“Legal Imperialism” and International Law: Legal Foundations for War
Crimes, Debt Collection and Colonization
Prof. James Petras
Introduction
By now we are
familiar with imperial states using their military power to attack, destroy and
occupy independent countries. Boatloads of important studies have
documented how imperial countries have seized and pillaged the resources of
mineral-rich and agriculturally productive countries, in consort with multi-national
corporations. Financial critics have provided abundant data on the ways
in which imperial creditors have extracted onerous rents, royalties and debt
payments from indebted countries and their taxpayers, workers, employees and
productive sectors.
What has not been
examined fully is the over-arching legal architecture which informs, justifies
and facilitates imperial wars, pillage and debt collection.
The Centrality of Imperial Law
While force and
violence, especially through overt and covert military intervention, have
always been an essential part of empire-building, it does not operate in a
legal vacuum: Judicial institutions, rulings and legal precedents precede,
accompany and follow the process of empire building. The legality of
imperial activity is based largely on the imperial state’s judicial system and
its own legal experts. Their legal theories and opinions are always
presented as over-ruling international law as well as the laws of the countries
targeted for imperial intervention.
Imperial law supersedes
international law simply because imperial law is backed by brute force; it
possesses imperial/colonial air, ground and naval armed forces to ensure the
supremacy of imperial law. In contrast, international law lacks an
effective enforcement mechanism.
Moreover,
international law, to the extent that it is effective, is applied only to the
weaker powers and to regimes designated by the imperial powers as ‘violators’.
The very judicial processes, including the appointment of judges and
prosecutors who interpret international law, investigate international crime
and arrest, sentence and punish ‘guilty’ parties are under to the influence of
the reigning imperial powers. In other words, the application and
jurisdiction of international law is selective and subject to constraints
imposed by the configurations of imperial and national power.
International law,
at best, can provide a ‘moral’ judgment, a not insignificant basis for
strengthening the political claims of countries, regimes and people seeking redress
from imperial war crimes and economic pillage. To counter the claims and
judgments pertaining to international law, especially in the area of the Geneva
protocols such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, imperial legal
experts, scholars and judges have elaborated a legal framework to justify or
exempt imperial-state activity.
The Uses of Imperial Law
Empire-building
throughout history is the result of conquest – the use or threat of superior
military force. The US global empire is no exception. Where
compliant rulers ‘invite’ or ‘submit’ to imperial domination, such acts of
treason on the part of ‘puppet’ or ‘client’ rulers usually precipitate popular
rebellions, which are then suppressed by joint imperial and collaborator
armies. They cite imperial legal doctrine to justify their intervention
to repress a subject people in revolt. While empires arose through the
direct or indirect use of unbridled force, the maintenance and consolidation of
empires requires a legal framework. Legal doctrines precede, accompany
and follow the expansion and consolidation of empire for several reasons.
Legality is really
an extension of imperial conquest by other means. A state of constant
warfare raises the cost of imperial maintenance. Force, especially in imperial
democracies undermines the sense of civic virtue, which the rulers and citizens
claim to uphold. Maintaining ‘law and order’ in the conquered nations
requires a legal system and doctrine to uphold imperial rule, giving the facade
of legitimacy to the outside world , attracting collaborator classes and
individuals and providing the basis for the recruitment of local military,
judicial and police officials.
Imperial legal
pronouncements, whether issued directly by executive, judicial, military or administrative
bodies, are deemed the ‘supreme law of the universe’, superior to international
law and protocols fashioned by non-imperial authorities and legal
experts. This does not imply that imperial rulers totally discard
international law: they just apply it selectively to their adversaries,
especially against independent nations and rulers, in order to justify imperial
intervention and aggression – Hence the ‘legal bases’ for dismantling
Yugoslavia or invading Iraq and assassinating its rulers.
Legal rulings are
issued by the imperial judiciary to force states to comply with the economic
demands of multi-national corporations, banks, creditors and speculators, even
after the local or national courts have ruled such claims unlawful.
Imperial law protects and provides sanctuary and financial protection to
convicted former collaborator-rulers charged with human rights crimes, pillage
of public treasury and destruction of democratic institutions. Imperial
judicial and administrative agencies selectively investigate, prosecute and
levy severe fines and even jail sentences on banks, individuals and financial
institutions of their competitor imperial countries, thereby strengthening the
economic position of their own ‘national’ imperial firms.
Judicial officials
are not only ‘instruments’ of closely related imperial political and economic
powers; they also instrumentalize and, in some cases, override officials from
other branches of their own imperial government and economic sectors.
Judges, with ties to particular financial sectors, may rule in favor of one
group of creditors thereby prejudicing others. In a recent ruling,
a New York judge ruled in favor of the demands by minority creditors that the
Argentine government make ‘full payment’ on long-standing national debt in,
prejudicing already agreed upon payments to the majority of creditors who had
negotiated an earlier debt-restructuring arrangement.
Imperial legal
doctrine has played a central role in justifying and providing a basis for the
exercise of international terrorism. Executives, such as US Presidents
Bush and Obama, have been provided with the legal power to undertake
cross-national ‘targeted’ assassinations of opponents using predator drones and
ordering military intervention, in clear violation of international law and
national sovereignty. Imperial law, above all else, ‘legalizes’
aggression and economic pillage and undermines the laws of targeted countries,
creating lawlessness and chaos among its victims.
Imperial law and
judicial rulings form the basis for imperial subjugation on the assumption that
the world legal systems are multi-tiered: Imperial-centered legal systems
supersede those of less powerful states. Within each ‘tier’ there are
further refinements: Competing imperial legal systems adjudicate in favor of
their partisan political and economic elites. Imperial clients who obey
their imperial overlords are favored by imperial laws while imperial laws are
applied against their adversaries.
Conclusion
Clearly in a world
imperial system there can be no independent judicial bodies who abide by
universally accepted legal codes. Each set of judicial authorities
reflect and actively promote policies favoring and extending their imperial
prerogatives. There are rare exceptions where a judge will rule against a
particular imperial policy but over the long run imperial law guides judicial
opinions
Imperial legal
doctrines and judicial decisions set the groundwork for imperial wars and
economic pillage. The empire’s legal experts redefine assassinations,
coercion, torture and arbitrary arrests as compatible with the ‘constitutional
order’ by claiming imminent and constant threats to the security of the
imperial state.
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