Hacker News Reader

Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

Nations may of course enforce their own laws while foreign nationals are on in their jurisdiction, but once they are outside that jurisdiction, they are at the mercy of the foreigners' home country for extradition. If that country doesn't care to extradite, they're out of luck (barring extraordinary rendition). Delegating the investigation to an international body doesn't change that (not to mention that the US is not a part of and has been actively hostile toward the ICC).

The fact that the ICC counts many nations as members certainly makes it feel like the US should cooperate on moral/ethical grounds, but it has no legal requirement to do so.

View on HN

At the end there is no real difference between moral and law. Laws are just something people have decided to judge each other by. Laws and jurisdiction are just the implementation, which might change, the specs seem well defined (when it comes to war crimes).

The US had the power to establish before committing war crimes, that it does not want to be investigated (acting lawfully but immorally), while any other criminal would not have the power to plan ahead and could only try to escape justice after having committed a crime (acting immorally and unlawfully).

So what I am saying is: Nobody cares about acting lawfully when it comes to war crimes. Especially not, when you base your dominance on your fantasy of a moral high ground.

> At the end there is no real difference between moral and law.

That's demonstrably incorrect, and we're talking about this exact counterexample. You're saying that the US has acted immorally (which I agree with!) while simultaneously saying the US is legally responsible, which it is not. That right there suggests that morality and law are not aligned, and that there is sometimes quite a big difference between the two.

And yet, the US don't hesitate to go after individuals in other countries where they could kidnap and bring them to US to be judged by "law". Haha

Pretty sure I covered that with my original comment. Never said it was a good thing, and expressly pointed out that I don't believe it is.

Have you read the rest of my comment and what I wanted to say? Of course there is a difference. I am saying, the difference does not really matter, because "being lawful" does not really matter when it comes to war crimes.

The Nazis acted "lawfully" under their jurisdiction, but because the laws themself were unjust, it is widely recognized that they in fact did not act lawfully and so they have been trialed for it. It's called "legal positivism". The concept means, that there is in fact no difference between "law" and "moral", when it comes to war crimes. Ironically, it was the US, which established that concept.

I guess I'm just not understanding what the point is, then? Obviously morality and legality are not the same thing; the law can be immoral, and the law can also allow people to do immoral things.

And I absolutely agree that we can say that some countries do things that are entirely consistent with their own laws, that we will nevertheless judge to be immoral. The US is sadly no stranger to this phenomenon.

But again... what's the point? My original comment was simply addressing the legality of the situation. The US has no legal requirement to cooperate with the ICC, and has enough clout on the international stage to maintain that position. When it comes to international relations, "law" isn't the same thing as what it is between a government and its citizens. International "law" can only be enforced either through the consent of those who are party to it, or through economic or military might.

I guess, we are not really disagreeing then. I just wanted to voice the thought that judging your own war crimes under your own jurisdiction and finding out they are legal is kind of a pointless mental excercise. So I am not saying you are wrong, it's more of a: "Yes, true. But so what?"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com