Supreme Leader Kim to Face Justice?
United Nations human rights investigators whom N. Korean invited, after lengthy negotiations, to look into human rights reports have issued a blistering 372-page brief alleging international crimes. http://www.afp.com/en/node/1274705 and http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/17/korea-north-un-excerpts-idUSL6N0LL0CO20140217 Some of the same UN investigators now say N. Korean leaders, possibly including Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, may face international justice as a result. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/17/us-korea-north-un-idUSBREA1G0O720140217
One wonders how a ‘Supreme Leader’ may be subjected to human rights laws of the international community. Is any nation’s Supreme Leader, Emperor, King of Kings, or similar exalted leader the subject of any other authority? Or, on the other hand, can any nation-state (since about 1780 with Jeremy Bentham’s coinage of the term “nation” the idea of ‘states’ and ‘nations’ has been muddled, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k93974k/f40.image.r=.langEN) agree with other nation-states to criminalize the conduct of either another nation-state or its leaders?
You and I might not feel comfortable with lofty notions of international justice without at least some review of what the terms mean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_international_law
However, our news today across the globe includes the most powerful, or super powerful, nation leading a charge against the leader in a nation steeped in civil war, Syria, where most legal scholars whisper that the US has no legal authority under international law. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/un-suggests-american-attack-syria-would-be At the same time, Israel builds and tears down West Bank houses and offices while the rest of the world appears to say it has no right to do so, despite its 1967 victory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law_and_Israeli_settlements Today the most bellicose little nuclear power in the world, North Korea, is being called a criminal by the UN. Is the true rule of international law, He who carries the biggest stick rules?
International law hits our streets not only with daily news but perhaps with calls on young soldiers to fight a distant battle for reasons based on muddled international law. To me, the rules by which nation-states play once seemed clear as I came away from the 1973 withdrawal of US forces in Saigon. Yet, today those rules, or lack of agreement on those rules, seems at the heart of wars and rumors of wars. The UN investigators claiming Kim Jong-un criminality have not helped, from this perspective.
What do you think?
Jerry Hamilton from http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com
I don’t see Kim Jong-un taking this very well at all, much less accepting it. He’s more likely to react with a threat to use nuclear force against anyone that dares entertain thoughts of enforcing those allegations.
Yup.