DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

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International law is grounded in the practice of states, and the practice of some states matters more than others.  One might think that wicked or unjust or what have you, but if one wants international law to be something more than law professor fantasies, it has to be grounded in how states behave.  International law can get a little bit ahead of where states want to go, but not very far ahead.  It is not just the United States that matters, quite true.  I sorrow to say it, but it is true that China’s views of human rights law and internal interference matter a great deal.

I wish it were otherwise, but China’s views matter a great deal more than Ireland’s or Germany’s or many other countries, in part because countries like Germany long ago stopped pulling their weight in global security, where the rubber meets the road.  “Justice, American Style,” Der Spiegel’s title sneers.  Well, what shall it be: “Free riders, German-style”? The sneers can go both ways, and they can go back and forth forever; Der Spiegel would have been well-advised to skip the sneers and the condescension and the otherworldliness that permeates its alternative-universe theory of law.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 at 04:22 and is filed under Think about it.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.