Monsieur RedPhoenixxx wrote:
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Which means you've been sufficiently brainwashed to a particular view of international law.
Just as a doctor who's done 8 years of medecine school is "sufficently brainwashed to a particular view of medecine". He will tend to distrust the healing properties of zebra hooves, and will doubt the fact that some King in Africa can cure AIDS on Thursdays.
A doctor deals in physical reality. If he's wrong, it's immediately apparent as a result of his patient dying.
In the legal profession, it's about opinion. If you can convince enough people that your opinion is right, then you *are* right. They're not even remotely the same thing.
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You're clutching at straws on this subject, and its not surprising because its a technical subject. It's not philosophy or politics, its closer to mathematics if anything. What you're saying has nothing to do with law, it's just you playing around with your everyday definitions.
It's the opposite of a technical subject. Hence why it's subject to interpretation. Hence, why there are multiple differences of opinion over exactly what a "cease fire" is and what it means. I happen to be using a definition that I believe makes the most sense. If a cease fire is binding to all parties, then that effectively means that any conditions set within it are meaningless. Thus, we must have a distinction between the state of "not shooting at eachother", and a state at which agreed upon terms of peace have been met.
Clearly, we reached the "we'll stop shooting at eachother" staqe with Iraq (mostly), but never reached the "Ok. All parties have met the terms of the signed agreement and now we can formalize a peace".
Whatever you wish to call that in-between position is irrelevant. What matters is that it *is* what it is.
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And here is the proof:
gbaji wrote:
We were in a state of "cease fire". By definition that is *not* a treaty of any sort.
In international law, a cease-fire is, precisely, a treaty.
Article 2(a) of the Vienna Convention on Treaties states that:
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“treaty†means an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation;
But nice try anyway sport, can't be easy guessing your way through it.
Well. Not really. Because the document in question is a "resolution", which sets forth proposed conditions for the various sides to meet. Its is not as such a "treaty". The resolution does declare the current "condition" of cease fire, but that's really not the same thing.
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By assumption a cease fire is non-binding to the parties involved.
No, by definition a cease-fire treaty is binding on teh parties involved, otherwise there would no point whatsoever in signing one, and no consequences for breaching it.
Lol. Um... That definition weakens your position even more though. If the cease-fire itself is both a "treaty" and "binding", then that means that the agreement only exists if both sides have already met the conditions set in the terms. Since Iraq clearly did not meet the conditions of the UN resolution in question, then we could not have been "in a cease fire". We could only have been "resolved to meet a cease fire agreement", with that agreement dependant on Iraq meeting the terms set inside the resolution.
If we used your definitions, it would mean that we weren't even in a cease fire. I'm more then happy to go that route, although I do think it's a silly way for me to win this debate...
The reality is that the "condition" of cease fire existed as a simple result of the sides of the conflict not shooting at eachother. Period. During that time, the UN resolved to reach a formal agreement between Iraq and the other parties to the conflict. The UN certainly wrote down lots of requirements that it wanted Iraq to meet, but those are *not* treaties. They are resolutions. They are written down "goals" if you will.
Had Iraq complied with the terms *then* we'd have had a true treaty establishing a specific condition of peace between the parties. Until that happened though, whether you like the term or not, we were legally "at war".
A cease fire does not end hostilities. It just means what it says. The sides stop shooting at eachother. They are *not* binding in anyway. Never have been. Not without applying an incredibly bizaare meaning to the term.
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This completely ridiculous fantasy is your basis for saying the war is legal.
Under your definition, Pakistan could've gone and invaded Iraq, and occupy it, at any time between 91 and now. Or Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, or Egypt. Or any other member of that coalition. It's a complete joke, seriously.
Yup.
Why is that "a joke"? Are you seriously suggesting that a party to a conflict cannot resume hostilities at any time? Of course they can. It's inherent to the sovereignity of a state that once in a state of war with another state, they can pursue that war in whatever manner they see fit. The UN cannot tell a participant to a conflict that they cannot continue fighting. The UN can attempt to negotiate a peace agreement (as it's trying to do with the various resolutions between 1991 and 2002), but that's the end of it. They can't "force" them to stop fighting. They can pursuade them. The can ask them nicely. They can even create sanctions if they want in order to obatain peace. But the nations in question at all times have the right to continue fighting if they wish.
Why on earth do you think otherwise?
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Germany never signed a peace treaty with the Allies.
Yes it did. You're kidding on this one, right?
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India and Pakistan never signed a peace treaty.
No clue actually. If they didn't sign one, then they are still "at war". It's not a complex subject to grasp. Im just surprised that someone who claims to have a degree in internation law has never once been exposed to the relatively simple concept that if two nations go to war and never sign a peace treaty ending that war, that they are...
still at war.
Strange really.
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North Korea and China never signed a peace treaty after the Korean war. So, under your defeintion, the US is still at war with China, since they were in a coalition with N. Korea. In fact, according to you, the Korean war is still going on, right?
We never formally declared war against China. China was "aiding" North Korea militarily (officially anyway). And yes. We *are* currently "at war" with North Korea. Every US soldier I've ever spoken to who's been stationed there will tell you the same thing. We just don't shoot at eachother very often is all...
It makes no sense what so ever. According to that interpretation, half the world is currently in a state of war. Quite a bit less then "half the world", but yeah. Um... Are you aware of how many armed conflicts occur around the world every year? Sitting there with the UN charter wrapped tightly over your eyes and declaring over and over that "the world is at peace!!!" doesn't make it so.
Blind ideology should not be the basis for forming rational logical arguments. What you are arguing simply makes no sense. Nations who fight eachother are in a state of conflict until they officially agree to end that conflict. Just because they aren't shooting at eachother does not mean the same thing. Someone who understands law should understand that unless it's written down and signed, it doesn't exist. So until a treaty is signed in which both parties agree to terms and those terms include the full ending of hostilities and claims against eachother (presumably whatever they were fighting over), they are still "at war".
The fact that you don't understand this makes me seriously question the creditials you claim to posses. You're either lying about them, or (as I suggested before) your education was incredibly and moronically applied. Welcome to socialized education I guess...
And "war" legally, has very strong implications, such as the detention of those nationals from the countries involved, or extraordinary government power, such as seizing property. "War", in a legal sense" has very strong and consequential implications. Yup. Not sure what your point was. Just because you don't want to believe how many nations are "at war" with eachother, does not change the reality that around the world there are a large number of nations that are in the state "of war" right now. You can call it something else if you want, but they don't see it that way. When India and Pakistan clash over the Kashmere region, and then stop for awhile, only to resume it again a few years late, it's pretty clear that neither side believes that the issue is settled, neither side has given up claim to the issue at hand, and neither side has given up their "right" to resolve that issue via armed conflict.
If that's not "war", then what exactly is your definition?
Peace-treaties are mostly diplomatic or political tools. Which is why NK is currently pushing for one. It has nothing to do with it being at war, and everything with political bargaining. You're kidding, right? A peace treaty, and the desire to obatain one has nothing to do with being at war? Do you just make this stuff up? There's some hidden cameras lying around somewhere, right?
The "default" state of nations is peace, because the UN Charter. Any dispute must be attempted to be resovled peacefully, and the only excpetions must either involve self-defence, or collective UN action. The 678 Resolution is purely concerned with the removal of Iraq from Kuwait. Once that was achieved, the whole matter was in the hands of the SC, as the SC said itself in every - single - subsequent - Resolution. Well. The UN can declare that. But the reality (as any student of international law should know) the status of two nations are defined by the agreements they have together. The lack of any agreements does not mean they are "at peace". It means they have no relationship. Now, under the terms of the UN charter, you can't attack someone unless you're at war with them already, so you could say that by signing the UN charter, all members of the UN are "at peace". That's not a "default state" though. It's made that way by the nature of the treaty they've effectively signed when they sign the UN charter itself.
But that doesn't apply here. The US was "at war" with Iraq. Legally. It never ceased to be "at war" with Iraq (there was no peace treaty since Iraq never complied with the terms required of it). Thus, we were still "at war". The UN charter only prevents nations who are not at war from fighting with eachother (except in the two conditions you quoted earlier). Thus, the invasion of Iraq by the US and others was "legal".
I just don't see how I can explain this any clearer then this...
Edited, Jul 25th 2007 7:49pm by gbaji