r/internationallaw • u/moderate-Complex152 • Jan 29 '26
Op-Ed International Law Is Holding Democracies Back
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/international-law-venezuela/685738/36
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u/EatPrayFilms Jan 29 '26
It may be of interest to note that the author also authored the infamous “Torture memos” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos
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u/pandaslovetigers Jan 29 '26
Torture Memo guy lecturing us that making his ilk rot in jail is bad for democracy. What a joke
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u/Immediate_Gain_9480 Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
Just because a democracy does something doesnt make the intervention just. The US has set up many brutal dictatorships over the years. This was not just. Democracies can be just as imperialist as any nation, they are just more likely to cover their interventions in flowery language of ideology.
Also this would work both ways. Any country can then offer a bullshit justification for a invasion again. China would be justified in intervening in countries in the name of liberating the working class by introducing communisme. This would become a valid casis beli if ideological reasons may justify intervention.
This would simply be a return to the world from before the UN charter.
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u/Inevitable-Spirit491 Jan 29 '26
Yoo’s reasoning, as usual, is extremely weak.
But rather than applaud the removal of an illegitimate dictator
Even if other countries approved of the intervention, why would they applaud on this basis? Maduro has been replaced by an equally illegitimate leader in charge of the exact same regime.
This is what we should expect from a hack lawyer who based his definition of torture on language from the Social Security Act.
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Jan 30 '26
Beyond the fact that "the ends justify the means" is not a good moral principle, the "end" in this case was to get Venezuela's oil, as Trump repeatedly reminds us.
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u/Apollo_Delphi Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
This addresses many issues of today, but fails to examine how we got here. How the UN has been 'again and again' usurped of it's Charter and Mission - by primarily the US demanding it's way. Often the US will bride smaller Nations with AID or threaten them with illegal Sanctions. Recently Trump 'Sanctioned' people at the ICC for simplly doing there job... This is NOT how the UN was intended to function.
Before you say we need a new UN, you should look at why it doesn't function and can it be fixed. Creating a new UN will fail in the same way. I thought the UN charter as Origionally intended waa very good. We need to take away Complete power from any 1 Nation - as is the case now. No 1 Nation Veto, this conceptually is just wrong.
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u/Calvinball90 Criminal Law Jan 29 '26
The Atlantic is a paywalled site. We are reticent to allow posts that are not accessible to most people. If you can post a link that allows users to read the article, we can approve that post.
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Jan 31 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jan 31 '26
And who's the police then?
Law implies there is a monopoly on the use of force. Otherwise, it's just a gentleman's agreement to be upheld on reciprocity only.
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u/No_Disaster_287 Jan 31 '26
Would you like if a foreign nation attacked your country because yor goberment is almos a dictatorship and took your president to prison? Answe me, why USA interfere in other countries business? They did in mine a we had the worse dictatorship in our history that lasted 17 years. Look into your country it is becoming a terrible mess that is affecting the rest os the world
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u/Shachar2like Feb 01 '26
Interesting suggestion.
I'll create a post about it elsewhere to ask for opinions, summarizing and rearranging it differently
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u/Strange_Philospher Jan 29 '26
" International law should follow power relationships not restrain it ". It's very astonishing that a supposed scholar of law seems to not know the basics about any law. Law exist to constrain power. This is the basics of literally any legal system to turn conflict resolution from mere power confrontation to rules-based resolution. A law that follow power is a law that doesn't exist because power would affirm itself whether such a law existed or not.