, and different groups have different points of view. Mere collaboration is only that.
> What would you think of an agreement by ten guys that they'll work together to beat you up if they decide you're a "bad actor"?
FWIW, that's not how the ICC works, any more than your national legal system is "ten guys working together to beat you up if they don't like you."
> FWIW, that's not how the ICC works, any more than your national legal system is "ten guys working together to beat you up if they don't like you."
The point was the ten guys are self-appointed and have no connection to any legitimate higher authority that you recognize. Which is a akin to the US' relation to the UCC, given it's not ratified the treaty.
My "national legal system" is a higher authority (than me), which I recognize as legitimate, and in any case have no power to resist.
> which I recognize as legitimate
I'm sure you can see the problem with your own argument.
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> What would you think of an agreement by ten guys that they'll work together to beat you up if they decide you're a "bad actor"?
The ICC is 125 guys agreeing with each other that if one of them does bad things the others will hold them accountable.
It's not random people asking strangers to follow their rules.
What does the US have to do with it then? How did they go after Trump and Putin, who aren’t part of those 125?
The ICC did not go after Trump (edit or any US citizen ever, afaik).
It condemned Putin for crimes committed in Ukraine, which is a member.
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International relations is only literally anarchy if you take the realist school of thought as representing IR.
> International relations is only literally anarchy if you take the realist school of thought as representing IR.
It's literally the state of things: "there is no hierarchically superior, coercive power that can resolve disputes, enforce law, or order the system of international politics. In international relations, anarchy is widely accepted as the starting point for international relations theory." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_(international_relatio...).
If you know of such an authority, please point it out. The UN is not it.
Anarchy doesn't mean constant conflict or power politics or anything like that.
> > International relations is only literally anarchy if you take the realist school of thought as representing IR. > > It's literally the state of things: "there is no hierarchically superior, coercive power that can resolve disputes, enforce law, or order the system of international politics. In international relations, anarchy is widely accepted as the starting point for international relations theory." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_(international_relatio...). > > If you know of such an authority, please point it out. The UN is not it.
That is indeed true that the Cold War politicking reduced the UN to its current role from what it was originally meant for. UNGC resolutions of course were meant to be more comprehensive and more binding, with the UNSC being used to enforce the resolutions. Which is of course why the Four Policemen + France insisted upon veto power as a prerequisite of them joining the club.
RE: there not being any coercive power that can enforce laws and such, that is of course true in the sense that there is no universal power for that. However, institutions with such power do exist, at least in a smaller scale.
Let's for example take the EU and its relation to Orbán's Hungary. The European Union was explicitly removing Hungary's access to EU funds as a coercive measure to punish Hungary for its democratic backsliding and as a way to enforce its membership terms, that Hungary had agreed to when ascending to the bloc. And that's why reforms (and promises of reforms) by the still fairly recent government of Magyar Péter are a prerequisite for Hungary to get access to the funds that got frozen.
Also, NATO exists, which can also be used as an avenue for resolving disputes between its member states. See also the 1974 Cyprus coup d'état, the subsequent Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the collapse of the Greek junta afterwards. The Organization of American States was used as a vehicle for resolving the Football War between Honduras and El Salvador with political and economic pressure, etc. And for a more historical example, both the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact had major Soviet coercion, although to be fair, other member states did also have some breathing room as long as they didn't step out of line too much.
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Also, your own Wikipedia link also says that not all IR theory takes anarchy between states as a given, mainly in that the liberal doctrine doesn't assume such, unlike for example realism, which I alluded to.