Striking A Balance

Without really meaning to, I guess I started talking about the value of international law the other day in this post on interdependence. I'm looking forward to TPB's promised response, but meanwhile Garrett Moritz contributes a point I hadn't really considered: While I guess I was basically arguing that the U.S. ought to submit to and participate in the continued development of international law—in the form of treaties, world courts, etc—Moritz points out that international law could always be used to screen all manner of nefarious deeds if the international community is dominated by one power (i.e., the U.S.) that is not above manipulating that law to its own ends. My first thought on this is that it only argues for a stronger and more widely-respected body of international law—one that would be more difficult for any one member (or small group of members) to dominate.

But regardless of the relative merits of stronger international law, it's increasingly clear that, as Dave Winer wrote yesterday (and as many others have noted in different ways), something is out of balance "in how the US participates in the world, both from the US perspective, and the world's perspective." And as Jeff Cooper notes, calling September 11
"Patriot Day" is probably not going to help restore that balance.

Posted September 9, 2002 09:34 PM | general politics