06-07-2004, 09:21 AM
Quote: If you don't like the law, you can try to get it changed, but you can't just break it whenever you like.
With international law, you can. Everyone (except states like the Vatican maybe :P ) has been doing it for the last 50 years. You may not like it, but that's how it works.
Quote:Really, is that how it works? How interesting. I always thought the UN had to actually *authorize* a war, not just fail to condemn it after the fact.
Had (for instance) the USSR blown away the eastern seaboard of the US with nuclear weapons, and then vetoed the condemnation and immediate declaration of war, wouldn't that, by your logic, be perfectly okay by the UN? Does a veto allow you to invade anyone you please, any time you please?
Yep, that basically is how it worked during the cold war (for example, with Vietnam), because 2 veto forces were constantly blocking each other. With the exception of Korea, where the USSR was not present at the SC meeting, so the SC could pass a resolution that condemned the attack.
There is a huge difference between a war that is not authorized by the SC and a war that is condemned by the SC. With an SC decision against the war, you can deploy UN mandated, or - theoretically - even UN led, forces, for example. Or put up an embargo against the agressor. You cannot do that if the SC has not really taken an explicit position for or against a war, which is the case with Iraq.
A war that is neither authorized nor condemned by the SC may formally be a violation of the UN charter, but the SC remains the only UN body that can declare that the charter was violated by nation X and order consequences.
Yes, of course the veto forces are somewhat imune to SC decisions. That's the point of the veto rights.