Still following the ‘law of the jungle’

Immanuel Kant was the outstanding early proponent of what we now call the “rulesbased order” that Vladimir Putin is supposed to have violated. Kant insisted, however, that rules are unnatural. He observed in “Perpetual Peace,” that in nature there is no law higher than themselves by which individuals or nations are bound. Thus the only possible litigation is by combat, in which victory alone defines what justice is.

Rules instead are the product of reason and the consent of the governed. Nations can be lawfully bound only by laws they have themselves created and voluntarily enter into. I bring this up because Russians and Putin in particular are being charged with war crimes and even genocide.

There is in fact a system of international law, built up over the centuries, honored as much in the breach as in the observance. And there is an International Criminal Court, established by our European allies, authorized to try such crimes as Russians are accused of committing. Trouble is, since Russia is not one of the more than hundred states that have signed on, Putin could not lawfully be tried there.

The United States has not signed either. The junior President Bush, himself exposed to charges over Iraq, instead signed a law entirely repudiating the court’s jurisdiction over Americans. This was mainly to protect our servicemen, whom we naturally value more highly than other humans no matter their nefarious assignments.

With Russia and the US it is still the law of the jungle.

— Carl Peterson, Paradise