A Quote by Richard A. Falk
On the cautionary side, Universal Jurisdiction could be used to achieve some kind of ideologically motivated criminalisation of 'the other' that would discredit and derail a constructive effort to develop a credible meta-law that governs the behaviour of leaders of sovereign states.
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On the one side, I welcome prosecutions of individuals such as Pinochet, and would welcome the indictment, prosecution, and punishment of Kissinger. On the other side is the geopolitical reality that only those in the global South are likely to experience the impact of Universal Jurisdiction.
It is on balance desirable to encourage Universal Jurisdiction, and to create pressure from below to make application of such jurisdiction as consistent as possible. I think this will act as a deterrent in some situations, although this impact will never be acknowledged by those affected as it would only embolden civil society to intensify its pressures.
There was a deliberate decision after the failure of the League of Nations to make the next attempt to establish a global political actor sensitive to geopolitical realities. The underlying idea was to provide major states, defined in 1945 by reference to the winners in the Second World War (now an anachronism), with assurance that they could take part in the UN without jeopardising their national interests. In this regard, the UN has succeeded, as none of the big countries has withdrawn, and the Organisation has managed to achieve virtually universal membership of all sovereign states.
For those who have only to obey, law is what the sovereign commands. For the sovereign, in the throes of deciding what he ought to command, this view of law is singularly empty of light and leading. In the dispersed sovereignty of modern states, and especially in times of rapid social change, law must look to the future as well as to history and precedent, and to what is possible and right as well as to what is actual.
It should be appreciated that this whole effort to hold leaders of states criminally responsible is a rather radical challenge to territorial sovereignty and a repudiation of the whole related ethos of 'sovereign immunity'.
There is an inward state of the heart which makes truth credible the moment it is stated. It is credible to some men because of what they are. Love is credible to a loving heart; purity is credible to a pure mind; life is credible to a spirit in which life beats strongly it is incredible to other men.
When things could've gone really bad, rugby caught my interest and I really stuck with it. The sport brought me, maybe off the streets where we'd be fighting, into putting in a good effort in the rugby field where you're kind of rewarded for that rough behaviour instead of in trouble with the law.
Some are motivated by a desire to mould the law to expand the rights of the downtrodden, while other may be motivated by a desire to maintain the Status Quo. Some may even be motivated by a desire to protect what they perceive to be their class interest. And such motives may not always even be conscious to the judges.
Politics is different than movies. Politics are controlled by leaders. Leaders of every country have different interests. And they try to explain to their people why they should take one side or the other side. But in the movie its doing the opposite. It allows you to have a Universal Experience. You don't watch it as politics but as a movie. You don't have different reactions all over. It's so universal a language. It's not a political language serving a political agenda. The language of cinema is a world language. With the Hollywood movie, it brings about the same reaction wherever it goes.
Often, just explicitly acknowledging how the other side must see things can help them open up to see your side and can help both parties achieve a fair and constructive outcome.
I do not exclude this, but I would like to draw your attention to one absolutely key aspect: In line with international law, only the U.N. Security Council can sanction the use of force against a sovereign state. Any other pretext or method which might be used to justify the use of force against an independent sovereign state is inadmissible and can only be interpreted as an aggression.
I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have giventhemselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.
The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact.
There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.
Working together, we can build a world in which the rule of law - not the rule of force - governs relations between states. A world in which leaders respect the rights of their people, and nations seek peace, not destruction or domination. And neither we nor anyone else should live in fear ever again.
This issue of expanding the reach of international criminal law by reliance on the use of Universal Jurisdiction by domestic courts needs to be balanced against the injustice of according impunity to those with strong geopolitical backing. It is notable that several western European countries backtracked on UJ after threats of retaliatory moves by the United States and Israel. There is no doubt that the domain of UJ is a geopolitical battleground.
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