Trump, morality and realpolitik

Joshua Rozenberg’s column, ‘Injecting morality into international law’ (9 January) is an extraordinary piece. Having correctly identified the provisions of the UN Charter rendering the US’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife illegal, he suggests we give a free pass to Donald Trump because international law ‘is about what states do’. And ‘Trump simply did what was necessary to bring him to court’ (sad about all the Venezuelans/Cubans killed in the process, but there it is). 

Rozenberg takes at face value the frankly bizarre allegations that Maduro headed a cartel running drugs into the US. He ignores the brazen threats to steal Venezuela’s oil and the assumption of Trump’s right ‘to run Venezuela’ with the threat of further military action if the existing government does not do what it is told (that is, hand over control of oil to American companies and stop supplies to Cuba). All of this is justified as an expansive view of self-defence. He does not mention oil once. OK Joshua, here it is – it’s about the oil! 

Trump told the New York Times last week that he does not need international law and the only constraint on his power is his own morality, his own mind. Rozenberg says we simply need to inject morality into international law ‘for the betterment of humanity… difficult to define, but we can all understand what it means’. So, for example, ‘the world is better off without Maduro in power’. 

In the past year, Trump has launched illegal military attacks on Iran, Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela, and has threatened Colombia and Mexico (and of course Greenland). Irrespective of Trump’s apparent cognitive decline, why should anyone accept his right to decide, unsupported by any UN Charter authority, who lives or dies thousands of miles away? In my view, the world would be a better place without Netanyahu in power – another leader fond of military attacks on foreign states. Would not his removal be for ‘the betterment of humanity’? Surely we can all understand that?

 

Myles Hickey

Retired former solicitor, London NW2

 

Pick-and-mix approach to international law

In the politest possible way, Joshua Rozenberg’s article ‘Injecting morality into international law’ beats out an increasingly familiar and persistent rhythm, no less dangerous for all of its apparent reasonableness. 

He writes that the significance of Trump’s actions in Venezuela is that ‘it protects law-abiding countries from those who seek to harm them’. But who gets to define which are the law-abiding countries – and do law-abiding countries get to break laws with impunity?

Rozenberg writes that ‘states and international courts should act for the betterment of humanity. That may be difficult to define, but we can all understand what it means’. All too well, I fear. This is a pick-and-mix approach to international law, a new riff on a familiar drum, played by those who believe that the International Criminal Court was ‘built for Africa and for thugs like Putin’ and not for the west an d its allies.

 

James Schofield

Counsel, Coram Chambers and Guernica 37 Chambers, London, Patterson’s List, Melbourne  

 

Bully’s charter

Joshua Rozenberg seems to inhabit a curious and somewhat alarming world.

Leave aside the rather dismissive reference to the massacre of Venezuelan soldiers by invading US forces as ‘unfortunate’. I would have thought that for the victims and their families, the word ‘unfortunate’ hardly covers it. Leave aside also that statements from the US government have made it clear that this escapade was not so much about Maduro and his supposed drug dealing, but rather stealing Venezuela’s oil.

Moving on, the thrust of his argument is that the UN Charter is in effect a dead letter when up against the reality of power politics. This may, unfortunately, be true, but then bizarrely he concludes that ‘the law should recognise that’. Excuse me, but this is not law. If the biggest bullies can go around doing whatever they like to whoever they like, this is the opposite of law. It is precisely what law was supposed to prevent. Unbelievably, he then refers to this anarchic state of affairs as ‘injecting morality into international law’.

The assertion that this kind of swashbuckling somehow ‘protects law-abiding countries’ leaves the mind reeling. How safe can anyone feel now? Who is next on Trump’s list? Rozenberg says that this ‘does not allow Trump to seize Greenland’. But why not? What is to stop him, if the UN Charter is meaningless and might makes right? 

And when Rozenberg says that this will make Russia and China think twice, that is indeed very likely. But what will they think? They are likely to think that if the US can get away with this, then they can too. Watch out for more Russian and Chinese aggression in future, citing America’s example as their justification (or, as Rozenberg would put it, ‘injecting morality into international law’).

 

Peter Bolwell

Hastings

 

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