Patrick O'Brian Discussion Forum

Max Trainer

Stated simply, any treaty may be broken because all treaties are exercises in sovereignity ergo mutual agreements freely given and without outside constraints. If Germany decides it will no longer honor a mutual assistance treaty with Austria it says so and Austria can go suck lemons.

This is as basic a tenant of international law as it possible to find. I can cite texts going back centuries that state this a guiding first belief.

Another basic tenant, again going back centuries is that a nation must defend itself and by itself that includes every single citizen and every foot of ground. When confronted by a threat to itself all bets and treaties are off PERIOD. In fact, I will attach a typical treatise excerpt at the bottem of this post. if I can I will find one that is both British and from Aubrey's era.

So, to take the examples cited and place them into the context of international law:

Iraq 1 : the US had a mutual assistance relationship with Kuwait. When Kuwait was attacked the US and many other countries beat the crap out of Iraq but did not follow up and destroy the Sadaam regime. Many including myself felt at the time that this was just buying another war. But the US bowed to international relations, not any "law" and the Sadaam regime stayed alive.

The "peace" included lots of provisions including no fly zones, inspections and an oil embargo to enforce certain behaviour.

Sadaam violated these provisions several hundred times and shot at US planes on many occasions. he also adopted a posture of aggression.
Not the smartest of men. If you need an expression of "law" to justify Iraq 2 then thosae transgressions were more that sufficient. Again, the US violated no treaty that i am aware of in Iraq 2. Can anyone cite a violation? Here is a blank space, just slide it right in there ________________.

Re Afghanistan. The Taliban ran the country. They conspired to kill 300 americans on US soil. That is all any country has needed since Rome for legal justification.

Ah, I have found an 18th century citation for you:

CHAPTER II: General Principles of the Duties of a Nation towards itself. - Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury (LF ed.) [1797]
Edition used:
The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury, edited and with an Introduction by Béla Kapossy and Richard Whitmore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008).

Author: Emer de Vattel
Editor: Béla Kapossy
Editor: Richard Whatmore
Translator: Thomas Nugent


Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury, edited and with an Introduction by Béla Kapossy and Richard Whitmore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008). Chapter: CHAPTER II: General Principles of the Duties of a Nation towards itself.

Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2246/212425 on 2009-10-31

CHAPTER II
General Principles of the Duties of a Nation towards itself.
...
§16. A nation is under an obligation to preserve itself.In the act of association, by virtue of which a multitude of men form together a state or nation, each individual has entered into engagements with all, to promote the general welfare; and all have entered into engagements with each individual, to facilitate for him the means of supplying his necessities, and to protect and defend him. It is manifest that these reciprocal engagements can no otherwise be fulfilled than by maintaining the political association. ...

§17. And to preserve its members.If a nation is obliged to preserve itself, it is no less obliged carefully to preserve all its members. The nation owes this to itself, since the loss even of one of its members weakens it, and is injurious to its preservation. It owes this also to the members in particular, in consequence of the very act of association; for those who compose a nation are united for their defence and common advantage; and none can justly be deprived of this union, and of the advantages he expects to derive from it, while he on his side fulfils the conditions.

The body of a nation cannot then abandon a province, a town, or even a single individual who is a part of it, unless compelled to it by necessity, or indispensably obliged to it by the strongest reasons founded on the public safety.

§18. A nation has a right to every thing necessary for its preservation.Since then a nation is obliged to preserve itself, it has a right to every thing necessary for its preservation. For the Law of Nature gives us a right to every thing, without which we cannot fulfil our obligation; otherwise it would oblige us to do impossibilities, or rather would contradict itself in prescribing us a duty, and at the same time debarring us of the only means of fulfilling it. It will doubtless be here understood, that those means ought not to be unjust in themselves, or such as are absolutely forbidden by the Law of Nature. As it is impossible that it should ever permit the use of such means,—if on a particular occasion no other present themselves for fulfilling a general obligation, the obligation must, in that particular instance, be looked on as impossible, and consequently void.